Verizon FiOS with IMG 1.9 in the DC Metro Area

As a proud resident of Montgomery County Maryland (again), and a new FiOS subscriber, I’m happy to report that Verizon is rolling out IMG 1.9 in the DC metro area. We had FiOS installed yesterday with the 25/25 Mbps Internet tier, and one DVR – complete with the latest software update – for our living … Read more

Verizon FiOS IMG 1.9 Rollout Resumes Next Week

As a soon-to-be FiOS TV subscriber, I was disappointed to hear in May that Verizon was putting the brakes on the rollout of its latest guide software update. But today I hear that IMG 1.9 is back on track. I noted a comment in the DSLReports forums yesterday suggesting the rollout would resume and decided to do … Read more

Free Peggle App from Amazon App Store

I’ve avoided the new Amazon app store since it launched in March solely because I couldn’t be bothered to deal with a new marketplace on my mobile phone. But after learning from Dave’s tweet this morning about today’s free Peggle app, I decided to give it a shot. Turns out, the whole process of getting … Read more

MyTVRemote IR Hardware Updated (Only $10)

In the last year, a whole lot of iPhone-based universal remote controls have hit the scene. We’ve primarily focused on the higher end offerings, like Peel and RedEye shortly, as potential Harmony replacements or successors. Yet that may be overkill for certain situations or demographics. And I’ve just been turned onto MyTVRemote – whose intentions may not be as grandiose, but may still provide a compelling solution dependent on one’s needs.

While they’ve flown below my radar, RyzMedia has offered My TVRemote for some time…  and they’ve got news to share today. A more colorful and potentially more aesthetically pleasing IR blaster replaces the original. I’m told the range is a modest 14 feet, yet I envision using this as a second universal remote in the bedroom. What I like about this solution, over say an L5, is that the IR blaster sits atop the iPhone – meaning you don’t have to hold your phone upside down.

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Redesigning Apple’s iOS 5 Notification Center

Apple, including Steve Jobs himself, unleashed all sorts of upcoming services and software updates at their annual developer conference Monday. In fact, the amount of news is so staggering, I’m still mulling over various elements. But I thought we’d start with a discussion of the dramatically revamped and expanded notification system destined for iPhones come this fall.

Just about anyone coming from pretty much all other smartphone platforms has found Apple’s iPhone alerts a nuisance. They pop up dead center in the screen and must be acted upon before doing anything else. Get a text message or low battery notification while on a call? You need to clear it before you can end the conversation, activate the speakerphone, punch numbers for a phone tree, etc. And it’s probably even more of a disruption while gaming or watching video.

Enter iOS 5 notifications. The new system is composed of three elements, including a new in-app notification banner itself, lock screen alerts, and the Notification Center that aggregates it all. Both graphically and spatially, I’m satisfied with the new banners (above center) that are displayed at the top of display and fade out after a period of time. Likewise, I’m mostly satisfied with the Lock Screen alerts (above left) that present more than just information… but also allow you to take action. Of course, you have to trade a little privacy for convenience by enabling these notifications. But I’ve got no issues in that regard (having fewer online girlfriends than Representative Weiner). Now the Notification Center itself needs a whole lot of work prior to release.

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Hands On Fanhattan iPad App for TV/Movie Browsing

Yesterday at the D9 conference a new player entered the content discovery market. Fanhattan debuted an iPad app for finding TV shows and movie titles online. Reminiscent of the old Comcast Fancast site (now Xfinity-branded of course), Fanhattan shows you where to find the videos you want so you don’t have to go trolling around the net searching Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, etc. It’s competing against several other content discovery engines – Clicker, GetGlue, Miso and more – but Fanhattan’s focus isn’t as heavily centered on social sharing as its established counterparts. In my opinion, that’s a strength for the new app. You can get social if you want, but if you just want to watch TV, you can do that too.

There are nine basic modules for TV and movie selections: watch now options, episode details, reviews, cast and crew info, video clips (if available) soundtrack details, fan gear, connect options (Facebook or email sharing), and similar content. You get to this information by tapping through to either the TV or movie main menu and then browsing or searching through different categories. Filter selections include the ability to browse by user ratings, top picks, release dates, and much more. You can also search for titles by keyword.

The Fanhattan interface is quite visual, and, being an iPad app, entirely powered by taps and swipes. I have a few nitpicks about the design, but overall it’s very effective.

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New Slacker On-Demand Service Worth the Wait

Slacker WebPlayer-BrowseStation-TopSongs

I’ve been itching for the new Slacker on-demand music service to launch since last fall, and today the new app is (finally!) ready to go on the web, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android devices. The whole Slacker experience has been overhauled, but the biggest change comes in the new Premium service tier. For $9.99 a month (or FREE for a limited time at www.facebook.com/SlackerRadio), Slacker Premium customers can now access individual songs and albums on demand. While this may not sound revolutionary, it is when you consider how Slacker implements its on-demand service. With a radio front end, users can find artists and songs simply by tuning to a station and either saving favorite selections as they play, or filtering through station content to find music worth storing. Naturally you can also search for any specific song and play it immediately, but the bigger benefit comes from station-based music discovery. Ask me what song I want to hear, and I may stumble over an answer. But play something I like, and I’ll add it to my personal playlist in a heartbeat.

After using Slacker Premium in beta for the last few weeks, I can happily say that the new service was worth the wait. I’ve only tested it on a computer so far, but I’ll be trialling it further on mobile devices in the near future, and the iPad video demo looks promising. From my own experience, the app is easy to use, and the ability to play favorite songs ad nauseum is addictive. I’ve never been one to collect music, so just being able to access songs when I want without having to make a commitment to buy is compelling. Even better, I don’t have to go out and search for music. If there’s a radio station I like, I can see the top 50 artists and songs on that station and jump around or create my own playlists at will. Stations, albums, and individual songs are also all cacheable for offline playback.

I spoke with Slacker CEO Jim Cady last week, who had a few things to say about where Slacker has been, and where it’s headed.

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Netflix Enables iPhone, iPad Closed Captioning

While it may be arriving late for many, Netflix has just expanded video streaming closed captioning onto iOS devices with their 1.3 app update. There are limited display options, but subtitles are certainly a boon. And something I could have used yesterday at the gym when I forgot my headphones. Unfortunately, caption preferences don’t appear … Read more