E6B for iPhone?

The iPhone and iPod Touch have no way of downloading an application to
it -- you use web-based applications for them. The iPhone, of course
has both wi-fi and phone access to the Internet; the Touch has only
wi-fi. The browser on these devices allows you to keep several pages
open. Once open, you do not need Internet access unless the page needs
to be refreshed. There are thousands of web-based applications for the
iPhone available already, including DUATS, but no E6B. These apps, BTW,
work with any browser, not just an iPhone. The main difference is that
they are sized for the iPhone's screen.

It surprises me that no one has done an E6B yet. It seems a simple
enough application and there are web-based E6Bs already.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell wrote:
The iPhone and iPod Touch have no way of downloading an application to
it -- you use web-based applications for them. The iPhone, of course
has both wi-fi and phone access to the Internet; the Touch has only
wi-fi. The browser on these devices allows you to keep several pages
open. Once open, you do not need Internet access unless the page needs
to be refreshed. There are thousands of web-based applications for the
iPhone available already, including DUATS, but no E6B. These apps,
BTW, work with any browser, not just an iPhone. The main difference
is that they are sized for the iPhone's screen.

It surprises me that no one has done an E6B yet. It seems a simple
enough application and there are web-based E6Bs already.

The answer is simple CJ. Get out your HTML coding book and get to work.

BTW. Have you gotten your second bill yet and if so is it still in multiple
envelopes, one big box or have they fixed that issue?

On 2007-09-19 09:38:50 -0700, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net said:

C J Campbell wrote:
The iPhone and iPod Touch have no way of downloading an application to
it -- you use web-based applications for them. The iPhone, of course
has both wi-fi and phone access to the Internet; the Touch has only
wi-fi. The browser on these devices allows you to keep several pages
open. Once open, you do not need Internet access unless the page needs
to be refreshed. There are thousands of web-based applications for the
iPhone available already, including DUATS, but no E6B. These apps,
BTW, work with any browser, not just an iPhone. The main difference
is that they are sized for the iPhone's screen.

It surprises me that no one has done an E6B yet. It seems a simple
enough application and there are web-based E6Bs already.

The answer is simple CJ. Get out your HTML coding book and get to work.

BTW. Have you gotten your second bill yet and if so is it still in multiple
envelopes, one big box or have they fixed that issue?

They fixed that. Actually, I have asked that they not send me a paper
bill at all; I read it on their web site.

The problem with the first month's bills was that every time the iPhone
refreshed a web page or accessed the Internet in any way, such as to
download the weather to the weather app, it generated another line on
the bill. It can get real addictive to press the Stocks and Weather
buttons every time you get out your iPhone, so it was a problem for
many people. The iPhone uses the Internet far more than most cell
phones. (In fact, there are pundits that claim that Apple and/or Google
are planning to create a phone service that is entirely based on wi-fi.
No cell towers talking directly to phones. You just chain a bunch of
wi-fi nodes everywhere. In theory, you could have better coverage than
current cell service. After all, I have wi-fi here in my home, but no
cell service.) You can now opt to just have a summary of Internet usage
on your bill, or no paper bill at all.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-09-19 09:38:50 -0700, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net said:

BTW. Have you gotten your second bill yet and if so is it still in
multiple envelopes, one big box or have they fixed that issue?

They fixed that. Actually, I have asked that they not send me a paper
bill at all; I read it on their web site.


That's good. I've been meaning to ask how you like the phone. Since they
dropped the price by .2 AMUs I am considering getting one. Though I hate the
idea of having 1/10th the storage space my iPod has.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-09-19 09:38:50 -0700, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net said:

BTW. Have you gotten your second bill yet and if so is it still in
multiple envelopes, one big box or have they fixed that issue?

They fixed that. Actually, I have asked that they not send me a paper
bill at all; I read it on their web site.


That's good. I've been meaning to ask how you like the phone. Since they
dropped the price by .2 AMUs I am considering getting one. Though I hate
the idea of having 1/10th the storage space my iPod has.
I have tried a lot of smart phones and was a die-hard windows guy and I
never liked the ipod stuff. My wife bought me a blackberry pearl and so far
it is my favorite phone of all. You never have to re-boot it the
functionability is great, and if you want to play songs it will do that a
also.

