Apple Under Fire

By Sebastien Page on Aug 31, 2009

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, by now you may have figured out that I’m not a big fan of Apple. I love m iPhone and I honestly couldn’t live without it anymore but I strongly dislike Apple. Ok, I hate Apple!

I hate the way they do business. I hate the way they treat their suppliers. I hate the way they treat their employees. I hate Steve Jobs for being such an egomaniac. I hate the way fan boys would die for a sneak peek at a beta version of a new Mac OS. I hate how Apple is controlling what apps I can install on my iPhone. Worst of all, I hate Apple for being such a close ecosystem and forcing its users to stick to Apple, and Apple only.

It seems that I’m not the only one getting tired of Apple. Last week, Jon Fortt of Brainstorm Tech wrote an interesting article comparing Apple to Microsoft’s earlier behavior. Jon Fortt actually goes as far as apologizing to Microsoft:

I’m sorry, Microsoft. On behalf of Silicon Valley, I’m sorry.

We cursed you, mocked you, labeled you the Evil Empire. Your crime: trying to control the technology world. Sure, we had reason to be upset. During the dawning of the PC era, the Windows operating system made you the most powerful company in tech, and it went to your head.

Your detractors say you intimidated PC makers, crushed Netscape, and tried to turn the web into an extension of the Windows platform. As it turns out, local darling Apple (AAPL) probably would have done the same thing.

Just look at how Apple is behaving today with a fraction of the power you had.

Better and more insightful is Jason Calacanis’ message to Apple Fanboys and girls. While the video might sound a little too much and insulting at some points, I think the general idea is true. It’s interesting to note that Jason Calacanis was a long time Apple lover and recently decided to go back to PC.

Watch the full video and think about it for a minute.

What do you think?

 

Weekly Wrapup: Gpush, PrivaCy, MMS, Tethering, and More…

By Sebastien Page on Aug 30, 2009

Sunday is my lazy day where I tend to be not creative at all, hence the wrapup most. If you missed anything on the blog this, here is a quick summary of everything we talked about.

Gpush brings Gmail push notifications to Gmail

All in all, Gpush is a good and cheap application that does exactly what it’s supposed to. However, it can become very annoying if like me, you receive a couple hundred emails a day.

Stop apps from spying on you

Thanks to the collaboration of Saurik, BigBoss, and the major companies tracking your apps stats, it is now possible to opt out of being spied on via an application appropriately named PricaCy.

I predict MMS will be coming to the iPhone in the next few days

I predict that a soon to be announced 3.1 firmware will come with some type of carrier update that will allow AT&T users to finally be able to send and receive MMS through their iPhones.

On iPhone 3GS tethering

It was the first time I actually tethered my iPhone 3GS and I have to admit that I am incredibly impressed with the speed.

iPhone goes into safe mode

I had heard about the iPhone safe mode before but I had never experienced it until a few days ago.

Fix for the “couldn’t activate cellular data network” error

This error often appears after jailbreaking and/or unlocking and it is mostly characterized by the fact that your iPhone can’t connect to the internet using the cellular data network, and you can’t send text messages anymore. Here is a quick fix.

 

Could Not Activate Cellular Data Network: You Are Not Subscribed to a Cellular Data Service

By Sebastien Page on Aug 29, 2009

If you recently updated your iPhone firmware, or jailbroke/unlocked your iPhone to use it with a different carrier, you may have encountered the following error: Could Not Activate Cellular Data Network: You Are Not Subscribed to a Cellular Data Service

This error often appears after jailbreaking and/or unlocking and it is mostly characterized by the fact that your iPhone can’t connect to the internet using the cellular data network, and you can’t send text messages anymore.

The first thing to do in that case is to reset the network settings and reboot your iPhone. If it still doesn’t work, then there is a more radical fix that will put everything back on track.

First, get on wifi and visit this website http://www.unlockit.co.nz/#_Custom from your iPhone. You should see this page, which will allow you to create a custom APN.

Under “Carrier”, tap the drop down menu and choose your carrier. Note that there are many carriers listed there and that it might take you a bit of scrolling down to get you where you want. So choose the right carrier and tap “Done”. This should populate the custom APN info.

