iDude.org

Looks like the new iPhone has officially been announced.

As usual, it looks like and the new features are excellent, features we wanted are still missing and logical things that Apple could do like make MobileMe free (to spur wider use) still haven’t happened, although it is rumored.

Even though I did go ahead and get an iPad.  I WILL not get the iPhone 4 until they offer more carrier options.  There’s no way in hell I will go back to AT&T, so hopefully the fall release of a CDMA version for Verizon and/or Sprint, along with other smaller local carriers, will happen.  That is the only way myself and tens of millions of others will get the new iPhone.

Two other things that would be nice:

1. Upgrade the iPod touch to the same form factor and feature set minus the cellular radio, or even include 3G data like the iPad for those who don’t want to switch or already have a good cellular plan.
2. Make the whole experience more “open”… I’ll leave it at that.  Being tied to iTunes just to get the Apple Experience sucks.  I use a Mac, but not primarily, I use Linux a lot, Windows is almost out of my home-office IT Ecosystem.  Put it all on the device with ties to “the cloud”.

Otherwise, I hope Apple keeps up the innovative edge in design and function.  I look at a lot of devices and there is nothing that appeals to me more than their design, even though sometimes it doesn’t seem as feature laden as some other devices.

Simplicity+Function = Winner

What a complainer… Sure, there are going to be bugs, lots of them sometimes in the case of a new product of this type… People should almost expect them.

We all knew it was coming, it was just a matter of time. A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over what the plaintiff is referring to as the “Defective iPhone 3G,” which she hopes will become a class-action complaint. Alabama resident Jessica Alena Smith filed the complaint yesterday against the iPhone maker, alleging that the new iPhone’s 3G performance and reliability has been subpar, despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign. Considering that a true fix has yet to be issued for users’ 3G problems, this could just be the tip of the iPhone lawsuit iceberg. More >>

But now, this woman wants to file a class action lawsuit against Apple due to 3G not living up to her expectations.  Even though the Infineon 3G chipset may be a bit flawed, it’s still not completely Apple’s fault.  AT&T is the provider and that can cause the dropcalls, coverage (or lack of) issues and so on.

I live in Kentucky and don’t even have 3G where I live, so I cannot really vouche for the quality, but I did get a chance to travel to Lexington KY this past week and had NO problems whatsoever… Actually my 3G was much faster on my phone that one of my friend’s tethered BlackBerry.  I brought up pages much faster on my phone than he did on his laptop.

Some people just don’t have anything better to do… Just ask for a refund and get a different phone… geesh.

I got my new 3G today after waiting for two weeks for Apple to get more in.  Went down to the AT&T Store and sat there and waited while the silly customer service reps sat there and explained EVERY little feature of the phones to the customers… Geeesh.  Took about 25 minutes for just one person ahead of me in at each of the 3 reps… Amazing.

Finally, I got to the desk and the girl went back and got it for me and started chatting up a storm about it… I told her I already had the 2G and already knew everything about it, if I don’t, I’ll read the manual.  I also voiced my disappointment with having to pay $10 more for 3G in an area that doesn’t even have 3G service.  Isn’t that “illegal” to charge more for a service that isn’t even offered?   They tried saying, and it must be the official AT&T stance, that the higher price was to be “more competitive with the other data plans”, not because of the faster 3G speeds.  Competitive?  By raising the price higher towards the crackberry plan?  COME ON!  I’ll admit that I knew I would have to pay $10 more a month, so I didn’t make that big of a stink.

THEN, she asked if I wanted SMS messaging…  Prior to ordering, I didn’t realize they stripped out the 200 SMS messages that came with the 2G plan… This is getting silly.  Apple and AT&T are really letting this iPhone thing go to their heads. So I had to pay $5/mo for just 200 SMS messages.

So basically, due to the lack of my area’s 3G coverage, I am paying $15/mo more just to have the same level of service that I had on my 2G.  They better be investing on getting 3G in my area and loosen up on the SMS.  SMS is probably the most efficient use of the network and they charge the MOST for it!  COME ON!

I ended up calling and making a stink about the SMS and got 5 free months of SMS + 1000 extra rollover, which I’ll never use.

