loving the Apple (in a Beta'ish way)
Fancy tweeting the text you find on most app on the Mac with just ONE step? Simple. Find out how after the jump. Continue Reading →
iOS4 will be available soon in the next few hours. While we wait for it to be ready, there are a few things you can do to get yourself prepared.
iOS4 requires you to use iTunes 9.2 to sync – so run Software Update on your Mac/PC or download from Apple and update your iTunes.
Developers have been advised to submit iOS4-ready apps and updates are streaming into your iTunes App Store. So download them while you wait for iOS4.
This is one step that thankfully is automatically executed whenever you sync your iOS device. Prior to updating, sync and do a backup of all your data on the iPhone. Just in case, bookmark this Apple Support Document on Backups and find out what is backup-ed, where is the back up and most importantly, how to restore your back ups.
When the iOS4 is released into the wild tonight, there will be lots, and I mean, LOTS of people who will be pinging their iTunes to download the OS. So there will be delays, drop connections and probably errors if the file wasn’t downloaded properly.
You don’t need to have it on day one, but if you do – be patient.
Here’s a quick tip on how you can save space on your iPhone with iTunes version 9.1 or later.
When you perform a sync of your iPhone to your Mac or PC, look at the first tab of iTunes and you should see this on the lower half of the screen.
Select the 3rd checkbox that says “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC“. When you next hit sync, iTunes will convert songs of a higher bit rate to 128 kbps AAC format on-the fly and dumps it into your iPhone. Your mileage may vary depending on how many higher bit rate songs you have in your iPhone. It worked very well for me, giving me back about 7.58 GB worth of space for more songs.
Caveat Emptor:
Update: For those whom like me had updated iTunes to 9.1.1 once it was released, and had tried this setting, you might find that your iPhone constantly re-save some songs during sync, lengthening your sync time. It is possibly due to a bug in an earlier release. To fix it, just go to Apple’s iTune page to download manually and install over the existing iTunes – it should be fixed.
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).
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:
Note:
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:
For M1 users (can anyone verify?), key in the following settings:
for M1 Prepaid
For M1 Postpaid
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.
Though there is much dislike about Starhub over the Jesus phone, their TV offerings on Starhub TV is still something I enjoy, especially their Sports channels… at least until they lose out on English Premier League hosting rights.
Besides watching it on TV, if you are a MaxOnline user, you can also watch selected channels on your computer with their Starhub TV Online. They also offer TV on Demand where you can download certain shows they are screening on TV now, but unfortunately, that’s Windows ONLY.
Anyway, not to be disheartened, there are still seven channels which you can watch online – Football Channel, Goal TV 1 and 2, CTI TV, Fashion TV, National Geographic and Nat Geo Adventure. However, you cannot watch it off the StarHub TV Online website but requires the Windows Media Player (download here) to do so.
Once downloaded, you have to manually input the URL to watch the channels of your choice:
As these are streamed through cable, there is a slight time lapse. So don’t be surprised if you hear your neighbour shout GOAL and all you see is the ball being passed around.
Also, if you are behind a router, make sure you enable Multicast Streaming if you have issues connecting to the Starhub server.
Update – Have just swopped my Dlink router to the Airport Extreme Base Station and just like that, TV Online stopped working for me. Anyone had it work with this router, please let me know.
Apple has put up a page in its Support section describing the various combinations of button pressing to work the new iPod shuffle.
Getting the various combinations of double or triple clicks and/or hold the center buttons will probably be a frustrating experience in the beginning. Remembering them will probably another story.
Do bookmark that page if you are going to be a new iPod shuffle owner.
The Unit Converter Dashboard widget provided by Apple has been giving me wrong conversion since the last OS X 10.5.6 update. Although the economy is bad, but not to the extend where a unit of US$ showed up as an astonishing S$3.751.
Going back to my Internet best friend – Google – I found that it was a coding error in the javascript file for the widget as shown in this Mac OSX Hints page. It resulted in the drop down menus for the countries not tallying with the rates that were downloaded. For example, if you choose the top two countries on the drop down menu, on the left it shows Australia and on the right USA. But both rates ended up $A1 = US$1, which is incorrect.
Thankfully, the work around is pretty simple.
Firstly, locate the widget file at /Library/Widgets/ as “seen here”. Next, drag it onto your Desktop to create a copy of the Unit Converter.wdgt. Right click on the file and click Show Package Contents to access the files that run the widget.
Open this file UnitConverter.js with your text editor and search for this line: if (a.iso == "USD") return -1;. Delete that line, and on the next line which reads: else if (a.name < b.name) return -1;, delete the word else from that line. (see image below)
Once that is done, save the file and drag it into the Widgets folder found in your User folder: ~/Library/Widgets so that you won’t overwrite the system’s copy.
Double click the file to make sure the edited copy is installed, and you should be able to see that the country lists on both drop downs are the same, and the conversion is correct.
Apple has added the ability to combine and compress files in MobileMe’s web iDisk interface:
A number of MobileMe members have asked if there’s a way to use the new iDisk sharing feature to share multiple files at once. The answer is yes, it can be done easily using the Compress command in the iDisk web app.
Once you’ve selected multiple files you want to share with others, choose the “Compress X items” option in the drop down menu and iDisk will archive them into a .zip file, just like your Finder. Select the new file and choose the “Share File…” option. Easy as 1-2-3.
The Mac Daddies at Ecamm Network has a good tip for iPhone app developers with regards to their earnings: If you have not done so, go fill in a 12 page Japanese tax exemption form as the Japanese tax authorities will withhold 20% of your earnings unless the forms are received.
They discovered about this after constantly finding around 20% of their earnings missing from sales of their app in the Japanese App Store. When they wrote to Apple, this was what they received:
“There is a 20% withholding tax in Japan until the Japanese tax authorities have accepted your tax exemption forms. This can take 90 days or longer. … They were required at the contract setup time in iTunes Connect. If you haven’t completed these and sent them in, you must or you should not have been paid.”
So for Singaporean iPhone developers out there, do spend some time during this Chinese New Year break and fill up all these tax forms to get all your income. (via Daring Fireball)
One of the features of the iPhone 2.2 firmware released weeks ago, was the provision of Emoji emoticons. This is like those emoticons we get on mobile phones, but the Japanese have them done in more varieties than just the 
However, Apple somewhat only allowed the use of Emoji emoticons for iPhones released in Japan, even though the image sets are in all 2.2 firmware. So for people outside Japan who wants to get access to the Emoji emoticons, they either had to jailbreak it or do this using a work-around with vCard.
Now, a new RSS reader app for a Traditional Chinese website – Frostyplace.com – made enabling the Emoji emoticons so much easier, though it costs US$0.99 to get the app. To get Emoji emoticons, just load the app, click on a few of the Chinese feed. Play around the app before going back to the iPhone’s Setting page. Navigate to the General section, then go to Keyboard. Within International Keyboards, look for Japanese and you should have the option to enable Emoji. If not, go play around with the FrostyPlace app for a bit more.
After which remove the app, and you can access Emoji Emoticons when you click on the globe icon on the keypad beside the space-bar. There are 5 different types with multiple pages of emoticons to look for. With big fingers like me, scrolling through the different pages might be an issue as you will tend to hit the emoticons when you swipe across the keypad. That aside, you can start putting those smilies and fancy emoticons in your messages.
Thanks to both Prillo and iJustine for this tip.
update – from Chris Prillo again, the new 2.2.1 software update broke the current version of FrostyPlace ability to give you Emoji, so wait for the update before you purchase it.