Once the custom APN fields are populated, tap “Create Profile” and wait a bit. It will exit Safari, and take you to the settings application. Finally, just tap “Install” and this will set up your custom APN on your iPhone. Reboot your iPhone and you should now have Edge and 3G connectivity.

 

iPhone Safe Mode – Have You Seen This Before?

By Sebastien Page on Aug 28, 2009

Yesterday night, I was quietly watching some bad reality TV when a push notification showed up on my iPhone. I grabbed the phone, looked at the notification and I slid to unlock the phone in order to launch the mail.app.

To my surprise, the following screen appeared.

What’s strange is that I wasn’t doing anything with the phone. That day, I did nothing but installing a new app (TomTom), and I am 100% positive I didn’t mess with any of the settings.

I had heard about the iPhone safe mode before but I had never experienced it until today. I know the iPhone can only get into safe mode on jailbroken iPhones and that it has something to do with the fast respring. That’s about all I know about this issue.

I simply tapped “OK” and turned off the phone. For a minute, I was scared that the problem would persist after rebooting the iPhone but it didn’t.

Has your iPhone been into safe mode before? If so, why do you think that happened?

 

iPhone 3GS Tethering Makes My Wifi Jealous

By Sebastien Page on Aug 27, 2009

I’ve been in the Midwest for the last 3 weeks, traveling around Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan with very few opportunities to get on wifi. Worse, most of the places I went to didn’t even have 3G coverage, forcing me to rely on the slow Edge, when available. I am currently in Chicago (for one last day before finally going back home to San Diego) where there is some very fast 3G coverage.

The first thing I did when arriving in Chicago was to enable tethering with this simple hack. It took about a minute to get it to work and to get my laptop going. It was the first time I actually tethered my iPhone 3GS and I have to admit that I am incredibly impressed with the speed.

I didn’t make any scientific test to see how fast it really is, but it seems to me that my wifi at home is not faster than that. Every once in a while there is a little downtime but nothing really annoying.

If you want to use your iPhone to get internet on your laptop (also known as tethering), I suggest you have a look at this hack.

 

Prediction: MMS Coming to the iPhone Within Two Weeks

By Sebastien Page on Aug 26, 2009

I am no psychic but if you read this blog on a daily basis, you should know that I am usually right when it comes to making predictions on future events or features coming to the iPhone.

My latest prediction is that within 2 weeks, Apple will release firmware 3.1. This is actually pretty obvious as they are about to unveil a new line of iPod Touch at an Apple even on September 7.

I also predict that this new 3.1 firmware will come with some type of carrier update that will allow AT&T users to finally be able to send and receive MMS through their iPhones.

As usual, as a measure of precaution, I want to say that I might be completely wrong and that Apple won’t unveil a new iPod Touch, and that there won’t be any 3.1 firmware or MMS for a while, but someone something tells me otherwise ;)

 

PrivaCy Prevents These iPhone Apps From Spying on You

By Sebastien Page on Aug 25, 2009

Last week I wrote an article about how certain applications are spying on you and tracking some of your personal data. Although the practice is legal, it is nonetheless very controversial.

Thanks to the collaboration of Saurik, BigBoss, and the major companies tracking your apps stats, it is now possible to opt out of being spied on via an application appropriately named PricaCy.

Pinch Media realized this fact, and took the lead in contacting me regarding getting this feature out there to all the users of jailbroken devices: they care.

With BigBoss, we then contacted all of the other providers, getting not only their blessing, but also their technical expertise in disabling their systems.

The result is PrivaCy: a new Settings panel that allows you to selectively opt-out of sending anonymous usage statistics to each of these providers.

This extension was a team effort, and was able to be executed as quickly as it was thanks to the help and interest of the companies involved.

I am positively surprised to see how the major tracking providers were proactive and willing to address the matter by collaborating with Saurik and BigBoss.

If you’re slightly concerned about your privacy, I suggest you download PrivaCy, which is available for free from Cydia. Hopefully, Apple will release a similar feature to allow the opt out from data tracking for non-jailbroken iPhones also.

