Mar 7 2012
Apple has released version 3.5 of the configuration utility used to allow users to “create, maintain, encrypt, and install configuration profiles” on the iPhone. You can download the latest version through the Software Update utility or from the Apple support page at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465
Mar 7 2012
Apple Inc. has released the latest version of their iPhone Operating System iOS version 5.1. The latest release of iOS includes the following fixes and enhancements:
You can download the latest version from the iTunes App while your iOS device is attached, via the automated update download on your iOS device, or go to the download support page at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1504
iOS 5.1 will work on any of the fgollowing iOS based devices:
Feb 13 2012
Do you have a spare iPhone 3GS sitting around that you have no idea what to do with it? Well there are a number of things that can be done these days including producing your next album with the out of date machine. One Like Son, a power pop band led by one Stephen Poff, has created their entire album on an iPhone 3gs. According to their website, “Start the Show was recorded on the iPhone 3GS using GuitarJack, AmpKit and the AmpKit LiNK, FourTrack, Multitrack DAW, Pocket Organ, ThumbJam, the Moog Filtatron and GarageBand. Drums by DrumCore”
We managed to snag the last of their special “Limited Edition” CD’s that they had on their website. The CD comes signed and was limited to a run of 50 and included the entire album as a download with the order of the CD. This is the first time that the iPhone has been instrumental in producing a studio quality album but with a total of 24 tracks to work with, it is a lot better than a lot of professional sound equipment available even 10 years ago. They also produced a high quality teaser video prior to producing the album at:
In listening to the album, we found that it sounded as good as any we have heard even from major labels. If you want to do an album on the cheap, then this is the way to go if you have time and patience. You can check out the album at the One Like Son website at:
http://onelikeson.bandcamp.com/
The Album is also on the iTunes store at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/start-the-show/id492847726
Thanks to our friends over at TUAW for pointing us to this one.
Dec 17 2011
Apple has released a minor update to the current iOS 5.0.1 for the iPhone. The update has the moniker 9A406 making only minor alterations to the current version of iOS. This version has not been pushed out globally yet and details of the update have been a bit difficult to come by. However, this release was addressed in the Apple support document and is meant to fix issues with the following items on the iPhone 4S:
Issues with the Battery life on the phones apparently is still an issue with many users and it is unknown whether they will be addressed in this update or if Apple, Inc. is waiting to fix that in iOS 5.0.2
For more information you can check the support document at:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148
So far, the only download we can find that is globally available is at:
http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/iPhone-Firmware-Download-38026.html
A.P.P.L.E. makes no claim as to the validity of this offsite download and users would be cautioned to not download from non-official sites when updating their hardware.
Nov 11 2011
In a week that saw many users receive their iPhone 4S including myself, Apple decided to go on a tear and create a few PR issues with developers. However, I guess the end result of that disaster in the Internet world is that Apple decided to fix one Charlie Miller’s well known and thoroughly explained bug (@0xcharlie) after unceremoniously booting him from the Apple Developers program. They took this bug and a nasty battery drain on the iPhone 4S and decided that they would fix both issues at the same time with the release of their latest iOS update. I guess they were hoping the bug reported by Charlie would go totally unnoticed by the community at large.
Unfortunately, the installation of that update was the beginning of an interesting evening of frustration and testing for this intrepid user. Having been one of those fortunate few who finally received my iPhone 4S this past week, I was particularly interested in having the latest and greatest OS on the phone. However, after the total dis-arrangement of my iOS 4.x created folders, and the hours I had to put in restoring them to their former glory, my reluctance was actually at an all time high. After a bit of debate with myself, I bit the bullet and installed iOS 5.0.1.
I was particularly interested in the battery issue that was such a prevalent problem with the initial version of iOS 5.0 on the iPhone 4S. My phone was dying within about 3 hours under regular usage and this just would not do for an all day session at a football stadium. Upon installing the update. I found, much to my shagrin, my ability to make phone calls with the iPhone 4S disappeared as soon as the phone was updated. I was able to dial, however, no sound of the dialing and no voice from the other party was received.
I initially tried resetting the network, however, this did not have any apparent affect on the ability to make phone calls. Since, exiting the program and re-entering it only caused the phone to try to dial the last dialed number, the reset was something I was hoping would fix everything. Alas, my next step was to reset all settings. This only served to further my frustration.
I finally gave up after a few minutes and finally decided to reset the entire phone. At least I could call people again, but then I was without my contacts and phone numbers. This led to my only calling people whose numbers I could remember off the top of my head. As of yet, we have not been able to replicate the issue we had but suffice to say, we will likely see an iOS version 5.0.2 sometime soon from Cupertino if there are any other bugs in this release such as this one.
Once I arrived home again, I took to reloading the last backup which had 5.0.1 installed. Luckily this time, I was able to dial phones with all of my data. While, I cant say exactly what the difference is between the two setups since it was the backup of the updated profile, it does suffice to say that a good hard reset of all data sometimes is a good thing.
