23 June, 2009

If you are a student, faculty or staff member of any qualified Education institution in Singapore, or even parents of a student studying there, between now till September 8, 2009, you can buy a Mac at Apple’s special price for Education purchases, and at the same time, get an iPod touch for free¹.

There are also a few HP printers that are available at a good price, after getting a S$199 cash-rebate when you buy a Mac.

The good thing about buying Macs via Apple’s Education pricing, is that you will save between S$100 up to S$340 when you get either the MacBooks or iMacs. So, why wait — get your Mac now before you go back to school!

¹ You’d need to download and submit a rebate form not later than 8 Oct 2009 to receive your rebate

19 June, 2009

We know that SingTel’s will still be the only one bringing the iPhone 3GS into our shores – so to be sure you’re one of the first to know the launch date – go sign up and be updated on the launch date and purchase information.

18 June, 2009

With M1 and Starhub launching their iPhone soon, Apple has push their carrier settings for these two Telcos via iTunes and you should be able to start tethering without having to jailbreak. (7 Dec)

Check out the updated configuration instructions that will sort the tethering issue for Starhub and M1 users here

Internet Tethering is a new feature with OS 3.0 that allows you to share your Internet connection from your iPhone via 3G, to your laptop, either with USB or Bluetooth connection.

For Starhub and M1 users, you will first need to install a mobile configuration file that you can download from this site http://www.iphone-notes.de/mobileconfig/.

Make sure you choose the correct Carrier (Starhub or M1) and key in an email address which you can access via your iPhone.

Once that is done, when you receive the email with the configuration in an attachment, click on the attachment and click Install. Click OK and Done when the option is available during the installation process.

Next, restart your iPhone – press and hold the Sleep/Wake button at the top of your iPhone and slide your finger across the slider to switch off the iPhone, then switch it ON again.

Check the Tethering Settings when you access Settings-> General-> Networking as seen in the image on the side.

To learn how to use your iPhone as a modem, read this Apple document on doing that.

(infomation via HWZ and Tim Chong)

Update – seems like for Starhub, its either MMS or Tethering and not both — together (see user feedback at HWZ). Will update the page when a better solution is found

Update 2 – for those who had problems with the settings from the previous site – try surfing with Mobile Safari on your iPhone to help.BenM.at/help.php and install via Safari. Next, change your Cellular Data settings from shmms to shwapint, user and password left blank. Reboot and try. Tested by mambo31 at HWZ.

Disclaimer – I am not able to test as I still don’t own an iPhone (point fingers and toes at StarHub).

18 June, 2009

Carrier settings for M1 and Starhub were updated by Apple with the impending launch of the phone through these Telcos – MMS and Tethering will work without much hassle! (7 Dec)

Update with ipcc files for M1 and Starhub (17 Aug)

Thanks to musashi at HWZ, here are some updates to the configuration that will make it easier for you to do MMS and Tethering when you are on M1 and Starhub.

Here are the instructions quoted from musashi’s post:

1. Delete all profile(s) that you have installed from previous mobileconfigs. You can find them at the bottom of the Settings/General. Skip this step if you have none installed.
2. Goto Settings/General/Network/Cellular Data Network and click Reset Settings. You may want to copy the mms settings down first.
3. Restart the iPhone
4. Connect iPhone and backup your iPhone. After backup, disconnect your iPhone.
5. Follow the instructions here on how to enable carrier bundle support. For Mac Users. For Windows Users.
6. After enabling carrier bundle support, proceed to download the custom ipcc file from the list below
   • M1 ipcc with logo
   • M1 ipcc w/o logo
   • Starhub ipcc with logo
   • Starhub ipcc w/o logo
7. Connect your iPhone and start iTunes.
8. Option+Check for Update (Mac) or Shift+Check for Update (Win) and select the ipcc file to update.
9. This will take a very short while. After updating, You will see that shwapint as the APN for cellular data and shmms as the APN for MMS plus MMS settings. No need to change anything.
10. Restart your iPhone and try it out.

Note:

• Do not change the APNs after updating. You will have to redo all the steps again.
• Remember to quit iTunes completely before applying the carrier bundle support.
• Credits to the following guys at HWZ: alanwwm for the Group MMS and SMS fix. newbish for supplying M1 settings and ghasse4 for version 1.1

Try it out and let me know how it goes.

For many out there who got their hands on iPhones while on StarHub or M1, if you have not download OS 3.0, why wait?

For those who had done so, if you are trying to figure how to MMS, there’s a few more steps to take to have that configured.

To start, go to Settings -> Network -> Cellular Date Network

For Starhub users, key in the following settings:

• APN: shmms
• MMSC: mms.starhubgee.com.sg:8002
• MMS PROXY: 10.12.1.80

For M1 users (can anyone verify?), key in the following settings:

for M1 Prepaid

• APN: miworldmcard
• USERNAME: 65
• PASSWORD: user123
• MMSC: http://mmsgw:8002/
• MMS PROXY: 172.16.14.10:8080

For M1 Postpaid

• APN: miworld
• USERNAME: 65
• PASSWORD: user123
• MMSC: http://mmsgw:8002/
• MMS PROXY: 172.16.14.10:8080

Leave the rest of the fields blank. Reboot your iPhone (press and hold HOME and SLEEP/WAKE button at the top for ten or more seconds until the Apple logo appears), than enter your mobile number when requested.

(info via HWZ)

Let me know if it there are any problems.

17 June, 2009

updated – sites are saying the 3.0 Software Update will be released at 1am SG Time

Do note that as we are on the other side of the world from 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, the iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update won’t show up on your iTunes today even though it was stated to be released on the 17th.

So let’s be calm, take a breather and sleep till tomorrow. Remember to update your iTunes to 8.2 and backup your iPhone data prior to updating.

In the mean time, here’s a graphical comparison of what you get from OS 3.0 between iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS from Apple

The lack of Voice Control and Compass is also evident on iPod Touch running OS 3.0. The difference, according to John Gruber from Daring Fireball, is hardware related, rather than something that might be implemented via the OS update:

The compass app is based on a hardware magnetometer, and my somewhat-informed understanding of Voice Control is that it uses new digital signal processing hardware…by the way: video is a hardware feature of the 3G S camera, they’re not just snapping 30 frames per second from a still camera and using the CPU to stitch them together into video files

That said, it is still highly encouraged to upgrade to 3.0 to get the rest of the updates that come with 3.0. What’s more, its FREE! (at least for iPhone owners)

16 June, 2009

Dev-Team announced on their site that they will be streaming a live demo of the yellowsn0w carrier unlock working on official 3.0 firmware, which will be released later tomorrow (note its just a demo and NOT a release of the yellowsn0w).

The actual link for the feed will be twittered by @MuscleNerd (see our twitter feeds to the right) and also placed here when the feed starts. The demo should answer everything you need to know about the new yellowsn0w. But it’s good news for iPhone 3G unlockers everywhere.

Good news indeed for those who had to unlock their iPhones to use on their carriers (not required here in SG since iPhones here are unlocked). But note that this is just for iPhone 3G or earlier, and not for the iPhone 3GS.

For the new iPhone 3GS, please don’t expect periodic updates about any progress we have or don’t have. Nothing gives Apple the upper hand like someone tweeting or blogging partial hack results. That’s not how cat & mouse is played That’s how the cat gets fed.