American Airlines adds phone / tablet easel to seatback

Normally, we do not see positive news about airlines. Too often it is stories about how they've wedged more people on to a plane, by squeezing the rows of seats closer together. Or how they've found yet another way to make you pay for your flight. Today, I have some good news.

We flew cross country and back last weekend. Outbound was United, and the once proud skies were again squished seats. I did have a chance to test out a new way I'd read on a blog to hold my phone so I could watch a video. Basically, it was to put the phone in a quart sized zip lock and then fold down the tray table, wrap one edge of the bag around the edge of the table, and fold it back up, locking the bag in place under the tray latch. It worked pretty well.

We flew American back with blessedly more generous legroom. I did not see this treasure until the woman next to my wife used it and my wife excitedly pointed it out, knowing I'd love it.

At first glance, I didn't even notice it.

But if you lift up, a little tray drops down

\You can attach a phone or tablet two different ways.

Held by the spring loaded top,

or set in the easel.

An added bonus is a readily accessible USB power outlet

located right near the easel

Usually, the USB ports are down below your line of sight. They are hard to see. On one flight, I had to reach my phone down and take a photo of it so I could figure out just where it was. USB ports seem hard enough to get a connector into when you can see it, harder still when you cannot.

Insult to injury, another recent flight didn't have USB but 110v outlets. My power block was in my bag, not the little accessory bag I keep in the seat with me. Thankfully part of my standard kit is a 20,000 mah portable charger, although now a small power block is in there too.

Comments

Notes Folder : My new note taking system

I'm in the process of moving to a new way to keep my notes. It would be best to make a separate post on my long time notetaking app, Evernote, and how it now disappoints me. Bottom line, I no longer trust the company behind Evernote since it was acquired. My first inclination was to finally look at alternatives. like Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, etc. I was not enamored with any of them, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with Evernote. The situation made me think about how I use Evernote. To keep up additional posts on this topic, search on the tag Notes Folder Updates : January 24, 2024 and in updates noted here. Most of the things I store are quick notes, lists, online receipts for online bills, that sort of thing; kind of an online file cabinet if you will. If I were a doctoral student though I could see storing PDFs of papers and research materials. If were working on a large project, then plans, communications etc. would all be there. Back when I began using Evernote way b...

Recording your own notes with Google Voice

Note : April 2016: Frankly I don't know if this works anymore. It is 7 years old. I stopped using this when Google Now became useful on my phone, and I could dictate reminders using it. I found a way a while ago to use Google Voice to record a personal note, transcribe it, and email it to me. A recent Lifehacker post "Five Things We'd Like to See in Google Voice" lists that need as their #5 request, so I realized what I'd figured out is not common knowledge. In GV's Contacts, create a Group "Special Transcription" To avoid listening to my standard voice mail when I call, I recorded a short voice mail greeting for this group simply saying "Record note now" I added a contact with my own cell phone number as the only number, and made it the sole member of this group. In GV's phone settings, I edited the settings for my cell phone. In the section "Direct access to voicemail when calling your Google number from th...

Your First Day with Evernote

I've written many times before about Evernote . I love this program. It is my brain's memory on steroids. I have over 6000 notes in it now. And I keep finding ever more uses for it. While originally written in 2009, this post has been frequently updated. New January 2012: If you like what I write about Evernote, check out my 136 page e-book, " Get Productive Fast with Evernote ". Just $10. Sunday October 11, 2009 I wrote about Evernote in my print column, Family Tech. If you are wondering what is Evernote, and why would I want to use it, start with the column . I promised in that column this post to help new users get efficient fast with Evernote. I thought I'd write a quick plan for someone's first day with Evernote. This is really meant for after you've installed the client to your computer, so this picks up after you've gone to Evernote's Get Started Page and created an account and downloaded and installed a clien...

Ideas from Mark Stout

Search This Blog