iPhone

Feature Request: The sync on connect and other iPhone specific settings are only available when the device is connected. How do I change them before connecting? What if it's set to sync and I don't want it to? Do I have to cable the iPhone, quickly cancle the sync, then change the setting?

Q: How can you backup the iPhone into a actual useful format, that doens't require one to synch in order to get the content back? Can you just export contacts to a text file? Can you dump SMS threads to text? Can you copy off applications and put them onto another phone? How 'bout pulling music off? What about something like a recording made on the phone itself - instead of emailing pieces of it?
A:

Q: Why can't / or how do you, get the "radio" or streaming part of iTunes on the iPhone?
A: There are some apps that offer this.

Q: How do you access shared iTunes libraries on the iPhone - I don't see 'em in iPod or iTunes?
A:

Q: Why does pulling out the USB to iPhone sync/charge crash the explorer shell (and kill Windows Explorer) Even when I eject the phone first it does this.
A:

Question: How 'bout performance, how can you tell what's using CPU and RAM? Should you close all the browser tabs? Is the GPS sucking up battery and bandwidth even though the map is not active in the forfront? Is mail still checking? Why do the web page tabs show images of the pages you were last on, but then need to reload from scratch again? Sometimes it seems to slow down a lot and "crash", that is exit yout app back to the desktop (on its own), but then be able to return to where it was in the app. The contacts piece hangs too.(Running 2.0.2)
Answer: There's a $1 or $2 app called Free Memory or something that does some of this. Just some.

Question: Can you play .flac or .ogg or other non-DRM less lossy or loss-less or FOSS audio codecs on the iPhone iTunes?
Answer:

Question: How do you code an iPhone specific mobile page? Like the Google maps and calendar ones?
Answer:

Question: Can I RDP or ICA or VNC or SSH from the iPhone?
Answer: There are a number of VNC clients, so far the free non-non-DRM'ed (that is don't require jailbreak) ones I've tried are feature limited and s l o w.

Question: What version of iTunes (on PC) is the minimum required for support of an iPhone with the 2.x OS?
Answer: UNKNOWN
Answer: Here says, iTunes 7.4 or later is required for iPhone 1.1.2.
Answer: Here says, using iTunes 7.7 or later, you can update your iPhone with the latest software.
Answer: Here says iTunes 7.3 or later to active an original iPhone, and though Last Modified: July 10, 2008, this is prob relevent to the 1.x OS
Answer: iPhone_users_guide.pdf says iTunes 7.7 is required...
Answer: iTunes 7.7 is required for Remote (free iPhone app from Apple) to connect from an iPhone (for which 2.x is required)
Answer: Just use hte current latest and greatest and stop asking questions!

Question: Is there anyway to use the iPhone to to via bluetooth put a laptop onto the interweb?
Answer: Looks like this obvious PDA goes without saying feature requires de-DRM-ing...
Answer: PDAnet (requires de-cripling iPhone)
Answer: AT&T-sanctioned 3G tethering on the way for iPhone (posted Nov 2008)
Answer: Now avail if you meet the following:

Question : Can you just put in a working SIM card from another network into an iPhone and then have voice? No data, SMS, visual voicemail, just voice and wifi?
Answer:

Question: Can you SSH into the phone - or is this one of the many things which should be standard but require "breaking" it to do?
Answer:

Question: The Google Calendar page for iPhone talks about how you need SSH and cookies on for it to work, but how do you configure any of this?
Answer: Cookies is easy, Settings | Safari.
Answer for SSH?

Question: MacMe and Exchange are positioned as push email systems, I guess vs. POP and webmail as pull. What is IMAP on the iPhone?
Answer: Seems to default to manual fetch - can set to timed fetch.

Original - First Generation - Edge network (2G?)

Second Generation - 3G

3G S

Notes:

Edge

3G edge twice as fast as edge!

