Mac|Life iPhone Launch RSS Feed

China Could Receive iPhones Soon

JC Domingo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:54:42 -0500

China will soon be able to get their hands on the iPhone 3G as soon as some requirements are met, possibly by the end of this year.

Barron’s reports:

Analysts at Wedge, which bills itself as an independent equity research firm, and which includes veterans of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey and other shop, say that their “checks” indicate China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, MIIT, have received “the iPhone application for handset testing.” Wedge analysts think tha means the iPhone will be receiving a network access license “within this year, potentially as soon as 3 to 4 months.”

All they’re waiting for is a carrier deal, according to Wedge. No light has been shed on China Unicom, China’s leading 3G network, about gaining the device as one of their own. In addition, the devices that the MIIT is testing does not have Wi-Fi capabilities, due to Chinese government restrictions.

Via MacNN .

iPhone Shortage: Hunger for Apple Spreads

JC Domingo — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:46:10 -0500

Apple’s iPhone 3GS availability discourages those looking to buy one today. MacNN reported 13 out of 211 Apple retail stores are completely sold out as of Sunday. Half of the Apple stores have already sold out of the white 16GB version, followed by the black 32GB version, which 40 percent of the stores are out of stock of. Last year’s 8GB iPhone 3G is still available everywhere.

The iPhone availability page on the Apple website is updated hourly and show which stores to avoid before wasting time. Customers that are having trouble finding one may also be looking into other stores like AT&T, Best Buy or Walmart.

iPhone 3G S Activation Fix - Hopefully

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:02:23 -0500

Last year, and the year before, the iPhone launch meant that AT&T activations overloaded the network. New iPhone owners were stuck staring at No Service instead of the AT&T carrier name and "more bars, in more places."

This year is no different, all over the land, iPhones are being shunned by the AT&T network. An iPhone activation is an elusive thing of splendor. AT&T told Will Smith at MaximumPC that they were experiencing massive activations and the bandwidth reserved for this type of traffic was overloaded nationwide.

The Mac|Life and MaximumPC staff aren't immune to the activation woes. But, we think we may have a solution. Since the iPhone 3G S ships with 3G enabled, well you might already see where we are going with this.

We tried this on two iPhone 3G Ss and both activated afterwards. Hopefully, it'll work for everyone else.

Turn off 3G:

Navigate to Settings > General > Network. There you'll see "Enable 3G" Slide it to OFF.

Hard reset your iPhone:

Hold down both until you see the Apple logo

Hold down the Home button and Top button until the iPhone begins to restart. You'll know it's restarting when you see the Apple logo.

BOOM! Activation!

Both iPhones we tried this on worked. Like we said, your milage may vary, but we hope this helps.

Good luck!

Drop your experience in the comments below.

iPhone 3G S Launch

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:47:54 -0500

It's launch day and Apple Stores all over the Universe are opening their doors to the iPhone loving masses.

We're at the downtown San Francisco Apple Store hanging with the folks waiting in line and picking up our own iPhone 3G S.

We'll be updating the photo gallery below as the morning progresses.

iPhones are being sold.

The guy in all the pictures, that's Adam. He was the first in line here at the downtown San Francisco Apple Store.

Update: We just posted pics from the Palo Alto Apple Store as well. Check out the scene in Silicon Valley, and play Where's Woz? (Note: We didn't actually see Woz, but you never know, maybe he's just out of frame, doing the worm...)

Inside the iPhone 3G S -- Autopsy Pics

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:18:27 -0500

The folks at RapidRepair have already taken the iPhone 3G S down to the tiny little screws that hold it together.

How did they achieve this feat? Well the lucky guys bought their iPhone at an Orange Boutique in Paris, France at midnight. Yeah, we're jealous too. Le jealous?

Anywho, check out the rest of their handy work and hope you never have to see the inside of your new iPhone 3G S in such detail.

AT&T Loosens iPhone 3G S Eligibility -- Yippeee!

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:41:18 -0500

AT&T posted an open letter and a video to address most of the issues folks have been having with the carrier concerning the launch of iPhone 3G S.

