iPhoneBenny

Well, I’m closing in on 6 months with an iPhone. When I got it a couple days before Thanksgiving last year, I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d carry one. To refresh your memory, I upgraded the line for my mobile broadband card and got a refurb 3G. I believe I have an upgrade coming soon on my main voice + data number, if I’m not already eligible. It looks like this will sync perfectly with the return of Palm handhelds to AT&T. I was very disappointed the Treo Pro never got subsidized by AT&T. But, in hindsight this is a good thing. The Treo Pro had a Windows OS, and while I longed to have a Treo again, I’m positioned now to have the much heralded Palm WebOS.

Carrying an iPhone has been all I thought it would be, and just a tiny bit more. But, I won’t be sad to say good bye. The question will be, what do I do with this site and domain after the switch (cause it’s more like a when than an if.) I dunno really, but I’ll have a better idea once the Pre Plus is available and I review my upgrade status.

If I had to name one thing that kept me from buying an iPhone when it first debuted (AT&T was already my network) it was the lack of Bluetooth audio. Finally, with OS 3.1 (don’t quote me there) Bluetooth audio was supported. However, in what I consider to be typical Jobs, this support came at a price.

Use our malformed earbuds and enjoy ear canal pain, periodical pop-outs, and wire-tanglements with passerbys. However, you can skip tracks w/o touching the device.

Get a Bluetooth stereo headset and enjoy wireless music in comfort, be much cooler than all the sheep with white cords, and make best use of a technology already preset on the device. Oh, but you can’t skip tracks from the headset – not because the headset isn’t capable, no. Because we don’t want you to.

Nowadays, smartphones have the bluetooth A2DP profile included. When I first went to wireless audio, I paid for a little app (Softick Audio Gateway) for the Palm OS for my Treo 650. The app was $20 and worth every penny to me. Stereo Bluetooth headphones then were $150. The most available pair was the Motorola HT-820. I believe there was a Jabra pair as well but much harder to find – the Motos were sold in Radio Shack and Best Buy, whereas the Jabras were mostly online.

I have a class 1 Bluetooth USB adapter connected to my desktop, and have for the last couple desktops. I often use my BT headphones to listen to music at home. I use foobar 2000, an open source audio player that only recently went to 1.0. Congrats guys. I’ve been with them for a very long time so don’t let the long pre-release period fool you. While it was goobar’s FLAC support that got me on board at first, the effortless BT support helps alot as well. I’ve been sharing all this to make the point that the BT headphones are very capable and polished. They have volume and track skip controls, as well as a main button for switching between music and a phonecall. The BT technology is equally polished. When listening to music at home now, I’m able to skip tracks with ease. Back in the day of my first pair, skipping tracks was tricky, but due mostly to the lack of computing resources. The BT stack in general has become much leaner as well.

Basically, once the iPhone became compatible with stereo BT, everything else was in place for a great experience. But no – crApple didn’t want me to have a great experience with BT headphones. So I ask, is there an app I can install for my jailbroken 3G that will let me skip tracks from the lockscreen or any point sooner that the pic below?

It took me while, but I wasn’t gonna compound my mistake of updating to 3.1.3 by reaching for the first search result I saw. I waited and tried to gather as much info as possible. In the end, I went with redsn0w. In short, the tool uses the 3.1.2 file. The process wasn’t difficult, but it required some manipulation foreign to me. I can’t recall the term now but redsn0w has a little realtime guide that told me when to release one button and hold another. I admit, I didn’t miss blank app icons, but if that’s what it takes to be free of the ropes of crApple, then so be it.

There hasn’t been much to report on the iPhone front. – Ok, that’s not really true. I’ve amassed what I feel to be a respectable arsenal of apps and wouldn’t mind opening a discussion of them. However, discussing apps is like asking where to get the best pizza. There are just so many options and the scale is personally subjective. For example, I like a spicy sauce, a thin crust that does more than just hold the toppings, and of course, it’s gotta be cut Chicago-style. Umm, that’s pizza I was talking about, not apps.

