iPhone and iPad apps

Apps in this post:

CalRep by Jacques Lafon (MuppetJack)

Calendrier républicain by Hachette Livre

TI:ME by Alexander Clauss

Geek Time Pro by reizverstaerker medienwerkstatt OG

I have more apps for iPhone and iPad. Since I've been posting about the French Republican Calendar, I'll post about those first. I've talked earlier about Calendrier, Salut et Fraternité for iPhone, Salut et Fraternité for iPad and revol-di. Now we have some more.

CalRep by Jacques Lafon (MuppetJack) is a universal app (meaning it is designed for both iPhone and iPad). Originally released October 2, 2012 (56202, CCXXI/1/11), version 2.1 November 5, 2012 (56236, CCXXI/2/15).  It is free, with $1.99 in-app purchase for the "complete version".  I don't know what that means, and I'm not going to pay before I find out. In addition to the current date, you can convert between Gregorian and Republican dates for any year after I. I found one bug: all the Roman numerals for years are wrong on the selector, e.g. the current year 221 shows CCXX, although on the iPhone (but not iPad) the year is also correctly shown next to the picture. It starts in 1792 as "Yr (1) / Yr I (2) / Yr II (3)…" It sends daily alerts, which I like, and you can set what time to receive them, although for some reason you can't get them before 9 am, which is late for me. The dates are calculated according to what I call the continuous rule,  which is the fixed rule that leap days are added before (not after) most years divisible by 4, which is continuous with leap days during the Revolution, although those were determined by the equinox rather than a fixed rule, so sometimes it's a day off from the equinox date in some years. It does not show the decimal time, but it does show for each date the month's calendar girl and a picture of the rural calendar name, although for today it shows the barbel fish instead of the cornflower (barbeaux)! (See previous post.) It also has links to Wikipedia articles, although some of them don't exist, as such. Unlike some of the others, it does not show decimal time.

Update: The CalRep app is no more. It has been updated to version 3.0 and renamed UniCal - Universal Calendar, with a new icon, and now includes a bunch of other calendars, including Chinese, Mayan, Hebrew, Islamic and Persian. (What, no Julian/Orthodox?) The year number bug has been fixed.  Also, you can now get alerts as early as 5 am, although it does not always work for me.  The years appear to begin on the equinox.  I just noticed that only half the day-names appear; every other day says "Free Version", so now I guess I know what the difference is.  Maybe that's why I'm only getting half the daily notifications. 56477.131 (Sextidi 16 Messidor an CCXXI à 1 heure 37 minutes décimales t.m.P.)

Calendrier républicain by Hachette Livre is also a free universal app, released on September 3, 2012 (56173, CCXX/12/17).  It converts between Gregorian and Republican dates, and also converts French day names (like Barbeaux) to dates, although you have to scroll through an unsorted list of 366 names! However, like revol-di, it only works for dates during the Revolution, itself. But you can use it to find current dates if you add 220 to the year. It also does not show decimal time.

TI:ME by Alexander Clauss is a 99¢ universal app, released November 2, 2012 (56233). It displays the current time in any of the following formats: decimal, local standard (24-hour, 12-hour or AM/PM), standard in other timezones, Braille, hex, octal, Swatch Internet Time (.beat), NATO DTG, trig (degrees or radians), or with numbers represented by symbols on the periodic table of elements. There are various settings for each clock.

Geek Time Pro by reizverstaerker medienwerkstatt OG is a 99¢ iPhone app, released August 9, 2011 (55782). It displays the time in binary coded sexagesimal (lights or 1/0), binary coded decimal (BCD), hex time or decimal time.

Duodi 22 Prairial an CCXXI à 2 heures 42 minutes décimales t.m.P.

MJD 56453.236

Sternzeit

I have written about Sternzeit by Sebastian Bothe before.  It is an iPhone app for calculating stardates.  It has just been updated to version 2.2.  For some reason it requires the new iOS 6, which means that if you don't upgrade you cannot use it.  (Hey, Sebastian, just because there's a new iOS does not mean that everyone needs or wants to upgrade!)  New in this version, they months are all in German instead of English.  There has been new text added, in need of spellcheck, explaining that the stardate is negative because it is based upon a future date.  Then they give you another date that you can use instead, but it's also in the future, so either way you have to use a negative stardate.  You can choose between 2323 and 2063.  The former is the year from which The Next Generation counted their stardates.  2063 I guess was chosen because it was the year the movie, Star Trek: First Contact, was set in, although they do not explain why this would be the base for stardates a half-century earlier.  So instead of -301275.75, you can have it say -50275.76.  And, in addition to email, SMS and Twitter, you can share to Facebook or save to your camera roll, which creates an image of a postcard with the stardate printed on it.

