iphone


1
Sep 10

Apple TV: Should you ditch your cable / satellite?

So…the question is should i cancel my TV service? What’s the tradeoff?

Downsides (some temporary):

1. No more CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Live sports or anything live for that matter. Maybe losing cable news is a good thing anyways.

2. The only networks participating at launch are Fox & ABC (surely the others will follow though). No HBO, Showtime, NBC etc – YET.

3. Presumably you will have to wait a day or 2 after the episode airs before you can watch it. Spoiler alert!

4. Lifestyle networks that my wife loves (i.e HGTV, Food Network etc – are they ever going to get on board with this stuff?)

5. Is the remote bluetooth? If not you won’t be able to hide it. If it is, it won’t work with your universal remote. (update – it’s an IR remote)

6. Download caps with your ISP. Be aware of them and keep in mind a feature length movie in 720p HD will probably be 3-4GB.

At $0.99/episode that’s about $4/mo per show. For the price of my existing cable bill i could watch about 20 shows a month, every episode.

So it seems like for people who have larger cable bills (like me), and watch less than 20 shows this becomes pretty attractive. Really attractive.


9
Apr 10

Should you install the iPhone 4.0 Beta firmware?

Update: After playing around with all my apps a bit more, i can now say the issue with the buggy apps is much much worse than i originally thought. I would now strongly advise against installing this update. If you have updated to 4.0 and want to downgrade, here’s how.

After yesterday’s announcement i logged into my Apple developer account and installed the iphone 4.0 beta firmware. It’s been almost 24 hours, and i can say it’s definitely a mixed bag so far. While there are some awesome features like unified inbox & folders, there are some things you should know if you want to be an early adopter:

Cautions
- Photos app is buggy. I.E opening “Places” crashes the app for me consistently.
- Visual Voicemail doesn’t work anymore (i’m with Rogers in Canada, your mileage may vary)
- I’m seeing new bugs (probably due to the presence of the new APIs) in my existing/previously perfect apps. I.E Tweetie 2 crashes whenever i try to do a Twitter search. It’s pretty rare though. Most if not all apps work perfectly fine after installing.
- If you are going to setup Folders know that if you change anything regarding the apps selected to sync to your iphone within iTunes it will remove all your folders since iTunes knows nothing about Folders.
- Apps seem to stay open until you close them using the new multitasking footer. Double tapping the home button exposes the open apps and tapping/holding allows you to close an app. Discovered this when i started to run into memory issues.
- 4.0 updates the baseband, so you can’t revert back to 3.x (this is 4 life people)

I’ve probably missed a few, but these were the major ones. If you can live with all of this, i’d say go for it and install. If not, wait till the summer.


11
Mar 10

How to make 30 mins of cardio feel like 5

This shit is crack cocaine

This shit is crack cocaine

So i think the developer of Plants Vs Zombies got access to some super secret API for warping the space time continuum. I use it at the gym to make 30 mins of cardio feel like nothing – it’s awesome! (i wouldn’t recommend playing it while on a treadmill though).

$2.99 on the app store & totally worth every cent. Go git it!


15
Feb 10

I haz an iPhone app on iTunes


It’s my first, and it’s certainly not perfect but as they say “release early / release often”. Since i come from a web development background the Objective C language has a ridiculous learning curve, so a few months ago i learned about http://www.appcelerator.com and am having a blast with this framework. Special thanks to Nolan Wright & Kevin Whinnery from Appcelerator when i got stuck! Lots of cool features, fixes & improvements planned for the next release – stay tuned! [ Download ]


28
Jan 10

Who gives a fuck if it doesn’t have flash?

Need video? HTML5. Want to make a game for the iphone OS? Learn objective C. I’m not defending Apple (i’m not buying the iPad), but Flash is really on the way out. People who are annoyed at the lack of Flash need to think about what exactly they must have flash for that can’t be done on the iphone OS. Flash intro’s? Band & restaurant websites? Puhhhlease.

