Below you can see the popular YouTube video which compares all 4 iPhone generations with each other. This inspired me to come up with my own comparison. Based on initial iPhone reaction.
Original iPhone:
“Oh wow! Is that THE iPhone? — May I touch it?”
iPhone 3G:
“Dude, is that the new iPhone? How do you like it? Worth the upgrade?”
iPhone 3GS:
” — ”
iPhone 4:
“How’s that iPhone working for you? Lots of antenna issues, huh? Sucks!”
And there you were, thinking it’d be all about the FaceTime…
Do you own an iPhone? Is there a possibility that you will ever want to jailbreak said iPhone? Maybe you want to sell your new iPhone 4 on Ebay next year? If so you need to save your iPhone SHSH blobs RIGHT NOW!
The iPhone DevTeam will soon release a jailbreak and unlock for ALL iOS devices running on iOS 4.0.1. iPod Touch, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, you name it, each and every device will be covered. This is very good news for any potential jailbreaker. However, as soon as Apple releases 4.1 (which is currently in beta) you may lose this opportunity.
Even if you never update to 4.1 intentionally, your iPhone may freeze up one day and you’ll have to do a full system restore to get it back up running. Trust me, this has happened to me before! This means that you will have to restore to whichever version of iOS is the latest at that moment, since Apple doesn’t allow us to restore to previous firmware versions anymore starting with the iPhone 3GS. That’s why you want to save your SHSH blobs for 4.0.1 RIGHT now. The SHSH blobs will allow you to restore to 4.0.1 even after 4.1, 4.2, or even 4.3 are out.
Don’t ask any more questions! Saving your SHSH blobs will take you one minute. Just do it! You can thank us later.
The official Wordpress app is a disaster. The comments on the app will tell you that, as will anyone who has ever had the misfortune of using it. Even the esteemed Andy Ihnatko has nothing but harsh words for it. This mess of an app has lost more than one draft for me, and offers no real formatting options. It’s terrible at posting pictures, even worse at plain ol’ text, and generally a waste of time, space, bits, and money (it’s free, still too much). Other apps have equally poor reviews, and after my experience with the Wordpress app for iPad, I had no desire to test them.
I ran a quick google search to see if the standard standard web interface for posting to a wordpress blog would work using Mobile Safari on my iPad. According to everything I read, it wouldn’t. Frustrated with the lack of a quality app, I thought I would try it for myself. The result: everyone else is wrong. You don’t need an app. The standard web interface to wordpress works just fine!
I wrote this post entirely on my iPad, including taking and uploading the screenshots.
Here are a few tips to make your experience better:
On the iPad, you can scroll inside a text box by dragging with two fingers. This is not new information to most people i suppose, but it was news to me. This is important, since you will be typing your post inside a text box on the website.
The buttons on top of the text box work as expected. To make text bold or insert a link, just tap and hold to select the text, then tap the desired button.
Uploading images is the hardest part of using the web interface. Since the iPad has no user-accessible file system, you cannot tap the image button and expect to upload a picture. You can, however, use that same button to select any image that has already been uploaded to your blog, and insert it into your post. I used the previously mentioned crappy Wordpress app to make a draft post, and attached the images I wanted to that draft. The pictures got uploaded to my site, and I was then able to go back to Safari and select them from the “Media Gallery” and insert them.
The website I tested on is powered by wordpress software running on it’s own server. I have not been able to test the interface on a wordpress.com hosted site, but I assume that interface is the same. YMMV.
After jailbreaking my iPad 3G on first night Spirit was released, I’ve been testing my favorite jailbroken iPhone utilities to see what works.
Amazingly, many of the tools I use the most seem to work right out of the box, even without the apps being updated for the iPad. Here is the current state-of-the-art:
Cydia, which is installed by default by Spirit, runs fine. It is even built to run in fullscreen mode, iPad native. Despite numerous scary warnings on the front page, I have not experienced any issues with Cydia.
Backgrounder: Works just like the iPhone version. In fact, it runs at iPhone size. Amazingly, jailbreak apps behave just like any iPhone app, presenting a 2X option to fill the screen.
Look closely at that Pandora icon
3G Unrestricter: This $2.99 app was one of the most important reasons to jailbreak my iPhone, as it allowed me to use Skype and other apps that would normally only work on wifi over the 3G network.
I didn’t expect that I would have much of a reason to use Unrestricter on my iPad. Well, that was before I saw YouTube on 3G. The quality was so degraded that i couldn’t read text, even big text, in a video. Unrestricter lets me watch YouTube, Netflix, and ABC in full quality (at the expense of loading time, of course). I also tested Skype, and successfully made a nice sounding phone call over 3G from my iPad. To the best of my knowledge Unrestricter has not been updated to be iPad specific (it runs like an iPhone app too), which really just adds to my amazement that it works. Best of all, if you have purchased it previously for the iPhone, you get to use it again, free of charge, on the iPad!
SbSettings: Works. Used it to change my screen brightness. Move along.