And I can vouch that it has been updated to fit on my new iPhone 5's 10 cm screen!

MJD 56192.404

Sternzeit

I have posted before about stardates and stardate apps for iPhone. A free new app was released in November (55877) named Sternzeit, which is German for "stardate", by Sebastian Bothe. Originally the US AppStore description was in German, although text within the app was in English, but the description has now been translated.

Version 2 was released today (56015), which fixes an issue with not being able to select the year. You can now select dates in any year to convert to a stardate. Initially there was a bug which caused it to revert to the current date every 30 seconds, but it's working now for me.

The unique feature of this app is that it gives you the ability to share the stardate via Twitter, email or SMS, with a default message like, "Captains's log, stardate : -310757.56". You can also follow other users of the app on Twitter via a hash tag from within the app. I appear to be the first tweeter.

The real problem I have is that the algorithm he uses starts counting from the year 2323, which means that all stardates in the current century are negative, as well as being six digits, unlike the ones on TV, which were four or five digits, and lack the minus sign. It's fine if you want to find the stardate Capt. Janeway brought Voyager back to the Alpha Quadrant in the year 2378, but it's not what I want in my tweets. I know that the "algorithm...is known throughout the net", but it was devised specifically for the 24th century, and doesn't even work for Capt. Kirk's time, let alone ours. There are plenty of other stardate algorithms on the Net, like the contemporary date algorithm at TrekGuide.com. (I don't recommend the Andrew Main algorithm, used by Google Calendar.)  IRL astronomers have their own way of dating star observations, which looks a lot like the stardates on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  And of course, the latest version of Star Trek simply uses the year number with a decimal.

At least he no longer states that 2323 was the year of the first warp-flight, when every Trekkie knows it was nearly three centuries earlier, in 2063. How did he think Kirk got around in the 2200s?

Sadly, I can't update to the new Sternzeit version on my iPhone 4S because for some reason the app requires the new iOS 5.1, and I am stuck on 5.0.1 because I'm jailbroken. Funny, I've updated scores of other apps this month and none of them require 5.1. I had to try it on my iPad, so of course it looks like crap because it's designed only for iPhone, for some reason.

MJD 56016.339

iPhone 4S

I have been broadcasting live video using my iPhone 4. I've been waiting to see if the new iPhone would be worth upgrading to. Now that the iPhone 4S has been released, I can tell you that there have been specific improvements to the camera and video processing:

• 8 megapixels, up from 5
• Wider aperture
• Additional lens (5 instead of 4)
• Faster shutter
• Face detection
• Faster processor
• 1080p HD video
• Video stabilization
• Temporal noise reduction

Hopefully some of those will result in better video broadcasts, with better color, sharper images, less graininess at night, less shakiness and less problems. The download speed is potentially doubled, depending on the network, but the upload speed is unchanged, so that will be of little help.

Another benefit is the integrated Siri voice assistant, which will apparently allow me to do more hands-free while driving, such as getting addresses and directions, sending texts, etc. I'll have to wait to see it in action.

Will it be worth $200 plus $55 tax to upgrade? I guess I'll find out in a week, because I've already ordered one! My wife should be grateful to get my iPhone 4.

It's a shame that Steve Jobs had to pass the day after it came out. This is his legacy.

Bonne année!

The autumnal equinox occurs on MJD 55827.378 (2011 Sept. 23 09:04 UTC) or 9h13 in the morning, Paris mean time. Therefore, according to the rule in effect during the French Revolution, MJD 55827 (23 September in the Gregorian calendar) will be the first day of year CCXX in the Republican Calendar.

According to the rule used by Brumaire, including their iPhone and iPad apps, MJD 55827 is also the first day of the 220th Republican year. The day before, MJD 55826 (22 September), is a leap day according to Brumaire, but not according to the official calendar rule. Dates prior to this are different by one day, but with the start of the new year, dates will be the same by both rules until 2014.

The first month of the Republican calendar is Vendémiaire, so New Year's Day is 1 Vendémiaire. Happy new year!

