iPhone4idiots

So what’s better for the Holiday season than a new theme for your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch screen! Cydia has a nice selection right on the home page under Themes. What’s better is that most are free. Pictured here is KillSignCarbonBlue. It looks slick don’t ya think? Now not all icons are made over like this (Twitter and Skype are missing), but most the biggies are. I really like the Facebook and Weather icons. There was one icon (Messages) that didn’t convert over, but was still green. Luckily the solution for this is elementary jailbreaking 101. Continue Reading…

So the Dev Team updated redsn0w a few days ago. This will jailbreak all devices on 4.2.1, but is only an untethered jailbreak for iPhone 3G, older iPhone 3GS, and non-MC iPod touch 2G. Thus, unless you have one of these three devices, I recommend waiting for another jailbreak. It won’t be long. In fact an Ultrasn0w should be out Sunday or Monday although it won’t include iPhone 4 yet. If you want to proceed with this latest version, download redsn0w and your stock 4.2.1 firmware file here. My video of jailbreaking my son’s iPhone 3G shows that it’s petty easy. There was also news out today that the four founders of the Pirate Bay were found guilty again. Continue Reading…

OK, so last night I wanted to upgrade my wife’s iPhone from 4.1 to 4.2 (technically its 4.2.1 – boy 4.2 was fast) so I could check out Find My iPhone. Didn’t want to lose my jailbreak so used her iPhone. Well during the upgrade it bombed out with a 1013 error. WTF?!? She’s gonna be pissed. Halfway through each restore it would give the 1013 error. I tried recovery AND dfu mode and 1013, 1013, 1013! After an hour and half wasted I get a simple solution to the loop from a Forum reply. Run Tiny Umbrella and click “kick out of recovery”. Dope! For geeks what happens is Tiny Umbrella edits your hosts file in your machine. It changes the hosts file to link to Cydia’s servers as opposed to Apple’s. Thus, preventing iTunes from completing the processing. Thus you get stuck with 1013 errors. You have to either do what I did (easy way) or edit the hosts file. This is a classic example of why you should always sync and backup your iPhone before upgrading software. It could be a painful lesson . . . I’m really sorry Hunny Bunny (Pulp Fiction was an underrated movie)!

iOS 4.2 went live today for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Again, this is a major upgrade for the iPad that you are going to want. See what’s new in my review. Before you install iOS 4.2 be sure you’ve updated to iTunes 10.1. Also, its the perfect time to sync and backup your data. While you are at it take an extra second and move your Camera Roll to iPhoto or whatever you use on Windows for pictures. One feature that was new today is that Find My iPhone is now free! To setup you need an iPad, iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 4, but once you’re done you can use it on any iOS 4.2 device. The Find My iPhone app is a free download in the App Store and lets users easily locate a missing device on a map and have it display a message or play a sound. You can even remotely lock or wipe data from a lost device. It’s a nice feature that previously was only offered with paid service MobileMe. Follow these steps after you download the Find My iPhone app to get it running.
1) Update your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to iOS 4.2
2) Go into Settings: Mail, Contacts Calendars
3) Tap Add Account
4) Tap MobileMe
5) Enter your Apple ID (iTunes Store ID, Apple Online Store ID, etc.)
6) Verify your account via email
7) Go back to Settings: Mail, Contacts, Calendars: MobileMe
Turn on Find my iPhone
9) Tap Allow

Well that didn’t take long. RAGE HD, id Software $1.99, hit the App Store on Wednesday and this morning its the Top Grossing App and number 2 (behind Angry Birds of course) Top Paid App. What’s even more impressive is they released a non HD version for $0.99 that’s moving up the charts as well. Rage was developed by John Carmack who is a legend in the gaming industry. It’s a first person rail shooter game – Carmack’s follow up to Quake. What is a game changer is that he’s released the game for the iPhone first and will bring the $50 X-Box and Playstation 3 versions to market in 2011. Now I’m not big on first person shooter games. I’m not even playing COD Black Ops right now. It’s just not my thing. However, I’ve never seen a game on the iPhone run at 60 FPS (frames per second). It’s stunning and a ton of fun (although my wife was annoyed and made me turn the sound off last night). Take a look at a demo of the game on the iPhone 4 here. Trust me it looks even better on your iDevice! The basics of the game Continue Reading…

