Jailbreak Me!

I really wasn't planning on Jailbreaking my iPad, but when "Jailbreakme 3.0" was released about a week ago I just couldn't resist. After waiting a few days for the bugs to be ironed out I navigated to jailbreakme.com on my iPad, clicked the "Free" button, and within seconds my iOS device was Jailbroken. It was so quick I thought it hadn't worked until I saw the Cydia icon.

Ironically I'd re-jailbroken my iPhone a few weeks ago using "redsn0w" after a few months of running without it being Jailbroken. I'd been psyching myself up for the release of iOS 5, which I expect may not have an untethered Jailbreak available for some time.

Before that, something was interfering with the Infinity Blade game on my iPhone - with "Dodges" just not being recognized - and I was trying to eliminate all possibilities. I'd previously encountered some problems with in App settings of the Activator library, when I found that a lot of my screen taps in the "Zombie Highway" game by RenderPlaz just not being recognized. Then it was a case of changing the Activator settings to only recognize hard buttons. So my favorite Jailbroken App SBSettings had to be activated by a volume up button press and hold.

The problems with Infinity Blade were much more difficult to diagnose - people on the Epic Games forums were reporting that the Dodging mechanism had been changed in an update. I took the drastic step of upgrading my firmware and not re-breaking my iPhone, and somewhere between that and the latest firmware the problems went away. Of course I not only lost the free SBSettings App (the quickest way to change a whole bunch of settings, as well as Power Off or reboot an iPhone), but also the paid Overboard and Multifl0w Apps, which I still sorely miss, especially Overboard.

I haven't dared re-installing any of these Apps on my iPhone, as they all depend on the Activator library. Also, it has forced me to scale back to the iPhone maximum 11 Pages instead of 14 (Overboard and a few other Jailbroken Apps remove the 11 Page limit). Also, with the firmware upgrade I was forced to prune a lot of the Games and Apps from the "Free App a Day" Feeds which I had been hoarding.

The really good 4th of July Game Sales since then have put a whole bunch of new games on my Springboard in "Games 2 try" folders.

Yesterday Apple released a patch for the latest security hole in Safari. This was the same hole which was used for the latest "Jailbreak Me" Jailbreak which was so easy to use. My iPhone and iPad are both patched with PDFPatcher anyway, so they my staty Jailbroken until iOS 5.

Sometimes you win

One of my favorite iOS games is "Infinity Blade". The same game is playable on both the iPhone and the iPad, so you don't have to buy it twice.
In the screen shot above, taken prior to the latest update, the "god-king" gets his...

(Infinity Blade and the characters depicted in the screen shot above are copyright Chair Entertainment and Epic Games, Inc.)

Originally Posted from Blogium for iPhone

iPhone no longer cool?

Well it's no surprise when you have one of the most popular smartphones, that some people regard it as not "cool". This very sentiment was expressed on the Buzz Out Loud podcast last week (Buzz Out Loud 1333: Introducing the Ginsu Air). Is BOL still "Cool" - I don't care, I listen occasionally anyway.
As for the iPhone, when I decided to get an iPhone, just after the iPhone 3G was released, I didn't do it because I was "cool", I thought it would be a nice gadget. Now I still like the iPhone, despite its flaws, and use it more as a information portal and secondary gaming device than anything else.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

Unjailbroken

Last night managed to save the "SHSH Blob" Baseband finger signature of my iPhone 4 to the TinyUmbrella Application on my MacBook. Unfortunately I hadn't thought things through, and when it came to restoring the iPhone I realized that it was going to crash because I had too many Apps.
It does seem like iTunes restores Folders and their contents, but since I was using the Infinifolders Jailbroken App, some of the Apps would have overflowed out if their folders. Anyway, I cancelled the restore, and then spent hours pruning the Apps which I could so without restoring. After I restarted the restore, it didn't go as per the documentation - the restore was supposed to crash with a specific error which would allow the TinyUmbrella Application to restore the baseband for iPhone OS 4.01. Instead, my baseband was upgraded along with the firmware, although I have the "SHSH Blobs" saved so theoretically I can restore to the older baseband. However, I most likely have to Jailbreak the iPhone to do this. My iPhone firmware is now 4.1, the iPhone is no longer Jailbroken, but on the bright side it seems that most if my settings and data for third party Apps was restored, which I'm really glad about.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Hole in my Safari

Yesterday Apple released a patch for the security hole in Safari. This was the same hole which was used for the "Jailbreak Me" Jailbreak which was so easy to use.
The security hole had to do with the way PDF files were handled, and was quite serious. The Jailbreak community released a "PDF patch" of sorts - basically a warning every time a PDF was opened on iPhone a dialog pops up with a warning and an OK and Cancel button. This patch made reading valid PDFs in various applications, including iBooks, unusable. It also made using the Zinio reader - which is a reader for digital magazines like PC Magazine, unusable (four popups for one page). So the patch was updated to allow iBooks to work, but it was a kludge and I wondered if the developer would get round to the Zinio reader.