Same as 3G

If your not hopping towers either is really okay - both pale compaired to wifi throughput anyway... This is data only and has no impact on voice avalabilty or quality.

better battery life

worse battery life (note that you can turn of the 3G (except for when youre web browsing, for example) and thus get the same performance as from the first gen non-3G phone)

TBD

iPhone 3G offers up to 5 hours of talk time on 3G, 10 hours of talk time on 2G, 5 hours of Internet use on 3G, 6 hours of Internet use on Wi-Fi, 7 hours of video playback, or 24 hours of audio playback on a full charge at original capacity. In addition, iPhone features up to 300 hours of standby time.

minimum monthly cost ~$60

minimum monthly cost ~$80

TBD

Note that $20 per month over a two year contract is $240...

location by mobile tower triangulation - seems to work fine (assuming there are towers around!)

True GPS (however the iPhone still uses mobile tower triangulation while it "spins up"GPS, so you might get a 10 to 20 sec lag time when initiating)

Same as 3G

The 3G's GPS is clearly superior to the 1st gen iPhone's mobile tower triangulation once one gets out of a dense urban setting or when one is looking for an exact location; the 1st gen can be misleading by whole streets...

8GB (and 4GB?)

16GB and 8GB (32GB coming soon?)

TBD

Can't do Internet data and voice simaltaniously over only connection to the cellular (edge) network, (i.e., no concurrent wifi connection) incoming calls go directly to voicemail sometimes if you're using the 'net in some apps!

Can do both at once (manual doesn't say if only in 3G mode though)

Same as 3G

This doesn't seem like much until you try to go to Yelp or a website or online map or something while on a phone - then you feel so pre-2008.

No "teathering" - this is a AT&T limitation (imposed globally through only mandated in the USA?) and not a technical one.

This is an iPhone thing, whereas "true" PDAs/smartphones allow this and based on the monthly costs it is a reasonable expectation.

Headphone jack resessed so that some jacks won't fit...

Headphone jack slightly less resessed so less jacks won't fit...

Same as 3G

Get an adaptor...

realy bad camera

bad camera

Feature Request: Granular clearing of outgoing and/or incoming and/or missed calls

Aug 6, 2009: BRICKED
Upgraded iPhone to 3.0.1. Bricked. Had to restore to factory and restore from backup. Lost all music. Icons all goofy. Overall annoying.
Lost all music. Lost all ringtones. Lost all pix from the iPhone.

Feature Request: Allow you to specify how many instances or days of backups to keep. Looks like it defaults and is locked in at one day and haw ever many are made that day.

Feature Request: Tool to back up music that exists only on the device and not on the iTunes instance it syncs with. Obviously Apple will not author this.

Feature Request: Able to properly use Skype or other VOIP apps. Should be able to do Skype-In. Should be able to leave Skype up while doing other things on the iPhone.

Feature Request: Would be nice to be able to turn off voice but leave wifi and/or data on. Ideally an iPhone sans SIM or iPod Touch with a mic should be all you need for everything while in wifi rich areas. No monthly costs at all!

Feature Request: A real camera! The camera is obviously convenient as it integrates so cleanly with many apps, but it is basically horrible; little more that a "checkbox" feature, just so it can say it has a camera when compaired to other devices. Graniny, no zoom, low res, poor in low light.

Feature Request: FM and maybe AM and maybe short wave radio receive and transmit. This digital tuning and IP over shortwave this could be way cool in remote areas - 'ish, you could even stay on Twitter and SMS with just this!

Feature Request: Allow securely stored password fill-in into websites so you don't have to re-type them. Some passwords that are easy on a keyboard are a really pain on the iPhone - with mixed case and symbols.

Feature Request: Seperate volume control for ring volume from everything else. Seems like it you lower the volume of your music or whatever then the ringer is lower too. This I do not like. No mater what vol I have for an app I still want to be able to hear the phone ring from inside a bag or from another room. UPDATE: Looks like this is slightly addressed in 2.2 or 2.2.1 in that sometimes when changing the volume the overlay display reads ringer volume or headphone volume so this leads me to assume that different things have different volumes. One annoying thing is that when you flip back out of silent or vibrate mode the volume(s?) are at zero, sothe thing is still slilent, and now, depending on your settings, maybe not even set to vibrate, and you have to manually raise the volume - this has thrown me off a few times now.

