Tag Archives: technology

Why I’m Switching to Android

I wrote about renew­ing my iPhone vows about a month ago. I’m chang­ing my mind. Why? A com­bi­na­tion of curios­i­ty and convenience.

I’m not going to dis­count the num­ber of posts from influ­encers like Matthew Ingram, Guy Kawasa­ki and Robert Scoble, but the tip­ping point was real­ly friends who’ve adopt­ed Android with their lat­est phones. Whether they were entrenched Apple users or smart­phone new­bies, their move to Android was inspir­ing. It made it seem less intim­i­dat­ing to ditch the famil­iar for some­thing a lit­tle more chal­leng­ing. I mean, I haven’t thought seri­ous­ly about a smart­phone pur­chase since I first bought a smart­phone near­ly five years ago. I was­n’t going to make this deci­sion with­out help.

Why now? It’s eas­i­er. Android apps have grown up. Most of my most used apps are avail­able and those that aren’t can be replaced with com­pa­ra­ble apps. More impor­tant­ly, I’ve come to real­ize that my depen­dence on basics like Gmail and cal­en­dar are bet­ter solved with a native plat­form. I’m also unrea­son­ably excit­ed to try some of the UI tweaks, like Ubun­tu-style app launch­ers and the like. Being able to rein­vent the expe­ri­ence is some­thing that will keep me inter­est­ed as well.

Last Guy on Earth to Subscribe to Spotify

This is how I used to feel about music 2.0. Now I’m more than will­ing to spend $10 a month to lis­ten to what­ev­er I like, give or take. I will say that the playlists fea­ture is pret­ty great, espe­cial­ly now that I’m not a music edi­tor who would’ve been tasked with assem­bling them. Tedious work, that. That said, I’m enjoy­ing the Pitch­fork Top 100 songs playlist right now. Point me toward good playlists and I will add them.

I’d love to see them add a book­mark fea­ture so I could cat­a­log titles I find as I surf around the web. Think Instapa­per, but for music.

Making Tech Resolutions for 2012

Did­n’t fol­low through on any of my res­o­lu­tions last year. Those CDs? Still in box­es or in the rack that dom­i­nates a full wall in our walk-in clos­et. New goal? Get them out of the house by the end of Jan­u­ary. DVDs, too. I’m going to go wild with Hand­brake and get all the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion titles I nev­er get around to watch­ing onto the new iMac I plan on buy­ing first thing next year.

Upgrad­ing the home stereo, too. Thanks to the Wire­cut­ter, we’re going all in with a Pio­neer VSX 1021. I can’t wait to take advan­tage of Air­play like nev­er before and final­ly get some good use out of my beau­ti­ful Axiom Audio speak­ers I bought back when. Can’t wait!

Impor­tant­ly, I need to unplug more. It’s one thing to stream music through the home and anoth­er to be glued to my iPhone. Need to cut down on that and spend more time away from glow­ing screens and non­stop news­feeds. I’m an info junkie through and through, but I need to give my eyes a break and make time for oth­er things.

What are your per­son­al tech res­o­lu­tions for 2012? Any big pur­chas­es on the hori­zon? Ser­vices you’re plan­ning on optimizing?

How I Fell in Love with the iPad

I know I’m the last per­son on Earth to admit this, but I’m in love with the iPad. Strike that: I’m in love with my wife’s iPad, which I gift­ed her two years ago. At first i thought my iPhone was all I need­ed. I start­ed play­ing with it Thurs­day night and now it’s on my lap non­stop. I’m writ­ing this post on it!

Favorite app? Cur­rent­ly obssessed with Flip­board. Real­ly changes the way I engage my feeds and browse the web. It’s fun again!

What am I look­ing for­ward to? Read­ing. I’m des­per­ate to embrace dig­i­tal books because I can’t shoe­horn anoth­er in our mod­est home. Hope this screen is addic­tive for read­ing as it is every­thing else.

If you have an iPad and are a fan, let me know what your favorite apps are in the comments!

My 2011 Tech Resolutions

Would you believe I made good on my 2010 tech res­o­lu­tions just this week? Sure did. When the year began, I vowed to sell old and upgrade my equip­ment, name­ly my MacBook.

After wast­ing a whole year, I sold my Mac­Book and Xbox 360 this week. I’m ful­fill­ing my res­o­lu­tion next year by upgrad­ing to the new Xbox 360 Kinect and a 13″ Mac­Book Air. Real­ly excit­ed for both of them.

Addi­tion­al­ly, I’m tak­ing a Final Cut Pro course in Feb­ru­ary for work that I hope to use in my per­son­al life as well. Think­ing video Christ­mas card in 2011!

I real­ly fol­lowed through on most of my tech res­o­lu­tions, like redesign­ing my blog and — more impor­tant­ly — post­ing to it more often than ever.

What are your tech res­o­lu­tions for 2011?