MJD 55824.627

Revol-di app for iPhone by Kodaski.fr

Revol-di 1.0 by Kodaski.fr was released 2011 January 20 (55581) and is the third French Republican Calendar app for the iPhone.  The name is taken from an early proposal for the first day of the décade, better known as Primidi.  Unlike Calendrier and Salut et Fraternité, this one is free.  Unfortunately, like the others, it is formatted only for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) and not the iPad.  (It's been over a year, why doesn't everybody recognize the iPad?)  Also unlike the others, it is targeted at genealogists, so it only converts dates during the revolutionary period when the calendar was in effect, 1792-1805 (JD 2375840-2380688), and does not convert more recent dates, nor does it display decimal time.  At least it does not have to worry about which method to use for determining modern dates.

It does have features the others don't, however.  For one, you can make notes, which are stored under the (Gregorian) date they are made.  This is useful for recording birth dates and such during the Revolution.  The entire notepad may then be shared via email.  Under "Information", facsimiles of the laws relating to the Republican Calendar are available, in French.  (Gregorian dates are also displayed in French.)  "Historical context" gives information about the calendar.  "The calendar months Illustrations" shows period paintings of calendar girls.  There is a "Help" section and four different wallpapers to choose from.

MJD 55710.444

Nonidi 9 Prairial an CCXIX à 4^hd 50^md t.m.P.

iPad apps

I've been busy playing with my new iPad 2 for the past couple of weeks. When I first connected it with iTunes, it transferred over all my hundreds of iPhone apps.

I noticed right away that these fell into two categories. Some apps open in a small window, slightly larger than the iPhone screen, with a "2X" button that enlarges it to fill most, but not all, of the screen, but generally making the graphics blurry and pixelated with elements that are not formatted for that size. Other apps are formatted for the iPad and fill the whole screen. The latter are indicated by a plus sign on their purchase buttons in the app store, and are called "universal apps", meaning that they are designed to work on all iOS devices, so that they are formatted for both iPhone and iPad. I also downloaded a bunch of iPad apps, which do not run at all on iPhones, although almost all iPhone apps will run on an iPad, even if not designed for it.

It seems that there are hardly any decimal/metric time apps designed for the iPad.  I could find no universal decimal time apps.  However, ecce, maker of the MetricClock and MetricClockFree apps for the iPhone, also now makes iPad only versions of these apps.  However, since they are separate apps, you have to pay twice to get both the iPhone and iPad versions of the paid apps, although these are only $0.99, or you can just get the free versions with ads and fewer feartures.  That's a better deal than some other apps, such as SkyFire, which charges $2.99 for their iPhone app and another $4.99 if you also want it on the iPad.  (I'm using the iPhone version on my iPad, which looks crappy, but I only use it to convert Flash videos.) 

On Wednesday (55657) ecce updated the MetricClock for iPad Free app to version 1.4, adding the ability to use backgrounds from your camera roll, and set the clock color.  When I updated to the new version, my clock disappeared, but after I deleted and downloaded it again, it worked fine.

The only other decimal time iPad app I could find is Julian Date Converter, which is the iPad version of Julian Date Calculator for iPhone.  This app, which costs a dollar more at $1.99, takes advantage of the larger screen by showing twelve different decimal times at once, while the iPhone version only shows the Julian Date and one other at a time.  The iPad version includes one decimal time format that the iPhone one does not, GPS Time, and also displays the sidereal time and longitude, and also has the feature to "lock to UTC", which keeps all the times synchronized with the current time, incremented once a second.

MJD 55658.367

MetricClockFree iOS apps by ecce software

Another post, another app.  This one may look familiar, because (as the name suggests) its a free version of ecce's MetricClock app for iPhone.  The differences are, first, iAds in the free version, and second, no ability to change settings, such as color, digital display, custom image background, etc., although you can still move the clock face around and resize it.  It also does not display the percentage of your life span.  So if you want to try before you buy, or you just don't care about any of that, you can now get this free app.

There are also iPad versions of both the paid and free apps, which I never noticed before, since I don't have one of those devices, yet.  They appear to be the same as the iPhone versions, just reformatted.

