Month: April 2010

Traveling With An iPhone: My Experience in Vietnam

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

I had done a little research online before flying to Vietnam about the communication network there. Reading the many positive comments about the infrastructure of this country, I flew there very confident that it wouldn't be much of a hustle to find a SIM card for my iPhone.

After going through the very unfriendly Vietnamese customs, I headed straight to the Viettel booth inside the airport. Viettel was not my choice. It just happened to be the only phone store I saw inside Hanoi's airport.

A woman welcame me and asked me what I wanted. As usual, I was pretty clear that all I wanted was a good data plan for my iPhone as well as a few minutes of communication so we can call hotels, etc, in the country.

For about $8, I got a SIM card, 100,000 Dongs of talk time and an extra 50,000 Dongs of bonus time. To activate the data plan, she took my iPhone and sent "3G on" as a text message to the number 161. I immediately got a text message back saying that 3G was activated. Very good.

Now what I wanted to know was the cost of 3G. She was unable to tell me and after calling her own customer support, she came back to me saying they didn't know but that I shouldn't worry too much about that because 3G is very cheap in Vietnam. Ok, not really the answer I expected but there was nothing I could do.

On my way to the hotel, I tried to call Viettel customer service myself, only to be turned down several times in Vietnamese. Since my taxi driver spoke English, I asked him to tell them I wanted to know the cost of 3G and if there was any monthly plan I could sign up for. They didn't know. Hmm, I started wondering if they knew anything at all. Anyways.

I decided not to worry too much about that and started surfing the Vietnamese 3G to email, tweet, blog and more. Turns out I used crap loads of data until I had to recharge my SIM. I didn't make any "scientific" study about it but it was clear that data was dirt cheap.

Viettel doesn't allow internet tethering but I remembered that someone commented on my last travel post about Laos, giving me information about custom APN settings to allow tethering. Sweet! I had tried help.benm.at and unlockit.co.nz to download the custom APN but none of these site had them available.

A big thank you to Thy for telling me about custom APN for Viettel and VinaPhone. Without him, I would have probably been incapable of tethering my iPhone while in Vietnam.

Those of you interested in downloading the custom APN settings to tether your iPhone in Vietnam on Viettel or VinaPhone should go to Giaitri.net. The site is very slow and all in Vietnamese but it clearly says "Internet Tethering" at the top. Then you just need to select your carrier and install the custom APN, then reboot (don't forget to reboot).

While I can't say I'm impressed in any way by Vietnam (no offense to my Vietnamese friends but many bad things happened to me there), I have to admit that their network seriously kicks ass! It is my far the best network I've seen so far in my travels. That's mostly due to the fact that their network is so new that they pretty much have the latest and best technology available.

The only time I didn't have signal was when I was 30 feet underground visiting the tunnels of Cu Chi. At all time I had coverage, with at least Edge and in most cases 3G. 3G is burning fast too, which was really handy when looking for hospitals... but that's another story...

I had to recharge my SIM with 150,000 Dongs, which is about $8 and this last me forever. Definitely the best and cheapest data plan I had been on.

As a side note, it is very easy to find free Internet everywhere in Vietnam. 90% of hotels, bars or restaurants have free wifi available (not even password protected). Vietnam is the most "Internet friendly" country I have ever visited (except for the censorship of Facebook.com in North Vietnam).

I'm now back in Thailand and I am typing this post from the airport, tethering my iPhone thanks to the great (but slow) DTAC network. The network is not as good here as it is in Vietnam but I don't mind it if I can get my health back. We'll be in Thailand for about 3-4 weeks, then heading to Kuala Lumpur to catch a flight to Paris.

If you're traveling with an iPhone in Vietnam, I hope this article will help you figure things out, especially for tethering your iPhone.

Questions or comments, please feel free to write a comment below!

7 Ways Your iPhone Can Make OS 4 Jealous

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Last week Apple gave us a sneak peek at iPhone OS 4. The presentation, which was more for developers than users, focused on 7 "tent poles" (multitasking, folders, enhanced mail, iBooks, enterprise, game center, and iAd).

I was not particularly impressed by the new features unveiled, mostly because most of them are already here for anyone with a jailbroken iPhone. In this post, I would like to show you how you can make your old boring iPhone 3.X look a little bit more like iPhone OS 4.

For all features listed below, there is either a jailbreak app or mod to do the job. If your iPhone is jailbroken, here is how you can give it a little taste of OS 4. If your iPhone is not jailbroken yet, then you're missing out and you should jump on the jailbreak bandwagon!

Multitasking: Install Backgrounder and ProSwitcher to bring multitasking to your iPhone.

Background wallpapers: Install BossPaper or WinterBoard, which will let you customize your iPhone in every possible way. You can even download the iPhone OS 4 Theme from Cydia!

Folders: Install Categories.

