Man do I love mobile TV while driving. By mobile TV, I mean loading up Hulu Plus or Netflix on my iPhone. But before I talk about mobile TV, I should mention how I connect audio to my car.

Bluetooth streaming audio

I connect my iPhone to my car’s audio system via a Bluetooth adepter. I use a Scosche MotorMouth II, which does streaming Bluetooth audio to my stereo, as well as adding a handsfree car phone type system for calls and a push button for voice command of iOS.

The system works out pretty well, and I have it connected to power in the car so I never have to take it out to recharge. It just works. The procedure I have to do to use it is, assuming bluetooth is already on the Neocell and let’s say Pandora is already playing, is I start my car. The red light on the MotorMouth lights up, indicating it’s got power. I then push the button on it and that initiates the connection and then audio transfers to the sound system. And then that’s it. Once I turn the car off, since it’s battery powered, the MotorMouth stays connected and the Neocell continues to play audio (although nothing can be heard). I can either just walk away from my car and the iPhone will automatically disconnect from Bluetooth and pause audio, or I can switch the audio source on the iPhone from Bluetooth to speaker to hear music from the Neocell.

Why use Bluetooth streaming audio

I wrote before about how I connected an iPhone dock into my ride. I did this because it’s the most efficient way to physically connect an iPhone into your car. The dock’s line out was connected to my car’s auxiliary audio input of my stereo, as well as the sync cable to the dock connected to a USB-to-DC plug thing. You simply drop your iPhone into the dock and you instantly got sound to your car and power to your iPhone. Bada bing, bada boom.

I Installed Two iPhone Docks In My Ride

So why, then, go with Bluetooth streaming audio if you got’a great, easy solution like this? Well honestly, you don’t gotta’. The dock system rocks. Serious. But the reason why I did it is because, the way iOS docks are designed, when you take your iPhone off the dock, it pauses audio. This became a pain when I’d have Pandora playing in the background and my GPS app Navigon running in the foreground and I’d have to pull the Neocell out of the dock because I wanted to enter text with two hands instead of typing while it’s on the dock or whatever. This would cause the audio to pause. Once I connected it back to the dock, I’d have to resume the audio.

Another problem I found myself in a lot was picking up the Neocell out of the dock to do things like check an email message or reply to an IM from Beejive. Each time I’d do this, the audio would pause. It’s not even like it would stop going through the car’s audio but would keep playing through the Neocell’s speaker. No, it would just stop all together.

This also became a problem when I’ve be driving with someone and they wanted to check something on the Neocell, which of course they’d have to undock it. Whenever I’m driving, the Neocell preforms two extremely important rolls. One is audio entertainment (I NEVER listen to the radio and don’t own one single audio CD) and the other is GPS navigation through Navigon. Both can run and continue to work and do their function because they play their audio in the background, but when someone would pick up the Neocell out of the dock, the audio would no longer be goin’ through the car’s sound system.

Now you understand the beauty of Bluetooth streaming audio. The Neocell can freely be picked up out of the dock and the audio will still continue. This has come in handy so many times. I remember one time when my wife was with me and we needed to get in contact with someone who happened to be in Hawaii… we didn’t know their phone number or even email address, but we noticed them online on Facebook via Beejive so my girl IMed this person and was having an important conversation (she hadn’t gotten Beejive yet on her own iPhone). I had a lot of complicated driving to do and needed to hear the GPS, but this wasn’t a problem because the audio was still being streamed over, including Pandora even though the Neocell was in her hands and not physically connected to anything.

TV and movie audio streaming via Bluetooth

So this brings me back to the original point; how great it is watchin’ TV and movies while drivin’. For the record, when I mean “watching”, unless I’m in non-moving traffic, my eyes are on the road 90% of the time. Most people wouldn’t call that “watching” TV but more like “listening”, and this sorta’ true… but being able to glance at what’s on screen for a half second or so here and there really does give you the scope of what’s going on in the video. Some of you may not think that’s enough time to understand what’s happening, but it’s like people watching TV while surfing the web, you understand what’s goin’ on without havin’ to have your eyes glued to the video.

Having the audio streaming through Bluetooth makes it that much nicer watching a TV show from Hulu Plus or a movie from Netflix. Sometimes I’d find myself looking at an episode of The Office and notice some smudges on the screen. No problem, simply take the iPhone off the dock, rub the screen on my shirt or whatever and place it back… all while keeping my eyes on the road and continuing to listen to the audio.