 

Gpush Brings Gmail Push Notification to the iPhone

By Sebastien Page on Aug 24, 2009

Gpush is a new application available in the App Store that brings Gmail push notification to your iPhone. I have been using Gpush for a few days now and it works as advertised.

I initially installed this app because I was waiting for an important email and I didn’t want to refresh my inbox every 5 minutes. So I paid the $0.99 and downloaded Gpush.

The set up is very easy and straightforward. You just have to enter your Gmail username and password and click “save”. Then you can go to the settings and choose how you want to be notified. You can be notified with a sound (same as the new voicemail sound), an alert (the pop up showed in the image above), and a badge.

Right after installing Gpush, I tried it out by sending an email to myself from my Hotmail account. The push notification came almost instantly, both on my iPhone and my PC. I was really impressed! But notifications don’t always come that quickly. I sometimes receive notifications a couple minutes after receiving the email on my PC.

One downside to this app is that you only get notifications of new emails. You don’t actually get the email in your inbox. So after receiving a notification, you still have to launch the mail.app and retrieve the email.

Another downside, somewhat bigger, is that these push notifications seem to drain my battery very quickly. I’m not sure about that because I’ve been way deep in Michigan for a few days with no wifi, only running on Edge, which is notoriously bad for battery. I don’t know if it’s my constant twittering or my girlfriend playing too much Bejeweled, but it does seem my battery life hasn’t been really good since I installed Gpush.

All in all, Gpush is a good and cheap application that does exactly what it’s supposed to. However, it can become very annoying if like me, you receive a couple hundred emails a day.

You can download Gpush [iTunes Link] from the App Store for $0.99. I look forward to reading your thoughts about this application.

 

Weekly iPhone Wrapup: TomTom, Torrents, Yahoo Calendar, Videos, and More…

By Sebastien Page on Aug 23, 2009

Here is a summary of the articles that were posted on the blog this week.

TomTom for iPhone Now Available in the App Store

After making its debuts in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe, the TomTom iPhone app is finally available for download in the App Store.

Your iPhone is spying on you

Some applications available in the App Store are spying on you, tracking your personal data and reporting this information “home”.

Download torrents on your iPhone with Torentula

Ever wanted to download torrents on your iPhone? It is now possible thanks to an application called Torrentula.

How to sync Yahoo calendar with your iPhone

Until now there was no way to sync Yahoo calendar with your iPhone calendar but Yahoo wrote a blog post about how to do that over the air.

Edit videos on your iPhone 2G or 3G

Here is a hack that allows you to view the videos you record with Cycorder or VideoRecorder directly in your Camera Roll. Additionally, you can trim the videos, exactly like on an iPhone 3GS.

iPhone Nano into the wild

We took this mini iPhone for a ride at the local Apple Store in San Diego.

 

iPhone Nano Into the Wild

By Sebastien Page on Aug 22, 2009

That’s what my cousin brought back from his last trip in Hong Kong. They proudly call it “i-phone Nano” (not iPhone Nano). The interface is very similar to the iPhone but obviously with much less functionality.

We took this mini iPhone for a ride at the local Apple Store in San Diego. A few people (including a couple Apple employees) really thought it was some type of prototype. It was fun messing with them for a minute…

 

Edit Videos on Your iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G

By Sebastien Page on Aug 21, 2009

iPhone Download Blog reader kper sent me a very good hack for iPhone 2G or 3G owners who would like to have the same video editing capabilities as the iPhone 3GS. Basically, this allows you to view the videos you record with Cycorder or VideoRecorder directly in your Camera Roll. Additionally, you can trim the videos, exactly like on an iPhone 3GS. Read More

 

How to Sync Yahoo Calendar With Your iPhone Calendar

By Sebastien Page on Aug 19, 2009

A couple months ago, I wrote an article on how to sync Google calendar with your iPhone calendar. Until now there was no way to sync Yahoo calendar with your iPhone calendar but Yahoo wrote a blog post about how to do that over the air.

It’s very simple but it does require you to run the latest 3.0 firmware. It is also important to note that “once you start syncing your Calendar with your iPhone you will be upgraded to Yahoo! Calendar Beta automatically. You will not be able to go back to the old calendar product once this is complete”.

