I love this app. Turn it on, put it in your shirt pocket, forget about it. It takes one photo every 30 seconds. On later iphones it can make a video on its own; on mine (an old 3G), it can just save the photos, and I can stitch them together using ffmpeg (specifically, ffmpeg -r 5 -f image2 -i IMG_%04d.JPG -r 20 new-vid.mpg; “-r 5” makes 5 frames/sec).

I did it the other day. The sorta cool thing is, you can see a video of my day. The really cool thing is, I can figure out everything I did that day, and how long it took! Here are estimates of my day, frame by frame:

0001-0010: computing

0011-0012: bathroom

0013-0155: computing

0156-0157: bathroom

0158-0304: computing

0305-0307: walking around apartment

0308-0310: bathroom

0311-0326: walking around apartment, maybe snacking, getting ready to leave

0327-0398: went for a walk, did some juggling, met another juggler

0399-0410: computing

0411-0420: bathroom

0421-0455: computing

0456-0457: walking around apartment

0458-0459: brushing teeth

0460-0522: nap

0523-0531: walking around apartment

0532-0542: computing

0543-0579: standing and computing

0580-0581: bathroom

0582-0614: biking

0615-0619: ordering coffee

0620-0852: computing at Stumptown

0853-0860: leaving Stumptown

0861-0868: biking to park

0869-0880: a little more juggling

0881-0888: biking home

0889-0921: cooking

0922-0961: eating, I think

0962-1012: standing and computing, I think

1013-1024: washing dishes, I think

1025-1197: standing and computing

1198-1223: biking to a bar

1224-1295: waiting outside because I misunderstood the arrival time they suggested

1296-1454: talking with friends or dancing, it gets hard to tell at this point

So in total:

computing: 11+143+147+12+35 = 348 = 174 min

standing and computing: 37+51+173 = 261 = 130.5 min

computing at Stumptown: 233 = 116.5 min

coffeeshop logistics: 5+8 = 13 = 6.5 min

bathroom: 2+2+3+10+2+2 = 21 = 10.5 min

biking: 33+8+8+26 = 75 = 37.5 min

walking and juggling and being outside: 72+12 = 84 = 42 min

walking around apartment/cooking/dishwashing: 3+16+2+9+33+12 = 75 = 37.5 min

nap: 63 = 31.5 min

eating dinner: 40 = 20 min

waiting outside bar: 72 = 36 min

in bar: 159 (until the camera cut off at 11:59) = 79.5 min

Total time I spent staring at a computer (it was a real get-things-done day): 421 min = 7 hours. Wow.

Total time I spent walking around and doing in-between things indoors: 44 min, not bad but not great

Biking and being outdoors: 115.5 min = almost 2 hours

… Not sure what to do with this data yet, but dang, that’s cool!

Comments:

Cathy Tasse - Jul 4, 2011

hey, that’s really cool!
pretty interesting to watch your day go by.
what does the camera look like?- a carnation?

Dan - Jul 4, 2011

Nah, it’s just the iphone camera, so it just looks like a phone in your pocket. It sticks out maybe half an inch, where the camera is. Nobody even noticed.