Like most iPhone users out there, I’m always excited about firmware upgrades because you EXPECT things to be BETTER afterward, right? I just so happened to be up late, writing, on the night that the 2.2 firmware update hit, and wasted no time in downloading it to my precious iPhone 3G. Once completed, everything was fine and much improved! Or… was it?
It wasn’t long until I realized that my iPhone was heating up excessively and I couldn’t keep it close enough to a charger. If my phone was topped off when I went to bed, and left unplugged, it was dead by morning. How could this be? Even a reset didn’t help. There had to be some app running in the background that was chewing up my battery faster than Pac-man on a steroid/speed cocktail. Are YOU having the same problem since the 2.2 update? If so, read on. This tip may apply to you!
We invite you to come visit the TiPb Store for the best selection of accessories (cases, headsets, chargers, memory cards, etc.) for Windows Mobile Phones at great, EVERYDAY LOW prices, year-round!.
Typically people think of Black Friday as the biggest shopping day of the year, but that applies more to brick and mortar than it does on the web. Here, we have Cyber Monday! To celebrate, the TiPb Store has created a very special 10% Off coupon valid until midnight PST on Monday, for accessories in the store only.
Simply enter the coupon code TIPBMONDAY at checkout, under billing info, to have the 10% discount applied to your entire cart of accessories.
(Cannot be combined with any other offer and does not apply to handling charges or taxes or software.)
10% Off until Midnight Pacific on Monday, December 1st.
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Eric wrote in to let us know about Ecardlets, an eCard WebApp targeted specifically at the iPhone. Says Eric:
Ecardlets shows that the Web App SDK is every bit as exciting as the iPhone SDK. We were able to build a rich, tactile, 3-D card experience in a way that can be run entirely through Safari and requires no additional downloads for senders or recipients.
Ecardlets on the iPhone is the first mobile greeting card application that takes advantage of digital photography in such a big way, simply because this is the first platform that has had a beautiful, high-resolution screen.
If any eCard fans out there give it a try, please let us know how it works for you!
Remember that story about the iPhone almost having run Linux as its OS? Well, some enterprising young hackers have now gotten it doing just that — the Linux Kernel at least, via tether.
No touch control yet, no writing to the actual device, but first steps are first steps, and no doubt other hackers everywhere are already drooling at the possibility…
Or shaking their heads and wondering about Linux’s near obsessive need to notch its bedpost with every device on the planet.
Rightly, they point out how easy to fake something like this is, and we won’t know anything for certain until a public beta is actually made available for 2.2.1 (or 2.3, Apple hasn’t done minor point bumps for the 2.x architecture yet, so why now?)
But even if it’s not real, just how desperate have we become for these long overdue, or mind-boggling-ly missing features that we’ll fall all over even fake news about them?
Sibling site WMExperts, which — while Dieter doffs his WinMo cap and rounds his robin reviewing the iPhone — brings us Phil Nickinson’s exception to iPhone OS 2.2’s Podcast Download feature.
Okay, it’s not cut and paste, lack of MMS, no unified inbox, no Flash, etc. etc. In all fairness, it’s an interesting look at some of the things we here at TiPb complain about as well, pointedly the 10MB cap for podcast downloads over the 3G network (you have to switch to WiFi for anything larger, same as the App Store has enforced since iPhone OS 2.0):
It’s this kind of manipulation from Apple that keeps a good many of us from wanting to deal with the company (and frustrates many who do). It’s not that the hardware’s not sexy. It’s not that the software is lacking. It’s that lines are being blurred, or destroyed. Apple makes the hardware, and AT&T provides the service. There’s too much collusion going on. If AT&T wants to set a 5-gigabyte cap on my data, fine. But don’t tell me how to use those gigs. And don’t use Apple as a proxy to do so.
The only problem with the argument? The inclusion of Apple.
On the rare occasions when I hit iTunes looking for music, I go immediately to iTunes Plus. When it comes to DRM music, I’m just not gonna do it, so if I can’t find it on iTunes Plus, I can’t find it. Trouble now is, I can’t find iTunes Plus! Used to be in the Quicklinks, but now it’s gone missing from the iTunes Canadian Store. Maybe MacRumors knows:
Forum user Doodledoo has been following it closely and found evidence of tracks from both Warner and Sony studios participating in iTunes Plus. Apple originally launched their DRM-Free iTunes Plus format with the support of only EMI but recent rumors have suggested Apple is working on winning over the other three majors studios (Warner, Sony, Universal).
Whazzat? Really? Could it be that Big Media is finally learning that treating customers to fair use for fair price is the way to go? In a word… “no”. According to Apple Insider, progress and all, the Beatles are still going to need some help:
“EMI want something we’re not prepared to give ‘em. It’s between EMI and The Beatles I think – what else is new?,” McCartney said. “Last word I got back was it’s stalled at the moment. But I really hope it will happen because I think it should.”
So are we finally on the cusp of a revolution? Is (music, at least) DRM dying? And will all of us be long gone before the Beatles show up for download as well?
A few days ago we mentioned Ars’ iPhone expert, Erica Sadun was taking the lifting of iPhone OS 2.2’s NDA as an opportunity to dump code and sift for gold. Turns out she’s not only found some in the way of “hidden” TV-out features in iPhone 2.2, she’s sacrificed her well earned turkey day to experiment with them. From her previous post, here’s what’s at work:
The MPTVOutWindow class allows your iPhone to send its video to a connected TV rather than to the built-in screen. Intended to be used with movies, the unpublished class creates a live video feed that is sent out through the iPhone’s connector port. End-users will need to buy a video adapter or cable to use this functionality.
Early days still, but fairly awesome stuff. Can’t wait to see what she and other developers — not to mention Apple eventually — come up with!
Like all good things, bad things, and flummoxing things — all thing in general I suppose — my time with the Palm Treo Pro (see video preview) will be ending shortly, whereby shortly I mean this weekend when my final review goes up an I ship this hot little handset on to Android Casey for his turn at the non-Palm, not-Treo, arguably Pro device.
In the meantime, however, I should like to ask you, our readers, what if any questions you might have about it. What would you like to see better explored? Compared more directly with the iPhone? Put to the torture test?
Let me know in the comments and you’ll also get another chance to win our iPhone 3G prize pack.
(And remember to head on over to our sibling sites for more chances to win a Blackberry Bold, Palm Treo Pro, WinMo HTC FUZE, and Android G1!)
What to get for that annoying iPhone owner who knows has everything? For that new iPhone user who’s just getting started? For that last minute drop in you never expected but suddenly have to render iSpeechless?
TiPb’s got you covered! Here’s our 2008 Gift Guide, jammed packed with iPhone goodness just in time for the holidays, after the jump!
Like most iPhone users out there, I’m always excited about firmware upgrades because you EXPECT things to be BETTER afterward, right? I just so happened to be up late, writing, on the night that the 2.2 firmware update hit, and wasted no time in downloading it to my precious iPhone 3G. Once completed, everything was fine and much improved! Or… was it?
