flop ya mac out

Just a quick thing that i found while i was cruising around the web recently. Samsung has just released a new phone which somewhat closely resembles that of our beloved iPhone – the Samsung F480.

Although the name is not as catchy, it does boast some features that Steve’s slaves are yet to plug into their shiny black box.

Some of the major points are that this handset is not only 3G capable but it also supports HSDPA. Now for those of you who don’t know, 3G can achieve speeds of around 2 Mbps – which is pretty fast. However HSDPA has a theoretical maximum speed of 14.4 Mbps! That’s a lot of porn.

Now one of the problems that Apple had with 3G chipboards was that they were power hungry (like their Government) hence one of the major reasons why they didn’t build them into the iPhone initially. But the F480 still manages to get around 300 hours of standby time, with all of its firepower going at its fullest! Where as the iPhone will only last around 250 hours.

Some other features include a 5 Megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and face detection, FM radio with RDS, expandable memory and also the ability to order a pizza when you’re hungry.

The thing that caught me the most was how closely it resembled the iPhone physically. The only difference being that there are three buttons at the bottom of the screen instead of just one.

Personally I have always taken a liking to Apple’s simplistic approach to design: if there’s more than one button, Steve will get John Mayer to play at Macworld again – OH SHIT! But i think that Apple has always excelled both in the design of the actual handset itself but also their user interfaces. Scroll down to the bottom of this GSM Arena review to view the video demonstrating the graphical interface of the phone and make up your own mind.

One figures that Apple do such a great job in their software design that they may not need lightspeed data transfer speeds (boom!) or a camera that can take pictures the size of a small truck. I personally think that all other mobile phone companies are trying to make up for lack of a good looking, easy to use UI in hardware specs. But when it comes down to it, i think that more people will be interested in how they can use their phone rather than what they can use it for. But hey, some of those features may be nice?

So will Apple do their usual thing and get a few leaps and bounds in front of everyone else by supporting things such as HSDPA and a bazillion megapixel cameras? Or will they do the smart thing and improve on what they are already great at?

Only time will tell…WWDC June 9-13. Be there… In front of your computer… watching the Keynote.

Channel Nine this evening ran a story on its 6:00 bulletin claiming that a “leading IT website” has announced that it is “Optus who won the battle to bring Apple’s iPhone to Australia.”

To add insult to injury, the image used by the Microsoft-affiliated Network Nine to compliment the story, depicted an iPhone running Windows XP. This was complete with Bliss background, windows taskbar, and Internet Explorer displaying the Ninemsn.com.au website. Apple’s Mail icon interestingly was been replaced by Parallels, a program used on the Mac to run Windows via a process called virtualisation. Nice.

Investigation shows that Cnet.com.au is the “leading IT website” that Nine is alluding to. Yet the article in question is no more conclusive than any of the other plentiful rumour websites. Cnet claims that “Optus is confirmed to be one of several Australian mobile service providers to be selling Apple’s iPhone.” This certainly isn’t what one might describe as ‘winning the battle’ for the iPhone.

The Sydney Morning Herald and later, SBS World News also jumped at the Optus story, providing little more details than Cnet, and just like Network Nine, failed to directly link to their source at Cnet.

For your fix of Australian iPhone and Mac news and opinions, subscribe to Flop Ya Mac Out with iTunes!

When iTunes 7.5 came out i eagerly downloaded it, as i have so many times before with all other Mac software updates. But for the first time, this one bit me in the arse.

I probably shouldn’t have thrown caution to the wind and updated, simply ’cause i’m running an unlocked, jail-breaked 1.1.1 iPhone as my main phone and organiser.

It turnes out iTunes 7.5 didn’t like to play with my iPhone, as when i connected them together in marriage, i got an error message (pictured) and was not able to access my iPhone – it simply didn’t come up in the side bar of iTunes.

So i searched for a way to downgrade back to iTunes 7.4.2 (which i was able to download), but couldn’t find a definitive guide or an answer to other people asking the same thing in threads.

So i decided to venture into risky territory and fix this via trial and error, as it was getting really irritating not being able to sync up new podcasts or contacts etc..

Firstly i sync-ed my iPhone’s contacts and calendar to my old PowerBook which was thankfully still running 7.4.2, just in case anything went wrong (so i could retain all the new info i’d entered into my iPhone’s calendar!)

I then copied iTunes.app to my desktop, as well as my “iTunes Library” and “iTunes Music Library.xml” so i could stick them back, in case they got written over with new old/new installation.

I then installed the 7.4.2 version and it went totally smoothly and totally worked! Fantastic.

Now i’ve just gotta remember not to update iTunes, as could easily be done via the software update without really realising, if you’re a little absent minded at the time.

But now what for the future? No iTunes updates for me and my hacked iPhone, forever? Perhaps!

Does 7.5 accidentally/on purpose now deny syncing with hacked iPhones, just like 1.1.1 stopped some jail-broken iPhones running at all?

Is this problem i had widespread enough that hackers are working on an iTunes fix?

Something else i wonder is if i was to update to 1.1.2, would iTunes 7.5 play nice with my iPhone?

Let us know your experiences or comments below.

The dealio is this: iPhone only knows how handle numbers of a certain length without an area code, and seeing as most of us are using iPhones with a US firmware, that length is the minimum American phone number length (much longer than that in Australia – 8 digits).

That means that when someone calls your iPhone from a home phone (or mobile) that doesn’t send the area code down the line (9### ####), and you have the number listed in your contacts with an area code (03 9### ####), then iPhone doesn’t quite cotton on to the fact that they’s the same thing.

Too many times I’ve received calls from friends, but iPhone didn’t clue on that they were in my Address Book, so I had to spend the first part of the conversation trying to figure out who they were without sounding like too much of a tool.