They activated it in the store and synced up my contacts with MobileME via WiFi before leaving.  Once I got home, this is where the waiting started…

Syncing with iTunes took about 60 minutes.

It had to:

1. Restore from yesterday’s backup of my 2G. (20 minutes)
2. Backup the new 3G config. (20 minutes)
3. Then it did some iTune maintenance (5 minutes)
4. Then proceeded to sync up my measly 3.5gb of music and apps. (15 minutes)

The backup thing runs like ALL the time now instead of being manual and although I appreciate the backups, I don’t feel like I need it EVERY time I add or change something.  Especially when it takes as long as it does.  The other day, after not syncing for a week or so, it took 30 minutes or so to just do the backup.

THEN, I couldn’t use any of the 3 cradles that I have for my phone due to the physical differences between 2G and 3G… A Dremel tool easily solved this, but again… This is a negative for Apple.  At least they didn’t decide to change the actual connection layout of the plug.

Overall, the audio is much better in the earpiece, the external speaker is louder… Some things seem a bit zippier and the keyboard seems a bit “tappier” and faster to type on.  Maybe it’s the more comfortable feel, I dunno.

I am going to do my best to get this “$15/mo more for nothing” thing remedied, but most likely, I’ll just have to eat it.

I’m actually what you could consider a recent Apple “fanboy” but I am starting to feel the euphoria I felt about Apple for the last few years starting to fade.  If they get any worse, they are going to lose me and my evangelism about Apple and surely, I am not alone in these feelings.

The new Apple iPhone 3G was announced today (6/9/2009) at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. The new price is only $199 (8gb) and $299 (16gb) due to carrier subsidies. It has tons of new features built into it, notably GPS and 3G (of course) and will definitely make inroads not only into the corporate market with the new MS Exchange functionality, but also into the more frugal consumer market. $199 makes this phone very competitive with the higher end blackberries and cheaper than most of the Microsoft Smartphones.

Most of the base features are the same, like the flash storage capacity, but Apple did take suggestions from the community and improve the design, such as making the headphone jack flush as to not require a special adaptor to use non-Apple headphones.

The 16GB model also has a white backed version as well as the new Black backed and the front of the phone is wholly unchanged…

Included accessories, everything is pretty much the same:

• iPhone 3G
• Stereo Headset with mic
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• SB Power Adapter (A bit smaller now)
• Documentation
• Cleaning/polishing cloth
• SIM ejector tool (a paperclip!)

Look for the new iPhone to reach stores around July 11th. Hopefully supply will be able to hit the demand that I anticipate. I plan on getting ahold of one for myself.

Saw this over on Gizmodo and thought I’d pass it along.  Good stuff.

Today, Steve Jobs announced at an Apple Event that the iPhone will, by summertime, get a full version update to 2.x… The 2.0 update will provide ActivSync Microsoft Exchange capabilities including full PUSH email, calendar and contact syncing… The new 2.0 will also provide the framework for the next level of iPhone/Touch apps. Click the image above to see more.

This is very exciting news and is going to usher in the next stage of smartphone domination by the Apple iPhone.

My next main hope is at the release date, Apple will release an 3G iPhone as well as additional improvements, perhaps even a slightly larger screened enhanced phone/PDA more geared towards Fanboy/Power Users that will be more multimedia oriented and perhaps even be able to stream video and interface with the movie element of iTunes, but I’m just dreaming here.

I still think a tablet type Mac that is small, very portable, priced competitively and powerful enough to provide a desktop level experience would be really cool. Then add a docking station that can hook it up to a mouse/monitor/keyboard. If I could have something like this that could be everything for me, I would get one in a heartbeat. PC, Cellphone, VoIP phone, PDA, mobile computing platform, etc.

The Axiotron Mac OSX unofficial Mac Tablet is good, but still a bit larger and more expensive than what I describe above.

Apple has filed patents for something of this sort (the docking station concept), perhaps someday it will leave the vaporware stage.

I got home this evening and docked my iPhone to get the 1.1.4 update… The docking started up iTunes and notified me that the update was available, so I went ahead and started it.

