PEDES3ANTECH

This is the story of how I turned my iPhone 5 into a fully functional activity and fitness tracker.  This years biggest and most exciting techbuzz has been the rising popularity of wearable technology. Although the term wearable technology has a very broad meaning, recently it has focused mainly on activity tracking and fitness tracking.  Image source: allthatiknow.com Wearable devices like the Nike fuelband, Fitbit Flex, and Jawbone Up are growing in popularity mainly for its ability to track ones activity and monitor fitness. I have long wanted to try one of them out but I had a hard time deciding which one to pick. I read a lot of reviews on all three of them and the reviews are mixed. I researched their specs and features more and found that taken individually, each one seemed to lack something the other was offering. Take for example the ability to track activity and monitor/update calorie in-take and budget.  Say I go for a run and burn a certain amount ...

Apple has been known for its simple, intuitive and beautiful hardware design and today that philosophy has been applied to its software component. This expectation was driven mainly by the fact that Jony Ive (Apple chief of industrial design) took the lead in re-designing the much anticipated iOS7 and the world was given a first hand look of the updates today during the WWDC 2013 keynote address. The weeks leading up to the event was full of supposed leaks about how the new iOS 7 was going to be "flat" and "simple". People gave these rumors a lot a credit because that has always been the over-arching principle behind Apple's hardware designs since the beginning. So the idea of it being applied to its software component was a no-brainer especially with Ive at the helm. The immediate reaction from the tech-world was "mixed" to put it mildly. Some people felt like the new iOS does not offer anything new to the table and that a lot of the design im...

Apple has reached a major milestone, its app store has reached 50 Billion Downloads. To put that into perspective, there is about 6 Billion people in the world w/c means there is almost 10 apps downloaded for each living soul on the planet. To put it on even better perspective, Apple has sold 500 Million iOS devices according to most recent numbers ( source here ). That means on average each iOS device sold has 100 apps installed/downloaded to it.  If you think this milestone is important only from a business standpoint, you are missing half the story. Here is why: How the iPhone changed the mobile market When the first iPhone came out, the Apple App store was not in existence yet and no one had any idea how big a role apps will play in our lives. The first iPhone unveiled on January 9, 2007 and went on sale on June 29, 2007. At launch, the 1st Generation iPhone was able to do basic Smartphone functions (ie. web-browsing, email, calendar, etc.) and it was heralded as ...

Today, I have given up on Android and regret having made the decision to switch to it from iOS in the first place. I am not supposed to post anything new in this blog until I got back home from my vacation but the recent turn of events is just too frustrating not to share.  Ever since I used my first iPhone, I have always relied on my smartphone as my main camera during vacation trips. I felt that with the significant improvements in smartphone camera quality carrying a dedicated digital point and shoot camera became unnecessary. When I switched from my iPhone to the Galaxy Note 2, I expected the Note 2 to functions as my main/ day to day camera as well. I went on this trip with my Galaxy Note 2 prepped for heavy picture taking and video recording. The Note 2 only came with 16GB of internal memory so I decided to buy an external micro SD card (32GB) to make sure I had enough memory to store all the pictures and videos I planned to take. Everything was set. I was even ...