iPhone / iPad / Mac

More phone-based monkeying around...

Well, since I had a bit of a moan about it before, it’s only fair to conclude the tale of iPhone breakage.  Whilst my initial experiences with Protect Your Bubble were frustrating, after a member of their team happened upon my rant and got in touch I must admit that I was impressed with the speed of resolution.

Once the envelope arrived I sent it Special Delivery on a Saturday morning, receipt was confirmed on Monday and in the afternoo I was informed that a replacement would be issued – which was delivered by Tuesday morning.  Excellent. I remain unconvinced of forking out a combined about £100 in excess fees, topping up the premium amount and sending the original phone back represents that could value – although of course buying a new iPhone would cost considerably more than that.

Still, a happy ending, and assurances that my feedback around the earlier wibbles in service levels would be taken on board for future processes – so perhaps my tribulations might spare future customers some of my irritations.

I’m now – having had to restore a chunk of my laptop which seems to be playing silly buggers – in the process of getting the iPhone up to the second beta release of iOS5.  There are also intriguing setup files for iCloud which I’m about to play with whilst my phone is doing its’ thang on the whole backup/restore/update/restore process.. ah, such fun. I should really be more patient and wait for the update to be made official…

Should you have the urge to update, it can be done – have a google about the place, ideally you should get your phone added to the account of a friendly iOS developer – although there are apparently sneaky ways to escape the need to do this.  You should remember that iPhones make it difficult to downgrade your OS, so it’s a rather one-way street and if you don’t like it, you’re stuck with it.  And it’s a beta, it will have a few bugs and glitches..

.. I still have 37 mins or so of restore to occur with phone non-operative, so can’t report on what those bugs may be.  iOS5 beta 1 was useable though, the only bugs I really found were mild niggles rather than fully fledged annoyances.. if I encounter any of the latter I’m sure I’ll indulge in a bit of rant about it.  Failing that I have remembered another school-based musical memory to try to keep this mini blog revival on track with later in the week.  Exciting!

So it’s been almost a week since I broke my phone.  Anyone who knows me will undoubtedly have observed how frequently I use it, so it’s frustrating.  Of course, it is still usable despite the broken screen, but it’s not ideal.

Having immediately got in touch with Protect your Bubble – my insurance provider of choice (because they’re considerably cheaper than insuring with O2, which I’ve done in the past), they quite reasonably asked me to send them a claim form and proof of purchase of my device to them.  I did this – I printed them out, filled in and signed and emailed it to them as per their instructions.

This was five days ago.  I’ve had a busy time and wanted to give them a chance to send the envelope for me to return my phone.  Having returned home from an overnight business trip to no envelope I chased them up by telephone.  It transpired that they were awaiting confirmation of payment details for the excess (which I had included on the claim form!!), so they will now authorise the claim and despatch the means for me to send my phone to them.

Which means I’ll probably get the chance to get the phone despatched on Friday.  They’ll get it on Monday or Tuesday, they will assess it for repairability (I suspect it needs replacing, but who knows?), and either repair it (3-5 days claimed for this) before sending it on (1-3 days delivery time) or potentially might immediately decide on a replacement in which case it could shave the repair time off.

Either way, I’m looking at having a defective phone for the best part of 2-3 weeks (and had I dropped it a little harder it could’ve been a completely dead phone!) which is pretty disappointing.  When I had a similar experience with O2 insurance with my old iPhone 3G I called them, they sent a courier with a new one the next day – he took away my old phone, and it was sorted.

Seems you do get what you pay for – although of course, whether or not that brilliant level of service is worth almost a tenner a month extra when it’s (hopefully) unlikely you’ll need it is ultimately the crux of the debate!  Ho hum.  I shall continue to monitor my experiences.

So far I have been rather disappointed, but perhaps shouldn’t be surprised given the price.  But it ain’t quite what is implied in their TV advertising, that’s for sure.

It’s been a really mixed few days for me – Thursday started badly. My car, which for reasons I can’t quite fathom I’d parked on the drive the day before, wouldn’t start – it’s kaput, I suspect either the starter motor and/or the alternator is broken.  Whilst repairable, I’ve reached the stage with it where I’m not prepared to sink more cash in to it, and I don’t have the time, inclination or expertise to properly take care of it.

In attempting to hook up a booster pack to it to try to force it to start I also dropped my phone from my pocket, smashing the screen. Deep joy!  It is insured, although the process to replace it is much more long-winded than with the more-expensive O2 insurance – so there’s a learning there.  I currently still have a broken phone, I’ve sent the relevant forms/proof of purchase and await an envelope to send the phone away in.

