One of Each, Please

Apple.com Menu Bar

After the latest announcement, I had to do it. My iPhone 4 comes in tomorrow. Oddly enough, the number one feature I want on my phone is not multi-tasking, or voice search, or even the gyroscopometer (or whatever). I just really want the 5 MP camera and HD camcorder. Automatic HDR! That in itself sold me the phone.

I need one of each thing on Apple.com's menu bar. iPhone > iPad > Mac, in order of importance to me. My iPhone 3G is already more than two years old. My MacBook Pro is going on its fifth year. iPad with multi-tasking is amazing. And iPhone 4 just completes the set somehow. No more iProducts for at least two years, I promise.

iOS 4 and iPhone 3G (Jailbroken)

Speaking strictly from personal experience, after upgrading to Apple's latest iOS 4.0 and 4.0.1, my iPhone 3G, originally on iOS 3.1.3., was unusably slow. It was disappointing to see the iPhone 3G become something I hated to use. After looking up several tips and tricks to speed up the iPhone, including disabling all my Spotlight search results and double hard resetting the phone (which didn't seem to work very well), I decided to give jailbreaking another chance.

It turns out that the jailbroken iOS 4.0.1 , even with multitasking and the background wallpaper service turned on, was noticeably faster than the official iOS 4.0.1 from Apple. I found this a bit strange. I instantly noticed it being slightly faster right after jailbreaking it. I still resorted to rebooting my iPhone a few times a day to keep it in working order. I used the jailbroken version with as full a feature-set my iPhone 3G can physically support for about a week, after which it begun feeling a little too sluggish for practical use.

Last night, I decided to re-jailbreak my iPhone 3G, this time disabling multitasking (because quite frankly, it was impractical on such a slow device) but keeping the background wallpaper settings (because I have grown used to having a non-black background). So far, so good, sort of. It definitely feels zippier than both iOS 4.0.1 by Apple and the jailbroken iOS 4.0.1 with mutitasking. Still, compared to the good and familiar 3.1.3, there is a no contest. (The only thing keeping me on iOS 4 are the folders and unified mailboxes.)

Supposedly, Apple's investigating this issue. I wait impatiently.

P.S. There's definitely some power issues that I've noticed with iOS 4, at least on iPhone 3G.

Bad Day Starts Before Midnight

1. I had trouble sleeping last night. I went to bed a bit late, at around 9:30. I couldn't fall asleep. Habitually using the iPhone as my alarm clock, I had the iPhone nearby so I decided to browse the App Store and go through my iPhone Settings. I inadvertently locked my SIM card out of my phone, which apparently happens after three failed attempts at unlocking it. (The default passcode in the United States, it turns out, is 1111, according to Apple's support pages.) So there I was stuck, unable to place or receive phone calls or do anything else over the cell network. I had my WiFi though.

2. I still wasn't able to sleep, now especially with this problem on my mind. Not sure what this Locked SIM problem was, I searched online to find solutions. Someone somewhere said it was possible to reset the passcode (using a PUK, or Pin Unlock Code) by either going to AT&T's website or calling Customer Service. My problem was I hadn't created an account. So I attempted to create it ... until I get to the step to validate my phone by sending it a text message (which I couldn't receive because I was locked out!). It was an interesting Catch-22.

3. By that time it was around 12:30. I figured I'd try to sort it out in the morning and I tried to go back to sleep. After rolling around in bed for another hour or so, I decided to look up the AT&T Customer Service number and try giving them a call (still on my SIM-locked iPhone). I had GV Mobile (which uses Google Voice) on my phone, and I wondered if it would place my (800) call. Well, it turned out it wouldn't because the way Google Voice works is by calling both the number I wanted to dial and my own phone and then connecting the call; I had forgotten about that. Then, I remembered that Skype can place (800) number calls for free. Tried Skype over my WiFi and it worked. Surprisingly, after being on hold for what felt like 10 minutes and listening to a barrage of AT&T advertisements, I was talking to someone on the other end of the line.

4. I straight up asked him for my PUK, which I had to memorize because I did not have a pencil or paper ready, and I couldn't directly type in the code while in the Skype app. In the end, the code worked. Great!

