Latent capabilities: iPod Touch version
So I have an iPod Touch that I really like. I use it for my calendar, complete with binglebonglebeep reminders as Pratchett would put it, and for my contacts and I keep little texts like my shopping list on it, and it plays music for when I want that, and I can check the weather (when I'm hooked up to the wifi) and so on. It's quite cool.
I can call up maps on it, and get directions to places (again, when I'm hooked up to the wifi). But it never occurred to me to try to use it for this when I'm out and about; I thought that was an iPhone thing, that you had to have a cell phone chip and a data connection to do.
Yesterday I pulled it out in Walmart to check my shopping list. And I had just been looking at WeatherRadar before, so that's what popped up when I swiped it open. WeatherRadar has a map on which it displays the radar picture--and while the radar picture doesn't come up if you have no data access, the map did (probably cached data from when I used the app at home, since we were still pretty close to home.) And the blue location dot was in an odd position with respect to the local lake. So I unpinched and unpinched and unpinched, and hey, I was on a different street. And there was 11E.
Now I do not have access to Walmart's wifi. I'm sure it has a password and I don't know it, so my iPod couldn't be on the wifi. But maybe it can tell where the wifi *is*, geographically, without actually being logged on. So later when we were driving home, I brought up the maps app (which I had also been playing with at home) and there was my little blue dot, wandering drunkenly over the map. It has only a general idea where I am (it seems to be accurate to within a block and a half, and sometimes the dot just stops, and then turns grey, and then reappears farther along our route. I suppose this is because this is a rural area and kind of economically depressed, and thus there are plenty of houses that don't have wifi.
I bet this would be fairly useful in the larger cities, where there is probably wifi on every block. I am looking forward to trying it with my iPad, actually.
And in cleaning news, I vacuumed our entire bedroom yesterday, including four bookshelves and also moving the bed to vacuum under it. I think it's cleaner than it has been since we moved in.
And I have finished my reading for the Campbell, I think. _Three Parts Dead_ by Max Gladstone and _Nexus_ by Ramez Naam are currently fighting it out for first place in my mind.
Graphic Novel is probably next.
I can call up maps on it, and get directions to places (again, when I'm hooked up to the wifi). But it never occurred to me to try to use it for this when I'm out and about; I thought that was an iPhone thing, that you had to have a cell phone chip and a data connection to do.
Yesterday I pulled it out in Walmart to check my shopping list. And I had just been looking at WeatherRadar before, so that's what popped up when I swiped it open. WeatherRadar has a map on which it displays the radar picture--and while the radar picture doesn't come up if you have no data access, the map did (probably cached data from when I used the app at home, since we were still pretty close to home.) And the blue location dot was in an odd position with respect to the local lake. So I unpinched and unpinched and unpinched, and hey, I was on a different street. And there was 11E.
Now I do not have access to Walmart's wifi. I'm sure it has a password and I don't know it, so my iPod couldn't be on the wifi. But maybe it can tell where the wifi *is*, geographically, without actually being logged on. So later when we were driving home, I brought up the maps app (which I had also been playing with at home) and there was my little blue dot, wandering drunkenly over the map. It has only a general idea where I am (it seems to be accurate to within a block and a half, and sometimes the dot just stops, and then turns grey, and then reappears farther along our route. I suppose this is because this is a rural area and kind of economically depressed, and thus there are plenty of houses that don't have wifi.
I bet this would be fairly useful in the larger cities, where there is probably wifi on every block. I am looking forward to trying it with my iPad, actually.
And in cleaning news, I vacuumed our entire bedroom yesterday, including four bookshelves and also moving the bed to vacuum under it. I think it's cleaner than it has been since we moved in.
And I have finished my reading for the Campbell, I think. _Three Parts Dead_ by Max Gladstone and _Nexus_ by Ramez Naam are currently fighting it out for first place in my mind.
Graphic Novel is probably next.