The best news is that AT&T customers that are eligible for an iPhone 3G S upgrade without a $200 tax in July, August or September, are now eligible for update on an June 19. AT&T states in their open letter:

We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.

Huzzah!

Be sure to check your status before wandering down to the AT&T store on Friday, just in case.

AT&T also addresses MMS and tethering features and reiterates its position that MMS will be here "late summer" and tethering is coming for the iPhone.

Check out the video below or read their open letter for more information.

WTG Tilty Head Guy!

UPS Twitters that Apple Requests iPhones be Delivered on Friday

Roberto Baldwin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:15:06 -0500

We just got a Twitter from @ThomasAtUPS that Apple requested that iPhones be delivered on Friday and that our UPS tracking page will be updated accordingly. Below is the message:

@strngwys iPhones are scheduled to deliver on Friday, 6/19, per Apple's request. UPS will be updating the tracking page .

Bummer deal. We're checking the legitimacy of the message right now.

16 Tips to Become an INSTANT iPhone OS 3.0 Power-User

Roberto Baldwin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:01:57 -0500

Shout it from the mountain top, copy and paste has arrived on the iPhone. After you've gotten your fill of pasting links into your favorite Twitter app and Facebook, follow these tips to make using iPhone OS 3.0 just that more exciting.

Before you start

Before you install the new OS, it's a good idea to back up your iPhone one last time before you take the OS 3.0 plunge. You can right-click on your iPhone in iTunes to initiate a manual backup of your iPhone. This is your safety net in case something horrible happens. And if something does goes awry, use Restore from Backup and choose the latest backup to get back to square one.

Select and Delete

Select the text then delete it.

Tired of the spastic deleting of the delete button? What happens is you hold the delete button, and it starts removing offending characters -- and then it goes on to removing whole words. Next thing you know, you've deleted too many words, and you have to start over. To avoid this, use tap and hold to show the Select|Select All pop-up. Select what you need deleted, hit the delete button and -- poof! -- you've gotten rid of the offending text without trying to judge the speed of the delete button.

Quick Spotlight

Search is just an extra tap away.

When you tap the Home button on the iPhone while on a secondary Home screen, it'll return you to your main iPhone Home screen. If you tap the Home button a second time, you'll be taken to the spotlight search page. You can also reach this page by swiping to the left of your main Home Screen.

Adjust Spotlight Search

We care more about Email search results, and don't care at all about Podcast and Video search results.

If you don't need your music collection showing up in your Spotlight searches, you can turn music search off. In fact you can fine-tune your Spotlight searches to include and/or ignore most of your iPhone items. Just navigate to Settings > General > Home > Search Results. There you'll see the options available for search. You can even drag the search results fields so that you see Mail items first.

Use Copy to Email Photos Instead of Share

One feature that has the Mac|Life staff excited is the ability to email multiple photos in one message.

Using the Share option you can email up to five images. Sure, five is more than one, but what if you have 10 really dope images you want to send at once?

In that case, use the Copy option. Select the photos you want, then press Copy. Navigate to the Email client and paste all the images in.

Warning: The more images you copy, the slower the Mail app runs while it's pulling the images from the clipboard and placing them in your message. Also, the Mail app will refuse to send large messages; we got up to 10MB (25 - 30 individual pics) of images in a message before the app reigned in our fun and crashed. Chances are, you'll probably send fewer than that.

Emoji is Still There

Make your iPhone 80% cuter with Emoji iconography.

If you're an Emoji icon addict, don't fret. If you had Emjoi enabled before you update, it'll still be there when you're done. If you don't have Emoji and you've already updated, no worries. You can choose one of a couple 99¢ Emoji enabler apps from the App Store. Remember, Emoji only works from iPhone to iPhone. Your Pre- and Android-loving friends won't get your message if you slap Emoji characters into it.