On 2007-09-19 12:58:19 -0700, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-09-19 09:38:50 -0700, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net said:

BTW. Have you gotten your second bill yet and if so is it still in
multiple envelopes, one big box or have they fixed that issue?

They fixed that. Actually, I have asked that they not send me a paper
bill at all; I read it on their web site.


That's good. I've been meaning to ask how you like the phone. Since they
dropped the price by .2 AMUs I am considering getting one. Though I hate the
idea of having 1/10th the storage space my iPod has.

The iPhone works with AT&T only. It uses a new type of SIM card that
has to be registered with AT&T. However, the SIM card may be used in
any other phone that takes SIM cards.

The iPhone does not use AT&T's 3G network. It uses only the slower EDGE
network for communications. The reason for this, according to Steve
Jobs, was that putting 3G chips in the phone would have made it thicker
and reduced battery life unacceptably. He reasoned that most people
doing any serious Internet browsing with the phone would be doing that
from a Wi-Fi hot spot anyway. Why bother with 3G when you have Wi-Fi?

The phone may not be used as a modem for your computer. It does not
have GPS (but it does have Google Earth). The browser cannot use Flash
components. It will not send or receive a photo from other cell phones
through the messaging service, because the iPhone uses SMS (Short
Messaging Service) instead of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) used
by other cell phones. This is not as big a limitation as you might
think, though, because you can email a photo to any phone with MMS by
using the phone's MMS email address (most people have no idea that
their cell phone receives text messages via email). Unfortunately, most
other cell phones have no way of sending an email, so they cannot send
a photo to the iPhone.

The camera is rudimentary, at best, and cannot be easily used to take a
self portrait. For those who need a phone with no camera (some Federal
employees and security types who are not allowed to bring cameras to
work) there is a company called iResQ which will remove the camera for
$100.

The only way to transfer a file to the iPhone is either by syncing it
with iTunes (which limits you to tunes, photos, and videos) or by
emailing it to the phone. You can read .pdf files in your email. There
is no utility for adding software or storing files on the phone.

You cannot replace the battery yourself. Again, Apple says that a
removable battery cover, spring loaded contacts, etc., would have made
the iPhone much thicker. The fact is, this is by far the thinnest
telephone I have ever seen. The battery lasts about 300-400 complete
charges before you begin to get a noticeable change in how long a
charge lasts.

So much for the iPhone's limitations. Mind, these are mostly software
limitations, so Apple could change everything in the next software
update. The iPhone could easily become MMS capable, for example.

The screen is basically scratch-proof glass, unless you are carrying
diamonds or quartz dust in your pocket. Not so the case, which
scratches rather easily. The screen can quickly get pretty dirty with
your wiping your fingers on it, but it is easily cleaned with a
shirttail.

Battery life seems to me to be about two days of fairly constant use
with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth always on. You can extend that life
dramatically by turning the radios off and dimming the screen.

There is a button on top. It is used to turn the screen off. If you
hold it down for a few seconds, it will bring up a slider on the screen
to turn the phone off completely. There is a mute button on the side
and a volume toggle. The single button on the front lights up the
screen, which brings up an unlock slider, or sends you to the home page
if the screen is already on. This button is the only way to exit most
of the programs in the iPhone.

The phone is not bad. You can use other programs while talking on the
phone. The included headset has a clicker on the little mic box that
allows you to answer the phone. Other headsets will not fit on the
iPhone without an adapter because of the hidden 4th ring on the
iPhone's headsets. Frequency response on the earbuds is flat, which
audiophiles like, but which everybody else hates. No booming bass for
iPhone users unless they buy another headset.

The phone touchscreen keypad has enormous keys. If you are talking on
the phone, you can bring up this keypad and send touch-tone signals,
such as when you are banking. You can also put someone on hold, dial
another number, talk to that person, and swap back to the person on
hold. You can swap back and forth all you want, or press the merge
button and create a 3-way conversation. I don't think there is a limit
to the number of people you can talk to at once, but if you are holding
a 5 person conference call you are getting charged one minute for every
minute each person is on the line. You can disconnect each member of
the conference call individually, put one on hold and bring him back,
etc. All of this with touching a single button.