Now that my contacts and the 250 some odd Apps I use are once again installed , it is time to re-add all my movies, music and other goodies that I like to have with me.
Oct 19 2011
With the release of iOS 5 this week by Apple, most of the iPhone users in the world were faced with the possibility of getting the update fairly immediately. Unfortunately, my iPad 2 did not see the update until yesterday. With a bit of trepidation, I went ahead and took the plunge. Yes, both feet in and updated.
While my iPhone 3gS had updated to iOS 5 smoothly, the download for the iPad 2 seemed to drag on forever in relation. It took nearly 40 minutes to download and obviously the Apple servers were straining under the load. Lucky for me, the download completed and the install began.
What bothered me initially was the fact that my iPad 2 seemed to have lost everything from its pages. All my apps and data were gone. I nearly went into shock, especially in light of having seen articles about the issues some users had this week with servers not being available or their units being bricked by the update. Yet, when I restarted the sync, I found that my fears were unfounded as the sync restored all of the apps and the data to its previous state. I was once again back in business.
Unfortunately, like the iPhone, iCloud wants to take over all your machines whether you want it to or not. This happened with the iPhone, the iPad 2 and even my MBP when I updated the OS there as well. (Another story). Wishing Apple had put iCloud only as an option would have been too much especially since they seem to be wanting everyone to use their service whether they want to or not. Once again, I chose not to and have all my machines backed up to an external hard disk. Thus iCloud seems to be a bit overkill when you are syncing with a single machine and backing up to hard disk each day.
So far the only glitch in installation seems to be the fact that certain apps need to be updated in order to run on the iPad 2 under iOS 5. One game on my machine had a very apparent video issue and had to be restarted in order to clear it. Other than that, the installation was smooth, easy and nearly the exact way that Steve Jobs would have wanted it to be.
Oct 12 2011
Well, we finally broke down and upgraded our iPhone 3gS and there are many impressive things about iOS 5 on the iPhone 3gS. Yet, there is something missing. We couldn’t quite place our hand on it but we figured we would break it down piece by piece.
While the introduction to iCloud was nice and simple, allowing us at the end to simply not use it if we so desired, it was sort of, shall we say, commanding in the way the introduction took over the iPhone and would not let us do much else until we worked through the iCloud signup. This was a bit of a downer since we really weren’t wanting to share our personal data with the iCloud since we already have it backed up to our Mac and other external hard drives. But we worked through the introduction anyways and still were feeling impressed in spite of the authoritarian methods.
Once we got our phone back to a useable page, we found half our applications were not loaded. However, this was all being rectified in the back ground by iTunes as we worked. Apps continually appeared on our phone. This though was problematic in itself as we have spent the last year cleaning up our App order on the iPhone and nothing was in the order we put it in. Big time minus for iOS 5.
Then we looked for Siri. Bad news for those folks using the iPhone 3gS and the iPhone 4. There will be no Siri for you. Even the old Siri application now just starts and stops. Apple has made sure that you have to upgrade to the iPhone 4S in order to get the Siri Application. Apple obviously has made this the real reason to upgrade to the iPhone 4S. Alas, this is not the only reason though but it is a nice one.
The real reasons to upgrade is a three-fold whack to the noggin that really puts the iPhone 4S in a class by itself. One is the 8 mega-pixel camera. I hate carrying multiple cameras but this is a great upgrade which eliminates this issue. It is the one thing my poor measly 3gS does not have. One the 3gS, it barely has 1.3 mega-pixel camera capability and the photographs are horrific when compared to those of the iPhone 4S.
The second reason to upgrade is the high definition camera that comes built into the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 3gS barely hopes to take video, the iPhone 4 had bad-tv type video and finally, the iPhone 4S has the video that we all long for in all of our pockets.
The last and probably the greatest reason for me to get the iPhone 4S is the 64gb memory. My poor 32gb iPhone 3gS is always fairly full and after a person loads 20gb of music (only 100 cd’s or so), then there isn’t much room for anything else that one would want to put on there. Especially with the good apps taking up 250mb per app these days. (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 is 241mb).
All in all, the upgrade went well and I really have no major complaints about the iPhone 3gS with iOS 5 but then when one desires the latest and greatest, it is hard to beat good old fashioned desire. And that, folks, is the best reason of all. Steve Jobs over the years made us desire these things and now that he is gone, the desire still seems to be there. Thus come Friday Morning, I will be in line at the local Softbank Shop here in Tokyo to get my new iPhone 4S. (hopefully they get more than 3 this time around.)