Every so often I write about how IMO the days of cable television are numbered. Not that its every going away totally or within the next year, but make no mistake things are going to change. My opinion was re-affirmed over the weekend when I watched the Bears Vikings game while driving to my son’s birthday party. How you ask? Just open a browser on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and goto FilmOn. There is no app required. You just goto the website and start watching live TV. Billionaire David Alki is streaming channels like CBS, ABC, NBC, KCAL, FOX and more. Of course broadcasters aren’t happy about this and have sued, but a billionaire has the pockets to fight and keep this site running for a long time. There is a paid service for $9.95 per month that offers more channels. Another similar website is ivi which offers a 30 day free trial and then is $4.95 per month. Of course in addition to your iDevice you can also watch on your PC or television provided you have a web browser. Compared to my cable at home the stream was about one minute behind. The quality of these streams has improved a lot in the past year. It shouldn’t be too much longer before they are almost as good as cable. By the time that happens I would think premium channels like HBO will be included as well. Yes, hopefully that $70 monthly cable bills days are numbered. If you’ve tried this website let me know what you think.

Being an iPhone fanboy its extremely rare that I get envious of anything about somebody else’s smartphone. Maybe the camera on the Evo, but that’s it. Until a week ago while sitting in the dentist office I saw someone typing at warp speed using an app called Swype. I quickly looked for the iPhone version and was surprised not to see one. Surprise turned to shock as I quickly learned there is no iPhone version and may have to wait awhile before getting what Guiness World Records has confirmed is the fastest way to text. Swype has a technology that allow you to swipe your finger across the glass keyboard from letter to letter without ever lifting it. You only lift your finger to start a new word and the accuracy is amazing! Spacing and capitalization are automatic. See this video for example. Continue Reading…

Trainyard, Matt Rix $0.99, is a unique puzzle game with over 150 boards. The object of the game is to get a colored train from its starting point to goal station. All you have to do is draw the track. Interestingly there is no time limit or score. The first few boards are overly simple, but the game quickly gets more difficult as you have to cross tracks and merge trains. It actually gets quite difficult, but luckily there is a website with a couple hundred thousand player submitted puzzle solutions. Thus, if you get stuck and frustrated its easy to cheat If you want to try before you buy there is a free version called Trainyard Express.  Personally I didn’t like this game too much as it made me feel stupid as I found the solutions difficult on many occasions. However, a non-idiot might find this game enjoyable. I don’t know??

Update 10/17/2010 So there is a wifi connection issue with 4.2 and the iPad. Thus, the release has been delayed. It should happen any day. Apple stated it would be in November so two weeks tops unless its a major bug.

So iTunes 10.1 is here and iOS 4.2 will follow on Tuesday. Remember my advice is not to bother updating if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, but this is a major update for the iPad that you’ll really want. For more on 4.2 see my review. As always if you need to unlock your iPhone – do not update to 4.2. If you only need to jailbreak and you have saved your SHSH blob for 4.1 then you can go ahead, but IMO it’s still better to just wait for the official 4.2 jailbreak release. It should be quite soon. I’d say by December 1. Feel free to go ahead and update iTunes to 10.1 if you want, it won’t affect your iDevice.

A very cool app in Cydia for your jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch is LockInfo, $9.99. LockInfo lets you fill your lockscreen or home screen with information such as weather, calendar, email, missed calls, Twitter, Facebook or RSS feeds and more. Look at my lockscreen pictured here. Starting at the top I quickly can see the time and weather forecast here in Nashville.  Under that my calendar lets me know I need to jailbreak Steve Jobs iPhone later today! Continuing down I see my most recent email from iPhone4idiots and the last call and voicemail I received. At the bottom is my most recent text telling me to hurry up. That’s a lot of the key information I want to find on my iPhone all on one screen. Continue Reading…