A common complaint about the iPhone is that it has no physical buttons for playback control; you're forced to use the phone's touchscreen, which presents challenges when carrying the iPhone in a bag or pocket. Another complaint is that the iPhone's recessed headphone jack prevents you from using many third-party headphones that offer better performance than the stock earbuds.
Apple provides a workaround for the first issue via the special earbuds included with the iPhone: the right-hand cable provides a small, inline module that includes a microphone and a control module. Squeeze the module once to pause or resume iPod playback, or to answer or end a call; squeeze it twice in succession to skip to the next track. The functionality is limited--you can't skip back, skim, or perform any other action, but it's a welcome way to get at least some degree of playback and call control.
Third-party vendors have provided workarounds for the second issue through small adapters that let you connect other headphones to the iPhone's headphone jack. (We've reviewed two, and we have a few more to cover.) Unfortunately, when you use most third-party headphones, you lose the stock earbuds' control module and microphone. Shure makes an adapter that includes such functionality, but it's $40 and somewhat bulky.
For those who want better audio quality without losing the additional features of Apple's earbuds, an appealing alternative is provided by Ultimate Buds. The company takes a set of quality in-ear-canal headphones--either the Etymotics ER-6i (MSRP $149) or the Future Sonics/XtremeMac FS1 (MSRP $150)--and a set of Apple's iPhone earbuds, and then performs electronics surgery, grafting the iPhone-headset's cable and controller onto the in-ear-canal headphones. The result is the Ultimate Buds UB7 (pictured above) or UB7EB, each $150 (at the time of this writing, the UB7EB is on sale for $120). You get the sound quality and noise isolation of the ER-6i (UB7) or FS1 (UB7EB) with the playback-control and phone-making convenience of Apple's own iPhone earbuds. (Ultimate Buds will instead modify your favorite set of headphones for $40; we didn't test this service.)
Continue reading "Review: Ultimate Buds UB7 and UB7EB"
One of Apple's second round of iPhone ads has apparently been raising hackles from a somewhat unexpected source: professional airline dispatchers. The spot in question deals with an airline pilot who reputedly used his iPhone to check the weather during a flight delay.
One apocryphal tale deals with a passenger who, annoyed at a delay, supposedly checked the weather at their destination and, finding it clear, notified a flight attendant.
"Some guy with an iPhone says the weather is good," the flight attendant says, "and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?"While the story may not be true, let's face it: we've all been on flights with people annoying passengers like this, right? Of course the situation is a lot more complicated than the ad suggests it is, and I'd hope that most iPhone users realize that fact. Also, remember that airline dispatchers and flight crews are probably the last people you want to tick off. Well, right after your health care professional.[...]
Reportedly, the captain responded with a public address announcement that was sharp enough to elicit audible laughter from the cabin.
"If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough," he began, "to use it to check the weather at our alternate airport, then calculate our revised fuel burn due to being rerouted, then call our dispatcher to arrange our amended release, then make a call to the nearest traffic control center to arrange a new slot time (among all the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones), we'll then be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the flight attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multimillion-dollar aircraft and its 84 passengers to safely leave."
Yes, that's just what we need: an iPhone spot by a surgeon. I can see it now:
"You know, I couldn't remember the name of the organ I was supposed to be removing, so I had my nurse hand me the iPhone, and I loaded up Wikipedia and found that it was the gallbladder. How could I forget "gallblader"! Thanks, iPhone.
I mean, turns out the guy was just there to get his tonsils out, but hey—the iPhone can only do so much, right? Right?"
[via The Consumerist]
Today's latest legal challenge to the iPhone comes from the far off land of Germany (well, farther for some than others, I guess, if you happen to be in Germany). But for once, the charge is leveled not against Apple, but against the iPhone's German carrier, T-Mobile. Rival provider Vodafone has gotten an injunction against T-Mobile, after alleging that selling an exclusive handset with a 24-month contract violates German law.
Now, somewhat bizarrely, the injunction does not prevent T-Mobile from stopping sales of the iPhone. T-Mobile has responded to the court order, saying:
“We have an exclusive device in our portfolio, but if you look at the market, that’s normal,” said a T-Mobile spokesman in Germany. “The main thing is we will sell the iPhone. There is no stop to selling the iPhone.”That's right: you can't stop the signal, folks (unless you happen to be far, far underground, or out in the wilderness, where you don't get reception).
Vodafone's goal is to force a second injunction which would force T-Mobile to sell an unlocked version of the iPhone as well—there's a similar situation in France, where the iPhone launches next week, though it's still unknown just how much that will cost consumers. Meanwhile, we'll keep tabs on the case of the jealous German rival carrier and see just what Vodafone gets out of the whole deal.
While Apple may not be going crazy over games on the iPhone in a first-party fashion, it doesn't mean that others aren't taking up the slack. The folks over at Iconfactory and ARTIS have ported their fantastic puzzle game Frenzic to the web with the help of Javascript guru Robert Neagu.