Who Called From Where

The information is available in Voicemail and Recents

Now when someone calls and leaves a Voicemail, or just shows up in Recents, under their name it shows what phone they called from. This is great for contacts who have multiple numbers, and, say, you know that their mobile is a better way to get a hold of them than their work number. Now you don't have to guess if the number your calling is the correct one.

Find My iPhone - Stalker Fun

It's off by default. Turn it on before you need it.

To turn on Find My iPhone, navigate to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Your MobileMe account.

There you'll see the Find My iPhone option. Turn that puppy on for ~~stalking~~ iPhone finding fun. You can have multiple iPhones utilizing the service. ~~Stalk~~ Find your whole family. Don't forget to enable Push is haven't enabled it before.

Find the Find My iPhone page on MobileMe under your Summary tab.

If you have a family member who tends to get lost, Find My iPhone can be used to locate that person and give them directions to their destination, or at least help them get out of the Mugging District.

If you have kids, and you want to make sure they are keeping to the library and not the local heroin den, you can track and send them messages. Nothing says "get back to your studies!" like a strongly worded message and a two-minute sonar chime.

NEXT: Setup your Exchange Calendar and Notes Syncing.

Exchange meetings without the cost

AT&T wants you to pay extra for Exchange service on your iPhone. Forget that! You can set it up without paying any extra fee.

Now you can send and receive invitations to meetings with the Calendar app

Navigate to Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Set up an Exchange account via Add Account. You can get this information from your IT department or just get the information from your Entourage or Outlook client if you're sneaky. Be sure to turn on the Calendar option and your ready to rock. Just be sure you're on your employer's Wi-Fi network so it can find the Exchange server. After set up we were able to set up meetings and we received alerts about meetings we were invited too.

Shake your iPhone

Shake the Killers away.

Shake to Shuffle is a great way to skip to the next song -- and accidently toss your iPhone across the room. But it does have its limitations. You can't Shake to Shuffle once you leave the iPod app, and it won't work while the iPhone is locked.

Bummer.

However, you can still double-tap the Home button to get the iPod controls once you're out of the iPod app.

UPDATE: Commenter DTrigger05 points out that if you have the iPod controls on the screen via a double tap on the Home button while music is playing, you can indeed shake to shuffle while you're not in the iPod app. With this method, you can even shake to shuffle while the iPhone is locked, with the screen on and you have the iPod controls being displayed.

Public Transportation

Find out who is running the bus you're riding

Google's Map app got a public transportation update. In addition to being able to tap on each stop along your route for a nugget of information pertaining to that stop, there is also a sub-menu that gives you information about the transportation service you're using, and a link to that agency's website.

Not All Apps are 3.0 Ready

Before you start launching apps and complaining that the keyboard isn't landscape, keep in mind that not all apps are 3.0 ready. Give it a week or so for all the apps to make it through the App Store review process. Just keep your fingers crossed that they don't reference any swears in their apps.

Passing Notes

Get those notes into the Mail app for safe keeping

To start syncing Notes from your iPhone, you need to enable the feature in iTunes. Plug in your iPhone and navigate to the Info tab. Scroll down and check the Sync Notes box.

All your notes in one place

The notes will sync with Mail on your Mac under the Reminders drop down.

Record Your Message

Why, hello there...

Use Voice Memo to record and email a special greeting to your all friends and family. Record your touching message, trim off the fat on the ends, and email it to your most beloved contacts. Your Voice Memos will also be synced to iTunes.

Copy the Answer with the Calculator

Copy large numbers into other apps. Or, you can try and remember this string of numbers.

Copy and paste to, and from, the Calculator app. If you have a large number you need copied into Calculator app, you're covered. If you need to save the the answer to that huge equation, you're covered. We just wish you could copy the entire equation. Maybe you'll be able to in iPhone OS 4.0.

Redeem on the Go

Redemption!

Got a sweet iTunes card from your friend as a gift while you're away from home? Both the iTunes app and the App Store app now support redeeming iTunes codes. Both apps keep the redeem feature under the More tab. Now you can download that $25 worth of Rush before you even get home. RAD!

Got a sweet tip, drop it in the comments below.