June 2009: Monthly Archive

Inspired by Gruber, who was rocking the Nokia freebiephone, on the eve of the original iPhone’s 2nd birthday, we want to know:

What were you using before the iPhone?

(I was on a Treo 680 that crashed almost as often as it successfully made or received calls).

Update: Jeremy reminds me we have a huge thread on the TiPb Forums about this as well. Love. Up.

With the return of Steve Jobs to Apple comes the return of Fake Steve to the interwebs. Fake Steve also returns to being bitingly satirical, something that had been lacking before its own hiatus. Recent gems include the excoriation of the New York Times, and lambasting Palm (twice) for focusing on Apple rather than the Pre in their own advertisements:

Do you remember what the ads for the original iPhone looked like? You remember seeing anything in those ads about the BlackBerry or the Treo? No. It was a whole new thing — sui generis, as the French say. It had to be. If all we could do was to make a slightly less s****y BlackBerry, and offer it for a few bucks less than what RIM was charging, we would not have bothered to make the product.

(Though he may be reaching in his claims of just how far Jon Rubinstein will go to be like “him”.)

If you’re easily offended, stay clear. Otherwise, enjoy it while it lasts…

I recently tried out a friend’s battery charger case and my iPhone 3GS began to buzz and flash between locked, wallpaper, and temperature warning screens.

Not to be all Wall Street Journal about it, but according to sources in a position to know, this is not an uncommon problem and Apple is set to address it in the next firmware update, which should be coming soon — 3.1.

3.1 you ask? It’s what we asked as well, and were told the iPhone 3GS is already running what’s considered 3.0.1 and the next update would likely be 3.1 (though 3.0.2 or an “official” cross device 3.0.1 still sounds more like as a bug fix release to us).

Consider it a rumor for now, but at the very least, if your charging case is giving you headaches, rest assured help is on the way.

(And it’s recommended you don’t use it until the problem is addressed).

Welcome back.

“Steve Jobs is back to work. He is at Apple a few days a week and working from home the other days,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said. “We’re glad to have him back.”

[via CNN]

UPDATE: Engadget is reporting micro-USB vs. the BBC’s mini-USB. Also, that Apple, among others, is backing the standard.

ORIGINAL: We’ve discussed this before, but now it looks like Europe has gone ahead and done it. Mini-USB is going to be the “one size fits all” universal charging standard for phones. The caveat:

The deal isn’t legally binding though and, at this stage, is only voluntary.

Translation: Apple’s 30-pin dock connector likely isn’t going any place, any time soon.

Are we happy about this? Are we wondering why it wasn’t micro-USB? Or do we really not care one way or another about it at this point?

[via the BBC, thanks sambell for the tip!]

Nothing makes people more paranoid than a shiny new gadget, especially if it’s an expensive-to-replace shiny new iPhone 3GS gadget fresh from Apple. Cases can’t work miracles, but they can go a long way towards helping you avoid dust and dirt, nicks and scratches, and — depending on how hardcore you go — cracks and breaks. Oh, and they can also stylize your iPhone beyond Apple’s iconic black and white, if that’s how you want to roll.

We’ll be rounding up some accessories for new iPhone owners in the coming days, and because we’re just as paranoid, we’re starting with cases.

Read the rest of this entry »

Got mad developer skills and a deep, enabling love for smartphones and their communities? Well, Smartphone Experts, the network behind theiphoneblog.com and many of your other favorites like CrackBerry.com, PreCentral.net, and a host of others, is looking for YOU!

For more info, check out Dieter’s post in the forums.

Love them or hate them, miracle or menace, Emoji are standard message elements in Japan and have caught some favor among internet iPhone users (and TiPb Forum staff…)

The problem, however, is that there’s currently no standard way to encode the little mega-smileys across different carriers and platforms, leading to a lot of “translation” work in between. The solution?

engineers from Google and Apple have got together to try to propose an encoding for these emoji (they have identified 674 of them!) that can be added to the official standard ISO/IEC 10646, as can be seen in this document, Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols.

Maybe next Apple could work on not requiring complex, app-bound Emoji activation processes for non-Japanese iPhones? Sumo, tiny red cars, and weirdly smiling brown piles for everyone!

[Via What Japan Thinks, thanks Georgia for the tip!]

Some of you on the TiPb Forums have shown some concern over Nelson and the iPhone 3GS tour video. Our question is — what ever happened to iPhone Bob?

Bob Borchers, if you weren’t familiar with the name, starred in the original iPhone and iPhone 3G tour videos on the Apple website.

Well it pains me to say this but according to the WSJ Bob has left Apple to join venture-capital firm, Opus Capital.

Bob, a former executive at Nokia, Nike, and Apple (since 2004, working on the iPod and iPhone) said he enjoyed his time with Apple but the venture capitalists at Opus have given him an opportunity he simply could not pass up.

TiPb and many of your fans will miss you greatly! (It’s really a shame you can’t take Nelson with you…)

Good luck Bob!

Either an iPhone 3GS was dropped in a pool and kept on recording, or as Richard Lai demonstrates in this second video [NSFW-L] someone was smart enough to cover it in plastic wrap first.

You can decide for yourselves, but we’re not letting our iPhone’s anywhere near water without full deep sea gear and a mini sub…

[Thanks everyone who sent this in!]