More positively the death of ‘the nail’ has accelerated half-formed plans I already had to continue my journey through a mid-life crisis – and on Saturday with some investigative help from Ma I found my next car, a rather pretty Mazda MX-5 which I shall hopefully be taking delivery of (or rather collecting!) on Wednesday all things being well.  So that’s pretty exciting stuff, I reckon!

Today of course is Father’s day – so it was good to pop and see how Dad was doing – indeed, a very wholesome family day all round really, I stayed for lunch – at one point I was even playing on the piano with my Granny (not that I can remotely play the piano!!), and we also popped to see Grandad who is currently in the hospice section of the hospital as he is suffering from terminal bowel cancer.

There’s nothing quite like seeing an 84 year old man who has always been a fairly formidible character look so defeated by such an ugly illness.  Of course, I imagine ups and downs are inevitable with such a battle – but listening to his concerns, his fears (and almost acceptance) of not coming home again it does rather bring in to stark relief the importance of realising how relatively short our time is around the place, and to make the most of it.

Sufficed to say Grandad has been a challenging man to get get along with at times – but none of us are without our foibles, after all.  He’s also the man who took endless time out to indulge me and Rich in our interests – whether it be planes, creating fires in the garden, making kites, the intricacies of Skateboard maintenance and ramp-building or just collecting random words.  There’s a lot of fond memories there.  I could probably have lived without the tram museum in Crich, though.

It is a strange feeling to think that the next visit to see him might be the last – as unfortunately nobody seems to be able to give a timescale for him.  Whilst the staff looking after him are fantastic, it seems a very undignified way to be spending what is ultimately likely to be his last weeks.  Finding that balance between not wanting to lose someone and hoping their suffering stops is a difficult one.

Another geeky post. Thanks to the generosity of a friend who has an Apple Developer Account adding my iPhone to the list of eligible devices to take beta versions of the operating system, which has enabled me to install iOS 5 on my iPhone 4.  I am impatient, after all.

First job was to install the beta for iTunes 10.5 – this was actually a slight nuisance, with me using Windows Vista on my laptop (more through habit than desire!) it didn’t seem to like installing over the old iTunes, however a remove and log-in as Administrator a clean install worked much better.

Once installed I attached my iPhone, once it appears hold down shift and hit restore and point to the IPSW file I downloaded – et voila, after a chunk of time the new operating system is installed.  Upon installation the phone offered the chance to set up without a computer- nervousness meant I instead directed iTunes to grab my old phone info and sync.

The first big benefit from the new iOS is the ability to continue using your phone whilst it syncs (which was possible through jailbroken phones).  Also I noticed that it was installing three apps at the same time rather than one at a time (obviously it might have done that anyway, you can’t normally see though – however later a multiple-app update later did the same thing – woo!).

Notification center is cool, I like it a lot.  iMessage is an awesome idea – obviously rather limited at the moment since I don’t know many people who’ve taken the plunge!  Love the idea of Reminders – although the address based ones seem rather hamstrung that you have to pick an address from your contents rather than just entering a postcode. Meh. Disappointing.

Everything else has been fine though, the only buglet I’ve noticed is that my playlists in the iPod app (which is now called Music) are in an arbitrary order rather than alphabetic.  A relatively small matter – although if you’re a bigger playlist user than me it could prove a frustration for you!

I’m not really bothered by NewsStand, and as it’s technically a folder it can’t be hidden away like I do with the Stocks and Contacts apps in a folder – so I’ve just dumped it on the last page.  iCloud is limited at the moment – it’s only a first Beta after all!

I took the opportunity to have a real cull of apps I don’t really use too, so all in all it’s been quite a productive evening of farting around on my own technology rather than Rich’s!  That said, Rich did provide me with a case of Magners Pear Cider in exchange for my laptop recovery services, so all is certainly not lost!

As for iOS 5 – if you’re an unfeasibly impatient sod like me then go for it, it has definite benefits – highlights for me are the notification centre and the ability to use your phone whilst syncing.  Also it appears to have enabled personal hotspot without the need for the pay-for service that my network provider would usually try to levy.

If you want to go for it – then you will need to find somebody with an Apple Developer Account to add your iPhone’s UDID to their account.  Some unscrupulous people are charging cash for this, others seem more magnanimous.  Should you wish to proceed, then you can find the relevant files here:

Files you need to upgrade your iPhone

But remember that you need to register your phone’s UDID, and definitely remember that this isn’t something you’ll get much sympathy for should you fuck it up!  iPhones aren’t designed to be able downgrade the operating system.  So do it at your own risk!!

I can’t really be arsed to get worked up about millions of our collective money – in a time of ‘austerity’ – being spunked on Pope Benedict the sixteenth’s state visit to the UK.  Sure, I’m not a religious man, and the Catholic faith is probably quite low down on my list of favourite religions, but still.  Okay, I do get quite worked up about it.