Multiple Exchange accounts: Simply look at this hack that lets you set up multiple Exchange accounts on your iPhone.

iBooks: Just download the free Kindle application from the App Store.

Home screen music controls: Install the Music Controls app.

iAd: Want more ads on your iPhone? Go to any porn site from your iPhone and you'll get plenty of ads. Ok I'm being sarcastic...

I can already hear the complainers complain that this is a huge stretch and that OS 4 will be much better than these jailbreak apps. Well, yes you're right. OS 4 will probably do a better job than these jailbreak apps or tweaks, but the point of this article is to show you that Apple didn't reinvent the wheel at all and that you don't need to wait for this summer to get OS 4 rocking on your iPhone.

iPhone OS 4 Jailbreak: GeoHot Reveals BlackRa1n

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Just a few days after showing proofs of a jailbreak for iPad, GeoHot is back at it, this time with an iPhone OS 4 jailbreak with BlackRa1n.

The wonder kid tweeted this image of an iPhone running iPhone OS 4 with the BlackRa1n and Cydia icons on it. It is not the first proof of a jailbreak for iPhone OS 4. Recently, the Dev Team released a video clearly showing a jailbroken iPhone OS 4 and there are still talks around Spirit, the jailbreak for iPhone 3.X which supposedly works for OS 4 and the iPad as well.

If you look at this image more closely, the Cydia icon looks very prominent which makes it a little suspicious. What makes this image even more suspicious is that it's just an image. Why didn't GeoHot shoot a video like he did for this iPhone OS 3.X untethered jailbreak?

Real or fake, you decide.

How to Turn Your iPad Into An iPad 3G

Sébastien Page ∙ April 12, 2010

If you don't want to cough an extra $130 (+ $15 to $30/month) to get the 3G version of the iPad but still want to enjoy the freedom of 3G technology on the go, I have a quick and easy tip for you to turn your iPad into an iPad 3G.

In order to get your iPad work on 3G, you will need an iPad (duh!) and a jailbroken iPhone 3G or 3GS. The trick is pretty simple. You just need to download the MyWi app from Cydia. MyWi is a tethering app that allows you to turn your iPhone into a wireless hotspot.

I wrote about MyWi a couple of months ago here so I won't go too much into details but basically it creates a wifi hotspot so you can share your 3G with devices around you, including your iPad. My Twitter friend @LappyGirl tried it and confirms it's working great.

So here you go, you just got yourself an iPad 3G for the price of a standard iPad.

iPhone OS 4 Theme

Sébastien Page ∙ April 12, 2010

Do you like iPhone OS 4 so desperately that you can't wait to have the beautiful new wallpaper on your screen? Well rejoice because our friend Rory Piper of iPhone in Canada has just created an iPhone OS 4 theme that you can now download in Cydia.

This theme includes the new iPhone OS 4 wallpaper, the new dock, and the new calculator icon. It is available in Cydia via the ModMyI repo.

Nice one, Rory!

iPhone News You Missed This Week

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Some big news this week, especially jailbreak-wise. Here is a list of articles that were published on the blog this week:

iPad jailbreak video Apple pulls a 180 on iPhone porn policy? Apple to unveil iPhone OS 4 Multitasking 101: Activator How to turn your iPhone into an iPad camera It's your iPhone, do you use protection? Everything you need to know about iPhone OS 4 Dev Team jailbreak iPhone OS 4 in just about 19 hours GeoHot reveals BlackRa1n iPad jailbreak More evidence of iPad jailbreak in the wild iPhone, text messaging, and trouble

iPhone, Text Messaging & Trouble

Guest Author ∙ April 10, 2010

My absolute #1 use of my iPhone is text messaging. I am an admitted text junkie. I awaken to texts, go to sleep to texts, and spend a good part of my day replying to friends, coworkers, even my daughter from the yard or bedroom rather than yelling out to each other. But sometimes, texts can get you into trouble...

No, I’m not talking about embarrassing drunken texts to exes, or things accidentally sent to the wrong person. What I’m talking about here is inflection. A simple matter of getting your point across, whether it’s sarcastic, serious, funny, etc. This weekend yet again, things with a text buddy got a little strained because of lack of inflection. And so... we back up, explain ourselves, and wish we had called instead.

So this made me wonder, as I have wondered before, why is there no app, be it jailbreak or legit, that allows us to enable bold and italics on the iPhone? There are literally tons of text related apps, apps that allow me to change the fonts and colors, apps (and the actual phone itself) offering dozens of languages and emoji icons.

But so far I have found no app that enables bold or italics. All caps (which tends to be my go to) can be worse because then I’m yelling. But really, I’m not yelling, I just need emphasis or some inflection for the idea I am trying to convey. Granted, I’m no techie, so perhaps there is a simple technical reason that this can’t be done, but with all the amazing things this phone can do I am pretty surprised that this isn’t one of them. And, I am even more surprised that I don’t hear more people expressing an interest in wanting this kind of app.

