I don't know if iPhone theft is a huge problem—I've had mine for over six months, and the only people who've tried to steal it are people I actually know, but I presume that, like any expensive gadget, it's a tempting target for thieves.
But hey, unlike your average iPod or your fancy Nike sneakers, your iPhone actually knows where it is (if you've taken advantage of the 1.1.3 update, that is). Wouldn't it be convenient if—were your iPhone to get stolen—it could tell you exactly where it is?
iPhone hacker extraordinaire Erica Sadun has come up with just such a solution. Her program, findme, will have your iPhone broadcast regular updates about its location over Twitter. Getting the program installed will take a little work: your phone will need to be jailbroken, you'll have to set up a private Twitter account, and there's some Terminal magic required, but hey: that could all be worth it if you manage to actually use this set up to retrieve your stolen iPhone. And hey, it's probably more practical than setting up your iPhone with The Club.
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Written by Dan Moren on February 22nd, 2008 with no comments.
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OS X has long allowed you to specify what application gets launched when you attach certain devices, such as a digital camera, to your Mac, but sometimes this can be more annoyance than feature. For example, say you've got both a digital camera and your iPhone: you probably don't mind launching iPhoto when you connect your digital camera, since you'll likely want to download some photos. But when you hook up your iPhone, you may just want to sync some contacts and calendars, not transfer the pictures you've taken. Wouldn't it be nice if you could tell your Mac what app to launch based on what device you're connecting?
Sam Stephenson at 37signals, the fellows behind web project software like Backpack and Basecamp, has come up with a workaround for just such an occasion. Create an Apple Script application that gets launched when you connect a device and then decides, based on the name of the device, what application to open.
You'll need to do some command-line work in order to get the app set up correctly, but Sam lays out all the steps you need in good detail, and explains what each of them do. All in all, a good solution if you suffer from multiplecameraapplicationlaunchitis (don't worry; it's treatable!).
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Written by Dan Moren on February 22nd, 2008 with no comments.
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You probably know that you can have your iPhone both ring and vibrate by adjusting the options under Settings -> Sounds, but what if you want it to vibrate first, and then ring, as many other cell phones do?
A reader of New York Times tech columnist David Pogue's blog wrote in to suggest one easy solution to this dilemma. Just create a custom MP3 ringtone, using Garage Band, and insert however much silence you want at the beginning of the ringtone—Pogue's reader suggests ten seconds. Now your phone will vibrate before ringing, giving you a chance to discreetly excuse yourself before the opening strains of "Jungle Boogie" echo throughout your staff meeting, prompting pointed stares from around the table.
Hypothetically, of course.
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Written by Dan Moren on February 21st, 2008 with no comments.
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I don't know about anyone else, but much of my iPhone Web surfing happens during down time: when I'm lounging on the couch or on the floor of the family room, or before I go to sleep at night. Sometimes I'm sitting up, but I occasionally lean to the side, and now and then I even—gasp—lie down.
Which presents a small problem: When I lie down, my head and the iPhone both change their orientation by about 90 degrees. The iPhone takes this as a cue to automatically rotate the Safari window back to vertical; my eyes, sadly, don't have such a feature. Horizontal person + vertical page = awkward reading.
My workaround has been to instead turn the iPhone just far enough horizontally that it doesn't auto-rotate, and then angle my head up far enough that the Safari window is roughly aligned with my field of view. It works, but the ideal solution would be an option to temporarily disable the otherwise-handy auto-rotate feature.
Through the magic of Twitter, Chris Pepper pointed me to a nearly-as-good workaround:
The other day I was lying on my side, trying to read a web page on the iPhone. I turned the iPhone 90° clockwise, but it obligingly re-rotated the text 90° counter-clockwise, leaving me again out of sync. I grumbled something about the irritation of being outmaneuvered by a handheld gadget. Amy’s brilliant suggestion: rotate it another 90° CCW. Since the iPhone doesn’t offer 180° rotation, this left the text rotated 90° in alighnment with my head.
He's right: Safari rotates the first 90 degrees, but not the second, leaving Safari's window in the perfect position for reading in bed. A simple tip, but one that will immeasurably improve my night-time NewsGator browsing.
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Written by Dan Frakes on February 19th, 2008 with no comments.
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It was really only a matter of time before the devoted team of iphone hackers managed to crack the latest firmware from Apple. As of last night, a jailbreak solution for the iPhone's 1.1.3 software has been released for both OS X and Windows.
One caveat before you begin the process: in order to get the hacked version of 1.1.3, you'll need to be upgrading from a jailbroken version of 1.1.1 or 1.1.2. I'm not sure if there's a way yet to downgrade from 1.1.3 to an earlier version, but it's likely that one will appear before long or some other loophole will be found.
If you're looking for the full skinny on how to the whole jailbreak thing, you could do much worse than to check out this lengthy tutorial at Lifehacker (it mostly documents the Windows process, but it should be similar for OS X).
Giving it a go? Let us know how it works out for you in the comments below.
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Written by Dan Moren on January 25th, 2008 with no comments.
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