5. By 2:00 am I decided to go to my computer and charge my iPhone, which was at its 20% marker with its bright red battery indicator. By 3:00, I was on the sofa and managed to sleep about a sound hour, before needing to wake up for work at exactly 4:18.

6. I made it to the subway a minute or two early, looking forward to continuing my half-sleep on the train. Maybe I was expecting too much. There were two real-live hobos, one on either end of the train car, and there was a disheveled man sleeping lying down on one of the benches. There was spit everywhere on the floor around him. To add to the mental discomfort, one of the train doors was jammed so it kept making a disturbing mechanized moan whenever the doors tried to open. There were also two guys who got on the train shortly after I did, who sat across from one another, and who were speaking loudly in a non-English language. I guess I could have easily moved to another car. But it was routine; I had my usual spot and I did not want to leave it.

7. Desperately needing a coffee more than most other days, I made my trek to the usual Dunkin' Donuts. The sky was dark and gray, and it was raining pretty well. Then, I went to catch the LIRR, which was also non-routine this morning. Track change caused confusion. The people were divided between two platforms, not knowing which is the correct one. Do we trust the modified sign, or do we trust the physical train waiting where it usually sits? It turned out it was the latter.

8. I saw perhaps the saddest thing I'll see today as I walked the mile from the Hicksville station to the office. I saw and heard a pigeon slam into the sidewalk from out of nowhere. I have no idea why it happened. Through its beady eyes, the bird looked as if it were crying. Even I, who usually detest pigeons, felt some compassion. I probably should have attempted to rescue it. I feel guilty that I did not.

More Rain in the Forecast

Looking up the forecast for Hicksville on my iPhone, I was dismayed to see the following. There is more rain in the forecast. Boo...

This is turning out to be a really unproductive summer.

Cornell LDAP on iPhone 3.0

My friends, now that iPhone OS 3.0 is out, we now have LDAP support for the iPhone and iPod touch. We can search the Cornell Directory on the go. How exciting.

First, go to "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" in your Settings application. Add Account. Other. Under Contacts, select "Add LDAP Account".

The server name is going to be "directory.cornell.edu", and the description can be whatever you want to appear in your Contacts application. No user name or password is required. I didn't have luck with connecting via SSL. Continue the setup without SSL.

You can hit the Save button from here. Just in case though, the Search Settings at the bottom should be automatically filled out to be "o=cornell university,c=us". The Search Scope is "subtree". This is probably fine for most cases.

More Cornell LDAP instructions here.

Testing a search:

Hi-Speed Scrubbing

The coolest iPhone 3.0 update is the way scrubbing is improved in the iPod application. If you touch and hold the scrubber, you have the option of changing your scrubbing speed. It reads, "Slide your finger down to adjust the scrubbing rate."

Scrubbing the traditional way is dubbed "Hi-Speed Scrubbing". It proceeds down to "Half Speed Scrubbing" and "Quarter Speed Scrubbing" when the finger is near the middle of the screen. Finally, below that is "Fine Scrubbing".

Pretty awesome. And podcasts (and I'd imagine, audiobooks) now have a 30-second step back button as well.

(The Casino Royale soundtrack rocks.)

Pre-iPhone 3.0 Update

Once the iPhone 3.0 firmware update is released this Wednesday, I'd imagine a few of these iPhone apps will become obsolete or replaced. Back in December, I posted screenshots of my home screens. I'm going to do it here again.

This Week in AAPL and MSFT

Playing around with iPhone 3.0, I checked out the new Stocks app feature of landscape charts. Following E3 and WWDC, I found this interesting. You see the trend, but also note the stock price and scale.

AAPL:

MSFT:

Interesting iPhone Note

Upon an iPhone (or iPod touch) restore, it loads in the default applications from the previously saved backup first, then the web apps on the next blank page, and finally loads in the other applications from the first blank spot (even if it goes back to the first home screen) in alphabetical order.

Playing Monopoly in 2008

Last week, I had purchased the official Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It currently sells for $7.99 and probably will for some time to come. I don't see a major discount to be likely, so get it now! It's worth it. (App Store Link.)

