10.21.07

Some Tech Adventures

As most of you know, I’m the proud owner of an iPhone. What many of you don’t know, however, is that I’m currently on my third iPhone. I bought the first one the day they were released—June 29, 2007—but after two or three weeks the rubber seal around the screen started to peel away when I was cleaning it with the included microsuede cloth. I took it to the Arden Fair Apple Store here in Sacramento, and was given a replacement in the store—no shipping back for repair, no loaner/rental unit. The replacement, however, exhibited the negative black issue that affected a certain batch of new iPod Touch and refurb iPhone screens. Today I took that one back to the Apple Store and, after a warning that this one might not look any better, was given yet another iPhone. Again, no charge and no waiting. It looks great—blacks are deep and crisp, and it’s noticeably brighter than the first replacement, too.

Despite the inconvenience of taking my phone in for replacement twice within four months of the day I bought it, I’m happy with the way my problems have been handled. Also, both replacements were fully charged when I received them, so I was able to place and receive calls right away, and upon getting home I just plugged them into my computer and was given the option of restoring from backup, which included all my settings (except passwords).

Oh yeah—we got Faith an iPhone, too.

Another adventure: I bought a region-free DVD player. Sort of. That is, I bought a DVD player, and then I made it region-free.

Specifically, I went to Wal-Mart and found the cheapest in-house brand DVD player they had—a Durabrand DVD-1002 for less than $30. The nice thing about cheap DVD players is that it’s not cost-effective to make multiple versions of them for different markets, so the manufacturers tend to make make the region codes software-configurable. Using my iPhone, I did a little online research while standing next to the store display, and after confirming that this model could be unlocked, I bought one.

The exact code for the DVD-1002 depends on the firmware version on your particular unit; this one worked on mine (purchased October 20, 2007):

Turn the unit on.
Open the lid.
Press STOP on the remote.
Enter 9753 on the remote. A setup screen will appear.
Select the desired region using the arrow buttons on the remote. Region 0 means region-free.
Press OK on the remote.

Close the lid.
If you have a DVD-1002 and this code doesn’t work, search online a bit—there are at least two other codes floating around that are supposed to work with older firmware versions.

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07.01.07

A Tip for iPhone IMAP Users

Tagged as iPhone

I’ve wanted a phone with decent IMAP support for years, and the iPhone has really good IMAP support. The IMAP protocol, for those unfamiliar with it, is an email protocol that stores messages on the server (as well as, in most cases, caching it locally for offline access). This way, you can access your mail from any computer that has an IMAP-capable email client (including several webmail clients) and have all your archives, sent items, and even unfinished drafts available to you. Furthermore, if your computer crashes, your mail is still on the server, and is accessible from any other computer.

When I first set it up on my iPhone, however, it only showed my Inbox, and not any of the folders into which I file messages for later reference. That’s because Dreamhost, my email provider, uses Courier-IMAP to handle IMAP connections. If you’re experiencing the same problem, here’s how to fix it:

Make sure your email account is set up and able to send and receive email. Also, be sure that you’re actually using an IMAP account, not a POP account. If you’re not sure, chances are you’re using POP, which means none of the following applies to you.
From the Home screen, click Settings, then Mail.
Select the account you want to configure.
Scroll to the bottom of the account settings screen and click Advanced.
At the bottom of the advanced settings screen there’s an option for “IMAP Path Prefix.” What you need to put there depends on your email provider’s settings, but the default for Courier-IMAP is INBOX. Check with your provider if that doesn’t work.

Back up at the top of the advanced settings screen, there’s a section for “Mailbox Behaviors.” There, you can choose the server folders to use for drafts, sent items, and deleted messages. When you click on those options, the next screen should have settings for “On My iPhone” and “On the Server”—if there are no folders listed on the server, your IMAP Path Prefix isn’t set correctly.
And you’re done. Now all your email is automatically stored on the server, and you’ll have the same archives available whether you access it from home, on your iPhone, or through a webmail interface.

