iPhone4idiots

Have you looked at the Apple App Store lately? Half of the Top 25 Grossing iPhone apps are FREE! Ok, it’s only 12 of the 25 but I round up. If you don’t understand how this is possible all these apps are what is known as freemium apps. They are free to download and play/use, but generate revenue through the use of in-app purchasing. I see this as a good thing. Users get to try before they buy and developers can rake in tons of money by selling the premium features of their app. For games like Tap Zoo and Smurf’s Village this entails buying items to make your virtual world look cooler (like having an amazing waterfall fountain in your zoo). For Texas Poker and Zynga Poker you buy more chips so you can be big man at the tables. For Contract Killer and iMobster’s you purchase items to help you move further along in the games (like better guns). Continue Reading…

Over the years one problem that keeps popping up with Apple iPhones and iPods is the alarm. Personally, I don’t use it hardly ever (maybe once or twice per year), but if you need it to wake you for an important meeting I’m sure just one fail is enough to make you want to switch to Android. Here in the United States, many iPhone clocks went back one hour for Daylight Savings Time instead of Springing ahead. There were other reports of the clock being off an hour just after the new year. Twitter was abuzz this morning as apparently the same thing happened again this weekend in Europe as clocks were moved forward for British Summer Time. It may have only affected items set in the calendar app instead of the dedicated alarm clock, but it really doesn’t matter if you were late for work (or if you were woken up an hour early for that matter). Bottom line, if it’s New Year’s Eve or Daylight Savings Time, don’t trust your iPhone alarm if you have something important the next day. On a funny side note I did see some on Twitter wondering if it wasn’t really the alarm, but rather iPhone users just don’t sleep because there are so many apps to play with.

Back in my single days I rode a Honda VFR for a few years. While my favorite move was riding to the right of the white line to bypass traffic jams, splitting lanes is another fun trick. BTW mom, I never had the guts to do a true lane split. Lane Splitter, fractiv, LLC $0.99, shows the fun and danger of trying this move. The premise of the game is you are late for your wedding and nothing is going to stop you. The game starts easy with just one car here and there, but quickly traffic builds and you are having to split lanes between cars. Many cars use their turn indicators to help you avoid the traffic. You can score extra points by holding your finger on the display to pop a wheelie! The sounds of the game are fine, but not excellent. You hear the engine when you speed up and cars honking, but it surely could be louder. You control the motorcycle by moving your iphone from side to side. The game is simple enough that my four year old took to it immediately. The downside, despite changing backgrounds and additional cars the game gets old fairly quickly. While no where near the quality of Real Racing 2, this app can definitely help you enjoyably kill an afternoon

So now that I have an iPad 2 I’ve been looking at the different ways to convert files to mp4. The main issue being what size looks best on iPhone doesn’t look best on iPad or television. Most the links on this site have been converted at a size of 320 x 240 pixels. This looks fine on an iPod or iPhone, but gets blury on an iPad or television. The only advantage to this is a smaller file size (less time to download). For a typical one hour TV show (actually they are about 42 minutes less commercials) the size is 125 MB. This compares to 250MB for a show converted at an iPad/TV optimized size of 640 x 480. Makes sense – double the dimensions and you double the file size. Having an iPad now and seeing the difference in quality I’ve decided to start posting the bigger (higher quality) dimension links. If you watch on an iPod or iPhone you won’t notice any difference other than the file will take twice as long to download. However, if you watch on TV or an iPad, the difference in quality is noticeable. To see comparison screen shots Continue Reading…

Reports are coming in that many jailbroken iPhone users whom use MyWi for tethering are getting text messages and emails from ATT hinting that ATT knows what they are doing. The text reads, “Did you know tethering your Smartphone to a computer requires a tethering plan?” It then gives a number to call and link for details. The email gets more specific stating that, “Our records show that you use this capability, but are not subscribed to our tethering plan.” Recall MyWi is the number one reason to jailbreak. For $20 you get tethering and don’t have to pay ATT or Verizon for a monthly plan. This is espeically great if you are under an unlimted data plan. So could this be the end of the good times? Luckily, I highly doubt it and here’s why. Continue Reading…