MJD 55609.125

Reviews: Bluetooth headsets

I am on the road a lot, and I used to listen to talk radio, such as NPR, but when I got my first iPod I started listening to podcasts, since I did not have to depend upon whatever happened to be on at a particular time, and I could pause playback.  I also had a mono Bluetooth headset for talking on my "feature" phone, which I also used when I upgraded to an iPhone, a Motorola H680.  Although this worked fine for talking on the phone, I still had to switch to the earphones on a cord to listen to podcasts, with one in my ear and the other dangling so I don't get a ticket.  (For music, I just listen to the radio through car speakers.)  The problem with this is getting tangled in the cord and seatbelt, especially while the phone is plugged into the charger, as well as smashing it in the door, etc.  I have ruined several iPod headphones that way.

After a few months, I found the Bluetooth Mono for iPhone jailbreak tweak, which solved the problem beautifully.  However, it required that I had to keep jailbreaking my iPhone every time Apple updated the firmware, which means waiting weeks or months for a new jailbreak before updating, or going without, which I was forced to do for a couple of months when I got a new iPhone.  The current jailbreak method is still "tethered", meaning that it will break if I reboot, although that has not been a problem.  Jailbreaking also offers a lot of other great stuff, but everything else I really wanted is now available without jailbreaking.  Except playing music and podcasts through a mono Bluetooth headset.

But there are alternatives.  iPhones now support the A2DP stereo Bluetooth profile, and there are mono headsets which will support A2DP.  After hearing several recommendations, I got the Aliph Jawbone ICON.  It sells for $99.95 at the Apple Store, but Best Buy had it on sale for $20 off.  The same day I got the Jawbone, my wife bought a Plantronics BackBeat 903+ Bluetooth stereo headset from the Apple Store for $99.95.  She already had a Motorola MOTOROKR S9-HD.

So now I have four Bluetooth headsets available to me, and I can make some comparisons.

My new Jawbone is beautiful.  I got "The Bombshell", which has an irregular gold outer surface.  It fits comfortably in my ear with the largest "ergo" earbud, and doesn't require an ear loop to stay in, although it does come with one.  I had to connect it to my PC via USB and update it in order to activate A2DP stereo, but then it worked fine.  You can also change the voice or language it uses to talk to you, which I couldn't care less about.  The USB connector also means that I don't have to buy another car charger, which is a bonus.  It is rated for only 4.5 hours of talk time, which is a lot less than the 8 hours my old Motorola lasts.  At least there is a visible power indicator on the iPhone status bar, and pushing the single button gives me an audible estimate of the talk time remaining, while the Motorola simply starts beeping shortly before it dies.  I have not yet had a chance to see how the Jawbone works out during extended use.  [Update 55572.531: Now I have, and it lasts just as long, if not longer, and recharges quickly.]

The main drawback is that, like the Motorola, it lacks stereo controls, especially pause and play.  I can pause playback on both headsets by simply switching them off, which at least is safer than fiddling with the touchscreen while driving, but I have to stop the car to safely unlock the iPhone screen, open the iPod app (if necessary) and tap the triangle to resume playing.  This is slightly more awkward with the Jawbone, since the on/off switch is on the side that touches my face. [Update 55572.531: I meant to rant about the bug that prevents voice commands from working with podcasts, but I just figured out that if I load just one song, that fixes the problem, so I can say "pause" and "play" to control playback, although there is a significant delay, and sometimes it will dial a random number from my contacts instead of what I tell it.  I also found that using the dash mount I got today makes it easier to use the touchscreen.]

Both headsets have a lower volume than the wired headphones, which makes it difficult to hear podcasts in a noisy environment, such as a moving car in traffic with passengers.  The sound on the Jawbone seems to be richer than on the Motorola, although it's hard to tell for sure.  The ICON also seemed to have better noise reduction, which is supposed to work by having a sensor in contact with your cheek.

But then my wife had to go and buy the Plantronics BackBeat 903+!  This stereo headset goes in both ears and includes separate buttons for phone, volume up and down, and pause/play.  It also has impressive volume, and is rated for 7 hours of listen time.  She was unsatisfied with the Motorola MOTOROKR because all the electronics are in a band that goes behind the neck, making it uncomfortable to lie down with it; plus, she keeps losing ear-buds, and complains that it's not loud enough.  The Backbeat has the electronics behind each hear, with a thin, flexible cord connecting them, which is quite comfortable to lie on.  And it means that you can pop it out of one ear, and have it dangle from the other, making it safe and legal to drive with!  It turns out that her stereo headset may actually be a better solution than any mono one.

