Posted By Ragart on Saturday, August 30, 2008 under General | 2 Comments
30
Aug
So my best friend was whining to me the other day about how low I was speaking on my iPhone. I chided him for his comment and thought to myself: excuse me, that’s because I’m a really great and polite person and I try not to speak too loud on my phone in public.
Later on, another friend called me up (I have more than one friend!) and she told me to speak up some more. I had to start shouting at home (so much for being polite…) just so she could hear me say “OK”. Obviously something had gone amiss in iPhone Land.
I started looking around online and found an Apple support ticket. Article #4 about Lint or dust covering the speakers and mic were of particular interest to me. I set off to investigate the issue with a toothpick, but it wouldn’t fit through the stupid micro holes. Then I took up the threader I use for flossing, then micro tweezers – but nothing could fit into the stupid holes enough to really get the gunk out. Then I got a set of hand needles for sewing and set those bad boys into the holes like a cellular acupuncture session.
It worked! I wouldn’t exactly recommend this to anyone, since pressing too hard might just damage something, but I thought I’d share my quick experience. I just stuck the needle into each of the holes (even the speakers – they’re loud as they were when I bought the iPhone six months ago). The needle felt like it was piercing layers of dust at some points…as if the stuff was caked underneath the black grill. I might still have to open the iPhone to clear it all out, but for now I’m fine having poked holes right through the dust cake.
Posted By Ragart on Sunday, August 24, 2008 under General | 8 Comments
24
Aug
Alright, not too much info to give on this one aside from the video. The application that’s shown doesn’t seem to be out yet, and it’s more of an art piece than a functional piece of software – but that doesn’t detract from its cool factor. I love the green glow in the background! The app is still incomplete (not even sure it’s going to be finished per se), but the vid is awesome!
Posted By Brandon on Saturday, August 23, 2008 under General | 4 Comments
23
Aug
Alright - long story short since I’m getting ready to head off to my daughter’s first soccer game of the season - I’ve got some cash (iTunes gift card) burning a whole in my pocket and I can’t think of anything at the moment I’m missing on my iPhone. So, I thought why not see what you folks are considering buying, but would like to have a review of before you decide to toss down your hard earned money. Just let me know in the comments what you think I should look at - maybe I just might!
Posted By Brandon on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 under General | 4 Comments
19
Aug
Alright - look what I’m about to say is going to come with a bit of controversy.. and before I go any further please understand that I really want to post a lot of fixes for the recent issues, but I think we will all get a lot more benefit from what follows than me giving you a list of little tips and tricks. The first thing I wanted to say is aimed at the blog-o-sphere as a whole and hopefully may save you from some trouble, so here goes:
My fellow bloggers — PLEASE stop telling people to restore their iPhone and then set it up as a new device. A couple months ago this would have been perfectly fine and the best way to resolve an issue because it was a simple matter of just re-syncing on their contacts, calendar and media (all of which were on their desktop system anyway) - but that time has come and gone.
We can’t keep telling people to do this - because now when people restore and setup as a new phone they actually LOSE personal data and possibly business data as well. For example in my case, I started getting an error where the crash reporter tool would crash every time I plugged my iPhone into iTunes. Unfortunately in my searches of the interwebs I ended up following some bad advice (I knew better) and lost all my Moleskinery notes, FuelGauge MPG data, regular notes, level 40 something on Enigmo and who knows what else.
So unless we’re going to provide people with a way to get all of their fricking data back … please STOP giving what amounts to nothing but sh!tty advice. We’re really screwing people on this stuff - and what’s worse is were actually keeping the problems from getting fixed.
If (people) have problems, I personally love that the blog-o-sphere is trying to help since google is usually my best friend - but some steps that are being offered solve the initial problem, then create even bigger problems for the people we’re trying to help. The only way this debacle is going to get fixed is when Apple has so many phones ringing off the hook that they can’t afford to keep hiring more support staff. Ultimately, we need a way to backup Non-Apple data for 3rd party apps and we need a way to restore that data separate from the OS restore process.
So, again my fellow folks in the blog of sphere - stop telling people to setup their devices as a new phone/iPod. Yes, it typically solves the issue, but since the advent of the Appstore it now creates more problems at the same time. If all the other steps (like re-installing iTunes) don’t end up working - advise them to call Apple. If Apple says to restore and setup as a new iPhone/iPod then its up to Apple to provide a way for that end user to restore their personal data.
And - since you possibly ended up here trying to find some actual assistance for your crashing issues — click on through to the link below. They’ve got some other good steps (just skip the step I was griping about). By the way … This rant was not directed at any one blog - we’ve made the same recommendation in the past - but no longer.
Posted By Brandon on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 under General | 4 Comments
5
Aug
Provocative title no?
Caution: Brandon Mini-Rant Coming.
First off, let’s start this one with the obvious… MobileFailMe. I’m not going to beat this one to death, because well frankly, I don’t use it. But, given the amount of issues they’ve had it hardly seemed timely to light off a good rant and not mention the fact that this was such a HUGE FAIL. I mean come on. Jobs had to come out and basically admit they made huge mistakes and that the service is not up to snuff. I personally have the money sitting right here and I want to get on the MobileMe bandwagon… but I won’t won’t bother buying into it (and I own a Mac) until it comes with a whole lot less …
Next up … iPhone 2.0/2.0.1 - the most recent definition of head up the you know what. Apple made a vital mistake - they told us long in advance what date 2.0 was coming out, and come hell or high water the product was going to launch. There’s no way Steve was going to
Last night, a very interesting app appeared in the AppStore. It’s name was NetShare, a utility from Nullriver that allowed you to tether your iPhone’s internet connection to your computer.