Another neat thing is that if I had one of my nieces or nephews with me and my girl and let’s say they wanted to play Angry Birds or something while we were on a long trip. Normally, I’d have to say no because GPS navigation is vital. But with Bluetooth streaming and the fact that Navigon can run in the background, no problem. They can use the Neocell in the back while it streams GPS navigation instructions to the car’s audio system.

Mobile TV feels like cheating during traffic

So check it, yesterday I was driving home on an hour long drive and, living in Tampa Bay, there’s a lot of bodies of water around and a lot of bridges to go over. While listening to Pandora in the background with Navigon running in the foreground, I noticed a traffic alert that mentioned a traffic accident on a bridge up ahead. This bridge happened to be the only way into Tampa and this bridge is like 5 miles long. Sure enough, it ended up being bumper to bumper traffic, with traffic moving at like 0-5 miles per hour. Navigon didn’t recalculate a new route due to the traffic because it would be a 20 to 30 minute detour.

I had ice cold AC on me and Pandora pumpin’ through the system. But all this stop and go traffic, defending your lane from *** holes trying to jump in front of you… not fun. So I decided to treat myself and rather than wait until I got home to watch the latest episode of Parks and Recreation, I’d watch it now. So I paused Pandora, loaded up Hulu Plus, accessed my queue and pressed play. Instantly, I was watching TV and loungin’ back into my leather seat, sippin’ on a delicious Pepsi fountain drink in my cup holder and enjoying my car’s automatic climate control system keep me perfectly cool as I sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the middle of a bridge over Tampa Bay.

Honestly, it felt like cheating. Instantly, I was much calmer and more relaxed. “Oh look, this **** head just cut in front of me. Who cares, I got… Hahaha… Crazy good TV goin’ on.” Every once and a while, I’d look around at other people and I’d see the frustration. I surveyed like 10 cars around me and they all were miserable, from the ones driving nasty beater cars to the ones in brand new Mercedes… and yet here i was, havin’ a ball. I realized I’d been in traffic going 0 to 5 miles per hour for the last 15 minutes and it felt like 3 minutes had gone by. It totally felt like I was cheating. Traffic isn’t supposed to be enjoyable.

See, the beauty of this that I didn’t plan on any of this happening. The content I was watching didn’t exist on my phone. I was pulling it from the cloud. People don’t utilize the current potential of technology in the palm of their hand, ya know?

Gansta’ leanin’ video

Here’s one thing that some may see as a glaring flaw though… all video that’s played, well… it plays sideways. Yeah. Since the Neocell is docked in portrait orientation, it plays all video sideways. Honestly, this isn’t a problem for me. It’s hard to explain, but all content just looks normal sideways as it does normal. You immediately adjust to it.

Who needs digital TV and DVD’s

Over on theNeocell.com’s sister web site, AintAGeek.com, I wrote a post about why I pay for and use Internet TV.

Living With Internet TV

That, including the fact that I can wach TV and movies while driving, will keep a crap load’a video content always ready for me at the tips of my fingers. The only thing I gotta’ concern myself with is how much bandwidth I use a month for my iPhone. But honestly, whatever I do use, it’s SO worth it compared to the value I’m gettin’. Rock on.

Peace, JbB

Wow, wow, wow… The Netflix for iPhone app is awesome!

Netflix released their app for iPhone and iPod Touch a little while ago. This is the app most people have been looking forward to since the announcement of iOS 4. The reason why people have been looking forward to it is because, like their app for the iPad, this allowed people to watch streaming movies and TV shows from their iPhone or iPod Touch.

3G Entertainment

Normally, though, you’d have limitations with such an amazing product. The main limitation I could see them doing is not allowing the Netflix app to work over 3G. And that would be ok, because there are plenty of situations where you’d want to have access to Netflix when you had wifi (such as visiting a friend house, at work, at a hotel, etc).

But Netflix DOES work over 3G! Woo-hoo! What magical negotiation wizard got that to pass with AT&T, we’ll never know… but bless him or her. Having Netflix over 3G is AMAZING!

I mean think about the possibilities with having access to TV and movies anytime, anywhere. And I ain’t talkin’ about buying (or stealing) movies and TV shows and transferring them to your iPhone’s media library. That all gets old and stale as soon as you watch it. Who’s gonna’ wanna’ watch the same TV show or movie over and over again?

But having access to the ENTIRE library of streaming content available through Netflix anytime, anywhere?? *drools* Yeah baby… So hot.

New Possibilities

This opens the door for a whole new world of possibilities for Netflix users (which I myself am one). I mean just like when Pandora came out with an app for the iPhone (before that, it was a virtual unknown) and allowed streaming Internet radio to be used anytime, anywhere, the same thing has now happened with streaming Internet TV and movies.

