Now there’s a cool new way to follow the 2008 Presidential election anywhere you go. Today I discovered a rich, data-packed app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that displays updated polling data, both nationally and state-by-state, for the presidential campaign. It’s called Election ‘08, and can be downloaded here. It’s free, and it requires at least the 2.0 version of the iPhone/Touch OS.
This iPhone app lets you track the campaign anywhere you go.
Election ‘08 contains the latest national tracking polls, and performs an algorithmic calculation of who’s winning currently in each state based on multiple available polls in that state. Then, it generates an electoral vote projection. It also gives the sources of the polls, and provides recent and historical data for context.
Some iTunes commenters complained that the app’s polling data was stale, but today, it seems up to date.
The program, from a company called Chimp Software, lets you view the data in a variety of ways — most recent data, alphabetical by state, battleground states only, or in lists arranged by each candidate’s strongest states, in descending order (McCain is cleaning up in Utah, Obama is uncatchable in DC.)
If you care about politics, and understand that polls aren’t perfect, Election ‘08 can put a snapshot of the political horse race in your pocket.
Below is the third and final clip from Walt’s appearance on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker with Aaron Task. In it, they discuss today’s launch of the iPhone 3G, and what it means for the competition. Watch parts one and two of the segment from earlier posts, and read Walt’s review of the device here.
Yesterday, Walt spoke with Yahoo Tech Ticker’s Aaron Task about the 3G iPhone and its Friday launch. Since it’s more of a “handheld computer,” as Walt describes it (click here for Walt’s full review), its success is naturally linked to today’s launch of the App Store and the embrace of the software development community. Here’s their conversation:
The first reviews of the 3G iPhone went live yesterday, and the blogosphere has been abuzz ever since (here’s Walt’s full review). Yesterday, Walt spoke with Aaron Task of Yahoo’s Tech Ticker about the 3G iPhone, its pros and cons and “Apple sensitivity.” Here’s their conversation:
Ok, so the 3G iPhone has been announced and unveiled, but you can run the specs down yourself. The unveiling of the new phone raised a few more questions about what is going to happen on July 11th.
- If the iPhone is going to be released Worldwide on the 11th, then are there going to be enough for the demand?
- Will we see a huge line forming days before the release or just hours (notice that I have no doubt there will be a line)?
- Why is video recording not included or are they just not mentioning it yet? The hardware is there and there are actually already some programs on installer which allow you to take video, but I do not want to have to pay extra for something like that.
- Why did they not increase the megapixels on the camera? The chipset that the iPhone supposedly uses is supposed to be capable of 5 megapixels or more. If Apple wants to integrate the geotagging and Mobileme sharing of photos, then it would only have made sense to provide a better quality camera or at least a flash, focus, and zoom.
- What am I going to do with the iPhone I have right now? I think selling it on eBay is the best route to go, but I will stay open to other ideas since the $200 price of the new iPhone is a steal.
It is true that the iPhone does not have anything hardware wise that other smartphones can not compete with or even out due, but that is still not what the iPhone is all about. The iPhone is about a phone that looks good, feels good, and most importantly works great. No other phone has ever worked as well as my iPhone and I don't imagine any other company will ever be able to match Apple's ingenious mesh of hardware and software. The iPhone is made for functionality.