Loved this quote i read on Analog Industries:

“No Flash? Who gives a flying fuck? Flash is an improvement over Java only inasmuch as you don’t have to learn a computer language in order to have a gaping wound of a security hole on your system or kill your CPU. HTML5 gives that tragedy the death it so richly deserves anyhow. All the big video sites have HTML5 proof-of-concept players up now; by this time next year, Flash will be a bad memory.”


27
Jan 10

Why i’m not buying the Apple iPad…yet

Update 04.19.10: I totally bought one last night.

The $499 price point is solid. It’s pretty & definitely well designed. But i’m not buying version 1.0 of the iPad (at least). Here’s why:

1. Nobody seems to be talking about this but i’m worried about how resilient the screen is. If i drop an iphone, it weighs a few hundred grams. The iPad weighs 1.5lbs. What does it take to shatter the screen?

2. No front facing camera.

3. No multi-tasking.

4. What’s the use case? When would i use the iPad vs my iPhone/Macbook Pro?

5. Don’t buy 1st gen.


13
Jan 10

Why the iPhone continues to win the smartphone war

Palm released the Pre. Google released the Nexus One. And then there’s Blackberry (lol)…

All of these smartphones claim to be iPhone killers. Bigger screens, expandable storage, camera flash, ability to run multiple apps at once etc…

The bottom line right now is the appstore, and the developers (“…developers, developers…”):

Graphic courtesy Gigaom.


3
Nov 09

How to Jailbreak and Unlock Your iPhone 3G, 3GS Using BlackSn0w [ mac instructions ]

These instructions are from iClarified who seems to be getting slammed at the moment (this was just released an hour ago as i write this. These 8 steps took about 30 seconds->1 minute to complete (!!!), and i can confirm everything works great. I was able to replace my Rogers SIM with a RoamForce World Sim and make calls immediately. Having said that, proceed at your own risk:

These are instructions on how to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone 3G and 3GS using BlackRa1n and BlackSn0w for Mac.

These instructions will work with the latest 3.1.2 firmware, the 05.11.07 baseband, and iPhones which require hactivation.

For those with a new iPhone 3GS (updated Bootrom), BlackRa1n only supports a tethered jailbreak. This means that once jailbroken you should not let your battery die. If it does die you will need to reconnect it to the computer and use BlackRa1n to boot it.

Before continuing make sure you are on the 05.11.07 baseband by following this tutorial. If you are not please update your firmware to 3.1.2 using iTunes before continuing.

Step One
Open your web browser of choice and navigate to http://www.blackra1n.com. Click the Apple logo at the bottom of the screen (or Windows if you are on a pc).

Step Two
When prompted save the download to your desktop:
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Step Three
Then double click the downloaded blackra1n zip file to extract the application, then double click the application icon to launch the program.
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Step Four
Make sure your iPhone or iPod is connected to the computer then click the large make it ra1n button:
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Step Five
Once your device reboots it will be jailbroken and you will notice a blackra1n icon on the Springboard. Make sure you have an internet connection and press to launch the application.
You iPhone will now be placed in recovery mode.
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You will see a picture of GeoHot that replaces the regular recovery mode screen on your device

You will see a picture of GeoHot that replaces the regular recovery mode screen on your device


blackra1n will run and then your device will reboot.

blackra1n will run and then your device will reboot.


A popup message will appear informing you that BlackRa1n is free software and if you appreciate it you can donate to GeoHot at geohot@gmail.com.

A popup message will appear informing you that BlackRa1n is free software and if you appreciate it you can donate to GeoHot at geohot@gmail.com.

Step Six
Once your device reboots it will be jailbroken and you will notice a blackra1n icon on the Springboard. Make sure you have an internet connection and press to launch the application.

Step Six Once your device reboots it will be jailbroken and you will notice a blackra1n icon on the Springboard. Make sure you have an internet connection and press to launch the application.

Step Six Once your device reboots it will be jailbroken and you will notice a blackra1n icon on the Springboard. Make sure you have an internet connection and press to launch the application.


Choose the installer application of your choice then press to select sn0w if you would like to unlock your device. Press the Install button at the top right of the screen to begin.

