Vocal iPhone Dictation App Mentioned on Rush Limbaugh May have Made 17-Year-Old Developer Very Rich in a Day
You might be shocked to learn one of the main inspirations behind GeekBrief.TV is Rush Limbaugh. I listen to a lot of NPR, but I also grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. While Rush over simplifies and over generalizes the positions of the people he opposes politically, there are a couple of non political things he does on his show that happen randomly and I love them both. Rush is a huge Apple fan. He reads Apple rumor sites and it’s awesome when he gets giddy about a new release. The other thing he does from time to time is talk about the media business and his how he came to dominate radio ratings.
Today he started his show talking about an amazing new App for iPhone 4S called Vocal. It works with a companion Mac App and give you the ability vocally control a Mac and dictate into writing applications from the iPhone. Rush spent a good fifteen minutes raving about how great it is. Listeners were emailing asking questions because they couldn’t find it in the App Store. Rush talked about the App more and referred listeners to the developer’s website, spelling out the URL: http://mtrbts.me/vocal. To help listeners find the right App, Rush told listeners it was developed by Matt Roberts. He said, “You’ll know you’ve found the right App if it’s by Matt Roberts. He also recommended listeners go to Matt’s site to watch the demo video I’ve embedded below.
In all, Vocal probably got about 20-minutes of air time on a show with 20-Million listeners.
I watched the video planning to write a post about the App. I had no plans to include details about Rush, until I clicked on Matt Roberts Twitter link. Matt is a 17-year-old student in Australia who had never heard of Limbaugh until today. Matt says, Limbaugh’s listeners are making up a majority of his support requests. 
http://twitter.com/#!/ma_ttie/status/149623075246313472
I think it’s very cool that we live in a world where a 17-year-old can build an App that can get 20 minutes of praise on a show that is supposed to be about conservative politics!
Read MoreIs Kicksend the File Exchange Answer?
As a content creator, I’m always looking for tools to make the process faster and smoother. Most things I publish are not time sensitive, but I still want to produce quickly so that I can produce more.
Something that has frequently frustrated me is how complicated it is to move files from one device to another. I use two iPads, an iPhone, a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. There are some things that are more fun to produce on iPad and others that are more fun to produce on a Mac. The Cloud promises a central location for files we need everywhere, but no cloud solution I’ve found is good enough. I’ve tried Dropbox, Airdrop and countless services I can’t name. Usually, I end up just emailing the file I need to get it from one device to another.
Kicksend is the new kid on the file sharing block. They have a desktop app, and this past week, they released an iPhone App. With no file size limits, Kicksend lets users send photos, video and documents. If you send the file to a friend using a Kicksend App, it’s immediately available to them in the App inbox. If they don’t have the App, they get a download link via email.
They’ve launched during the holiday social season, and this is a good time to try it. When you’re with friends and family, someone will inevitably shoot a video of a kid doing something especially cute. That video can immediately be shared using Kicksend with everyone at the gathering who wants a copy.
It’s free to download both the the desktop and the iPhone app. You get some amount of exchange a month for free. I think it’s around 1GB, but there seem to be some promotional things you can do to get more for free. If you need to exchange more data, you can upgrade. $5/month gets you 5GB/month. $10/month gets you 10GB/month. $20/month gets you 30GB/month. Files are stored longer with premium accounts.
If, like me, you haven’t fallen in love with a file exchange service yet, Kicksend seems worth a try. So far, I kind of dig it.
Read MoreCongrats to Instagram!
To tell you what Instagram has meant to me in the past several months would seem like so much hyperbole, you’d just respond with a big, fat, “Nuh uh!” Let me try though…
When I’ve been stressed or worried about my future, I’ve tapped the Instagram icon on my phone, iPod Touch or iPad. I follow some geeks, but mostly I follow people who post pictures of pretty things, or at least make pretty pictures of ugly things. Call it a Flinch if you’d like, but I call it peace. With all due respect to John Stewart, Instagram provides my daily moments of zen. I open the App, and all of a sudden, I’m on a 5 minute vacation. That’s why I love it.
Today Apple named Instagram App of the Year. It’s certainly been my App of the year. For me it’s the place I go to experience a constant stream of prettiness.
You can say, “Nuh uh!” I’ll just say, “Uh huh!” Let’s not argue. Congratulations Instagram! Well deserved!
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