Every once in awhile I look through the new font/text apps to see if anyone offers it but with the sheer volume of things available maybe I am just not finding it? I will say this, it is something that I would pay a decent price for if it were available.

Feel free to reply if you have alienated someone via text message... just be careful how you word it!

More Evidence Of iPad Jailbreak In The Wild

Sébastien Page ∙ April 10, 2010

Yesterday I told you that GeoHot had found a jailbreak for the iPad. It seems he's not the only one as more proofs of an iPad jailbreak are surfacing.

This time, the leak comes from Comex, the developer behind the Spirit jailbreak. A few hours ago, Comex tweeted the image above showing MultiFl0w on the iPad.

In the meantime, ZodTTD posted a video by Chpwn showing an iPad running the N64 NES emulator for iPhone.

As usual, there is no ETA date but I believe this iPad jailbreak release is now imminent.

GeoHot Reveals BlackRa1n iPad Jailbreak

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

Things are going fast in the jailbreak world these days. One day after MuscleNerd announced the Dev Team had jailbroken iPhone OS 4, it's GeoHot turns to impress us with a jailbreak for the iPad.

Ealier today, GeoHot posted a tweet with a picture showing verbose mode running on his iPad. For info, verbose mode basically shows everything that your iPad is doing on bootup. It's a clear sign that the iPad has been jailbroken.

As if it wasn't clear enough, GeoHot posted a more straightforward picture on his blog minutes ago showing a jailbroken iPad with the BlackRa1n and Cydia icons.

When the picture was first posted on GeoHot's blog, it had a caption under it saying that "The new app will not be called blackra1n". This caption has since then been removed.

The name doesn't matter. Of course what really matters here is that GeoHot is once again the first to find a new jailbreak, this time for the iPad.

There is no estimated release date but if I had a guess, I'd say that this new iPad jailbreak should hit the streets pretty soon. It seems like multitasking might come to the iPad earlier than Steve Jobs would want to after all...

Thoughts?

Dev Team Jailbreaks iPhone OS 4 In Just 19 Hours

Sébastien Page ∙ April 9, 2010

That has to be one of the fastest jailbreak ever! Just about 19 hours after Apple gave us a sneak peek at the future of iPhone OS and made the beta available to developers, the Dev Team managed to jailbreak iPhone OS 4.

MuscleNerd just tweeted the following along with a video of a jailbroken iPhone running OS 4 and Veency, a VNC app for jailbroken iPhones.

Something you'll only find on JB 4.0: VNC :) http://is.gd/blzeg (BTW don't bother with betas, they're *very* buggy!)

There is no realease date and I don't think this jailbreak will even be made available until the official release of iPhone OS 4. Still, I'm getting all excited just thinking about it.

You're excited too, aren't you?

Everything You Need to Know About iPhone OS 4

Sébastien Page ∙ April 8, 2010

Today was a big day for Apple. As we told you about earlier this week, they were holding an event on their campus about the future of iPhone OS. Steve Jobs was here to lead the presentation, which as usual started by throwing some big numbers in our face (450,000 iPad sold, over 600,000 books downloads, 3.5 million iPad apps downloaded, 185,000 apps in the App Store, etc...).

After making the crowd go WOW for a few minutes, Steve-o, loyal to himself, started the presentation about iPhone OS 4.

Here is everything you need to know about iPhone OS 4 (all images are compliments of gdgt):

iPhone OS 4, will come with many many new features. With over 1,500 new APIs for devs, chances are there will be a little something for everyone.

Although iPhone OS 4 will come with hundreds of new features, the presentation was focused on 7 of them.

It’s Your iPhone, Do You Use Protection?

Cody Lee ∙ Updated March 27, 2018

No, we're not about to have an awkward talk about the birds and the bees. In noticing the many scuffs and scratches on the back of my beloved iPhone, I remember thinking I probably should have used protection.

Don't get me wrong, I tried to be a good iPhone owner. I use screen protectors regularly, and have tried to keep it in a case, several times in fact. The conclusions I have come to are as such: the decent looking silicon cases I tried didn't add too much bulk to the phone, but would stretch out and attract tons of lint and dust, so would be useless after just weeks of usage. The thicker plastic cases I tried that were 2 pieces that snapped together, were constantly coming undone, so they were more of a headache than anything.

I've dropped my iPhone a few times, without a case on it, and you can definitely tell it's been through a lot. In my opinion Apple should go to rubber or matte backs, but at least they're not that aluminum back of the earlier models.

It'll be interesting to see what Apple has in store for the next model of the iPhone, especially after seeing the technology they have in the iPad. Until then though I need to keep my current iPhone 3G safe from any horrible mishaps. What do you guys think, do you use protection for your iPod Touch or iPhone, and if so, and good recommendations for a lightweight, durable case that stays put?