How to sync Yahoo calendar with the iPhone:

1. Go to Settings > Mails, Contacts, Calendars >Add Account > Other

2. Tap “Add CalDAV Account”

3 . For the Server settings, simply type “yahoo”

4. Type in your Yahoo! username and password you use to signin to your calendar.

5. Click “Next” and it should verify your information.

6. You’re done :)

Next time you open the calendar app on your iPhone, you will be able to choose to view your Yahoo calendar. Every time you will load the yahoo calendar, it will sync over the air.

 

Download Torrents on Your iPhone with Torrentula

By Sebastien Page on Aug 19, 2009

Ever wanted to download torrents on your iPhone? It is now possible thanks to an application called Torrentula.

Torrentula is available for download from Cydia, which means you will have to jailbreak your iPhone to use it… The app also requires the latest version of Jiggy Runtime to be installed on your iPhone. Check this out for more information about Jiggy Runtime. After doing that, add the following source in Cydia: http://itouch.rockt.es/repo.xml

Sunburst, the developer of Torrentula explains what to do next:

Download .torrent files to your device with the HistoryDL.app (recommended) or the Safari Download Plugin into the mobile (or root)/Downloads folder. The program will scan your mobile (or root)/Downloads folder for new torrent files, and will import any valid torrent files regardless of their filename or extension. When a torrent has finished downloading from peers it will be automatically moved to mobile (or root)/Media/Downloads when selected. Note: Torrents continue downloading even when program is closed. A device restart can often activate/fix stubborn torrents.

Torrentula will then let you browse torrents site such as MiniNova and will let you download BitTorrents straight to your iPhone.

I haven’t tried this app myself but iPhone Download Blog reader Jenster sent me this tip saying it’s working great. Try it out and let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

 

Your iPhone is Spying on You

By Sebastien Page on Aug 18, 2009

I just read an interesting article by the Dev Team showing that some applications available in the App Store are spying on you, tracking your personal data and reporting this information “home”.

The apps in question are applications using Pinch Media, a mobile analytics company that aims at helping developers figure out how their users interact with their apps (ie. how long they spend on the app every day, is it accessed over 3G or wifi, etc…). Apparently, apps that use Pinch Media are doing much more than reporting your interactions with the app and go as far as tracking the following information:

  • iPhone’s unique ID
  • iPhone Model
  • OS Version
  • Application version (in this case, camera zoom 1.x)
  • If the application is cracked/pirated
  • If your iPhone is jailbroken
  • Time & date you start the application
  • Time & date you close the application
  • Your current latitude & longitude
  • Your gender (if Facebook enabled)
  • Your birth month (if Facebook enabled)
  • Your birth year (if Facebook enabled)

Pinch Media says the company is no spyware as it requires YOUR approval to track the data, but as the Dev Team explains:

Being an approved app, it must first ask you for permission to use your location. If you tap “Don’t Allow”, it will ask you again in about a minute, the next time its ad changes. So you either stop using this app (because it pesters you so much about the location question), or you finally submit and tap “OK”. From that point on, your location and path info (your actual physical path through your area each time you launch the app) belongs to Pinch Media, Inc. We think that’s a Pinch too much.

I don’t know how concerned you are about your privacy and I assume most people wouldn’t care about that. Although the data being recorded is anonymous, I am not necessarily excited about a company that doesn’t disclose what type of data is collected, and more importantly, how this data is used.

What do you think?

 

TomTom for iPhone Now Available in the App Store

By Sebastien Page on Aug 17, 2009

After making its debuts in New Zealand, Australia, and Europe, the TomTom iPhone app is finally available for download in the App Store.

TomTom for iPhone doesn’t come for cheap though… Priced at $99, this fully featured turn-by-turn GPS system is more expensive than some dedicated GPS units. At least TomTom doesn’t require you to get a $10/month subscription fee like AT&T NAvigator.

There is still no word about the TomTom Car Adapter Kit but I suppose it will be available soon.