I was beginning to wonder about either uninstalling the PDF patch - and opening up my iPhone to hacking, or updating the firmware, which would fix the PDF security hole but then I wouldn't be able to Jailbreak my iPhone probably until after iOS firmware 4.1 is released.

Anyway, today Saurik released a patch which basically does what the Apple iOS 4.02 firmware update does - patches the PDF security hole properly, and the Jailbreak stays intact. Thank you Saurik (and whoever else helped to code this patch)!

Apple - we'll be back

This morning at about 7 Eastern Time, I tried to pre-order an iPhone 4 online on the Apple store. The website was a bit slow, and everything went fine until I tried to add the iPhone to the Shopping cart. Then I got an error message "Oops we have a problem, please retry", or something to that effect. Apple's website must have been getting hammered, because I tried a few more times and got the same error message.

Later, after 8 am I could not even get to the Apple store at all, and got the message "We'll be back soon", which also gives an 800 number. I tried the 800 number, and got a "Due to extremely high call volume we are unable to answer your call now, please try again later".

Pre-ordering the iPhone 4 is going to take persistence.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

Counting down to Monday

It is not often that I look forward to a Monday. Like most people I look forward to Friday or Saturday or the weekend in general.

However, this coming Monday, June 8, is when Steve Jobs is expected to announce the next generation iPhone during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

It will be interesting to see what changes have been made since the pictures of the "Lost iPhone prototype" were published.

On a personal note, I'm hoping to finally upgrade my iPhone 3G. The date on which the next generation iPhone is to go on sale is also expected to be announced. Then it will be a waiting period until the crowds of eager buyers thin enough for me to get one without having to stand in line.

iPhone killed the MP3 Insider

My favorite podcast, MP3 Insider, has been killed off by the iPhone.
The writing seemed on the wall when Jasmine was reviewing iPhone Apps (ack!) elsewhere on CNET.

I've listened to this podcast since the days of James Kim and Veronica Belmont (every geek's dream girl). I can't say that I've followed the "Buzz Out Load" podcast as closely. MP3 Insider will be sorely missed.

I wish Jasmin France and Donald Bell all the best in their future roles at CNET.

iPhone multitasking

So multitasking is coming in iPhone OS 4. I must admit being disappointed that it is not coming to the iPhone 3G. After doing some research, I found out the simple reason why - the iPhone 3GS (and iPod Touch 3rd gen) have double the RAM of earlier models, as well as faster processors.

Multitasking has been available on jailbroken iPhones for a while now, with some really sophisticated Apps, a lot of them of them free. Unfortunately for iPhone 3G owners, although these run on the iPhone 3G, they don't run particularly well.

Blogging from my iPhone

My last blog posting to my alternate blog, Technofilez, was done from my iPhone. When I tried to repeat this posting to this blog (Techno Files), I ran into problems. Even though I have 3 blogging Apps on my iPhone, I just wasn't able to do this. I may have just tried two of them though, since I was a bit pressed for time. The biggest irony, was that I was unable to copy and paste into iBlogger, which is the Blogging App for the iPhone (and pricey too). When I started iBlogger up, it seemed to simply clear the iPhone clipboard!

Don't Want an iPad

In the last few weeks I've seen a number of polls asking whether I was going to get an iPad, or wait for the next iteration. It just doesn't grab me though. My wife saw it's potential, but I didn't. I guess in my mind it is just an oversized iPod Touch, and I'm quite happy with my iPhone thank you.

Playin' Games

Last night I played a side-scrolling flying game (Aera) on my iPhone until the battery gave a 20 percent warning. It must have been a good game!

Then I played on the Nintendo DS Lite for over an hour. Usually I get bored with Nintendo games quite quickly, but I was playing a 3D Duke Nukem GBA (GameBoy Advance) game.

An update

Well I'm back (from where, cyber-wise, I've been instructed not to tell).

Much has changed since I last blogged here. Around a year ago I bought an iPhone 3G. This was after advising a friend in South Africa not to get one, but I was more concerned that he was going to get mugged, especially as he has already had several cellphones stolen.

I've also Jailbroken the iPhone, initially for some of the themes offered by Winterboard, but now I use apps which are simply not available from the Apps Store: SBSettings and mAdvLock. SBSettings allows me to quickly toggle Wi-Fi on or off, or reboot the iPhone. It also hides Apps - like the standard Stocks app which I'm just not wanting to see.



