- \n
- The second dimension of irresistibility came in the iPhone’s mapping capabilities<\/strong>. Maps, as a form, keep drawing me back with their distinctive balance between the qualitative and the quantitative. (Edward Tufte<\/a>‘s books on information design keep drawing me back for similar reasons, to the point that I did pay the howevermany hundreds of dollars for his experimental two-day course in Palo Alto.) So how was I going to resist the ability to scroll around scalable maps, overlayable with all sorts of data, of almost any corner of the Earth? That the iPhone offers the user GPS-based navigation of these maps didn’t matter so much in a town as small as Santa Barbara, but now that I navigate a new slice of Los Angeles almost every day, the iPhone’s onboard mapping software or any of hundreds of related apps add a great deal of value. I foresee this coming in very handy in the next foreign metropolis I explore, though I realize I’ll have to perform some sort of h@x0ring beforehand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- \n
- As with any still-toddling technology, the first popular uses of the camera-phone<\/a> \u2014 enthusiastic diners photographing their restaurant meals, Asian girls taking topless shots of themselves in bathroom mirrors \u2014 struck me as rather less impressive than I’d hoped. But at some point, the convenience the iPhone camera<\/strong> offers in documenting one’s peregrinations<\/a> seemed too attractive to pass up. How else, I ask you, could I snap something like this on the go:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/2011\/12\/IMG_00191-1024x768.jpg\" "\\"IMG_0019[1]\\"")
<\/p>\n- \n
- But finally, my friends, the field recording<\/strong> did it. I had my doubts about how rich a sonic environment a microphone as small as the iPhone’s could really capture, but when sound artist (and Marketplace of Ideas<\/em> guest<\/a>) Alan Nakagawa played me some of the recordings he’d picked up with it<\/a>, I knew immediately what I had to do. I don’t know if I’ll make the next New Zealand Stories<\/em><\/a> with it or anything, but I’m sure it’ll earn its keep when I record impromptu interviews or travel podcasts<\/a> like (two<\/a>–time<\/a> Marketplace of Ideas <\/em>guest) Momus used to do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Oh, and now that the iPhone 4S has all the kids talking, AT&T will cough up a 3GS for nothing more than your signature on a two-year contract and the cost of tax. I suppose I should mention the formidable aesthetic sense with which the iPhone is both imbued and associated, aesthetics being pretty much the only thing I ultimately care about, but you’ve probably heard enough on that subject already. Despite all the grand claims about the myriad technological advantages of, say, Android phones, Android fans tend to dress like they’ve just stepped out to get the paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So what pushed me to finally get an iPhone, even though I lack so much as a multi-digit income? I nearly slapped down the howevermany hundred dollars a first-generation iPhone cost when Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers’ Bloom hit the App Store. Having read Eno’s A Year with Swollen Appendices at least three times by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accoutrements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- But finally, my friends, the field recording<\/strong> did it. I had my doubts about how rich a sonic environment a microphone as small as the iPhone’s could really capture, but when sound artist (and Marketplace of Ideas<\/em> guest<\/a>) Alan Nakagawa played me some of the recordings he’d picked up with it<\/a>, I knew immediately what I had to do. I don’t know if I’ll make the next New Zealand Stories<\/em><\/a> with it or anything, but I’m sure it’ll earn its keep when I record impromptu interviews or travel podcasts<\/a> like (two<\/a>–time<\/a> Marketplace of Ideas <\/em>guest) Momus used to do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- As with any still-toddling technology, the first popular uses of the camera-phone<\/a> \u2014 enthusiastic diners photographing their restaurant meals, Asian girls taking topless shots of themselves in bathroom mirrors \u2014 struck me as rather less impressive than I’d hoped. But at some point, the convenience the iPhone camera<\/strong> offers in documenting one’s peregrinations<\/a> seemed too attractive to pass up. How else, I ask you, could I snap something like this on the go:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n