Now that half a million people have iPad 2’s in their hands (500,000 is guess, but I’m sure its very close to the actual number if not less than) reports and videos are coming in about a light leak. The light coming around the edges seems most noticeable around the home button. There is a good video here showing the issue. Now I hadn’t noticed this on my iPad, but when checked in a dark room my iPad 2 has this issue. There is a chance this will go away over the next few weeks as the adhesive Apple used continues to bond. So is this the new Antenna Gate? Remember all the articles about the iPhone 4 losing reception if you held it “wrong”. It eventually lead to Apple giving away free bumpers. Time will tell, but I don’t think so and even if it is it doesn’t really matter. Continue Reading…

So the iPad 2 has been in my hands for over two days now! Here are my initial thoughts. One, Home Sharing is awesome. I’ve already watched hours of video on the device and 16GB is plenty big if you mainly use it around the home. Two, Facetime is way better than on iPhone 4 due to the bigger display. Three, the smart cover is awesome. It works incredibly well for typing and watching video. There really is no need to buy a case if you mainly use it around the house. Four, waiting for a new jailbreak is worse than waiting in line at the Apple Store. Sadly, even though comex has jailbroken the iPad 2 already, latest word makes it seem like it might be awhile for a iPad 2 4.3 jailbreak. If you have a few minutes leave me a comment on my YouTube video showing off the device.

Tomorrow my long wait is finally over! The iPad 2 goes on sale and I bet the lines start forming today. See unlike the original iPad or iPhone 4, there is no pre-ordering online for in-store pickup for the iPad 2. Couple this with the fact that retail locations won’t put the iPad 2 on sale until 5:00pm on Friday and the lines are sure to long. This is Apple marketing at its best/worst. All day Friday you’ll see news reports showing the lines around every city. Not to mention the tents that setup the night before. So what should your strategy be in order to get one as quickly as possible? Continue Reading…

iOS 4.3, Apple’s newest software update for iPhones, iPods and iPads, is now available for download in iTunes. So the question is should you download it? Well, I see three reasons you might want to download iOS 4.3. First,  Safari is supposed to be faster. Apple has added some sort of JavaScript that will make pages load almost twice as fast. I’m a little skeptical, but if true everyone likes more speed. Second, the mobile hotspot is coming with iOS 4.3 (iPhone 4 only). Now, I keep preaching that by far the best and cheapest option to create a mobile hotspot is to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad and use MyWi. However, if you don’t want to do that for some reason but want this feature then you can have it in iOS 4.3. Of course you’ll have to pay ATT or Verizon $20 per month for tethering. Also, on ATT you are limited to connecting three devices to your hotspot. This isn’t a big deal as if you shared any more than three devices on your 3G connection it would be about as fast as dial-up. Perhaps the biggest reason you might want iOS 4.3 is for Home Sharing. Continue Reading…

So jailbreaking sure comes in handy when your six year old is killing you at iPhone games. He had a high score at Doodle Jump of about 44,000 and no matter how many times I played I couldn’t beat it. What’s a dad to do? Well with a jailbroken iPhone that answer is simple . . . cheat. All you have to do is SSH into it or use iFile to change your high score to whatever you want. This will work for most games. For Doodle Jump all you do is open iFile and hit the back button to get to the beginning of the file structure. Next you need to navigate to the following directory – var/mobile/Applications/DoodleJump/Library/Preferences. There will be two or three .plist files in this folder. Open the one on the bottom and scroll down until you find DoodleJumpHScore. The line under that will have your current high score between two tags. Change it to whatever you want. My six year old thought I was the coolest Dad when he saw my new high score of 999,999,999. When asked how I got such a score I replied, “How do you think? I’m Daddy! Take your 44,000 and suck it!” After gloating for a few minutes I came clean and told him I cheated and tried to show him how I did it. Those were the best three minutes of my day. One other tip. If you tap and change your name to Klak (like in the picture), your character will change to a the one from Pocket God that throws coconuts.