The SMS messaging service works all right. You can erase a message by
swiping your finger across it like you are erasing it. You cannot do
this accidentally.

The calendar syncs with Outlook, Entourage, iCal (of course), and other
calendar programs. It has no function for tasks. Dates are entered by
using your finger to flick dials, making them spin to the date and time
you want. It is very fast and kind of fun.

I got the iPhone as a photo display device. It excels at this. iTunes
automatically resizes the photo for best resolution and display on the
iPhone. Granted, this means that you cannot take your Nikon RAW files
and use the iPhone as a temporary storage device, unless you email them
to yourself -- not very practical. But it does display the photos
nicely, organizing them similarly to iPhoto in folders. You can create
slide shows with fades and rotations and stuff. You can choose a photo
for display from the thumbnail page, or you can flick through them like
turning a page with your finger. Of course, the photos rotate so they
always stay right side up on the iPhone no matter which you turn it.
You can zoom in by spreading your fingers on the touch screen, like you
are stretching the photo. Zoom back out with a pinching motion. Return
it to normal size with a double tap. A single tap brings up bars at top
and bottom of the screen that allow you to do stuff with the photo. The
send button allows you to email the photo, use it for wallpaper, or
attach it to a contact so that whenever that person calls you it brings
up their photo on the phone.

The camera is not worth writing home about. However, it does the job
competently as long as there is adequate light. There is no reason you
could not take very fine pictures with this camera, given patience and
a good eye.

The YouTube feature is a utility that connects to YouTube and lets you
watch anything on YouTube full screen.

The Stocks feature, of course, simply displays the current price of any
stock, delayed by the usual 20 minutes.

The Maps utility covers the USA for road maps. You can use it to
generate directions by address or street location. There are many
built-in locations. You can change the display to satellite picture and
it works pretty much like Google Earth. You need Internet access to use
the maps feature.

The Weather utility lets you select places for a 5 day weather forecast
and current conditions. You page between the various locations you have
chosen by flicking them with your finger. It takes only a second or two
to download the weather or stocks, even with AT&T's supposedly slow
EDGE network.

The Clock is very versatile. It has a nicer alarm clock than I have
seen on any other cell phone. You can set several different alarms, use
a stopwatch, set a timer, or use the world clock. I keep mine set on
UTC and all the cities where we have relatives.

The Calculator is a basic four function calculator with memory. It has
enormous buttons.

The Notes utility is what I use for a To-Do list. It does not sync with
anything. You cannot change the font, either. What you can do is create
just about any sort of note.

The Mail utility will let you send and receive email, of course, except
from web-based email hosts like Hotmail. However, there are services
that will let you use Hotmail on your iPhone. Some of them are free.

The Safari browser works pretty much like the Safari browser on a
computer, only instead of tabs it has a button at the bottom of the
screen which tells you how many tabs it has open. Tapping the button
brings up miniature images of each tab and allows you to select the one
you want. It syncs your bookmarks with your computer's browser. Or not,
if you tell it not to. This is not a 'mobile web page' browser. It is
full web pages, so the print is kind of tiny. No problem, you can zoom
in with the spreading fingers trick, double tap an element to cause
that frame to appear full screen, double tap it again to see the whole
page, zoom by swishing your finger around up, down, sideways,
diagonally, whatever. In fact, the interface is far more powerful than
anything that is mouse based. It is a very impressive feature. Tap on
an input field and it brings up the alphanumeric keypad, which has
buttons for moving automatically to the next field, etc.

When I was using Google Groups to post here last week I was using the iPhone.

The iPod is easier to use than older generation iPods. You can flick
through images of your albums with your finger. A swipe spins the whole
thing faster. You can stop it with a touch or slow it with a slow
swipe. Tapping the album brings up the song list and you play the song
by touching it. You can create song lists to play, shuffle, repeat,
etc. Sound quality through the external speaker is terrible. You can
make it louder by cupping your hand around it. The iPod mutes itself
when you receive a call or are talking on the phone. Also the external
speaker mutes itself when you hold the iPhone to your ear -- there is a
proximity sensor on the screen that detects your face. So you could
mute the speaker simply by placing your hand over the sensor.

