RE: Yankee Stadium bans iPads via Mashable – CORRECTION

I’ve been going to Yankee games for over 10 years and have gotten used to the fact that, with a few exceptions, you’re not allowed to take virtually anything into the Stadium. Stan’s Bowling alley across the street makes money hand over fist renting out lockers to people who rushed to the stadium after work with their bags still in tow. For $10 you can leave your bag at Stan’s while you go enjoy the game.

I’m not sure why iPad owners feel like they should be any different. You can’t bring a laptop into the game why on earth should you be able to bring in an iPad? I think it would be pretty annoying to be surrounded by people clacking away on their iPads while you’re trying to watch the game.

That being said I wanted to specifically address the WiFi issue that Mashable mentions. While it’s true that Yankee Stadium is wireless, it’s not accessible to the public. The WiFi at the Stadium is password protected and used mostly by the media there.

“So what, I have a 3G enable iPad,” you say? Good luck with that. AT&T may be the official mobile sponsor for the Yankees but unless you’re in the top row of the Stadium you can forget about getting any kind of signal, 3G, edge or otherwise. During last year’s World Series I had to constantly borrow my friend’s Verizon phone just to be able to send a text message out.

So, unless you want to take your iPad as a tray to hold your beer and your nachos there’s not much point anyhow. Just leave your iPad at home and go enjoy the game. You can blog about it after you get home.

How to set up MMS on your iPhone

Everyone is going nuts over AT&T finally opening up MMS (picture messages) for the iPhone. Personally I much prefer sending images via email anyway but I can see how it may come in handy for some people.

  1. Connect your iPhone to your computer and open iTunes
  2. You should see the following message
    mms-update-1
  3. Choose “Udpate Settings” the update should only take a few seconds and you will get a confirmation
    mms-update-2
  4. Restart your iPhone. You have to reset your iPhone for the update to show up.
  5. Confirm the update worked by opening up your Messages app and looking for the camera icon next to the entry field. (screencaps below)

That’s it, you’re ready to start bringing AT&T’s network to its knees. Wait, it’s already on its knees, so you can start kicking it in the face by sending pictures messages constantly to everyone you know.

Posterous launches killer new iPhone App, adds Themes and CSS/HTML Customization

Posterous iPhone App

Back in July I got word from the guys over at Posterous that they were hard at work on an iPhone app that would make posting video from your iPhone 3G S wonderfully simple. They did not disappoint. PicPosterous is by far the best media app I’ve used to publish photos and videos from my iPhone.

Your iPhone instant camera
Live-post anytime, anywhere
Make photo albums as you go
Auto-resized into an easy-to-browse gallery
Full-length video capture
Supports iPhone 3G S video, playable on web and iPhone
No signup/setup required
Start posting right away
Autopost everywhere
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more
I can assure you that this has singlehandedly sealed the deal on Posterous being the best mobile publishing site out there. Hands down. If you have an iPhone, there is no reason at all that you shouldn’t have a Posterous site and this app. You can download it here.

Posterous Themes

After much anticipation Posterous has finally added the ability to add themes to your Posterous site. Initially there are four new themes to choose from but I’m sure there will be more to follow. What’s even more exciting than the four new theme options is that they have also opened up the the HTML/CSS code to allow you to create your own Posterous theme from scratch. This will no doubt create an instant demand for quality custom Posterous themes for people to beef up their sites. This also allows people, for the first time to actually brand their Posterous site with their own company brand. This should be huge in the growth of Posterous.

iPhone 3G S: YouTube vs. Vimeo

youtube_vs_vimeoThe iPhone 3G S comes already set up to easily share your videos on YouTube, but is that really the best service to share your iPhone videos on?

The videos are compressed and uploaded straight to YouTube from your phone which makes it incredibly convenient. The key step in that process is the video compression that takes place. This allows you to upload much larger videos straight to YouTube than anything you’re allowed to email from your iPhone.

Up until now I’ve mostly stored larger HD video files on my hard drive with a couple redundancy backups and smaller videos that I took with my Canon digital camera I shared on Picasa. Now, with the addition of iPhone videos in the mix I wanted to make the move to a video hosting sites to share my videos.

The bad news for Vimeo users is that sharing files remotely from the iPhone is going to be severely limited by the file size limitations put on attachments. For example, you can only email five photos at the same time. So far it’s been my experience that around one minute seems to be the cutoff point for the length of a video that you can email to Vimeo, or anywhere for that matter. And it doesn’t look like Vimeo is going to be giving the iPhone any love anytime soon.

As of now I haven’t found a video too large to upload to YouTube from the iPhone. I just published a video that was well over three minutes with no problems at all and it did it relatively quickly. It seems as though the 2GB upload limit may very well apply to the iPhone as well. If that’s the case you will have the ability to upload extremely long videos from your iPhone to YouTube.