I will continue using the Jawbone ICON for now, but I may end up borrowing my wife's BackBeat, at least when she's not using it.

MJD 55568.517

Smartphone app roundup

Several different things have come my way at the exact same time that are sorta like decimal time apps, but not exactly.

Decimal Time 1.0 by Harald Mueller is a 99¢ iPhone app which does not display decimal time.  Rather, it represents standard 24-hour time as four columns, one for each digit.  Each column has a number of binary indicators that indicate the digit, depending on the maximum number.  For instance, the first column has two indicators, representing 2×10, and the second column has nine, so that the hours 0-23 can be indicated.  The next two columns are for the minutes, so one column has five and the last has nine, for minutes 0-59.  Get it?  If you are looking for a real decimal time app, don't get this one!

At the same time, I saw this tweet by Oliver Bothwell directing me not to an app in the iTunes app store, but to a "Metric Time" web app, which is basically a web page that works on iOS devices.  He says it's optimized for iPad, but it works on my iPhone.  I find that it does not work on all Windows or Linux browsers, but it does work on Safari and Chrome.  What is much more interesting is his Metric Diary, which not only uses decimal time, but also a decimal, or "metric", calendar, with ten-day weeks and ten months per year alternating between 35 and 40 days.  This is all explained on his metric poster.

The final entry is the Metric Clock Widget for Android by Dan Perron.  I'm not able to check it out, but it's one I'd like to have.  There are few widgets for iPhone, and those are only if you jailbreak.

MJD 55550.513

Still no Flash for iPhone

One of the biggest drawbacks with the iPhone has always been its lack of ability to run Flash.  Flash is used to embed animation and video into web sites, and many sites use it, which means that a lot of web content is not available on iOS devices.  Apple refuses to support Flash because it uses a lot of resources and degrades performance.  This is true; I often have difficulty playing Flash videos on my old laptop.  Apple has been promoting HTML5 for playing videos, and many sites now support this, but many still do not.  I am frequently frustrated by this.

Two months ago (55440.685) Skyfire announced that they had submitted an app to the iTunes App Store which would allow viewing of Flash video on web pages.  The way it works is that they convert the Flash on their own servers and send it back to your device.  That way, you don't have to run Flash on your iPhone, but you still get the videos.  I have been eagerly waiting for the past two months for this app to get approved.  Skyfire is already one of the most popular apps on Android and other phones.  Apparently iPhones are not the only phones that have trouble with Flash.

Well, today (55503) it happened.  I bought the app for $2.99 and started browsing.  First I tried one of their suggested sites, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (even though I already watch it everyday on TV).  It wouldn't load.  Then I started browsing my news feeds, and quickly found a BBC story that had a Flash video.  It took forever to load, then I got a few seconds of an advert and it stopped.  Other attempts were also unsuccessful.  I began to suspect what the cause of the problem might be, as it happens frequently when highly desirable sites turn on or get publicized.  The servers are overloaded.

Turns out, I was exactly right.  Skyfire has removed their app from the App Store.  They state that within five hours the app had become the top grossing iPhone app and that demand far exceeded their predictions.  So now we have to wait for them to increase their capacity, which will probably take a while.  At least this time I managed to grab the app before it was pulled.  Usually by the time I learn about an app too good to be true, Apple has already pulled it, like when that kid snuck in free tethering in his app.  Hopefully as the early adopters finish playing with their new toy, the servers will start running again, in which case I am ready.

MJD 55504.050

Stardate apps for iPhone

Stardate Calculator by Priddy Software was released to the app store on August 10 (55409) and is free.  It's very basic.  Time and calendar date are displayed in a column with year, month, day, hour and minute broken out, and the stardate below, on a starry background.  Tap on the calendar date, time or stardate to change them and convert.  Both calendar date and time have a button for "today".  However, the displayed time is two hours off from the time I pick, probably because the developer is in the US Central Time Zone.  It should use either the user's local time or Greenwich (and make clear if it's the latter) rather than Illinois time.  The "i" button just brings up ads for other apps, including several fart apps, but at least there are no ads on the front page, which is good for a free app.  They should put some information about stardates, and the method they use to generate them.
The current stardate is -311636.5, which I can tell uses the same method as the "twenty-fourth century stardates" calculated by TrekGuide.com.  They start from 2322 May 25 (169296) as 0.0 and increment by 1000.0 every 365.25 days.  Since this date is in the future, contemporary stardates are negative.  Thus, this app is fine if you want to convert between stardates and calendar dates used in the 24th century, as on The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space 9 (DS9) or Voyager, (VOY) but not very satisfactory for earlier centuries, as on the original series (TOS) or right now.