I am disappointed however.  Since my immune system conspired against me I was ensconsed infront of daytime TV (a disappointment in itself!) when he was greeted in Scotland by the Queen – head of a rival church, but fellow German, but never a member of Hitler Youth (as far as I’m aware).

What really left me gutted was that Prince Philip, perpetual casual racist and national embarrassment, didn’t take the opportunity to finally utter something entirely inappropriate.  Perhaps he finally met a state visitor with whom he has a strong affinity for their views on other cultures and races… either way, a disappointment.

Of course, for the pun-factor, I really hope over the next few days that somebody eggs Benedict!  In the meantime I’ll have to settle for farting around with ‘ToonPaint’ on my iPhone, an awesome app I recently rediscovered!!

I found a funky app for my iPhone called ‘Percolator’ – it takes pictures either from your photo library or camera, and renders them into interesting patterns that apparently infused the creator with thoughts of coffee…

… you can adjust the courseness of the grains and there’s a few tweaks you can make to how the colours are displayed. It’s ace, and it was either free or only 59p – so eminently affordable!

I was pleasantly surprised today, upon receiving an email from Apple with details of the free App they just released to handle ‘Case Gate’.  I was just expecting to see a few bumpers in there, which I didn’t really want – but naturally would’ve ordered anyway, since it was free.  Actually there’s a choice of eight, including a black bumper – although this is subject to change.

The bumper obviously only protects the sides of the device – and also renders it largely incompatible with docks and mounts, plus it looks a bit naff.  The other offerings seem to offer at least three-side covering, and after a bit of careful research (read: clicking the first very useful link I found upon Googling) I’ve opted for a Speck Pixelskin HD case.

A fairly sizeable drawback is the shipping estimate of 2-3 months – of course, I don’t really need the case, I’ve not had the ‘death grip’ problem and he addition of a Gelaskin to my phone should eliminate most of the risk of that anyway, but imagine if people are suffering from signal loss – 2-3 months to solve it?  that’s really not very clever for them!

“Yeah, sorry your phone doesn’t work properly, we’ll send you something to fix it in 3 months time.”  Hmm. Not good.  That said, I do think the zeal with which the media, non-iPhone owners and owners of old iPhone have jumped upon Jobs & co regarding this is laughable.  There have been a minuscule number of people complaining of issues compared to those of us who are still delighting in the awesomeness of iPhone 4.

Pretty much the same you’d find with any other new device launch.  Microsoft calling it ‘Apple’s Vista’ is overly harsh, then again, I’m writing this post on a laptop sporting Vista too… maybe I just have a soft-spot for maligned devices or operating systems?  Whilst I prefer Windows 7 which we have on our Desktop upstairs, Vista ain’t so bad once you disable all the memory-hogging pointlessness.

Okay, despite the previous post I have (as anyone who has had any contact with me will undoubtedly be aware!) end up with an iPhone 4.  And I love it.  A lot.  Before you even use thing thing it just feels nice.  It apparently weighs the same as a 3GS but it feels more solid, with metal and glass rather than plastic it takes the things I really liked about the original iPhone and makes them better.

The press seem to have picked up on the mysterious ‘death grip’ which is something that I’ve not really experienced, although it’s true I have a poor O2 reception at home (considering getting a repeater to boost it – anyone got experience of these?), so more testing will perhaps bear that out some more, but I always had a low signal strength at home on my old iPhones too, so that’s nothing new with this one.

It’s a LOT faster than my poor old 3G, which is now sitting forlornly in an Envirophone bag waiting to be sent away for some cash, and I’m loving the new features – although as yet, because of it only being available on iPhone 4 and whilst on a WIFI connection, I’ve yet to have any ‘Facetime’ with anyone (unfortunately the port it uses is blocked on our work WIFI system).  So that’s something to look forward to, if nothing else because of the innuendo that naturally follows saying ‘Facetime’!!

iPhone OS4 is a big improvement – the pseudo-multitasking might not please the purists, but functionally it works really well, and the ability to but stuff into folders – which has been doable via jailbreaking for ages – is long overdue by Apple.  All in all, very happy – I’ll be happier when my new Gelaskin arrives so I can make the thing as hermetically sealed as possible to limit scratches!

It’s also encouraged me to revisit the AppStore a bit more, which I’d neglected somewhat of late – for those in a similar boat, check out FaceSwap which is really clever – to think how long I used to spend Photoshopping people’s heads onto things, it really is amazing..  I’m currently undecided over the jailbreaking question, I imagine as time goes on I’ll be lured back into it but currently don’t have too much of an urge to go unlegit.

