Turn your iPhone into a winePhone
Did you know you can store your wine label images in a separate folder on your iPhone? When you are stumped in front of a sea of bottles at your wine store, you can flick through and see ones that you’ve enjoyed before. Or, if you can’t remember which wine you had with dinner last night (ahem), just snap a pic and store it for jogging the memory later. You could even download label images as a wish list!
Scroll through for a brief photo tutorial. I’m sure you can get something similar to work on other phones too, if you have to. How do you store your label images?
Create a new folder “wine” or whatever in iPhoto. You can drag photos from your other image folders into “wine.” Then when you sync the phone in iTunes set it to sync that folder et voila!
Oh yeah, the Carlo Rossi. Maybe that’s one you don’t want to remember.
On February 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm ,stu wrote:
I keep a lot of pictures of maps on my blackberry. Always good to look at them and visualize where the vineyard or region is exactly. I sometimes do the picture thing also.
On February 27th, 2008 at 1:43 pm ,M wrote:
So am I to read into this we can expect a Dr Vino app when the SDK is released? ; )
Actually, that’s a great product spec: A digital tasting notebook for the iPhone; photos can be auto-appended to an entry for annotation; entries (or the “notebook” itself) can be shared / published just like albums in iPhoto.
Damn, now why didn’t I think of that? Er…
Dr Vino, something tells me you need to grab an ITP student and put them on it!
On February 27th, 2008 at 1:57 pm ,stu wrote:
M, check out vinfolio.com. I don’t think that they have a mobile version yet, but the site is a great way to catalog your collection, with label pictures, and capture your tasting notes, etc.
The Vincellar as it’s called is free, and I believe they are making some enhancements due out by the end of Q1. Not sure if mobile integration is on the docket.
On February 27th, 2008 at 2:13 pm ,M wrote:
Stu — Yep, I’m aware of that. There’s also CellarTracker.com (former MS project manager, go figure) for collection management and now AbleGrape.com (former director of search at Yahoo, go figure) for search. Lots of new projects out there.
I’d like to see a dedicated mobile / third-party app that can bind these disparate things together. Much happening with microformats and the semantic web, so somebody will take the step away from raw data indexing into more interoperable / modular services.
Fine, I’ll do it. Sheesh! : )
On February 27th, 2008 at 2:34 pm ,stu wrote:
M, have you checked out the OnlineWineConsortium.org. It’s a community of wine industry, tech, marketing, etc. It sounds like you’ll fit right in.
P.S. – My wife works at Google so i know about those other cellar/search systems as well. I have a couple of ideas but don’t know my C++ from HTML
On February 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pm ,Steve wrote:
The idea is great but more importantly, where did you get the cork iphone casing? Now that’s a winephone!
On February 27th, 2008 at 3:54 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Hey M and Stu –
Good ideas here! I also try to tag my images in Adobe Bridge but I have a long way to go before I get them all. It’s a new year’s resolution for me going forward! (and it’s February…)
On February 27th, 2008 at 3:57 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Ha – Steve, just saw your comment. I peeled it off the background on my site! I had some leftover…
Actually, at the Apple store. I was at the CIA in Napa last week where they collect corks and they thought about turning them into iPhone covers. Another great idea! With wine stains! And producer names! To benefit an educational institution!
Wow, this thread is turning into an idea incubator…
On February 27th, 2008 at 11:11 pm ,Steve wrote:
The number of new widgets coming out in the wine world is staggering (my own, of course, is winescorecard.com). But a simple way to retrieve tagged label images would be a nice widget for the iPhone.
On February 28th, 2008 at 9:38 am ,AL wrote:
I have been thinking about building the app with the SDK release, but there are lots of good free options already out there. A good option is using facebook (don’t choke) since there is such great iphone integration. Your “wine” album can include comments about each item by the poster, and comments posted by friends. I’m okay relying on the edge network for something like that because the facebook photos and comments have such a low download size. Although, it would be nice to do a typed search for “Pinot Noir” when you are in the store right? The advantage to locking onto a social network app though is that one tends (maybe just me) to trust PEOPLE they know with their advice about wine instead of a very large anonymous database.
So… maybe doc V. needs to open a group on facebook “doc V’s picks,” load it up with some wine shots, make some comments, and we can wait to see how restrictive the SDK from apple is going to be.
On February 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm ,Kathleen Lisson wrote:
I keep information about good wines the old fashioned way – I text myself on my Blackberry.
With text you can also note the food you ate with the wine.
Kathleen Lisson
On February 29th, 2008 at 3:04 pm ,Wine 2.0 | Eatier.com wrote:
[…] iPhone to keep a virtual wine notebook that you can refer to whenever your memory drops the ball. Check it out (Works on most other smartphones […]
On March 31st, 2008 at 12:19 pm ,Dan Hertz wrote:
“So am I to read into this we can expect a Dr Vino app when the SDK is released? ; )”
…Funny you should mention this M! We’ve just released an early beta of Bottle Shots (TM) at http://danhertz.com/bottleshots/, which enables the easy distribution of wine, beer, and spirits information to journalists, bloggers, importers, distributors, retailers, restaurateurs and other enthusiasts.
We’re working on an iPhone version, with downloadable images optimized to the iPhone’s resolution.
Cheers,
—
Dan Hertz, Wine & Spirits Critic
Grape Expectations: Your Best Bets Since 1994
On May 14th, 2008 at 9:55 pm ,Foie gras, corks, critters, seasons, Brunello - sipped and spit | Dr Vino's wine blog wrote:
[…] Cork back for an encork When a member of the Culinary Institute of American saw my cork iPhone case in February, she exclaimed that they had just found the perfect product for recycling their corks. […]
On July 7th, 2008 at 6:18 am ,Angus wrote:
I find evernote.com a great place to store wine labels. You can tag wines, and even search across the text in the labels !
On December 1st, 2008 at 8:40 pm ,jodi wrote:
So when my husband and i and a couple of friends were traveling through italy, we starting taking pix of our wine labels with our iphones like you…so we’d remember which wines we liked to purchase when we got back home.
Then the lightbulb went off…we should develop a true iphone app that enables you to search for and record wines.
We have recently launched our app called Drync (www.drync.com). It enables users to search multiple databases and receive pricing, ratings, and reviews, and save wines to your cellar on the iphone for purchase online or later.
since you’re already using the iphone camera to save wines, we hope you’ll check us out!
On September 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pm ,Corkfinger and cork recycling | Dr Vino's wine blog wrote:
[…] By contrast, the green building firm in Missouri, Yemm & Hart has collected almost 8,000 pounds (about one million corks) of post consumer corks since 2004. They make them into cork tiles for flooring and are still accepting donations. Let’s hope one day they start making cork iPhone cases! […]