The normal upgrade procedure started and I went about my browsing during the install.  It seemed to take a bit longer (probably adding the framework for the SDK) and it rebooted as usual.

I noticed the signal was low when I unlocked the keypad and the signal didn’t get better (I usually have 3 bars or so).   So I went ahead and rebooted the phone again and it came up to this screen…

I went ahead and connected it, it synced successfully, but STILL came back to this screen every time.  Then I took out and reseated the SIM card…………… Nothing.

CONCLUSION:

I was getting ready to call Apple Support, then I realized that before I started the update,  the Apple Update asked me to update iTunes and a Leopard Graphics fix… After updating iTunes, rebooting, then syncing the phone with the NEW version, it kicked right in and activated it.

MAKE SURE YOU UPDATE iTUNES TO THE LATEST BEFORE UPDATING TO 1.1.4!

Disclaimer:  I did originally have a Jailbroken 1.1.1 then went to 1.1.3, before reverting back to 1.1.2 (Jailbroken) and then back to 1.1.3 full to get the new features.  So, I’m not sure if this could have caused any of this.  Since it is fixed now, I figured it was NOT the cause. 

Blackberries have been out since approximately 3:30pm Monday. All carriers are affected since all Blackberry email is dependent upon RIM’s servers being operational for email to be received.

The whole model is a bit silly in my opinion and since this isn’t the first time this has happened, RIM should rethink their architecture a bit to allow fallback of some kind or at least have multiple redundant locations to allow service continuity.

I am glad I went with an iPhone instead of a Blackberry since iPhones aren’t tied to the manufacturer like the Blackberry is. Believe it or not, iPhone owners are on a much longer leash. There is not a single service on the iPhone that would become “Unavailable” if Apple were to have a network issue. Apple was smart enough to simply put a standard POP3/IMAP client on the phone that accesses the user’s mail server directly via WiFi or EDGE.

Companies, instead of investing HUGE (and I mean HUGE) amounts of money into the Blackberry Enterprise Server, should simply open up a secure IMAP port and allow users to retrieve their email from iPhones. Eventually Apple will probably update the mail.app to allow direct MAPI or RPC over HTTPS type connections to interface with corporate Microsoft Exchange Servers.

This is as simple as configuring a few services and opening/securing some ports whereas BlackBerry Enterprise Servers licenses cost as much as $60,000 for 1000 users and many tens of thousands for additional CALs. For a large company, the cost JUST for the licenses could cost > $100,000. That’s not including the cost of the administrators to install it, maintain it, and additional hardware to support it and lost productivity due to outages of the manufacturer’s infrastructure.

Just configure IMAP/MAPI, open some ports and buy an iPhone! :-)

Over the last month or so that I’ve had the iPhone, I have enjoyed just the original base features included with it. But, being the geek that I am, I had to extend it further… Much further.

A week or so ago, I went ahead and decided to do my “first” hacking of the iPhone. I went to the JailBreakMe.com website and followed the simple instructions and the Installer.app which is basically a “one touch” utility to install 3rd party apps and Linux ports such as PICO and a terminal program.

I was a bit surprised to find a port of Apache 1.3.37 and PHP 5.2.3 in the repository, so I went ahead, installed them both and with a little configuration using PICO (after installing and logging in through SSH), got a functional webserver with PHP support.

I created a PHPINFO() page which shows the extensions that are activated by default, which are pretty much just the core PHP functions and started thinking what to do with it…

Of course I could use it for impromptu testing of code from anywhere, showing simple mockups offline to clients one-on-one, and other things like that, but it wasn’t enough for me…

I put the thoughts on the backburner for a few days, last night I figured I’d try something new.

Here goes…

Apache/PHP was working so I decided to go ahead and copy a full PHP site with full graphics and a PHPMail script on it.

To get this all over to the phone, I TARred up just the most necessary files, filtering out anything not directly referenced (limited amount of memory on the phone for this type of stuff).

Then I FTP’ed, using NCFTP installed from the Installer.App repository, into the machine that had the TAR, downloaded and unTARred it into Apache’s document folder (/Library/WebServer/Documents).