And Finally-
MyWi: Here is an app that I REALLY didn’t expect to work on the iPad. MyWi uses your mobile data plan, and rebroadcasts that connection as wifi, turning your device into a MiFi card style mobile hotspot which you can use to get your laptop online. To my surprise, MyWi works on the iPad and even carries benefits over using a dedicated device.
Consider the following: you could buy a MiFi from sprint or verizon for $199 and a $60 per month data plan which is limited to 5 gigs. The MiFi has a battery life of around 2 hours, and is limited to 5 users connected at a time. The MyWi app has no such limitation and will last as long as the iPad battery. I used the app for three strait hours on battery power, downloaded 150 megabytes, and only saw a 14% drop in battery, from 92% when i started to 78% when I stopped. That equals a 4.67 percent drop in battery per hour, or an estimated total of 21.4 hours! On top of that, the data plan costs half as much per month and has no limit to the amount you can download!
I used MyWi with the “Rock” management system so that I could take advantage of the 10 day free trial. There were some bugs while I tried to sign up for my (free) Rock account, but once i got past those everything was smooth sailing.
Final Verdict on jailbreaking the iPad-
While it would be great for these apps to be upgraded to an iPad specific interface, the functionality of my favorite jailbreak tools seem to be 100%. If you have been waiting for things to settle down before you jailbreak, I don’t think you have to wait any longer. Spirit works great and is even faster than blackra1n, and MyWi alone makes the whole process worthwhile.
Footnote: Tethering is against AT&T’s terms of service. Try not to ruin everything for the rest of us by bittorrenting Avatar over your 3G connection.
You run a small business, freelance, or would like to keep your personal office organized. You own a Mac, an iPhone, or an iPad. Perhaps all three. You work from home, but whenever possible try to get out while still being able to manage your day-to-day operations. If any of this describes the way you work, this is for you! We will show you some some productive and fun ways to stay organized — even while you’re on the move.
The series will be broken down into four parts: “Going Paperless”, “Organizing Time”, “Keeping Track of Bills & Payments”, and “Accessing Screen/Files From Anywhere”. Each part will be a mix of workflow suggestions, as well as software & hardware review.
A fair warning: The series is written with a somewhat serious office warrior in mind. Hence, our focus isn’t as much on price but usability. If you’re running a business, however, these products will help you stay on top and you’ll be able to expense them at the end of the year. So keep your receipts!
For now, let’s dive right in. First up:
Going Paperless
You’ve probably known for a while, that digitizing all the paperwork in your drawers would make life a lot easier. Still you’ve never come around to actually implement a paperless workflow. The challenge seems to big. It doesn’t have to be! With the right tools you can digitize your entire paper office without much pain or fuss.
Excerpt from Apple’s iPad Human Interface Guidelines:
Focus on providing a consistent experience in all orientations, even if the layout of secondary information might change. A comparable experience in all orientations allows people to maintain their usage patterns when they rotate the device.
Screenshots from Apple’s Pages for iPad application:
Horizontal:
Vertical:
Not exactly maintaining my usage patterns.
Also: Why does the guideline text render so horrendously on iPad? And how come I can’t copy from it? Someone should inform Apple that actions speak louder than words.
Questions or comments? Let me know: @eierund on twitter.
While most of the blogosphere is going haywire over Gizmodo’s leak of the next generation iPhone hardware, and Apple is most likely gearing up their warfare against the Gawker Media Network, I’d like to take a look at another battle Apple’s been involved with for quite some time: Apple vs. Microsoft.
For as long as I can remember Apple and Microsoft have competed for market share in personal computing. No matter how you feel about the giant from Redmond, one has to admit that they have clearly pulled ahead in this battle. Yes, Apple has increased its market share quite impressively in the past few years, but it remains doubtful that they would be able to dethrone Microsoft anytime soon. At least not by the terms that we would define victory with TODAY.
What would happen, however, if Apple would simply change the terms that define the outcome of the war? Change the game from Windows vs. Mac to something entirely different?
I believe this is exactly what is happening in Cupertino right now. A few years ago, Apple seems to have shifted its strategy away from their laptop and desktop lines and focused their energy on iPhone, iPod Touch, and — most importantly — iPad instead. With the recent release of iPad and the months long delay of a refresh to the laptop lineup this is now more apparent than ever. Furthermore, these iDevices are not an incarnation of the Macintosh, they are pitched as a brand new platform. A unique group of gadgets in which Apple is the clear market leader.
Today Apple started authorizing credit cards for iPad pre-orders. Not out of the ordinary with about one week left until release-day. However, Apple also seems to be authorizing iPad 3G orders as of today.
A quick call to Apple support confirmed that both the iPad and iPad 3G are being “prepared for shipment”. (At least for our orders.)
We’re currently trying to get a hold of a representative to shed some light onto this situation.
Update 4:26pm PST: An Apple representative told us that these authorizations are placed to verify the credit card information. Even though the automated system states that the iPad 3G is “being prepared for shipment” this is not the case, according to the representative. We’ll keep checking into this. Stay tuned.
Update 03/28/2010: Looks like the iPad 3G won’t ship early after-all.
Questions or comments? Let me know: @eierund on twitter.