Think about the possibilities now… Just picture someone being told at their job “No, your needed for an evening budget meeting in an hour, so you won’t have time to drive home and back before the meeting. Head down to the conference room now and wait for everyone to arrive later.”. That sucks, but he / she can just load up the Netflix app and think to themselves “Haha, little do you know, but this isn’t torture, I’m gonna’ watch me some Reno 911.”.

Or how about a girlfriend or wife who’s dragged to a convention or event her man’s interested in (but she’s there because later they’ll be going out to eat or something). She didn’t even know she’d be attending, so rather than be pissed sitting there for two hours, she just pulls out her headphones and searches for something on Netflix to watch.

Ooo! Or how about standing in some godawful line somewhere, like the DMV! Or how about an amusement park line, even better. Now that’ll be some awesome ****. Everyone there will be “Ugg… so bored.”, playing on their crappy, inferior mobile phones, checking Facebook for the thirtieth time or some bull ****. While your laughing out loud to some crazy funny TV show, such as It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Everyone around looking at you with envy each time you laugh or something. Like “Your not supposed to enjoy this line…”.

Netflix In Your Car

Oh yeah, and this is the best thing… For those of us that have both iPhones and a Netflix subscription, this now means that we have a means to stream TV shows and movies in our cars!

I mean, I remember reading articles years ago about how someday we (meaning the rich) will have cars connected to the Internet were we’ll have music, TV and movies “piped wirelessly” to enjoy.

Well we have that now, but it’s not some exclusivity reserved only for the rich. It’s not a service that’s “piped” into the car directly though, it’s sent directly to a device that we already pay for mobile Internet, and from a service (Netflix) we’re also already paying for.

Being able to easily and quickly search for new titles of shows or movies while on the road is so great. And any program you watch from your computer will resume via your iPhone and visa-versa.

First Impressions

The program works great. I have an iPhone 4, which is capable of displaying high definition content. Well, Netflix appears to be in HD over both wifi and 3G. That’s amazing.

The streaming video seems to be very responsive. It loads extremely quickly considering it’s high quality too. Seeking to a new position isn’t a problem either. It’s not like the crap we experience with YouTube, waiting forever for a video to load or horrible quality over 3G.

Playback over 3G seems great considering I’m able to get it to work even when I barely have cell signal in my apartment. The screen shot below is from a video (Reno 911!) playing over a very weak signal. You can see it looks great.

The interface is fantastic. It works exactly how you’d expect. It’s so quick and easy to search for what you want and jump right into it.

Requested Feature

One feature I’d love to see is the ability to watch the video in portrait orientation.

Some of you are probably thinking “Why would you want that?”. The reason why is so that you can watch movies docked into a dock or similar device that doesn’t allow your iPhone to be in landscape orientation. Yes, I understand the video will be very small, but that’s a lot better than being sideways.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a ******’ great app. If Pandora is the best music app / service, then Netflix is the best video app / service.

Especially considering the Hulu Plus app isn’t even an option because it costs $10 a month for Hulu Plus, still shows commercials and won’t even run on 3G iPhones.

Netflix and Hulu are my two main forms of entertainment and because of not being able to do Hulu on my iPhone, this makes running Netflix on the Neocell 4 all that much better. With innovative thinking like this, is there any question as to how Netflix caused the downfall of Blockbuster?

Peace, JbB

Well Stanza, the world’s best ebook reader program (and it’s free by the way), is now on my home screen. Having an icon on my home screen means you gotta’ be one of the absolute best apps out there… free, paid, stock, it don’t matter… the only way you can get on the Neocell’s home screen is if you’ve proven yourself worthy.

Well two things have happened… one, I’ve been using Stamza multiple times a day because I’m reading a bad ass ebook (included a screen shot of it) so Stanza’s usefulness had gone up, and because I don’t have cable TV and watch all my TV from Hulu, the free What’s On app has lost most of it’s usefulness. So Stanza replaced What’s On.

I suspect it’ll take a long time before another icon gets changed from my home screen.

Peace, J

It’s been reported that a Hulu app will be coming to iPhones in a few months (once the iPhone 3.0 OS comes out).

This would be ****** amazing! Being able to watch The Office or American Dad over Wifi (or 3G for those of you that have it). Wow…

Hulu’s done some real shady **** in the past though, so I wouldn’t put it past them to never come through with it. So, I ain’t holdin’ my breath for it.

Peace, J