If you're not familiar with Frenzic, let's just say it's a game that was born to be played on the iPhone. Essentially, a wedge of any of three colors (purple, green, or orange) will appear in the middle; you can assign it to any of the six open circles (as long as a wedge of the same position isn't already filled). When you fill up a circle, it empties out. If you manage to create a circle of a single color, you score extra points, and there are three special powers you can acquire as well.
Frenzic plays well on the web, though I noticed that it sometimes felt as though I had to hit a circle more than once for it to show up (I'll blame the Internet for that). According to the developers, this is just a temporary solution until the official iPhone SDK shows up, at which point: native Frenzic for everyone!
Last week, my esteemed colleague Crazy (like a fox) Chris Breen walked you through the steps required to jailbreak your phone with version 1.1.2 of the iPhone's firmware. Admittedly, the procedure is kind of convoluted, and it has a number of prerequisites. But hacking moves far faster than the speed of light, so it's little surprise that there's already a new version of the jailbreak software.
That revised version adds a lot of new features, such as allowing you to activate your phone without having to go deal with AT&T, and adding support for the YouTube application. But I think most users will be most excited to see that this version finally supports Macs with PowerPC processors, so those of you still running on G4s and G5s can finally join the hacking club (all at your own risk still, naturally).
[via Infinite Loop]
If there's panic in the streets and talk of tinfoil hats, it can mean only one thing: conspiracy theorists of the world unite (but quietly, so they don't know we're uniting)! The latest topic of concern, the iPhone.
According to the folks at Hackintosh, the Stocks and Weather applications transmit your iPhone's IMEI (a unique identifier associated with each handset) back to Cupertino. What does it all mean?
Reactions, of course, vary from the "who cares?" to the "zOMG, Apple is evil." Is there really any reason to worry? Likely no. Apple's terms of service and license agreements allow them to collect some personal data, and it seems to me little different than registering your computer's serial number. I'm sure there will be those that object strenuously, and if you want to hack the apps to send bogus information, it seems like that's possible (if not for the faint of heart). Check the link above for instructions. Everybody else, as you were.
Update: According to Heise Online and Docpool seem to have confirmed that the information sent is not the IMEI, but rather just an identifier for the application.
During the week's quest to install third-party applications on my iPod touch running 1.1.2 of the iPod software I was asked if the same technique worked with the iPhone.
Nope. Try a simple downgrade to software version 1.1.1 from within iTunes and you're faced with a seemingly inescapable error. Fortunately, you can restore the iPhone to 1.1.2 and it works perfectly.
But it can be done. It's simply a matter of assembling the right collection of tools. Follow along after the jump to learn how I did it on my Intel Mac.
Continue reading "Jailbreaking iPhone 1.1.2"
We're not sure exactly who would opt to drop the $20 unlimited data part of their iPhone plan—despite the higher speed of Wi-Fi, I still spend far more time on EDGE due to its sheer ubiquity. But at least now you have the option to save that extra $20 a month if, for whatever reason, you find yourself not needing unlimited data.
As of this week, AT&T allows you to get rid of the data plan on your iPhone. Login to your account on AT&T Wireless, choose "Rate Plan & Features" and then "Add/Manage Features." If you scroll down, you'll find the section shown above and an option to "Select to Remove."
Before you go ahead and slough off that EDGE, you should note that not only will you lose the ability to access data on EDGE with Safari, Mail, and any other app that requires network access, but you'll also lose the ability to use Visual Voicemail (you can still access your voicemail in a more conventional fashion of dialing in and entering your passcode).
[via Gizmodo]
Mark this one down to the "totally-not-a-surprise" department. As we've reported over at the Mothership, id Software co-founder John Carmack has said that Apple is "not exactly supportive" of games on the iPhone:
“I have an iPhone right now and it’s a platform I would enjoy developing for but Apple is not taking progressing steps in regards to [gaming],” Carmack is quoted as saying.It's a little strange to think that the iPhone is lacking any sort of game—even the original iPod had a hidden version of Breakout on it. As plenty of third-party developers have shown, gaming on the iPhone is perfectly plausible, and while the touchscreen may not be the best interface for just porting over PC games, it would seem to lend itself well to new, innovative types of gaming in much the same way that the Nintendo Wii's motion-sensitive controller has.Carmack confesses that Apple’s iPhone development strategy is working “from a business standpoint,” and said he’s not going to second-guess the company and tell them they’re “being fools or idiots” for not focusing on gaming for the device.
Then again, Apple's never really shown that they "get" games, despite repeated claims to the contrary. Even the deals they've made for bringing games to the iPod have been less-than-spectacular.
Let's throw this out to you, iPhone users: do you miss gaming on your iPhone? Or are you too busy listening to music, watching videos, and surfing the Internet to care?