In other exciting news, my brother Rich has proposed to Em and she accepted – this deed apparently took place during the final throes of the Flaming Lips performance at Glastonbury.  Of course, I now need to know the likely speed of events since Rich has also done me the tremendous honour of asking me to be his best man.  Gulp.  At least I can be confident that he won’t schedule anything to clash with the footy!

I’m quite excited about the iPhone 4.  Having had O2 act like the monopoly-holding arseholes that they were at the time of the 3GS launching, it just wasn’t financially viable to upgrade then.  I’m quite glad I held out now.

Except… it seems impossible, aside from paying for a sim-free phone from Apple direct (which costs a LOT) to actually secure yourself the coveted device.  Promises of pre-orders on the 15th have been broken, and it seems your only option is to basically tap up at a store or hope a call/internet order gets through.  Disappointing.

That said, whilst obviously I would prefer to have the phone on launch day, I think I can probably tolerate being a bit more patient.  Certainly I can’t be arsed to queue up on 24th outside a shop without any guarantee there is a handset reserved for me on the premises (which is what the nice shop near where I work did when the 3G launched).  So I might just order online when I can and see when it turns up.

In other iPhone news, Apple are pushing their new operating system, which I have the release candidate for.  When the new iTunes came out last night I wondered if it would work with it – as it does apparently on the 9.2 beta for Macs.  So I tried, foolishly.  It installed fine, but wouldn’t activate – so I had a tantalising glimpse of the wallpaper for OS4.0 but only the ability to make emergency calls.

Oh well, restore then, huh?  Well… iTunes told me that it couldn’t downgrade a firmware.. dilemma or what? It ended up with my poor iPhone in a ‘Recovery Mode Loop’.  Luckily the PC upstairs hadn’t been upgraded to iTunes 9.2 so I was able to restore to 3.13, then use the iRecovery tool to force the activation through…

It wasn’t the best idea I ever had late at night as I sat there with all my music, settings etc being synced back to my now restored phone into the wee small hours.  So there you go, don’t try it unless you find a more reputable guide than me!

Next week we’ve got a few days off, it’ll be good to have a break from work even for a few days – I think I seem to have reverse-seasonal-affective-disorder, quite content to be there around winter but in summer it’s less fun… feh, I’m sure it’ll all seem much better after a bit of time out and going back with a cleansed mind.  Or something!

One amusing thing at work this week was, as part of a charity day, the powers that be are organising a talent show.  Four of our team have entered (despite having no talent) to do a ‘Stars in their Eyes’ style performance as KISS.. as part of the submission we had to make a video, which – unbeknown to us until someone told us – is now on a loop in the cafe area in our office… because it would seem that nobody else has submitted one.  Could be fun!

Which leaves later this month when I have very exciting plans afoot, which I am sworn to a degree of secrecy over… but it’s almost upon us, which leads to both excitement and nervousness on my part!

The main menu - deliciously self-explanatory...

I’ve never encountered a stuck pixel before.  Not talking about dead pixels here – which are, well, dead, but stuck ones.  I noticed on my iPhone’s charge screen that one pixel was lit up green when it should’ve been black, from a bit of googling, green seems to be a common ‘stuck’ colour, but theoretically a pixel can be stuck in any colour.

It gets weirder.

Well, kinda.  The fix does, anyway!  My initial fear was an insurmountable hardware problem.  But not so!  If you suffer from the same problem, then point your iPhone or iPod Touch at:

http://www.ebaspace.com/iphone-app/#home

First option to select is ‘Test for Stuck Pixels‘ – probably not necessary as presumably you wouldn’t be reading this unless you had the problem.  However, you will be presented with a webpage in Safari with bands of solid colour that you can scroll up and down to make your rogue pixel (or pixels) visible against a contrasting background.

Once you’ve confirmed you have a case of stuck pixel, scroll back to the top and click the Home button.

The next option you need is ‘Repair iPhone LCD‘.  This will launch a new Safari window, and will basically unleash a dazzling array of strobing colours onto your screen.  Obviously if you are sensitive to strobing colours then you should probably get somebody who isn’t to do this for you!

On occasions I’ve left this page open (touching the screen periodically to keep it live) for five minutes and had the problem cleared, other times it has required longer – so basically leave it running as long as you can tolerate it!  You should be able to see the offending pixels during parts of the colour cycle, and thus have a good idea about when it’s done the trick and unstuck the pixel.

I was pretty dubious that simply visiting a webpage could fix the problem, but whilst I’ve had some re-occuring (interestingly this has only started happening since the 3.0.1 update for me – although others have reported stuck pixels pretty much since the birth of the iPhone).  So there you have it, bombarding your screen with gaudy colours can sort it!