So you’ve done your Australian Phone Number Mod, what now?

Som people had reverted to adding both the area code version and the normal version of numbers to their contacts, but a better alternative is at hand! The chaps on the iPhone Dev Team have a workaround, by means of replacing the Springboard app. with a modified one. The modified one whispers sweet nothings into the iPhone’s ear about phone numbers being able to be only 8 numbers long and still cool.

Read up on the mod here.

For me this was an absolutely crippling problem, but there is surprisingly little info on the net about how to fix it.

Help share the love, and donate to the Dev Team if you find it of use!

After spending a good slab of my life loading the entire state of Victoria into my iPhone’s Google Map cache, iPhone turns around a bitch-slaps me.

Turns out that the cache has a time limit on it that removes the data when it is considered old. Awesome.

There must be a more intelligent way to manage the cache, surely? If I were an iPhone, I’d at least have the courtesy to compare my plethora of pre-loaded map data with the server to see if a more recent version had eclipsed it, rather than pulling it all down again over EDGE.

Well, it looks like we’ll just have to wait until that 3G iPhone hits the streets in 08 and makes caches in this capacity, redundant.

So, if you want to know the easiest way to look like a tool: scan through all available maps at all detail levels in your general area, brag about how youhave done this, then sit back, relax, and wait for iPhone to remove your handywork.

One of Australia’s well known live “tonight” style tv shows, Rove, had a little guest tonight that no other Australian show has yet to have; that little guest being an iPhone!

The iPhone has yet to be released in Australia, so this was a total shock. It was totally random, man.

Rove had just interviewed Jana Wendt, and asked who she would turn gay for as part of his “20 questions for $20″ segment. Jana gave the name of some Italian bird who Rove vaguely knew, so after the following commercial break, he showed the camera a picture of the Italian lady he had supposedly Googled, and right there on an iPhone.

Rove left the iPhone sitting on the “poof” in front of him for the remainder the segment. As they went to another break, Rove picked up the phone and showed it (or the screens contents) to the other guests on the couch and starting chatting the picture or perhaps also, the phone.

Is this the iPhone’s first public appearance on national television in both Australia and New-Zealand? Perhaps not the most exciting news all round, but questions now have to asked – who’s exactly is it? What plan is he/she using with it? How long have they had it and how did they get it? Perhaps he bought it when “Rove” did two shows in the US.

It was just one of the “cool” moments i had to share with y’all.

I’m one of those 1.0.2 users who’ve been waiting waiting waiting for a ‘re-virginise’ method to come up, so i could re-lock my sim-unlocked 1.0.2 iPhone, to allow me to upgrade to 1.1.1 safely. And then sim-lock again.

And thank the lord for the iPhone Elite team! This week they came up with a method to re-virginise sim-unlocked 1.0.2, and further more, rather than users having to screw ’round in the terminal they put together an automated process(es) which makes the whole ordeal rather damn simple!

And even better, i can attest to the fact that it works! So if you indulge in some re-virginising goodness, be sure to donate some moola to these fine folks, allowing international peoples like mwa to enjoy the benefits of 1.1.1, and use of the iPhone as just that, a phone.

After i’d revirginised, i then followed this guide where it details upgrading from a re-virginised 1.0.2 iPhone to 1.1.1, and further more unlocking your updated iPhone. Thanks so much to the iPhone Dev Team for that beautiful solution, anySIM.

For those interested, i’ve posted some photo’s from my re-virginising escapades…

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Checking out the features of the upcoming OS X Leopard on my iPhone this morning whilst still in bed. Went to open up another page from a link using the great Open In New Tab bookmark and got an unexpected alert message.

It went something like, “You cannot open more than eight pages in Safari. Go use a proper computer to get the most full Internet browsing experience”.

Well i didn’t know there was such a restriction. And why?

Does it slow down Safari if you have too many pages open at once? Does it make Safari or even the whole iPhone unstable?

Perhaps the number eight is simply Steve Jobs favourite number. Or the number of days one of Steve Jobs weeks contains.

How cool is this! What could be called our ’sister site’, (if you think long and hard about their title) HardMac has pointed out a little ‘feature’ of sorts on the iPhone, that most phones have, too.

At the bottom of the jack plug you can see a white disc that will irreversibly change color when entering in contact with water. So one would not need to open an iPhone or an iPod Touch to ensure it stopped working due to an unexpected bath.

The reason i thought this is cool is ’cause… Well i’m a bit of a geek i guess. But recently i had a bit of ‘plant’ stuck in the headphone jack (i take my iPhone outdoors when working). And whilst poking around in the headphone jack with a pin to get out the foreign plant, i was intrigued by the little white thing at the bottom of the headphone jack.

It didn’t look like part of a typical headphone jack – it wasn’t copper or even metal coloured, so it didn’t look like a typical electrical conductor of any sort, and now i know what the hell it is.

Now if my iPhone was under an Australian warrantee, i’d probably be a little frightened by the positioning of the water indicator. In other phones the indicator is typically near the battery or on the battery, tucked away inside the case of the phone. Partially removed from light rain or urine.

But given i have my iPhone sitting in a little side pocket on my pants (which can be a little open to the weather) i’d be paranoid about keeping my iPhone headphone jack down in that pocket. I wouldn’t want to void the chance of my iPhone being serviced by an Apple technician if the water indicator had been triggered by a lousy drop of rain (or an accidental splash!).

I am so righteous and free right now about having an unsupported iPhone…

Okay. I’m starting an iPhone wish-list. To get my iPhone gripes off my chest. We’ll keep adding to this. Put your wishes in the comments, below.

1. The ability to send “business cards” to other phone via sms.

2. Save sms drafts.

3. To be able to choose other routes when mapping from A to B in google maps on the iPhone.