The excellent Ars Technica has a look at two new programs that attempt to connect your iPhone with a television, iPhone TVOut and SCREENSPLITR:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2009/01/19/iphone-gains-two-new-tv-out-utilities
Dragging me into the world of iTunes, my iPhone re-introduced me to the world of podcasts, which now are one of my favorite parts of having an iPhone. There are WORLDS of both audio and video podcasts on all subjects and I have overloaded my laptop hard drive by sampling so many and filling up my iTunes folder. With the new updates to the iTunes store interface on the iPhone, not only can you sample songs for sale, if you are connected to WI-FI, you can STREAM podcasts instead of downloading them by clicking on the podcast episode title.
This is great for trying a new podcast you haven’t heard before or just for avoiding the accumulation of digital “clutter” on your hard drive. You can also manage your podcasts settings (i.e. how many back episodes to store on your hard drive) through options in iTunes. One WARNING, though: streaming over WI-FI is one of the more draining activities on the iPhone’s battery.
Many updates and posts to come, but a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all readers before it gets too late to say that… to ring in the New Year, Apple can celebrate by enjoying the iPhone’s new landmark: 500 MILLION downloads from the App Store!
Read more @ ARStechnica: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2009/01/16/iphone-app-store-half-a-billion-served
The iPhone is truly revolutionizing the industry of independent software development, allowing some to quit their “day jobs” : http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2009/01/16/profits-from-ishoot-iphone-game-cause-developer-to-quit-job
Ars Technica (a must-visit site if you aren’t familiar) has posted a list of Apple’s “Most Downloaded Games.” I like that it is divided into free and paid downloads. Some of my favorite games aren’t on the list, but it’s still worth checking out to see what everyone is playing: http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/12/03/apple-reveals-most-downloaded-iphone-games-of-2008
And check out ARS if you haven’t: http://arstechnica.com/index.ars
With a nod to the bad economic climate, I share with you http://iPhone.myopenbar.com
a site that lists events with free beverages in 5 major cities (including NYC and LA). The listings get a little stagnant after a while but the site is optimized for the iPhone so enjoy…
For my first iPhone TIP of the MONTH, I thought it beared reminding that AT&T FINALLY made good on promises to deliver free Wi-Fi for its iPhone customers at all of their “hotspots.” This is especially important as AT&T has recently supplanted T-Mobile as the provider at the STARBUCKS chain. They also supply many McDonald’s locations. For more info: http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/internet/wifi.jsp
All you do is find the AT&T wifi network, enter your phone # and you’ll get a text message with a PIN good for 24 hours of free wifi at that location. WHERE oh WHERE are these locations? Take a look: http://attwifi.know-where.com/attwifi/cgi/index?design=default
LOS ANGELES READERS! While searching for access at airports, I noticed that through AT&T the BURBANK airport charges $2 for wifi, which while not free, seemed like a great deal for wifi in a pinch…
Well, my install troubles appear to have been rectified. Now if I can just get those hours back…
Luckily, I regularly sync my contacts with my Gmail account and I also save the iPhone backup files (which in WINDOWS XP are Located in <DRIVE>/Documents and Settings/<YOURNAME>/Application Data/Apple Computer/MobileSync/Backup
When everything is nice and clean on my iPhone I like to copy this file and store it away somewhere (it’s around 150-200MB). I rectified the ‘SIM CARD’ message by doing the forced restore and restoring to a previous backup. I looks like I lost some customization but little else. I now have to reorganize my home screen(s). FYI if you restore you will lose any new notes or photos taken since the restore, but luckily that didn’t affect me this time. I made sure to do a backup right before the upgrade to 2.2
I made the mistake of leaving my iPhone unattended while updating tonight and when I returned sometime later, I found myself in a position a lot of people have found themselves in:
Updating to 2.2 brought me this
After all the reasonable tricks your pet monkey would try (restarting iTunes, etc) I called AT&T to discover that after 8pm CST if you’re having trouble with the iPhone of this magnitude, you’re alone in the woods. Scouring the internet has brought evidence of all kinds of user problems with installing v2.2 firmware, but right now I’m concerned with my problem…
Right now, I’m trying to do a “FORCED RESTORE” described by Apple here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808 which is what you do when you can’t do the normal easy version of a restore (described here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414) but if this doesn’t work, I may be opening up the SIM card slot, which makes me think of the ‘Parker Lewis Can’t Lose’ episode that spoofed HAL of 2001…
If things do go as far as removing the SIM card, I’ll be going by this guide, which sounds hopeful (as I am a Windows XP user who syncs and activated my iPhone from a hp PC laptop…) http://blogs.fayobserver.com/techsassy/2008/11/24/iphone-22-problem-fix-step-by-step/
T O B E C O N T I N U E D . . .
This is a test… Of WordPress… For the iPhone. ie I’m posting this from my iPhone! The iPhone app maniac in me couldn’t wait to try the combo of two things that work GREAT: WordPress and the iPhone.
Maximizing your iPhone involves a balance between the iPhone’s great capability and the connectivity issues between you and networks. Between the AT&T network, spotty wi-fi signals, and dead laptop batteries, sometimes that key bit of information is just out of reach of you and your iPhone. For these situations, TAPFORMS is here. A salvation to iPhone users who have been compulsive “list-makers” for most of their lives, tapforms allows you to customize and create lists that take advantage of all the ways the iPhone stores information. By doing this in the app format, it allows these things to always be accessible to you regardless of whether you can connect to a network or another machine where it is backed up. If iPhone’s basic NOTES program works for you, this may be wasted on you. However, if you find yourself referencing a lot of data lists throughout your week, TAPFORMS is definitely worth the $8.99 price tag. You can watch a great demo to see its capabilities at http://www.tapforms.com/
or you can find it at the app store at:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=291405311&mt=8