I haven’t tried the TomTom app myself yet and I’m still wondering if it’s really worth it compared to the $35 competitor CoPilot Live. I guess I will wait for a while and read more reviews to figure out what seems to be the best GPS out there.

Download Links:

If you’ve already tried the TomTom for iPhone application, please leave a comment below and tell us what you think.

 

Weekly iPhone Wrapup: Online App Store, AttachmentSaver, RedSn0w Tips and More…

By Sebastien Page on Aug 16, 2009

I am still out of town but I managed to keep posting once a day. The biggest news of the week is the online App Store but there was also a few more exciting things we talked about.

The Online App Store: a Better Way to Browse iPhone Apps

I am really excited and proud to announce a new feature of the blog: the online App Store. The online App Store is pretty much like the App Store you can find on iTunes, except it’s better, faster, and stronger.

Save Email Attachements on Your iPhone with AttachmentSaver

AttachmentSaver gives you the ability to download attachments of all types, whether supported by the Mail.app or not, and save them into a folder on your iPhone disk.

RedSn0w Tips

I’ve experienced some little “problems” with RedSn0w and have found solutions I want to share with you.

Rapidly Scroll Through Documents with QuickScroll

QuickScroll is a new application available in Cydia that lets you scroll through documents and web pages very quickly.

How to Fix Cydia Crashes

A lot of people who recently jailbroke their iPhones are having issues with Cydia crashing when launching it. There is a quick and dirty fix for that and it requires to either SSH into your iPhone or use iPhoneBrowser and delete a few files.

A Matte Tweak for Your iPhone UI

There is a great-looking UI tweak available in Cydia called Matte UI Graphite.

 

Give A Matte Twist to Your iPhone UI

By Sebastien Page on Aug 15, 2009

WinterBoard is one of my favorite jailbreak apps because it allows me to customize my iPhone and make it “stand out” from the crowd. One of the latest tweaks I found to push the customization a little further is to have a full custom UI.

There is a great-looking UI tweak available in Cydia called Matte UI Graphite.

Here are a few screenshots of what the new UI looks like. Changes are very subtle, yet very elegant…

 

How to Fix Cydia Crashes

By Sebastien Page on Aug 14, 2009

A lot of people who recently jailbroke their iPhones are having issues with Cydia crashing when launching it. There is a quick and dirty fix for that and it requires to either SSH into your iPhone or use iPhoneBrowser and delete a few files.

Apparently the problem is caused by some corrupted repositories that make Cydia crash within the first few seconds of loading it.

To fix this, simply navigate to /var/lib/apt/lists and delete all the files in this folder except for the folder called “partial”.

Then reboot your iPhone and launch Cydia. It should load without crashing.

 

QuickScroll Helps You Scroll Very Quickly

By Sebastien Page on Aug 13, 2009

QuickScroll is a new application available in Cydia that lets you scroll through documents and web pages very quickly.

Have you ever opened a long web page or PDF document on your iPhone looking for some information you know is way down the page?

Without QuickScroll, you have to keep scrolling down forever. Fortunately, with QuickScroll, it’s just going to take you 3 taps and a couple seconds.

Once you have installed QuickScroll, simply tap 3 times anywhere on the page and a dialog will show up. Drag the green box up and down to quickly go wherever you want on the page.

If you’re browsing a PDF document, tap 3 times and a dialog will appear. If you know what page you want to go to, enter it and it will take you there immediately.

I think QuickScroll is another must-have application utility that should be available on the iPhone by default.

Give it a try. You will love it.

 

AttachmentSaver Saves Your Email Attachments to Your iPhone

By Sebastien Page on Aug 11, 2009

AttachmentSaver is a new application that adds an extension which allows you to save your email attachments on your iPhone. This feature should be available by default but for some obscure reasons, Apple hasn’t deemed it necessary…

AttachmentSaver gives you the ability to download attachments of all types, whether supported by the Mail.app or not, and save them into a folder on your iPhone disk.

Files are downloaded to ~/Library/Downloads (/private/var/mobile/Library/Attachments) and it’s recommended to install iFile to access the attachments you download.

This app is available from the Cydia Store for $1.99.

 
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