Tag: gadgets

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iOS 5 beta 7

Finally pulled the trigger and registered on the Apple iOS developer program. First thing I did is, of course, download iOS 5 beta 7 and the required iTunes 10.5 beta 7. As soon as the downloads completed, I extracted the iOS 5 ipsw file and installed iTunes. Since this is the first time I’m installing iOS5, there’s no OTA update, and I had to update via iTunes:

  1. Back up iPhone.
  2. Restore iPhone. But press and hold the alt key before clicking the Restore button. This will let you select a specific ipsw file.
  3. Select the iOS 5 beta 7 ipsw file.
  4. Wait for the restore and sync to complete.

iOS 5 generally looks just like iOS 4. There were some minor cosmetic changes here and there but the biggest ones I noticed were:

  1. Notification System – Instead of the old pop-up notifications, you can now opt for discreet notification banners that slide down from the top of the screen and quickly slide up. To (re)view pending notifications, there’s a pull-down notification screen. Pending notifications are also viewable on the lock screen. And by sliding (to unlock) the particular notification, you directly go to and access the notification in its corresponding app.
  2. Widgets – The lock screen can also hold widgets, though right now there’s only the Weather and Stocks widgets. I’m pretty sure Apple will let app developers come up with widget extensions soon enough.
  3. Browser – There’s now “Reader” full-screen feature accessible on the address bar. In addition, there’s open link “in background”. Which means to say open a new tab and stay in the current tab (as opposed to open a new tab and automatically go to new tab). Finally, there’s  “Reading List” which is a cloud-based bookmark.
  4. iMessage – the SMS app is now iMessage. It is a text messaging platform over data that works on iOS devices (for now). It will default to SMS when it is not available to you or the other party.
  5. Camera –  The camera app can now be accessed directly from the lock screen. And you can take a shot by pressing the + button. There’s also a switchable grid to help in framing photos.
  6. Photos – You can now create and delete albums. You can add photos across albums. There’s also basic photo editing (rotate, enhance, red-eye removal, and crop). I’m not about to delete PS Express though.
  7. iCloud – Store  mail, contacts, etc in the cloud.
  8. Twitter Integration – You can tweet directly from Apple’s built-in apps.

All pretty good and much-needed enhancements. Supposedly there are more enhancements in the final that were not included in the public beta. Can’t wait!

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Unresponsive iPhone 4 Home Button

The iPhone’s home button had been rather unresponsive for a month or two. On standby mode, when I press it sometimes it takes some time before the screen lights up. Sometimes it doesn’t at all and I have to press it again, harder. The same unresponsiveness happens when I try to exit out of an application or try to launch the fast app switcher.

At first, I thought it’s just dust and lint so I blasted air through the available openings in the hope of dislodging any that may have accumulated. That didn’t work at all. I was starting to fear that I need to have the button replaced. But today, I found a possible solution here and here:

  1. Open a built-in application
  2. Press and hold the power button until the slide to shutdown swipe bar appears.
  3. Release the power button
  4. Press and hold the home button lightly until screen returns to icon screen

It does seem to work at first, but probably psychological, because soon it seems the button was back to its old unresponsive ways.

So I kept looking and I found one that does make sense here. I have my Accessibility triple-click Home button setting enabled. I figure that with this enabled, the OS will wait just a millisecond more to see if there’s an upcoming third click before responding. Turning off triple click improved responsiveness. Now how to shorten the double-click wait…

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Crumpler Sale

I heard about the September 9 to 18 Crumpler sale from A Bugged Life. I’ve had a previous-generation Crumpler 5 Million Dollar Home camera bag for a while now and I am very happy with it. I use it for carrying my basic photo gear and even  as a diaper bag when going out with Jeanne. Unfortunately, fitting the iPad in it is a rather tight proposition. So I’ve been thinking of getting a bigger bag and the sale was just the final excuse I needed. We dropped by the Crumpler store and checked out the bags. After a while I settled on a 6 Million Dollar Home. Its configurable partitions can be configured to create a small compartment that fits the iPad well. While at it, I got Michelle a Skivvy for her upcoming 13″ work laptop.

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Gadget Day

I’ve been trying to get Mac OS X Lion from the Mac app store for the longest time. Unfortunately, the software distribution system needs a bit of work. They should have used a reliable distribution system like BitTorrent. So yesterday, I finally threw in the towel and asked Alex if I can visit him and download off his wired network. He did one better, he offered to download and give me the update. In a few hours, we met up and bought blank DVDs, and then headed to Racks for lunch. We were joined by James who was in the area.

After a quick lunch, the gadgets started coming out. Alex brought out an MacBook Pro for burning the OS X Lion files to the blank DVDs. Then the discussion turned to Android. James got out his Samsung Galaxy Tab and Alex his Coby Kyros tablet. He also got out and demoed his rooted Nook. James then got out his Nook and Alex rooted it. While waiting for all the burning and rooting to complete, James showed us pics of Jem and his twins on his iPod Nano. And of course, everyone had phones. James had his Ericsson while Alex and I had iPhones. But I was decidedly the most ungadgety that day.

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iOS DLNA Players

I though I’d update my iPhone DLNA Players roundup.

I’m a fan of Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) because of its promise of using standards-based technology to make it easier for consumers to use, share and enjoy their digital photos, music and videos. When I got my Buffalo Linkstation, I started streaming movies and music from it to the Playstation 3. But I had to stay in front of the TV.

When I got the iPhone 4 and later the iPad, I got media players that I can use anywhere in the house. I was lucky enough to be able to get VLC from the App Store while it was available. However, it meant copying files using iTunes to the iPhone. Somewhat, archaic to say the least and definitely a far cry from what’s possible with DLNA. So I went around searching for a DLNA player. Here is the result of my research.

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