Choose the installer application of your choice then press to select sn0w if you would like to unlock your device. Press the Install button at the top right of the screen to begin.


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If you chose to unlock device using blacksn0w you will be presented with a Post Install log for sn0w. CommCenter will be restarted and there is no need to reboot. If your carrier doesn’t support 3G then disable it. Press the Close button to continue.
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Step Seven
Once complete BlackRa1n will respring your iPhone and you will find the installer package of your choice on the Springboard.
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Step Eight
Once you have confirmed your installer package is working correctly you may use the Uninstall blackra1n button inside the BlackRa1n app to remove it from your springboard.

***THANKS: A big thanks to Geohot for making this jailbreak and unlock possible. Also thanks to those who contributed to making it a success. You can donate to Geohot using the button below. Please note these donations go to Geohot and not to iClarified.


27
Oct 09

How to replace twitpic with your wordpress blog

Requirements:

  • WordPress self hosted blog (free)
  • An iPhone (definitely not free)
  • Tweetie 2 installed on your iphone ($2.99)
  • Twitter2press WordPress plugin (free)

The first thing i recommend is get your copy of WordPress upgraded to the latest version. If you’re running an old version like i was, follow these instructions carefully and be sure to make a backup of your data first. I had some issues with the Twitter2press plugin before i upgraded.

Account Settings -> Image Service -> Custom...

Account Settings -> Image Service -> Custom...

1. On the Tweetie accounts page, click on “settings”, then “Image Service” and “Custom…”. Just put in the URL to the root of your blog (i.e “http://www.davidschultz.org”). That’s all the setup you need to do on the iPhone.

2. Download and install Twitter2press into your WordPress blog. After you activate the plugin, you’ll need to configure it a bit. It will ask you for the username/pw of the Twitter account that is going to be posting images and you’ll also need to specify a page on your blog that will act as the “image gallery”. I just created a page called “Gallery”. Also, make sure the wp-content/uploads folder is writable.

That’s all there is to it, now instead of giving free traffic to Twitpic, you can direct people to your blog to view your Tweeted images and enjoy a traffic boost on your own site.


9
Jul 09

20 must have iPhone Apps

My HomescreenWell it’s been about a year since i got my iPhone, and i’ve installed probably at least a hundred apps (most of which i quickly uninstalled). Here are my 20 favorite apps today, not including any games.

1. Evernote (free) – cloud based text/photo/audio service [iTunes]
2. Truphone (free) – voip [iTunes]
3. Flixster (free) – movie showtimes / info [iTunes]
4. Weathereye (free) – better than the stock weather app in my opinion [iTunes]
5. Remote (free) – great when hosting parties [iTunes]
6. BeejiveIM ($9.99) – best IM client i’ve seen, supports push [iTunes]
7. Tweetie ($2.99) – best twitter client i’ve tried (and i’ve tried alot) [iTunes]
8. Facebook (Free) – actually makes facebook enjoyable, although app is due for a major update [iTunes]
9. AroundMe (Free) – as the name implies very simple but effective tool to find ATM’s, gas etc [iTunes]
10. Prowl ($2.99) – push notifications for Growl. Read my post on it here. [iTunes]
11. MLB 2009($9.99) – Not cheap, but streaming video of games (even over 3G) is awesome. [iTunes]
12. Auto-Stitch ($1.99) – take a bunch of photos, tap em and this app creates a pano automatically. [iTunes]
13. Shazam (Free) – what’s this song called? [iTunes]
14. Shopper ($0.99) – Great if you’re not the pen & paper grocery list type [iTunes]
15. Tip ($0.99) – tip calculator [iTunes]
16. Groups ($2.99) – great for MobileMe users to organize their contacts [iTunes]
17. Trails ($3.99) – log your bike ride, hike, etc and upload to everytrail.com[iTunes]
18. Guitar Toolkit ($9.99) – Tuner, metronome, chord fingerings, etc… [iTunes]
19. Flickit (Free) – take photos, open flickit – tap your photos to upload to flickr [iTunes]
20. SportsTap (Free) – push notifications for sports teams you follow [iTunes]