iPhone – The Big DumpTruck

Games I Would Invent

I ran across an IOS game today that struck me as being exactly the kind of game I would make up if I were writing a story/play/script and I had to include a video game.

Virtual Beggar is a game where you are a beggar who can work your way up off the streets. Or possibly guess not, if you aren’t very good at virtual begging for handouts.

Virtual Beggar by Treetop Crew Ky,

Hey, maybe you guys can give me money to write a story that would include a game like this one so I won’t spend all my spare time simulating begging! Best of all worlds!

In the meantime, I did download the game because I assumed you would want me to. It requires very little human interaction, if you don’t want to actively “play”. I can set all my employees to work and most will earn coins for at least an hour. I don’t know what the endgame is, but in the meantime it’s actually kind of engaging and also I have hired Santa as one of my employees in the office building I bought with the money I earned begging. That’s right. I’m a real estate tycoon business beggar!

I live in a house now. I stand on my lawn with my hamster (people give more when you have a pet) and people, like a pantsless Mexican man, throw money at me.

So would I recommend this game? Sure, it’s free, and I can pull out my phone, put all my employees to work with a couple of clicks, and close the app while they make me a pile of coins. If only I could figure out how to enjoy this type of wild success with no startup costs in real life.

complaint department, lists, Real Life

If I Ruled the iOS World

Posted on September 8, 2015February 4, 2016 by The Jody

The latest Apple operating system is due out this week. Or soon. I can’t keep up, to be honest. Anyway, I decided this would be a good place to list my pet peeves and almost all of them are related to music apps, which is interesting. In particular order:

1. I hate hate hate how the Music app just does whatever the hell it wants when the phone locates and connects to a Bluetooth device. A good half the time, when I start my car, the music app just starts playing, even if I was using Spotify last. And it just starts playing in alphabetical order. I got to hear the first 5 seconds of the ABC Cafe from Les Mis until a song called “A Thrill of Anticipation” pulled in first. Hey, Apple, nobody includes the articles when determining alphabetical order. WTF.

Either way, stop auto-playing, and stop going back to the top of the song list.

2. Almost worse than that, why can’t I set the default for shuffle? Sweet baby Jesus, turning off shuffle multiple times a day is pure horseshit. If I turn it off, LEAVE IT OFF.

3. iTunes: STOP SUCKING. Music App: maybe force the developers to USE it so they’ll understand how unintuitive they’ve made the damned thing. I loathe Music now and listen to Spotify EVEN when I own the album and have to use data because the Music app sucks hard.

4. ~~Spotify app: you need to let me change the order my playlists are in from the app. And set the default to add new songs to the top of a list (from within the app).~~ (I figured this one out. Pull down on the playlist and the sort order is upper right.) Also, MyMusic would be far less annoying if it let me view by album. I hardly ever want to play every song by an artist, but I may want to play a whole album. Your UI makes me take 4 extra steps. And bring back the original concept of “Starred” songs going into the Starred playlist.

5. LastFM app: Get your shit together. Who on earth releases a whole new version of their software with all the functionality turned off? You weren’t ready to go live? Roll back to the previous version. The app is pretty much useless right now, listing only song title (not artist). Knowing I listened to Luce 22 times last week is different from knowing I have listed 322 times total. A weekly view should be a weekly view. Period.
Lastly, I don’t know if this is on Apple or you or the 3rd party app I’m using, but I shouldn’t have to listen to every second of a song for it to scrobble. Listening to 5:45 of a 6 minute song should count.

Is that a full wish list? Hardly, but addressing these issues would remove 80% of my iPhone frustration.

coolness, stuff, writing

Typewriting

Posted on February 24, 2015December 20, 2015 by The Jody

I downloaded a new app today called Hanx Writer. Oddly enough, the Hanx does refer to Tom Hanks, who worked to create an app that replicates his beloved typewriters.

Anyone who knows me at all knows there are three sounds in life that I adore beyond reason; tap dancing, crackling fires, and typewriters. The sound of typing literally lulls me to sleep, which is a dangerous thing when you work in a building surrounded by people typing all day.

But I digress. Go download this free app (Hanx in iTunes) and tell me it’s not fantastic. I actually paid for all three styles of typewriter AND the 99 cent add-on that will let me use these as my keyboard in any app.

Yes, I have a problem, but any time I can give myself a soul-soothing delight for less than $6, I’m all in.

coolness, photos

Only an iPhone: Results

Posted on January 28, 2013December 20, 2015 by The Jody

You know, it was okay just taking the iPhone to Disney. I was pretty happy to only have to carry the phone. Of course, iPhone batteries are not your friend when you’re away from a plug for 12-14 hours a day, so only having the iPhone for your camera and ALSO your phone AND your computer, means by dinner time you are in a panic over how long you can make 20% battery last.

Also, no zoom, no real image stabilization, no RAW data. But hey, rhinos!

I loves me some elephant. (Another iPhone photo from the safari. I will add, this photo and the one of the rhinos were taken when the vehicle had stopped specifically to let us take photos. The animals were all out in force on Saturday.)

Uncategorized

Good Gravy, Where Did Everyone Go?

Posted on March 5, 2010December 20, 2015 by The Jody

The hits to my website since the big move have dropped off by about 90%. Maybe 95%. I have no idea why this is, other than the change and all my existing links probably being broken. Or the fact that you’re all out having fun at the arcade with your rolls of quarters and cool sneakers. Jerks.

I suppose this means I have to wait until Google re-indexes my entire site, I suppose. I’ll have to go see what I can do to force that, but I don’t think Google cares enough about little old me to make a huge effort on my behalf. I should probably hurry up and add back all the stuff that’s currently missing so that you can all come here to look for it.

So while I wait for everyone to find me, riddle me this, batman – on my iPhone, what do I have to do to make reading my gmail in safari stop automatically launching new windows when there’s a link to YouTube, or whathave you? It’s really disconcerting, if I’m reading email to suddenly have a video start playing when I don’t want it to. Okay, tech weenies, what say you?