I have mentioned the other two stardate apps previously on this blog.  StarDate Calculator Pro sounds like a paid version of the above app, but is actually free and made by David Frick, aka Triangle Powers Software.  It's even simpler than the above app.  It starts out with the current stardate, which is now 64214.9, even though the calendar date always shows "September 26 2009" (55100) when it first loads.  You can convert from any Gregorian calendar date to a stardate, but not vice versa.  This app does not give correct stardates for future centuries when the TV series and movies take place, but it does provide a good approximation of the stardates given in episodes of TNG/DS9/VOY according to when they first aired on television.  The app apparently uses the TrekGuide.com formula for "contemporary dates in The Next Generation Stardate format", which starts with 0.0 on 1946 July 15 and increments by 1000.0 every year.  This gives satisfactory-looking stardates for the current era, if not for future ones.

iStardate by Max Soderstrom/SusaSoftX was updated to version 1.1 on 2010 July 19 (55396) and costs 99 cents.  As before, it loads with a starry field overlaid with the current stardate, which appears right now as [-28]3770.31.  But now when you tap it, a "convert" button appears, allowing you to convert any Gregorian calendar date.  It increments automatically, like a clock, 0.01 stardates every 2 or 3 minutes, or 5.00 per day.  The "i" button gives a brief explanation, which really does not explain anything.

iStardate uses the method from Andrew Main's FAQ, which is my least favorite.  Basically, he has stardates rolling over from 9999.99 to 0000.00 every five-and-a-half years, then incrementing the "issue" number in brackets.  They start from [0]0000.0 in 2162, right after the Federation will be founded, with negative issues before that, with the current one being [-28].  According to the FAQ, after 2269 several different methods will be used, in order to correspond with the stardates used in the various TV shows and movies, but the app continues using the same formula for these periods.  So the app gives incorrect stardates in the future centuries, and ugly ones in ours.  Even though this method was also adopted by Google Calendar, I cannot stand these stardates.

You may wonder what the numbers that look like stardates are that I have after Gregorian dates.  These are Modified Julian Day numbers, which have been used by astronomers for over a half-century to date star observations, and which are a modification of the Julian Days used since the 19th century.  Just add a decimal and they become Julian Dates.

MJD 55471.063

Update: (55472.572) I forgot to include the latest version of New Clocks, which shows a current stardate similar to Triangle Power Software's app.

Update: (56144.078) Sternzeit by Sebastian Bothe uses TNG stardates with January 1, 2323, as the epoch, so that stardates for the present period are large, negative numbers, slightly different from Priddy's Stardate Calculator app.  Priddy's app is the only one that let's you enter a time when converting to stardates.  Triangle's Stardate Calculator Pro no longer seems to be available in the appstore.

Julian Date Calculator app for iOS by CosmoWerx

Julian Date Calculator is an iPhone app by CosmoWerx, aka Milan Battelino.  Currently at version 1.3, it costs 99 cents in the App Store.  As the name indicates, this app calculates Julian Dates, which count the days since the beginning of the Julian Period, 4713 BCE, including the decimal time from noon UTC (GMT).  To convert any  (Coordinated) Universal Time and  calendar date to a Julian Date, first enter the time on the picker and tap the date to change it, or vice versa.  You may also tap the "UTC Now!" button to get the current UTC time and Julian Date, which generates a loud "ping!" sound.. However, you have to convert between local and UTC time yourself.
 

To convert a Julian Date to a calendar date and UTC time, simply tap on the Julian Date and a number pad will pop up, allowing you to edit the field, then tap the "Done" button to convert.  You can also select and copy the Julian Date to paste into another app.

There is a second field under the Julian Date, which displays an additional decimal date, which you can select by clicking on the "i".  Additional date options available include:

• Modified Julian Date
• Reduced Julian Date
• Truncated Julian Date (NASA)
• Truncated Julian Date (NIST)
• Dublin Julian Date
• ANSI Date
• Rata Die
• Unix Time
• RAMSES Time

Selecting any of these will display a description of what they are.  The last two are second counts, rather than day counts.  RAMSES Time is new to me, and is explained as the number of seconds since the beginning of 2000, MJD 51544.0, developed by the Swedish Space Corporation.

