Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Apple iPhone and the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

Today I decided to do something with the Apple iPhone which I thought would be quite simple. To send a post to my blog with a photo and a link to Google maps showing where the photo was taken.

Easy you would have thought.

The Apple iPhone can produce the photo and the link, but then things started to fall apart.

First I really didn't want the entire photo. I wanted to resize the photo and crop the photo. These are not features found on the iPhone. With a bit of searching and testing I found a couple of apps to do what I wanted which were free. I hesitate to buy apps. They don't cost much, but many apps I've tried (mostly free) haven't been that good and I've deleted them. The one I did buy didn't really end up doing what I wanted easily, so doesn't get used.

Google's Blogger requires the photograph to be sent as an attachment, but the Apple iPhone doesn't provide a facility to send an attachment. You can insert an image into an email but not attach it.

The way I created this post was to enter the text for the post including the link and sent this to Blogger.

Yarra Promenade, Southbank VIC 3006, Australia

Then I forwarded the photo to my computer, logged onto Blogger, inserted the photo and did a bit of editing on the post. I saved the post and then checked it. There was a single line which I couldn't remove so I went into edit the HTML view and removed all the code generated by the iPhone.

This is certainly not what I thought would be needed. However whilst this technique doesn't work for blogging, it really is a great feature of the Apple iPhone.

My initial aim really was to create a  link with my current location, take a picture and send the picture and link in an email to family to let them know where we are when on holidays. I also thought this could be a good technique for children to let parents know where they are when they want to get a lift. The location is often enough but getting a picture of something obvious in the area could really help sometimes.

I've written up the technique as the MyAnswers solution 1998 (How to send a photo and a link to your current location using the Apple iPhone.) I'm sure others will find handy ways to use this technique.

Regards,

Kelvin Eldridge

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