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Some iPhone Notes

Tagged as iPhone

A day later than promised, I’ll admit—but I have an excuse: I was busy playing with my iPhone. This isn’t a full review; there are plenty of those elsewhere. Also, I completely agree with everything John Gruber said in his iPhone First Impressions post, so I’ll try not to duplicate too many of his observations here.

The process of purchasing and activating the iPhone went flawlessly for me. I bought mine at the AT&T store at Fair Oaks and Howe in Sacramento; got there a little before five and had my phone a little before seven. The toughest part of the activation process was getting my account number from Sprint so I could port my old number over to AT&T—Sprint’s web site kept timing out, so I ended up waiting on hold for fifteen minutes for a customer care representative. The activation process in iTunes was pretty straightforward and fast (perhaps in part because my credit had been pre-approved at the AT&T store); within minutes, my phone was active, and about twenty minutes after that, my number had been ported and I was receiving incoming calls on my old number.
Everyone else has already said it, but I’ll add my voice to the throng: the display is gorgeous. Videos look great, and text is easy to read. It does get greasy with use, but it’s so bright (even on the default setting) that you won’t notice any smudges while you’re using it. It also comes with a nice cleaning cloth (of the same suedelike material as Radtech’s ScreenSavrs).
The virtual keyboard is surprisingly usable. I’ll grant that I have thin fingers, but really, typing on this thing is a breeze. And Apple’s right: the key is to trust the iPhone. It does a fantastic job of detecting mistakes and offering suggestions. Just slow down a little when you get to names and acronyms and other uncommon words, and you’ll be fine. Also, skip the one-finger thing—two-thumb typing is the way to go.
The camera is pretty decent—not great, but fine for quick snapshots. I posted my first few shots to Flickr; more will follow.
I got a leather case with a belt clip (specifically, a DLO HipCase), but more for convenience than protection—as PC World has demonstrated, the iPhone is surprisingly resilient.
I’m so glad I went for a server-based spam filter a few months back—a lot of people who’ve been relying on client-side spam protection have found the iPhone basically useless for email, since it does no filtering of its own. So here’s another plug for Spam-X.
Email messages that are relatively large (like the New York Times headline updates I get every morning) are partially downloaded first; there’s a button at the bottom of the message asking if you want to download the rest. This may only occur when connected over the EDGE network, rather than WiFi; I haven’t fully tested it yet.
In my neighborhood, at least, the EDGE network is decently fast—not blazingly so, but usable. I’ve downloaded email, browsed the web, and watched videos on YouTube without any trouble. Incidentally, YouTube appears to scale video quality to your connection speed, so it looks better over WiFi.
The headphone mic works well, and allows you to use the iPhone’s other features while you talk on the phone—but note that you can’t access the internet over the EDGE network while using the phone. WiFi works fine, though.

Many have mentioned that there’s no Flash or Java support in the iPhone version of Safari. True enough, but remember that Java is different from Javascript, which is supported, and works exactly as it does in Safari. Very few web pages use Java these days, but Javascript is everywhere.
I said before that this wasn’t intended to be a review, but if it were a review, it would be a positive one. I love my iPhone, and look forward to seeing what Apple does with the platform in the future.

Finally, fellow iPhone owners might be interested in a few online resources to help get the most out of it:
There’s an iPhone wallpaper Flickr pool that includes, among other things, the clownfish seen in the MacWorld keynote last January. I dumped a few of my favorites into an “iPhone wallpaper” album in iPhoto, which I sync to the iPhone so I can change the background to suit my mood. Currently I’m using this one.
The iPhone Application List is coming along nicely. The most useful apps so far are the ones that repackage existing web-based apps for the iPhone’s display, like Google Reader and iPhlickr.

iLounge has long been the best source of news and reviews about iPods and iPod accessories, and they’ve been covering the iPhone well, too. Macworld’s iPhone Central is doing a pretty good job, too.

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