There is also an iPad version, named Julian Date Converter, for $1.99, which shows all the decimal dates and times at once, including GPS Time.

MJD 55457.419

JD 2455457.919

RAMSES 338119402

@beat app for iOS by Christophe Dirac

There is a new free app displaying Swatch .beats/Internet Time.  @beat by Christophe Dirac displays local 24-hour time and date along with the current beats and tenths (decibeats).  It also shows a slide show of the first 50 images in your camera roll and works in landscape mode.  There are no options.  Tapping the "i" brings up a tribute to Internet Time inventor, Nicolas Hayek, who recently passed away, and a very brief history of Internet Time, although no description is given for what .beats actually are.

The app store search function does not recognize non-alphanumeric characters, so try searching for a combination of "beat" and the author's name.

MJD 55402.920

@961

Update (MJD 55418.253): I noticed that the photo linked here has changed, which is because the app has been updated.  Although not yet published in the app store, there are some new features, such as local temperature and humidity, day of week, choice of background colors and text-to-speech. See the author's site for complete details.

Bumpers

As I suspected, Steve Jobs today, just 20 miles from here, offered free "bumpers" to all iPhone 4 owners, or a choice of cases to be named later. I had planned to buy a case the first day, but Apple had none, and Best Buy was sold out.  Apparently this was because Apple didn't trust case makers to keep the phone a secret, so they didn't have time to manufacture enough of them.  I've been thinking that maybe I would not bother.  After all, the aluminized glass is pretty tough.  However, I can't keep from holding the magic spot.  I've also noticed that the glass back is so smooth that it slides off other smooth surfaces.  So I will gladly accept the free case, thank you.

MJD 55394.357

Death Grip

I bought a new iPhone 4 a décade ago (55382), mainly because I promised my wife my 3GS when the new phone came out.  There were already reports in the media about the apparent reception problem, aka "the death grip".  I dismissed this initially as being over-hyped.  I have been thinking that, yes, it may be a real, albeit minor, issue, but Apples reactions have made it seem even worse.

Now I no longer think it is a minor issue.  Holding the phone in the most natural way, my calls do not go through, or are dropped after I make them, and my 3G data connection immediately goes south.  It's quickly resolved by changing my grip, but it has become annoying, and I should not have to constantly have the problem!  I do not have a case because all they had were those stupid "bumpers", and I'll be damned if I'm paying $30 plus tax (@9.5%) for a rubber band that does not even protect one of the two glass sides.  To add insult to injury, Apple released a software update today, which does nothing to actually fix the problem; it just makes the bars higher and more accurate.  WTF?

Tomorrow (55393.75) Apple is supposed to announce their fix.  It had better be good.  Free bumpers would be a start.

MJD 55393.250

New Clocks iOS app by Dennerlein Consulting

The decimal time apps just keep coming.  New Clocks (opens iTunes) by Jesse Dennerlein was released on July 8 (55385) and is free, supported by iAd.  If you haven't seen an iAd, yet, you can download this app and tap the bottom to watch the animated, interactive ad for the Toyota Nissan LEAF electric car.  The app, itself, simply displays four five different digital clocks simultaneously:

• Standard time (24x60x60 per day)
• Swatch Internet Time (1000x100 per day)
• New Earth Time (360x60x60 per day)
• Decimal time (10x100x100 per day)
• Stardate (00002.728 per day)

The standard and decimal clocks display hours, minutes and seconds, the NET clock displays degrees, minutes and seconds but only increments every 15 seconds (which is one second of standard time), and the Swatch clock displays .beats and centibeats.  If you tap one of the times, it will show you a brief explanation and a "More info" button that links to Wikipedia.  You can change the background color for the app, and the font for each clock can be set independently.

The only bug I've found is that the Swatch and decimal time clocks sometimes skip a second/centibeat, an issue we've seen in other apps.

MJD 55392.126

Update: (55392.366) I just noticed that the Swatch .beats show local time, rather than "Biel Mean Time" (actually CEWT/BST or GMT+1).  As you can see from the screenshot, the Swatch .beats (@429.89) are the same as the decimal time (4:29.89), which is pretty redundant.