Many people, including myself, were quite surprised that this made it past the AppStore sensors. While AT&T offers tethering for many of it’s 3G devices, iPhone is not one of them. It didn’t seem like an app like this would go down well with them, and apparently, it didn’t. About 18 minutes after NetShare arrived on the AppStore, it was taken down. You could still see it when you searched for “netshare,” but if you selected it, you received a message notifying you that “The item you requested is no longer available.”
This brings up many questions. Was NetShare supposed to be there in the first place? Did it slip by Apple’s AppStore guards? Did AT&T make Apple take it down? Was the word “lawsuit” possibly involved? Nobody knows. The app was also taken down from Nullriver’s site. I have asked them to comment, but no response yet.
While it was available, NetShare cost $9.99. Using a SOCKS5 proxy, the app allowed you to use your iPhone’s EDGE or 3G connection on your Mac or PC. Several users were able to grab the app in the time frame in which it was available, and they report that it works wonderfully. Anyone that did manage to get their hands on it can see a tutorial here.
UPDATE: Nullriver has issued this response to those who contacted them about the app:
We’re not quite sure why Apple took down the application yet, we’ve received no communication from Apple thus far. NetShare did not violate any of the Developer or AppStore agreements. We’re hoping we’ll get some feedback from Apple tomorrow. Sorry to all the folks that couldn’t get it in time. We’ll do our best to try to get the application back onto the AppStore if at all possible. At the very least, I would hope Apple will allow it in countries where the provider does permit tethering.
UPDATE #2: It looks like NetShare is now available again in the AppStore. Grab it while you can, because who knows when it may disappear again. Also, use at it your own risk for now; we still have no word on whether or not this violates your carrier’s terms of service.
UPDATE #3: Aaaaaand, it’s gone, again! Very early this morning, NetShare was yanked again. Nobody, including Nullriver, has heard anything from Apple or AT&T. Until we do, be sure to now download any large files or use the internet too much on a tethered computer, as it’s smart to try and stay below AT&T’s radar.
Like most of you I’m checking out reviews for nearly everything iPhone App related and this one was just too funny to not pass along. Needless to say I’m just gonna skip this one altogether.
“I’m not sure how this app got up to number three in the rankings. I suppose it is amusing for a bit—attempting to draw something that looks decent or cool—but it loses its charm very quickly. Perhaps a toddler would be more amused by it; (un)fortunately I don’t have access to one at the moment.”
Posted By Lincoln on Monday, July 28, 2008 under General | 5 Comments
28
Jul
A while ago, we wrote about a way to shorten the time that your iPhone running the 2.0 software takes to sync. In this method, you cancelled the part of the sync in which your iPhone was backed up. While this most certainly does improve sync times, you won’t be happy with yourself when you’re forced to restore your iPhone and you don’t have that backup.
However, iPhoneFreak has discovered another way to improve your times. By default, diagnostic data from your iPhone is sent to Apple every time you sync. (This data does not contain any personal information, only crash logs and the like.) Apparently, this takes a good bit of time as well. Follow the steps after the break to disable this.
Posted By Lincoln on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 under General | 2 Comments
23
Jul
One of the nifty features of the 2.0 software is taking screenshots by pressing the Home and Lock buttons at the same time. There are lots of ways to make use of the feature: screenshots for an app review, capturing your home screen to show to your friends, or grabbing a page in Safari to look at later.
However, there’s one quite useful feature of it discovered by James1292 on the Apple Discussions board. It’s a way to crop photos on your iPhone, a feature that has been frequently asked for. It’s simple to do; just zoom in on the portion of the image you want to crop, and take a screenshot. There will then be a new image of the area you selected. Of course, this won’t result in the highest quality image, (quality will decrease as you zoom further) but it’s a start.
When you Google “iPhone apps”, this website comes up as the top hit. When you view, the page, you see an offer that reminds you of MacHeist; a bundle of the “top 10 iPhone apps”, that all go for a price of $24.95, which the website calls “a steal”
However, there are quite a few interesting things about it, if you look deeper. First of all, you are required to jailbreak your iPhone to use these application, and the website does not state this on the home page or state that you cannot install the apps with the consent of Apple. Also, in order to jailbreak the iPhone, the website sells ZiPhone, a freeware jailbreaking app. Also, there are two interesting apps in the bundle; a screenshot app and a VNC app. Taking screenshots is supported in the 2.0 firmware, and there is a free VNC app in the AppStore. Hmmm.
The website also contains a lot of improper grammar, and the link to the “Live Chat” does not work. There have been customers of the website that have lost their money and not received the bundle. I advise you not to buy these applications and to avoid the website.
After working with hundreds of other mobile devices, developing for the iPhone is a breath of fresh air. The hardware is stable and full-featured, while the software development tools are intuitive and represent a level of polish rarely seen in the mobile arena. — Jonathan Backer, The Walt Disney Company
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Last night, a very interesting app appeared in the AppStore. It’s name was NetShare, a utility from Nullriver that allowed you to tether your iPhone’s internet connection to your computer.
I am...