The touchscreen keyboard usually gets reviews like "Well, if I used it
a lot, maybe I would learn to live with it." Actually, the keyboard is
much better than that. It uses a strange kind of predictive text. Not
only does it offer up the word you are trying to type, which you select
with the space bar, but it knows that, for example, words with "timr"
or "timw" are kind of rare, but words with "time" are common. So it
expands the area sensitive to "e" to make that more sensitive than "r"
or "w." You cannot see it, but it does that. You can, of course, still
type "timr" if that is what you really meant. You can type pretty fast
on it with two thumbs, given some practice. The iPhone, like other cell
phones including the Blackberry, uses the idiotic QWERTY layout. Ten
millenia from now computers will still use the QWERTY layout.

The key to using the keyboard is to ignore typos -- the predictive text
will offer to fix them -- and to stop trying to hit just one key. The
keyboard dictionary knows what you are probably typing and simply makes
the most obvious keys more sensitive than the others. Once you
understand that, you stop trying to be so careful and just type away.
That is why people say the keyboard is difficult to use but gets easier
with practice. It is not difficult to use; it just takes awhile to
understand that. There are many undocumented shortcuts for using the
keyboard. You can find some of them in Apple's .pdf manual that comes
with the iPhone or you can buy David Pogue's "Missing Manual" book on
the iPhone. That book is very good, by the way, with a lot of useful
shortcuts, workarounds, and other information that Apple does not give
you.

The dictionary stores odd words that you use. If you do not use them
for awhile, the dictionary gradually forgets them. Each key that you
type, since you cannot see under your thumb, brings up a balloon which
shows the letter you typed. Great for most typing, but of course you
want to be in a private place if you are typing a password.

I have tried taking the iPhone into Fred Meyer or Best Buy and plugging
it into various iPod accessories on display. Nearly all of them work,
but it is best to actually test it before you buy it. Typically the
iPhone will come up with a message saying that the accessory is not
made for an iPhone -- do you want to put the iPhone in airplane mode to
avoid potential interference? The reason for that can be seen by simply
holding any cell phone next to a stereo component and then dialing the
cell phone from another phone. Keep the speaker turned down when you do
this, or you might damage it. Turning the iPhone to airplane mode turns
off all the radios. Of course, you can no longer make or receive calls,
but you can watch videos, listen to the iPod, or look at your pictures.
I would expect that eventually there will be iPhone docks for cars
which are shielded from this interference, but let you talk on the
iPhone over your car stereo, automatically muting the iPod while it
does this.

The Bluetooth is monaural only and talks only to headsets. It has no
browsing ability if you pair it with your computer, for example. I have
seen several reviews saying that the Apple Bluetooth earphone has too
short of a range and cannot even talk to an iPhone in your pocket. I
don't know whether that is true or not. My Plantronics hands-free set
works great.

The screen is visible in bright daylight, even in the cockpit, but you
will need to turn the brightness all the way up. Current headset plugs
will not fit the iPhone without an adapter. What we really need, of
course, is an iPod dock in the intercom.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

On 2007-09-21 14:07:22 -0700, C J Campbell
said:

When I was using Google Groups to post here last week I was using the iPhone.

I was in Mexico, using TelMex's EDGE network to do it, too. Heck, even
my AT&T laptop card won't do that.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell wrote:
What we really need, of
course, is an iPod dock in the intercom.

Best iPhone review I've read to date. That's why I asked for your views in
the phone.

Thanks.

C J Campbell wrote:

It surprises me that no one has done an E6B yet. It seems a simple
enough application and there are web-based E6Bs already.

Then why don't you go ahead and do it?

You might want to try this one:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/e6bcalc.html

I adapted it for my Sony-Ericsson k610i screen and it works like a
charm. I put links to the various sections at the top so I don't have to
scroll so much, and got rid of a lot of the table formatting. All the
Javascript is self contained in the page itself, so you can save it
locally on the phone.