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MINNOV8

From car to iPhone: How I didn't miss a great story

By Steve Borsch | Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Listening recently to Minnesota Public Radio as I drove to downtown Minneapolis for a meeting, I caught most of a fascinating program on "Midmorning" called "Discovering China", a discussion about Simon Winchester's latest book and his experiences which chronicle, "...the story of an Englishman's adventures in China, and his determination to prove to the rest of the world that the Chinese were the first to create technological marvels."

As I left my car and embarked upon a 15-minute walk from a parking lot to a building downtown, I was pleased to have remembered my headphones as I launched the iPhone MPR application developed by Minnesota-based Codemorphic (get the free app here for your iPhone from the iTunes store) and continued listening to this very interesting program as I walked several blocks.

What I didn't expect was the two-minute story about a breakdown of Winchester's car in the middle of nowhere in China, his iPhone, and what happened next.

After hearing this particular story and a bit more of that day's "Midmorning" show, I was so intrigued by the program that I wanted to hear it in its entirety, so the next day I went to iTunes and downloaded the 5/4/09 show and, for good measure, subscribed to the MPR "Midmorning" podcast. Either can be done here on iTunes if you're interested in hearing the whole show.

Click on the audio icon above to listen to the MP3 that contains the story

Tech | Tue, Jun 2 2009 8:46 am

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4 Comments: Hide/Show Comments

(#1) On June 2, 2009, Steve Pease says:

Wasn't this guy on a couple-three weeks ago? Or was it a repeat?
Really interesting guest on, I believe, 'Fresh Air' yesterday - said that Senators have been getting in trouble because of Tweeting.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104782089&ft=1&f=13

(#2) On June 3, 2009, Andrew Zabilla says:

Hey, I can do that on my phone using the FM tuner, or stream it through the web at G4 speeds and then go to MPR's website and stream it later if I want, all without paying any money or having an extra program cluttering up my phone! Of course, since I can use micro SD cards, I have unlimited storage space.

Oh, but wait, it's just not cool unless it's the iPhone.

I wonder if the coolness of Apple products makes up for the fact that they have now deleted LEGAL copies of music off my friends' laptops, iPods and iPhones just because they didn't buy them through iTunes?

(#3) On June 3, 2009, Steve Borsch says:

http://minnov8.com

Steve: Yes, he was on two weeks ago (5.4.09).

Andrew: The irony wasn't that one couldn't listen to streams on a mobile device, but that I was using an iPhone in an atypical way -- listening to a story on a radio app while walking downtown -- about *him* using one in an atypical way (but his was *more* atypical than mine).

If anything was 'cool', it was him using a mobile device in the middle of nowhere in China and how he was rescued.

Speaking of atypical, what in the world are you talking about with friends having music deleted? Sure would like to see some facts around that.

(#4) On June 4, 2009, Andrew Zabilla says:

My point was merely that you can do what you did with other smart phones (with the exception of using iPhone applications) but the emphasis seems to be on the fact that it was an iPhone. How is using a radio app on an iPhone atypical? I find that perfectly typical. What happened to Simon Winchester was not, but he also didn't author this article.

Your mention of "mobile device" is exactly my point. An iPhone is merely a mobile device but yet it must always get mentioned as a set apart from other mobile devices.

I heard the story some time ago, and what happened to him was cool, but you spent ONE sentence talking about the irony and almost THREE QUARTERS of the article talking about your iPhone and iTunes and how you used them and how other people can do the same thing.

As far as the music being deleted; my good friend had music that she had put on her Mac that was taken from CDs she owns and within the last month / month and a half, she's noticed that a multitude of her songs have gone missing for no apparent reason, all of them seemingly from her own CD collection. I also have a friend who's wife's iPod recently deleted music that she had copied from CDs that she owns as well as music purchased from Amazon, which does not have DMR. There seem to be no problem with either device save for mysteriously missing music and they are both convinced that it was due to iTunes that their music has been removed from their devices.

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Minnov8 was started to focus on technological innovation in Minnesota. Contributors include Internet and web designers and consultants Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson. The Minnov8 team contributes weekly to MinnPost. You can view their site here. Use this form to contact the team at Minnov8.