The game's biggest features, according to Touch Arcade:

Give your iPhone/iPod touch a shake to roll the dice or animate the movers
Use your touch screen to flick and drag property cards and simulate real-life game experiences
3D view of the board and movers
Select full-board view or zoom in for a close-up
Play solo against the computer or Pass n’ play for 4
Wi-Fi Multiplayer Mode allows 4 players to connect via the same router on a Local Area Network
Automatically replaces players who leave with AI

Besides being an amazing time killer at work and fun game during the commute, the game was something very interesting. Having been familiar with only the original Monopoly as Charles Darrow had intended, with Ventor Avenue and Reading Railroad, I was excited to see the "Here & Now" world edition of this classic game. Check out the Wikipedia page on Monopoly for a very insightful read. In 2006, the "Here & Now" properties were decided with an online voting process. Wikipedia outlines the results. (I'm glad to see that Taipei made it on the map!)

What makes this edition of Monopoly interesting is that its scope covers actual world cities (albeit, superficially) as opposed to neighborhoods of Atlantic City or fictitious places of themes in other editions of Monopoly. And playing this game in one of the worst recessions in recent history is an attempt to bring this game back to its roots. Or at least, to get you thinking about money and what it means not to have it as you traverse the playing field, a kind of metaphor for life. When money comes into the picture, events and people's decisions can change drastically. In the game of Monopoly, the goal is not team building and not reaching out to your peers. Its premise: bankruptcy of others through competition. Its goal: to win and to cheat one's way to victory through any legal means necessary. The next time you sit around a table in a dimly lit room playing Monopoly with your friends, try to experience Monopoly for what it is and for what was meant to be.

I have dug up a few more interesting articles on Monopoly. (I do not necessarily share the opinion of their author.)

Before the October 2008 "Crash": Is The Monopoly Game Teaching You To Go Broke?

During the October 2008 "Crash": High Anxiety: We went from playing inflation-era Monopoly to playing depression-era Monopoly in mid-game.

After the October 2008 "Crash": The Economic Crisis Hits the Markson Family Monopoly Board

My iPhone Home Screens

These days, there are so many quality iPhone application in the iTunes App Store that it is so hard to keep up with. I try to follow up with the new releases day to day just to know what's out there. Typically for paid apps, I wait until about 1000 reviews or an overall rating of 4+ before considering buying them. I have wasted spent so much money on applications and games already. But sometimes, especially with the smaller developers, they deserve my money. Hah.

Recently I have found a few iPhone applications that have come in very handy for me. Some of these will probably not work well for iPod touch users without wi-fi. In case anyone's interested, I have attached screenshots of my iPhone home screens.

Home Screen 1: Homepage
Continued from my original iPod touch days, keeping all the native iPhone apps together.


Home Screen 2: Daily Readings & Apps
Apps I use almost daily. Before the App Store, this page had been reserved for web apps that I had bookmarked.


Home Screen 3: Games & GPS
This page has changed a lot since Day One. I generally remove the bad games or those I have already completed. This page changes very often.


Home Screen 4: Reference & Utilities
This page has evolved from being the spill-over page, when I didn't use Text, YouTube, iTunes, App Store much. This, however, is no longer the case; it has become the place where I store essential reference applications.


I'll write more about the special-er ones in the next post. Please share your favorite applications in the comments if you'd like.

Enigmo for iPhone

Enigmo. I finally completed this puzzle game on the iPhone. The original price was $7.99 and I bought it because it won the Apple Design Award for the iPhone Developer Showcase at Macworld 2008.

Its price has fallen to $1.99 since then and further still to a mere $0.99. It is a game definitely worth checking out. It turns out there is a total of 50 levels. I was a little stuck around level 30, but after that hiccup, the rest of the game went fairly smoothly.

Fieldrunner 1.1

The best game for iPhone was updated yesterday to version 1.1. I was hooked on it when I bought it before, and I am hooked on it now that it's updated and improved!