At that point, once all the files were in the correct place and so forth, I hit the website directly on the phone (http://127.0.0.1) and it came right up and was rather speedy. I then hit it from a workstation on the same WiFi network using the DHCP assigned IP and it came up perfectly.

Ok, so far so good, the website comes up just fine locally and remotely, lets take it a few steps further.

I decided to, from work today, to VPN using PPTP built into the iPhone into my DD-WRT router at home (It has a static IP) and then proceed to port forward port 80 from the external IP to the Internally assigned VPN IP of the iPhone. Then I proceed to add a DNS entry for it…

I also VPNed into the DD-WRT over EDGE and it worked just fine as well. Of course it was MUCH slower, but still worked fine.

It really was this easy to do something that I don’t think has ever been done before with a cellphone.

NOTE: Apache was setup to just start 1 httpd instance and I believe a max of 7, which slowed stuff down a lot with a graphical site, so I set it from 1 to 10.

If anyone has questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll reply as soon as I can.

I figured, since my Apple (AAPL) stock has done so well in the last few months, that I would go ahead and buy myself an iPhone. (Actually it is, according to my wife, my Birthday and Christmas present)

I stopped by the local AT&T Store and picked it up. They did the credit pre-approval in the store and had the number printed on my receipt for use at home once I started the activation. This helped prevent any delays that could have been caused by online credit checks, especially since I have a Credit Guard thing on my bureau accounts.

The activation was totally painless. The number porting was the only part that took a little while. I could call out on the iPhone, but it took about 2 hours for incoming to work. I guess that isn’t bad considering my previous service was through a small regional provider.

It was very easy to connect to WiFi both at home (Non-WEP Meraki Units) and at work (MID-Level CISCO AP w/ WEP). It seems to remember the APs really well and connects to them immediately without asking after the initial connection. WiFi is the only way to go if you plan on using it for major emailing and/or Web surfing, etc.

At home, I can’t get any AT&T Towers, but I roam through CellularOne and their EDGE Network is slower than a quadriplegic, blind, geriatric turtle with a full hip replacement. I was able to only get between 9-15k average. On AT&T’s network from work, I have received between 80-180k… Much more like true EDGE speeds. For these tests, I used the iPhone Network Test page. From what I’ve heard, AT&T recently bought the local CellularOne (Dobson) here in my region, so hopefully they’ll upgrade the old equipment when they go into the towers for initial maintenance.

Here is a brief feature rundown:

• The Interface is fast and beautiful
• Mail is sufficient for reading and replying
• Google Maps is excellent, even on only EDGE in “MAP” mode. On WiFi, it’s lightning fast
• YouTube is flawless and works best on WiFi, otherwise it scales the resolution and compresses it more on slow connections (although I have yet to connect through EDGE)
• The iPod option turns it into a killer iPod
• The iTunes store is great, previews start instantly, no buffering time on WiFi. Doesn’t work on EDGE.
• SMS worked well between my iPhone and my brother’s BlackBerry 7130 on AT&T
• Calendar is functional and provides all the basic options for setting up calendar items
• The camera is nothing amazing, but is better than virtually 99% of most other cell phone cameras (quality wise).
• The widgets (Stocks & Weather) are excellent and look just as good as their desktop counterparts.
• The Clock, Calculator & Notes are fine too.

Probably the most extensive test I did of Safari was to load up an ArcGIS Web Mapping page. I loaded it up, it all rendered correctly and even some of the mapping tools like the Information (I) tool worked although map navigation was impossible since it depends on a mouse.The Interface is very intuitive and it even passed my “Dad Test”. If he can figure it out, anyone can.

Battery life is excellent so far and seems to be lasting longer today than it did yesterday after it’s first full charge.

The only thing I wish there was more of were normal “ring-like” ringtones instead of silly duck and dog sounds. And the maximum speaker volume isn’t really loud enough for either the ringtones or the speakerphone, even after the 1.1.1 upgrade.

There really isn’t much more to tell. The iPhone, for me, has work as advertised. I haven’t had any trouble to speak of besides AT&T having some EDGE problems yesterday (10/8/7) and couldn’t get to it all day.