Oct 12 2011
The iOS 5 Update for the iPhone and iPad has finally been released and the only thing we could say here was WOW! It is massive and the difference between iOS 4 and 5 is like comparing Apples and oranges. The update ran and re-booted nicely and we were back and running with our 3gS as we await the 4S. Included in the update is the following items:
• Notifications
◦ Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
◦ New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
◦ View notifications from lock screen
◦ Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
• iMessage
◦ Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
◦ Track messages with delivery and read receipts
◦ Group messaging and secure encryption
◦ Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi*
• Newsstand
◦ Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
◦ Displays the cover of the latest issue
◦ Background downloads of new issues
• Reminders for managing to do lists
◦ Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
◦ Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Built-in support for Twitter
◦ Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
◦ Add location to any tweet
◦ View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
• Camera improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
◦ Volume Up button to take a picture
◦ Optional grid lines to line up shots
◦ Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
◦ Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
◦ Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
• Photo improvements for devices with cameras
◦ Crop and rotate
◦ Red eye removal
◦ One tap enhance
◦ Organize photos into albums
• Mail improvements
◦ Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
◦ Indentation control
◦ Drag to rearrange names in address fields
◦ Flag messages
◦ Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Customize mail alert sounds
◦ S/MIME
• Calendar improvements
◦ Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
◦ Tap to create an event
◦ View and add event attachments
• Game Center improvements
◦ Use personal photos for your Game Center account
◦ Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
◦ Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
◦ Discover new games with custom game recommendations
• AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
• Multitasking Gestures for iPad
◦ Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
◦ Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
◦ Swipe left or right to switch between apps
• On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
• Software updates available over the air without tethering
• iCloud support
◦ iTunes in the Cloud
◦ Photo Stream
◦ Documents in the Cloud
◦ Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
◦ Backup
◦ Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
◦ Find My iPhone
• Redesigned Music app for iPad
• Hourly weather forecast
• Real-time stock quotes
• Wireless sync to iTunes
• Keyboard improvements
◦ Split keyboard for iPad
◦ Improved autocorrection accuracy
◦ Improved Chinese and Japanese input
◦ New Emoji keyboard
◦ Personal dictionary for autocorrection
◦ Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words
• Accessibility improvements
◦ Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
◦ Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
◦ New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
◦ Option to speak a selection of text
◦ Custom element labeling for VoiceOver
• Exchange ActiveSync improvements
◦ Wirelessly sync tasks
◦ Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
◦ Improved offline support
◦ Save a new contact from a GAL service
• More than 1,500 new developer APIs
• Bug fixes
The update included a number of platforms but anyone with a phone prior to the 3GS will not be able to upgrade to iOS 5 but those with the later models and any iPad will be able to. The compatibility list includes the following models:
• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generatio
Oct 11 2011
It appears that the iPhone update server is now down in preparation for the iOS 5 release. The iOS 5 release which is expected here just two days prior to the release of Apple, Inc.’s release of their latest iPhone, the iPhone 4S, integrates all of the features of iCloud another new release product being touted by Apple.
We will keep everyone posted about the servers and let you know when they come back online.
UPDATE: Servers are back up with 4.3.5 as the latest. No release of iOS 5 yet
Oct 9 2011
This week is scheduled to be one of the biggest update weeks in the history of Apple, Inc. with a slew of program and product updates coming. On the agenda are:
With all of the updates happening at once, it is easy for some of the items to get lost in the fray. There has been a lot of talk about the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 along with iCloud but not much on the other releases.
Mac OS X 10.7 has needed an update for a while now. Many people have been complaining rather loudly about the bugs in 10.7 and 10.7.1, hoping that Apple would hear their pleas for help. While 10.7.2 is scheduled for a 12 October release, there are rumors on the web now that it will actually happen a bit earlier than that, along with the update for iTunes.
iOS 5 and iCloud are both expected to be released on the 12th of October as well, and will surely slow down Apple’s servers to a crawl for a few days. All these software updates all coming simultaneously has disaster written all over it but hopefully Apple has taken into account that there will be a massive overload and increased their server capacity for such eventuality.
The new products coming just two days later on the 14th of October are just as impressive and include the iPhone 4S, a new White edition of the iPod Touch, new pricing on both the iPod Touch and the updated iPod Nano, which now includes the sensors needed to work with Athletic tracking programs, right out of the box. These are the products that Apple is hoping will carry it into 2012 with record profits for the company. The iPhone 4S was put up for pre-ordering and sold completely out within about 20 hours in the United States. This does not even gauge the interest in the other countries where the product will go on sale on the 14th of October, simultaneously with the opening of sales in the US.
The coolest gadget may not even be the iPhone 4S but instead may be the fact that there is a watch band conversion for the latest version of the iPod Nano which Phil Schiller so capably used as a prop for his presentation at the October 4th event. This makes the iPod Nano a wonderful replacement for all those Casio databases as well as the long suffering Seiko Instruments Ruputer (Known as Matsucom OnHand PC in the US) which has not been updated since early 1998.
This update by Apple is definitely one for the ages and will certainly show Apple which direction they will go after losing their leader, Steve Jobs this past week.