Question: How can you tell how much battery / talk / standby / wifi / cellnetwork / iTunes time is left? I know the big green battery when charging and the little icon in the upper right, but I want to see battery % without actually charging or guessing from the tiny icon...
Answer: Not on the first gen, maybe on the 3G, definately on the 3GS - there's now a very nice desirerable percent readout.

Question: How do you copy and paste text on the iPhone?
Answer: You can't?...
Answer: THIS IS LAME.
Answer: Introduced in iPhone OS 3.0 beta!

Question: How do you recover if you lose the unlock code?
Answer: You really don't... Restore to factor shipped OS, upgrade, re-sync data and apps

Question: How to Save battery life?
Answer: Keep the iPhone cool and out of direct sunlight!
Answer: Use wifi over Edge over 3G.
Answer: Turn off 3G and/or Egde and/or GPS and/or wifi
Answer: Decress the brightness of the display

Question: What are some iPhone tips and tricks?
Answer: Hold the ".com" button and get .org, .net, .edu
Answer: Hold almost any alpha key and get other language alternates of it
Answer: Tap the top of the screen to autoscroll to the top of an app
Answer: When on the menu root icon menu screens hit the "home" button once to go the left-most screen
Answer: Hold down an image to be able to save it
Answer: Hold down a link to see what URL it links to - then de-pressing vs moving off and deselecting have different results
Answer: Double tap the home button to bring up a mini-iPod interface when the screen is locked. When unlocked this does the same and additionally has close and iPod buttons. There is a setting to go to favorates with a double tab unless the iPod is playing (or paused) in which case it goes to the iPod thing

Questions on IMAP.
Question: Why is the iPhone OS's IMAP so un-reliable? Sometimes messages don't send and totally dissapear! Only like 30% of the outgoing emails actually then show up in Sent. Sucks!
Answer: This seem better, maybe fixed in 2.1+ or it was my config???

Followup Question: When you sent "always BCC: myself" to on, does this then make it so outgoing mail does not get queued in the Sent Mail folder?
Answer: Seems to... Later it still seemed one or the other, but more stable. Then recently I started getting two emails in my sent folder and since then have recently de-selected the always BCC self option! (end of 1Q '09)

Feature Request: Be able to go back to Now Playing more easily. On the very top right ofthe screen you see the play triangle - but touching it doesn't doanything. FOUND OUT THIS IS ALREADY A FEATURE - IF PLAYING IPOD A DOUBLE-HOME CLICK BRINGS YOU TO THE IPDOD INSTEAD OF FAVORITES!

Feature Request: App store update all. Updates are always coming out and it's annoying to have to go into each one and then if you wait too long you have to re-enter your password and if your too fast the whole device slows down...INCLUDED IN THE 2.2 OS!

Question: HOW DO YOU PICK UP ON A PREVIOUSLY STARTED DRAFT? Messages in draft on other clients (specifically OL 2000, OL 2007, and Squirl webmail) can be continued and sent - but not the iPhone...
Answer: If you configure the drafts on the iPhone IMAP client to be "local" then you get the behavior described in the question above. One needs to specify use of the server-side drafts folder to then obtain the desired behavor. (Note that there might be SMTP port blocked stuff that limits or interferes with this too.)

Question: How do you attach two pixs to the same email?
Answer: As of iPhone OS 2.2 you can't natively. Might be some add on apps that do it. Obviously you can send them to yourself and then recombine them and send it all off again. I don't think you can queue them as drafts and them cut/paste them into one though.

