by Jeremy Nicholls, Speaking Email co-conspirator
Over the years I’ve come up with lots of coping strategies to deal with the daily commute. I’ve tried music, but I only had one tape. I’ve tried calling someone for a chat, but they are usually also driving or busy – plus it’s hard to get the microphone setup right. Luckily gadgets have come a long way since the tape deck. I’ve had great success with audio books, and more recently podcasts on my phone. It was pretty hard in the early days of my palm 5 and windows ce clamshell type devices, but these days with Android and iPhone things are a bit easier for everyone. I’ve had the privilege to be right in the heart of seeing how these devices work, and how apps are built for them, being a programmer since the 90’s (oh man!)
Now, with our Speaking Email app, it feels good to be able to provide one more solution to the commute problem. The idea is that you get in the car, put your phone in the cradle, check your Bluetooth is talking to the car (or headset / hands free system) then open Speaking Email and start driving. You can catch up with your emails that came in over the weekend – just like you are listening to the radio or a podcast. When it runs out of email to read, it will wait until something comes in, then read that. Really good for making sure you’re right up to date before you get to work. If you have your phone mounted in a cradle, you can do a ‘2 touch’ reply to someone – e.g. press reply, then choose a canned reply you set up earlier such as ‘we need to discuss that’.
I’d be keen to hear if you have had a similar experience trying to get some useful time back during your commute. Have you had any other success with getting stuff done while multitasking – and does speaking email fit into your work day? We are really keen to improve it too, so tell me if you can see ways to change and enhance it and we can help you make your commute better.
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