- Posted from my iPhone

Touch not really phone-less iPhone

The iPod Touch - not really an iPhone without the phone.
I was quite excited when the iPod Touch was announced. Now it is being released this week and the big tech sites have had time to play with pre-release models and write their reviews (see the CNET review here)

As well as being slightly smaller and lighter than the iPhone, the iPod Touch is also missing features like Google Maps, the email client and the Notes application, along with built-in speakers, microphone, camera and other mini applications. It is kind of understandable not to include Google Maps - if you really need to use it you may not be near a wireless hotspot. To leave out email and Notes just sucks. Sure you can use web-based email, as the Safari browser is included, but the email client would have been useful. Even more so, leaving out the Notes application on the first iPod (excluding the iPhone) to have a virtual keyboard is just reducing functionality.

Somehow I suspect these omissions are not accidental, but carefully selected. An iPod Touch which had all the functionality of an iPhone except the phone could very well hurt iPhone sales, something Apple wouldn't want.

Early Adopter Blues and iPod Touch!

Last night I was having a look at The Unofficial Mac Weblog and reading the comments on "Apple lowers price of 8 gig iPhone to $399". These comments were posted before Steve Jobs decided to give early iPhone buyers a $100 credit. There seemed to be two distinct responses - the positive "That's the price you pay for being an early adopter" and the "Apple did me wrong" (in rather angry and sometimes unrepeatable language).

This must be one of the highest profile examples of the fact that all technology drops in price over time. Unfortunately Apple had to do damage control because it happened so soon.

To think of it, the second generation 8GB iPod Nano I bought late last year for almost $250 has been replaced by a a third generation iPod Nano with more features at a lower price (the new 8GB Nano goes for $199). However, this was only a $50 price drop after a year as well as a new generation.

After the iPhone price drop I was eventually convinced by my wife that I really don't want an iPhone. It took me a while to agree after I realized that a newer generation of the iPhone is very likely to be released while I would be still tied to a two year contract to AT&T.

The iPod Touch is another matter entirely. Basically an iPhone without the phone (and without the contract) I've long thought that it would be pretty cool if it was ever released. Of course an MP3 player with built-in Wi-Fi is nothing new. CNET's Crave blog's First Look at the iPod Touch mentions the Archos 605 WiFi. However, even the smallest capacity Archos 605 weighs 9.2 oz, in comparison to the iPod Touch's 4.2 oz. Admittedly, the Archos 605 series features a 4.3 inch screen instead of a 3.5 inch screen, and the capacity starts at 4GB and goes all the way up to 160GB. For less than the price of an 8GB iPod Touch (why do I struggle not to call it the iTouch?) you can get a 30GB Archos 605.

A quick comparison:
iPod Touch dimensions: 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.3 inches.
Archos 605 dimensions: 4.8 x 3.2 x 0.8 inches.
The Archos 605 has a whole slew of accessories which can turn it into a DVR.
The iPod Touch is almost as revolutionary as the iPhone, and just as cool...

Zunes and iPods

The price of the Zune is beginning to drop below $200 at some online stores. I'm slightly tempted by this because of the 3 inch color screen and that the Zune is supposed to work well together with the Xbox 360 (see "Use Zune with Xbox 360" on xbox.com). Then I remembered that this Microsoft player does not support Microsoft’s PlaysForSure, or Podcasts, and has half-baked Wi-Fi. So even at this price it is not worth it. This is especially so since new Zunes are due out soon which may fix one or more of these problems - see "Microsoft comments support reports of new Zunes" at InfoWorld


Zune in original colors (light black, chocolate brown, and pearl white)

The real interesting thing to watch out for is the next generation of iPods. The iPhone gives hope for a fullscreen touchscreen iPod (see "6th Generation iPod - What We Know" at MP3Buzz.net) , now that would be really cool.

Treo versus iPhone

I know the iPhone has been out for a while now, but I have hesitated mentioning the following article since there was a huge reaction to it - almost 400 comments, mainly from iPhone fans telling the writer he was crazy (among other things).

Editorial: 10 Rounds with the iPhone

Anyway if you feel you must comment, do it at the Palm Infocenter editorial here

iPhone Overhyped?

Of course it is.

Well, here's some facts and more hype.

Engadget's iPhone facts from the first reviews

Should You Buy an IPhone? from the Houston Chronicle.

Smart Money Daily: 6 Major Flaws in iPhone That Could Cost You a Bundle

And the iPhone guided tour from Apple.

iPhone will fail?

This week the Apple iPhone was announced. Some may be sick of hearing about it already, but others want to know what the hype is about. The videos on the iphone.org site showing the functionality of the iPhone are really impressive. Just a pity about the cellular provider Apple has chosen...(Cingular sucks).

Late last year, while the Apple phone was still a rumor, an article on CNET said that the iPhone would fail (Apple phone flop), basically because of stiff competition in the cellphone market. I disagree, as the iPhone blows away the competition.

A more recent article on Crave.net, "Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype" poses some legitimate questions, like the question whether the iPhone will have a user-replaceable battery. It would be a first for Apple if this iPod-like product has a removable battery, and a potential deal-breaker if it does not.