Update: (55418.260) The app has been updated to fix the problem with the .beats I noted in my previous update, so they are now on BMT.  Also, another clock has been added which displays stardates, according to the method used by TrekGuide.com, which basically increments 1000.000 units per year, or about 2.74 per day.

Salut et Fraternité app for iPhone by Brumaire

Another decimal time app for iOS iPhone.  Salut et Fraternité (opens iTunes) is very similar to Calendrier, as it shows the Republican calendar date and decimal time below art from the French Revolution, namely a famous depiction of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.  It also allows conversion both to and from Republican calendar dates, while Calendrier only converts from Gregorian to Republican.  It also displays the decimal time on a simulated antique watch with animated hands.

Although similar to Calendrier, Brumaire has offered versions of their Salut et Fraternité software for years.  Like the other versions, the app calculates dates by inserting a leap day before every year divisible by four (except century years).  This makes it continuous with historical dates from the First Republic, when each year started on the autumnal equinox, resulting in leap days at the end of years 3, 7 and 11.  Calendrier gives two different options, either to have current years begin on the equinox, or Romme's proposal to insert a leap day at the end of every year divisible by four, although the implementation of this is buggy.  It just happens that dates for this year (ER 218) are the same for all three methods.

[Salut et Fraternité is $1.99]

MJD 55373.487

Octidi 8 Messidor an CCXVIII à 4^hd 94^md t.m.P.

Update: (55441.294, Sextidi 16 Fructidor an CCXVIII à 3^hd t.m.P.) Version 1.1 has dropped in the App Store, featuring calendar girl images for each month from the Revolution, optional seasonal images on the Convert and Genealogy tabs, and an option for Arabic instead of Roman numerals.  Also, swiping on the settings tab brings up bios for calendar creators Gilbert Romme and Fabre d'Eglantine and a gallery of calendar girls, with text of the associated poems in French.  Complementary days, which are in a couple of weeks/décades, still show the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

iOS4

I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to iOS4 on Monday, and have been been offline all week.  It may be my own fault for not restoring on 3.1.3 before updating to 4.0, since I jailbroke my phone. All seemed to be fine, until I left home.  It turned out that my data link was broken, so while it worked fine at home on my wi-fi, it did not work on 3G or 2G/Edge.  Restoring did not help.  I got an appointment on Wednesday at the Apple Store Genius Bar, where they reset it to its factory state.  But when I restored again, I had the same problem.  So I have been manually reloading all my apps, settings, etc.  It's just as well, since it will soon be my wife's phone.  As soon as I get the new iPhone 4, I will likely have to reload everything all over again.

One nice thing about the new iOS is folders.  I can now put all the decimal time apps in one place.  This works even better than the jailbreak Categories.  Other things I can do are wallpapers, multitasking, pull-up rotation-lock and iPod controls, editable playlists, improved email, spellcheck, etc.  That's most of what I liked from jailbreaking, although multitasking is not as good as Backgrounder, and I cannot use my mono Bluetooth with iPod to listen to podcasts, so I will eventually jailbreak again just for that.

MJD 55373.456

iOS4

There's a new catchall term for what has heretofore been called the iPhone OS, which is also used on the iPod Touch and iPad: iOS.  So from now on I will call these simply iOS devices.  This comes with the announcement of the new iPhone 4, which will run iOS 4.0.  I might get the iPhone 4, since my wife has been bugging me for one, so she'll either get my old phone or we might even share an iPad.  The flash and sharper display are nice (especially when the Netflix app is released) as would be the front-facing camera if I had anybody to use it with who also has an iPhone 4, but the iPad's large display would be a lot better to use at home, even though it costs at least $300 more.

Either way, I look forward to using iOS 4.0 on my current iPhone 3GS when it becomes available on July 21 (55351).  It has a couple of useful features, including multitasking and folders.  I really need these, and had to "jailbreak" my iPhone to get them before.  However, there are other things I'll probably still need to jailbreak my iPhone for, such as listening to podcasts through my mono Bluetooth.

Of course, there are some other great phones available now, but I've become accustomed to my iPhone, and so far as I know there aren't very many decimal time apps, although I have heard that there is one for Android.  I'm not an Apple fanboy, and I've never had bought an Apple product before my current iPhone, but I do love the iOS platform.

MJD 55356.973