Mobile Me, Mobile You

Since my computer was sent away for "repair", I had depended on my iPhone as my primary computing device. It has worked out quite well. The only thing I still find my computer essential for day-to-day tasks is syncing podcasts and watching my TV shows on Hulu. Supposedly, the iPhone Software Update 2.2 will allow for downloading podcasts directly, without the need of a computer. Sweet!

At work, I have been using Mobile Me's services quite often, including organizing things in my personal calendar. It's still too buggy to be dependable, but it sure is slick.

Life Lesson: Money

Two nights ago, I had a conversation over dinner with someone I'd like to call "Grandpa". He is well into his 80's and, fortunately for me, has much to say about a lot of things. We talked about investing in the stock market, thinking about retirement options, and operating a small business. We talked about money and how it is possible to start with very little and end up, as he has, with more. He said something that struck a chord with me:

Money is only good for making more money.

I have learned over the past few years that, for me, money is merely a means to an end, rather than be the end itself. That is not to say we do not need to have it to live. Life situations may vary by the way we are brought up, by what I call indirectly inherited wealth, whether it is physically given to you or not. This inhereited wealth includes food, a dinner table to put it on, a place you can call home, and even life lessons taught over time. We should never lose sight of what we generally take for granted. There is not enough appreciation and gratitude these days. (I am at fault as well.)

P.S. ... which brings me back to photography. In the end, I do not expect to be a professional photographer. In the end, it does not bring food to the table and pay the bills. While it is definitely an art worth practicing and is not a waste of money, I realized there is no reason to jump into such an expensive hobby so quickly. Paraphrasing what my father told me just this weekend, spending and indulging on things that make you a better person and a more effective worker is okay in moderation. More importantly, do not spend money that you don't have. Do not count on the money of others.

P.P.S. Since I have thought about this topic of money more carefully, I have gotten better at Texas Hold'Em on my iPhone. Having money is a great feeling when you are able to pressure the poorer players to elimination. But at the same time, every hand is, to some degree, a gamble.

Living the Mobile Life

Earlier this summer, I was without my computer for about a week. I had to depend on my iPod touch and a Linksys wireless router to do my personal "computing" and Internet browsing. It was quite usable, since I began to limit my usage to checking the weather in the morning and keeping up with e-mail. More importantly, it was one of the most freeing experiences ever [for the modern computer kid].

I want to return to that. As you might know, I hardly have the time to properly go online with my MacBook Pro (if there is even a "proper" way to do so these days). I do not want to waste the precious time I'm actually awake at home on the computer. I want to do other things--things I do best, e.g. eat and sleep.

I have been using the iPhone as my mobile computer at work, as my calendaring and e-mailing machine, and as my podcast-player. I merely sync the phone to the computer every night to recharge and update. I thought (while bored at work), why not spend otherwise wasted time at work catching up on news, my RSS feeds, photography research, Apple, Digg, and, Facebook, etc?

I hope the mobile experience will dissuade me from being online in excess. As long as I get through my Google Reader, Digg, and a few Google News pages, I all set for the day. Throw in a few AIM conversations for good measure, but that's about it. The rest of the time is for more important and productive things.

Things like sleep.

Reclaiming the iPod

After getting my iPhone, which has thus become my primary iPod, I passed the iPod touch 1G down to my sister, and she in turn passed her iPod nano 1G to my mom. Just today, I have re-inherited the iPod shuffle 1G I had given to my mom about 3 years ago.

Ah, the circle of life [of iPods].

I generally listen to podcasts in a particular order. So the iPod shuffle, named "ShufflePod", will be used as a podcast player. (My original iPod 5G was named "USunkMiPod" and my iPhone was named "USunkMiPhone".)

iReady, uReady?

We are now on AT&T. I am now on an iPhone.

iReady is a reference to the silly (more like, stupid) attempt by AT&T to facilitate iPhone purchasing plans and activation. Its name screams to be made fun of. And so we did.

WWDC 08 Predictions

Based on rumors, personal experience, and what I know about Apple:

SOFTWARE / SERVICES
1. iPhone/iPod touch App Store launch.
2. .Mac update and refresh.
3. Mac OS X 10.6 Announcement.

HARDWARE
1. iPhone with 3G announcement.
2. New Cinema Displays refresh.