How to do iPhone Ringtones in iTunes (obviously without the inconceivably asinine prospect of paying for a ringtone)
Steps (Full directions here):

Question: How to consistantly get the iPhone iTunes Remote to actually start working? At work iPhone on wifi and laptop (with iTunes) on LAN (same network and can ping etc.) the iPhone does not show on the iTunes devices list. At work when both iPhone and iTunes laptop are on wifi it works! At home when the very same iPhone and laptop are on the same wifi (different from the work one) the iPhone does not show up in the iTunes devices list; here the laptop Windows firewall is on, but iTunes is set up as an allowed exception - removing all existing remotes does nothing.
Answers:

Question: How to take a screenshot of the iPhone?
Answer: Press the home button and the lock button at the same time.

MINI OVERVIEW OF THE IPHONE BACKUP VIA ITUNES
Includes:
* iPhone settings
* downloaded applications
* contacts
* calendars
* notes
* images in the Camera Roll
NOT included in the backup:
* audio
* video
* photo content
(from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414)

To manually recover data:
* Vista path: C:\users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\<key id of the backup iPhone>
* XP path: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\<key id of the backup iPhone>
* Folder is full of plist files, convert these to xml format plists, pull the content from the data keys, and then convert from Base64 to a binary files, voila!
(from http://hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=25317)

Question: Bluetooth keyboard with the iPhone, right?
Answer: Waiting on Apple to release drivers or something... This vaporware is the closest thing: http://www.avalive.com/MacAlly/BTKeyMini/43579/productDetail.php($92 pre-ordering MacAlly BTKeyMini Apple iphone keyboard Blue Tooth)
Answer: iPhone supports ONLY mono phone headsets

Question: WTF? "One of the recipient addresses was invalid" almost all the time when sending email from the iPhone. It sucks. Why do I get bad recipient for some eddresses that work from everywhere else from my iPhone?
Answer: Seems one needs to configure SMTP host and credentials accuately...

Question: How do you get your own wallpapers up?
Answer: For wallpaper you can use a picture you take, or sync pictures over USB and use these.

Question: Can you do streaming (iTunes) music over the iPhone data plan!?!
Answer: Don't think so...
Answer: Pandora! This is awesome!

Question: How do you customize your desktops - I saw it in the 3G Apple movie, but can't yet do it?...
Answer: To customize your desktops, hold down an icon, they all start wiggling, then you can drag and drop btwn and on desktops to arrange.

Question: What's the cheapest plan I can get? Just voice basically…
Answer: ~$80 to $90 per month! $40 voice, $30 G3, $5 text, plus taxes and fees
Answer: ~$60+/mo with the G2 phone's most basic AT&T plan allowed

This I copy pasted from somewhere now unknown to me on the web, "Nivla (515687): I work for AT&T. Maybe you are just asking the wrong questions. Every time I activate a new customer I give them a print out of exactly how their first months bill and normal monthly bills will break down. This print out is avalible through any AT&T vendor and is called a CSS (Customer Service Summary) This print out breaks down everything on you bill including rate plan, data, messaging, extra services ( insurance, roadside assistants ...) taxes and fees broken down by which entity is charging which fees and taxes. Any good sales person will present you with this at the time of the sale. If you not getting one maybe you should consider going to a different AT&T store. Just like everyone else that franchises their business you are going to have good agents and bad agents"

These are some more fine questions: (Warning - they might bug the sales person; they are prob all answered in the fine print.)

Replacement iPhone earphones on test reviews:
Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic $80
Bose Mobile On-Ear Headset $200
Etymotic hF2 Headset + Earphones $180
Sennheiser MM 50 iPhone black $70 *
Shure SE210 and Shure MPA $130 + $40 (or use any headphones w/ the $40 MPA!)
V-Moda Vibe II $120

popularmechanics review of:
Shure SE110 $120 (+$50?)
SkullCandy iPhone FMJ $80 *
Apple iPhone headset $30

For the 1/8" to 1/8" cable for AUX input in my car I was able to cut off a bit of the rubber/plastic from the jack and that was enough to get the thing to fit and work well.
$0.00