There’s a very cool story over on the MediaShift pages of the PBS website about how a radio reporter has replaced almost all of his bulky radio equipment and with an iPhone 4.

Neal Augenstein started working for WTOP in Washington 14 years ago, when just his mobile phone weighed as much as a bowling bag, he says. Since then, the size of equipment has shrunk, and now he does almost all of his reporting with nothing more than his iPhone and a few other pieces of kit — some of them homemade.

Augenstein says, “with the Apple iPhone 4 and several apps, I can produce intricate audio and video reports, broadcast live, take and edit photos, write web content and distribute it through social media from a single device.”

He uses the VC Audio Pro app to edit his audio and the same company’s 1stVideo app to edit video captured on his iPhone. He often even uses the iPhone’s built-in microphone after the Blue Mikey model he used with his old iPhone 3GS wasn’t compatible with the new phone. Photos come courtesy of the built-in camera, which he edits by simply zooming and cropping in his Camera Roll then taking a screenshot to upload.

He also carries an iPad to take notes in press conferences while his iPhone is on a press conference podium — supported by a regular mike stand with a bit of foam padding.

You can see Neal in action here doing an interview with his iPhone, and you can listen to some of his audio via the station’s “As Heard on WTOP” pages here. It’s impressive how he’s reduced his equipment down to such basics, and it’s also impressive that the iPhone 4 can produce broadcast-quality media. Good work, chap!

Radio reporter uses iPhone 4 for all of his work originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments