Traveling With An iPhone: My Experience in Cambodia

by Sebastien on Mar 17, 2010

After spending about a month on the beautiful beaches of Thailand we decided to go to Cambodia for a couple of weeks. Before flying there, I had done a little bit of research and from what I had read it would be very hard for me to get a SIM card. Well, that was not the case.

We landed in Phnom Penh, the capital. The airport was so small that while I was walking and looking around inside the airport to find a Mobile Store, I realized that I was actually out of the airport. Does that make sense? Anyways.

Local SIM Cards

So right in front of the airport exit, I see a handwritten sign saying “Local SIM cards”, provided by the local carrier Hello. Nice! I head over there and ask the woman if I can get Internet access with this SIM. She says “yes” but I can tell she’s not really convinced by her own answer.

The Hello SIM card is $5 and I get another $5 of credit so we can make a few calls while in the country. After making the mandatory copy of my passport, she gives me the SIM, I put it in my phone, reboot, and bingo, it’s working.

First things first, I check if the Internet works. It doesn’t because I need to know the Cellular Data APN for this particular carrier, which is hello. Before leaving, I ask her about APN info and she has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. Finally she says to me “for Internet, call this number”, which is the Customer Service Department for Hello in Cambodia.

Getting Internet to Work

While on our way to our hotel, I deciced to call Hello and figure out how to get Internet on my iPhone. The rep I talked to spoke very good English and after asking me about what device I use, he gave me all the info I needed to get 3G and Edge going, namely the APN hellowww.

He also told me more about pricing. It charges 1 cent per 100KB of data used. For $2/day, you can get unlimited data, which is the option I chose. So everyday, I had to send a text message to a specific number to activate my 24 hours of unlimited Internet. Not very practical but not inconvenient either.

Coverage in Cambodia

I was so stoked at first to be on 3G. After a few months in Thailand, Bali, Australia and New Zealand, this Cambodian network was without a doubt the fastest.

As soon as you leave the borders of major cities though, you’re on your own, no 3G, no Edge, just the uber slow GPRS. While in Phnom Penh, I was on the fast 3G pretty much all the time. When in Siem Reap, I was mostly on Edge, although there was 3G coverage.

All in all, my experience getting a SIM card and a data plan for my iPhone in Cambodia wasn’t too bad. Now that I’m in Laos, I actually regret how easy Cambodia was…

 

Circuitous – A Different Take On iPhone App Switching

by Guest Author on Mar 16, 2010

This is a guest post by iDB reader Jeton Aliji. If you’d like to send your articles to be published on the blog, make sure to check out the guidelines.

In the ModMyI repo today we have a new package called Circuitous, which is another app switcher, but this one has a more different approach which some of you might like.

Dan Zimmerman, the author calls Circuitous a “custom app switcher”. Circuitous shows applications in a dock on the right side of your springboard.

The app activation methods are controlled by Activator, the superb centralized gestures and button management for iPhone OS which is developed by Ryan Petrich. It’s good to see more and more apps who use Ryan Petrich’s library.

Apart from showing the dock (with an activation method you choose from Activator), Circuitous has an option to cycle through open apps (both forward and backward) by letting you choose the activation method to cycle through the open/backgrounded apps.

From my own experience, I find Circuitous very user friendly and less obtrusive than the other apps, as it covers only part of your springboard and not the whole page.

For activating the dock I have chosen the Home Button double press ( used to be kirikae on that spot, but now I activate kirikae by double tapping on the status bar).

Circuitous joins the rank of apps such as ProSwitcher and Kirikae, and the best thing of all these is that they use Activator to manage their activation settings.

Try it for youself, it’s free and of course share you thoughts about it.

Jeton is a 28 y/o Albanian who loves to play and try new Cydia tweaks and apps. He believes that the jailbreak scene is a showcase of the creative geniuses and the beautiful minds of the people that make the iPhone more that it was meant to be. You can find Jeton on Jeton on Twitter where he also has an iPhone Dev list where he keeps up with all things Cydia.

 

Apple Finally Makes Links In App Store Apps Descriptions Clickable

by Sebastien on Mar 16, 2010

Until now if you wanted to click on a link in the description of an app in the App Store on your iPhone, well, you couldn’t. Links were not clickable, which sometimes was very inconvenient.

A Small but noticeable change, Apple finally made these links clickable. I found out about it today while updating Tweetie.

Or maybe it’s been here forever and I’m just figuring it out?

Update: @TouchReviews told me on Twitter that links have been clickable only in the ‘updates’ section. Very amateurish of me; I should have know that.

 

Street Fighter IV Review

by Guest Author on Mar 15, 2010

If you are in your 30s, you may remember the popular arcade game “Street Fighter II.”  I remember literally watching hours of people playing the game. (I rarely played the game; I mostly sucked but I wanted to save money). And now, you can get the latest version of the game right on your iPhone with Street Fighter IV [iTunes link] for $9.99.

Immediately, hardcore SF fans will see that there are only eight characters to choose from.  In the normal SF IV game, there is a total of 19 playable characters.  SF IV Producer Takeshi Tazuka says there are less characters because of the limited amount of CPU memory in the iPhone, 256MB of RAM for the 3GS and 128MB for the 3G.

Otherwise, this game really kicks (no pun intended).  As far as onscreen controls go, this is one of the better ones.  If you didn’t like touch controls before, this will not change your mind but it is more than adequate.  Here’s a list of buttons: punch, kick, special attack and focus attack.  The touch joystick is on the left.  These are transparent on the screen and do cover up the players a little, but it hasn’t affected my enjoyment of the game.

I have a 3G and the game is so memory-intensive that I do experience crashes.  3GS and newer iPod Touch owners will probably do better.

For those who are new to the game, there is a dojo that will help you to learn the moves.  There is also a free-sparring mode and a training room mode to help you perfect your combos and special attacks.

Other features include Bluetooth support for iPhone head-to-head combat and the ability to save your best games.

I’d say at $9.99 this game is a steal.  Some may want to wait for a price drop, but SF fans should get this one immediately.

 

iPhone Stuff You Missed This Week

by Sebastien on Mar 14, 2010

This is a summary of all the articles that were posted on the blog this week:

 

Poll: Did You Preorder Your iPad?

by Sebastien on Mar 13, 2010

I’m just curious to see if any of you actually preordered an iPad. I didn’t for the simple reason that I’m currently out of the country. I think I will buy my iPad in France when going there in a couple of months.


 

ScreenRecorder Records Everything You Do On Your iPhone

by Sebastien on Mar 12, 2010

ScreenRecorder is a new application by Elton Bolzanac that allows you to record a video of your iPhone screen. Per the description of the app:

This application let’s you take video captures of your screen. This is extremely useful for quick tutorials or demonstrations, or when you want to show proof of a new hack you have accomplished. There are obviously many other uses for this. For example, you could use this like a “Notes” application, but with video instead of words!

Keep in mind that video recording is a very intense process, so crashing is very frequent on videos that have a capture time of more than 45 seconds.

I haven’t tried this app myself but from what I understand it is pretty unstable. While it sounds like a very promising app, I think it’s a little pricey at $1.99. Maybe a few updates to make it more stable will make this app very useful.

Have you tried ScreenRecorder yet? If so, please share your thought by leaving a comment.

 

AT&T Confirms Move to A “Variable Pricing Model”

by Sebastien on Mar 11, 2010

A few months ago I wrote an article showing how AT&T was going to move to a pay-per-byte model on its 3G plans. Recently, AT&T CEO Randall L. Stephenson confirmed this move in an interview for the WSJ.

He said that AT&T is carrying half of the nation’s wireless data traffic. He said that carriers will eventually move to a “variable pricing model,” and that it was inevitable that heavy users should pay more than low users.

I think it’s a big move that makes sense for both AT&T and its users. Of course, these new “variable pricing models” will start with the iPad which offers 250MB plan at $15/month and an unlimited plan at $30. It’s just a way to get us used to it.

What do you think? Do you welcome this move to introduce various plans depending on your data consumption?

 

iDongle Boots Your Tethered 3.1.2 Jailbroken iPhone

by Sebastien on Mar 10, 2010

MuscleNerd recently tweeted about a new device to boot tethered jailboken 3.1.2 iDevices without pluging it to a computer. This standalone piece of hardware is called an iDongle.

Now why would you need an iDongle? You might want to get one of those babies if your jailbroken iPhone or iTouch gets stuck at the “Connect-to-iTunes” logo everytime you reboot. The iDongle will save you a trip to the computer and can be very handy if you accidentally reboot your tethered device on-the-go.

According to the creator of the iDongle, this little piece of hardware is able to tether boot your jailbroken device, and optionnally jailbreak and hacktivate it if not already done. Looks like a savior for many of you who don’t want to be able to reboot your jailbroken iPhone anywhere/anytime.

What the catch? well the catch is that the iDongle is pretty much a prototype so far. It works but the creator needs your help to start manufacturing them in large quantities. You can help by buying a prototype at a good price, or simply by donating for a pre-order. I suggest you check out the iDongle website for more information.

In the meantime, watch this video to see see the iDongle in action. It’s a bit boring but it works!

What do you think about the iDongle?

 

How to Fix Push Notifications On Hacktivated iPhone

by Sebastien on Mar 10, 2010

If you have recently “hacktivated” your iPhone, which means activating it to work with carriers other than the official ones, you may have encountered push notification issues. In most cases, push notifications don’t work properly or even don’t work at all.

There is a simple fix for this and it’s called Push Doctor. Simply add the following source to Cydia then look for Push Doctor: http://www.cmdshft.ipwn.me/apt/

After installing Push Doctor, reboot your iPhone.

Push Doctor works very well with 3.1.3 and 3.1.2. It is free and has the support of the Dev Team, so you can go with it safely.

 
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