If you’re looking to instantly publish your 3G S videos and not wait until you can upload from a computer YouTube is hands down the way to go, thanks to the built in compatibility nothing else can even come close.

This is not good news for Vimeo or Posterous for that matter (the latter being what I use to publish nearly all of my mobile content). Qik has an app in beta that will theoretically allow users to upload nearly live video limited only by the amount of space on your phone, although that is pure conjecture on my part. I have an email into the creators of Posterous and Qik to see what they have anything they’d like to add to this conversation.

At the very least I’d like to see an iPhone channel on YouTube to easily view all the mobile videos coming in from around the world. Let’s hear it iPhone 3G S early adopters, what has been your experience with sharing iPhone videos with your readers, friends and family?

BlackBerry 8900 + iPhone (minus SIM card) = Mobile Zen

att-blackberry-curve-8900I’ve been using smart phones for a number of years and in that time I’ve had plenty of them. For many years, BlackBerry was my phone of choice. From the 6230 to the 7290 to the 8800 to the Curve and a few more in between I’m sure I’m forgetting.

I’ve even had many regular cell phones here and there as well including an old LG landscape flip phone with a qwerty keyboard.

When the first iPhone came out I was extremely happy with my Curve and had no urge whatsoever to give the iPhone even a second thought. My resolve crumbled however when the iPhone 3G was released. I gave in and stood in line with all the other schmucks fanboys (not on the first day mind you) and bought my very first Apple product.

Currently I use my device for work email, personal email, texting and calling so obviously Enterprise integration on the 3G was a big factor in giving it a shot. I have to admit, at first I was gobbling up the hype. I spent money on cases (quite a few until I found one I liked and was usable), I spent money on Apps, you name it and I bought it.

Slowly but surely though I found something peculiar happening. I found myself texting less and less. If I knew that I had an email that I needed to reply to I would actually break out the laptop and set it up rather than just shooting off a reply on my iPhone.

Maybe it was the years of BlackBerry use but I could just never get used to the lack of a tactile keyboard. Even the few applications that utilized landscape keyboards really didn’t solve the issue for me.

I finally came to the conclusion that to deal with the amount of email I get a day between my work and personal accounts, not to mention my preferred method of communication, texting, that the iPhone was just not very efficient for me. It took the entire life cycle of the 3G but I finally decided to go back to BlackBerry. Luckily I was eligible for an upgrade so the device was free.  I brought it home, took the SIM card out of my iPhone, slid it into my 8900 and have never looked back.

Now, I have my the new BlackBerry Javelin (Curve) for talking, texting and emailing and I find that it beats the hell out of the iPhone in all three of those categories as far as efficiency goes.

What’s great though is that I still have my iPhone which still works on wifi and still gives me access to some of my favorite apps like Tweetie, MLB.com At Bat, The Weather Channel and most importantly Kindle. There’s also Sportacular, Buddyfeed and Scorecenter to name a few (I have six pages of apps).  Plus, I can still make Skype calls on my iPhone as well. All while paying absolutely nothing for any sort of data plan. It’s the best of both worlds, a fast, productive BlackBerry for email/text/talk with a sweet 3.2MP camera with image stabilization and flash that takes some pretty great photos and a free iPhone to basically use as a tiny PC tablet/iPhone/SkypePhone when I’m at home or at a hotspot.

Cheaper iPhone Plans May be Coming to AT&T

AT&T iPhoneIf you have an iPhone you know better than anyone what it’s like to dole out that $30/mo for your data plan. Well, there may be some relief on the way. AT&T may be working on cheaper plans in order to keep their exclusive deal with Apple.

AT&T may have gotten the message. The exclusive U.S. iPhone service provider is considering cutting the price of its monthly service package or offering a range of lower-priced plans, say people with knowledge of the company’s thinking. One plan that could be introduced as early as late May would include limited data access at a $10 monthly reduction, the people say.

The possible price cut likely reflects the back-and-forth between AT&T and Apple (AAPL) as they work out whether and under what terms AT&T would remain the sole U.S. iPhone carrier. Apple may want flexibility in pricing as a condition, analysts say. “We understand it’s part of the extension [of its contract] that AT&T wants to maintain,” Richard Doherty, director at consultant Envisioneering Group, says of the prospect of lower data-plan prices. As Apple considers whether to widen its circle of U.S. providers, AT&T may have less ability to balk at Apple’s requests. Representatives of Apple and AT&T declined to comment.

It would be wonderful to see the unlimited iPhone data plans go down to $20 but I believe that’s highly unlikely. I’m sure AT&T will work out a new pricing structure in order to maintain it’s iPhone monopoly, but I doubt it will actually take a step backwards.