To the title of this post, I’ve been a long-time fan of qik. As a matter of fact, qik video camera is still the only iPhone app I’ve paid for. I’m familar with ustream as well, but wonder how it compares to qik as a mobile app. My guess is they are intended for slightly different purposes. Qik for the impromptu capture, ustream for the planned. I haven’t used the ustream app yet. I was hoping some feedback would help me integrate it into my video tools. So…what are you waiting for?

As much as I dislike having a factory iPhone, I’ve decided to hold out for a simpler jailbreak option. The ones available for my situation now aren’t too much for me, I’m pretty sure I can handle them. However, I’m confident there will be a jailbreak option as easy as blackra1n was for 3.1.2. So, with clenched fists and gnashed teeth, I wait…

Through some halfhearted research, hindered by work at day and fatigue at night, I’ve learned I have a couple options to regain control of this device.

I saw a tutorial for downgrading to 3.1.2, after which I can bring back the ra1n and be jailbroken in 30 seconds just like the first time. I’m not as familar with the iPhone as I was with the Treos and BBs I previously owned, so the downgrade is slightly intimidating. My other option is a more fitting weather event. redsn0w. They claim to be able to jailbreak 3.1.3. I’ll keep you posted

I learned a pretty valuable lesson this morning – a lesson I thought I’d learned long time ago. As a matter of fact, I’ve demonstrated this knowledge before. And yet, today it escaped me.

I updated my phone to 3.1.3 today. Yay? No. Boooo!!! Assuming you’ve read previous posts, you know that the factory OS lasted about 10 minutes before the blackra1n started coming down. I am truhfully uneasy about having this phone now. Jailbreaking was a non-negatioable condition to buying it…it’s really a non-negotioable condition to even carrying it.

Up till now I haven’t paid for an app. I’ve had my iPhone since Thanksgiving and while I have lots of cool apps and I’m definitely a social media addict, I’ve managed to get everything I need done with free apps. This morning however, I cracked.

I bought this app mainly for it’s function, but also because of loyalty. I’ve used a free version of it for over a year, across 3 phones, (Blackjack II, BB Curve 8320, iPhone.) In many ways it’s quite fitting that this is my first paid app, but ironically, I can get the same functionality from a Cydia/Rock app for free. Those apps however, require mich more fuss. While it is an app that fits me and my social media personality, I didn’t expect it to be the first one I paid for. In the end, it was the fact that I’ve used the app for so long free that influenced me to pay for it, instead of the other way around.

And so – congratulations Qik, on popping the Treo paid app cherry.

I found another, more detailed Windows 7 theme. Alas, the same incompatibility with tweetdeck remains. This theme is so slick and so satisfying, I’m going to start using echofon for Twitter. Look for yourself: P.S. My weather is in C not F.

Today was my first day back to work in a little over a week. I haven’t made any other big changes for the New Year, so I decided to put away the Ubuntu theme I’ve had since I first got this phone. I was quite happy to see a Windows 7 theme (I have W7 on my desktop and notebook.) It has some pros and cons. As you can see, one big pro is, unlike the Ubuntu theme, this one shows through on the SMS/MMS screen. The weather screen is beautiful, and it’s pretty damn cool all around. So far, there are 2 cons, one minimal, one huge. There’s a clock lockscreen that I like alot. Unfortunately it takes the place of the battery in Winterboard. I had an Ubuntu circle of friends battery, and after much deliberation, (really) I decided on this fuel gauge jobbie. Pretty cool huh? As for the huge con, it seems some component of this theme isn’t compatible with Tweetdeck, my Twitter client of choice. Tweetdeck launches and runs fine for about 30 seconds, then quits. I don’t know what I’ll do yet. I’ve been tempted to switch to echofon, but I don’t know if I can do without my Chicago group and #chicagonerd columns. (For the unintiated, you can save your custom tweetdeck columns for use on other machines and devices, including iPhone.) Of course, function is supposed to win over cosmetics, but I really like this theme. Linux on the iPhone was one thing, but what better to show my pure disdain for crApple than to use a Windows theme! It’s only been a day, maybe something will help make the decision for me. *shrug*