Note to Self: Never Buy iPhone Again

It's the second time that I was forced to change my passcode and had forgotten it in less than a year.
The only consolation this time was that I knew I could rest the phone somehow, so I was less stressed. I still had to re-search on how to do it and followed instructions from Apply Support.
Its instructions are badly written, so here are the additional notes:

1. iTune version matters - always use latest vesion.
2. the procedures need to be carried out when the phone is no longer disabled (i.e. when the phone is not displaying 'try again in x minutes'). Otherwise, you will be wasting your time.
3. for my iPhone the buttons to press in step 3 are the Side Button + Home Button

Also, when making a backup in iCloud, make sure to write down the passcode at the time against the backup.

Magical Strings

When I read about a text message that can cause iPhones to reboot, I couldn’t wait to try it on my son’s iPhone 5. So I sent this string to his phone through SMS.

Power لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ 冗

However, nothing happened. Maybe I missed a couple of returns, i.e.

Power
 لُلُصّبُلُلصّبُررً ॣ ॣh ॣ ॣ
冗

So I will try again tonight.

Talking about magical strings – where can you find the most magical strings? The Magical Kingdom of course! Yesterday was the 26th anniversary of the Beijing TianAnMen Square Crackdown that happened in June 4 1989, known in Chinese communities as the ‘6.4 Event’ or simply ‘6.4’.

In 2012, the ShangHai Composite Index fell 64.89 points on the anniversary of the event and created quite a stir in the country. So this year the government has gone extra miles to make sure that nothing of this sort can happen again.

In addition to increased security measures in the streets, they also blocked anything that can remotely remind people of the event in the cyberspace. For example, if you tried to transfer money over WeChat with certain amounts such as 6.4RMB, 89.64RMB, 89RMB, 0.89RMD, etc. you will be greeted with an error message ‘unusual transaction, please try again later’.

Not only strings are banned, certain imagery are also blocked – for example, candle light pictures, yes, candle lights! Ironically, they had to unban it soon after the ferry capsized in Yangtze River just a few days ago and over 400 people are feared dead.

Apple Development

When it comes to software development, I am absolutely an omnivore. I embrace any platform, computing languages and frameworks. I use them to develop my pet projects to form my basis of evaluating the technology.

However, I had never touched any Apple technology until last month when my wife twisted my arm to buy an iPhone 4.  Not because I dislike Apple’s philosophy and its snobbish ways, but because it was so irrelevant for me. But after I bought the iPhone 4 I got the urge of developing on the iOS and the iPhone so that my $1000+ investment on the iPhone was not a total waste.

So I happily registered to be an Apple Developer. Then I needed to get the SDK, an iOS simulator and and IDE. Xcode 4 was about the only tool available. When I logged in and ready to download Xcode 4, I was told:

Hi Romen,

You must be an iOS or Mac Developer Program member to download Xcode 4 or you can purchase Xcode 4 from the Mac App Store.

The membership costs $99 a year. This is not an option for I just want to try it out. The Xcode 4 costs $4.99 from the AppStore – hmm, not bad though the customer review was not very flattering… Then I realised that Xcode can only run on Mac OS X, which means I would have to fork out another $1000+ to buy an Apple computer just for using Xcode. I don’t mind an Apple computer, but there is no justification for its doubled price comparing to other brands with gross margin at 7 times of others. I do have an Mac OS X virtual machine image on VMWare, but it was too slow just to run itself, let alone Xcode. This reminds me of the early 1990s when you had to pay left and right just to learn a computing language, which was especially touch for students like me.

Also, once you finish developing your app, you’d have to go through Apple Store to sell them and get exploited by Apple again. Apple does not do a good job to keep a high quality of what they sell anyway – we only had the iPhone 4 for 3 weeks and already experienced buggy apps – buttons on the default SMS app and Facebook app were greyed out when they shouldn’t be and can only be fixed by bouncing the software or rebooting the phone (by the way, I do not see any rationale in Apple’s decision of not letting the user exit each app.)

The barrier to entry seems too high for a private user. I am used to the open source environments of many innovative technologies (led by Java perhaps). For me personally to buy into the Apple’s closed-door philosophy is just too much. So I have to ditch Apple technology as I always have.

There is plenty to explore in the Android domain.

Must-Haves On A New ₳₱₱£€ iPhone 4

The whole ₳₱₱£€ experience from start to end, from developer to user, from manufacturer to partner is just a big money grabbing exercise by Apple at every step involved. ₳₱₱£€ not only asks you to pay left and right but also restricts on what you can do and how you do things. To get back some sanity when using the new iPhone 4, here are some things that have to be done:

1. Jailbreak it – for iPhone 4 running iOS 4.3.3 (8J2) here is a good starter.
2. Change root password – after Jailbreaking, the phone’s (running BSD Unix) root password is automatically set to ‘alpine’. This must be changed. Note that the MobileTerminal app does not work on iOS 3 and 4 at the time of this post. So to do this, it is better to install OpenSSH and use a client such as PuTTY to connect to the iPhone with root login and use the passwd Unix command to change the root password.
3. Ditch iTune – iTune forces you to sync apps between iPhone and the computer. This is not only waste of time and the computer disk space, but also creates problems when there are multiple computers. CopyTrans is a good solution to this.
4. Get a decent GPS app – the default map application assumes that the phone is connected to the internet all the time, which can be extremely costly with many carriers and impractical in many countries. So there is a need to have a GPS app that can store map files on the iPhone locally. xGPS seems to fit the bill, although it cannot be used fully offline (like TomTom or Nokia Maps) – you’ll still need to be connected to Google when searching for addresses and working out routes.

As I am totally new to any ₳₱₱£€ product, any free apps suggestions are welcome.

RIP Symbian, Hello iPhone 4

The joint announcement from Nokia’s Kai Öistämö and Microsoft’s Andy Lees last month had formally declared the death of Symbian. The new N8’s and E7’s may well be the last emperors of the Symbian dynasty.

In reality, the Symbian applications community has been languishing for a long time, far behind the new comers. Trying to find a decent internet radio software today, the only option I could find was Nokia Internet Radio. I installed in on my N95 and it soon crashed my phone and caused it to reboot. Such problems have been reported back in 2008. Yet, it seems that nothing has been done.

On the other hand there are far more software in the iPhone and Android communities. Take internet radio for example, TuneIn supports just about any mobile OS except Symbian. It has access to over 40,000 stations and runs very smoothly on my new iPhone 4. It’s a far cry from the pathetic Nokia Internet Radio.

I had never owned any Apple product until yesterday – after some nagging I bought a white iPhone 4 for Rose. I always thought Apple products were for women and children for two reasons:

1. they look cool
2. they are easy to use

But after playing with the iPhone 4, I changed my mind – it’s not easy to use at all! It’s just as bad as any other products, if not worse.

First of all, you cannot even start using the iPhone without a MicroSIM card. At least, my trusted N95 could work without SIM card and function normally except for telco services. So the first hurdle for me was to cut my normal SIM card with scissors and make it into a MicroSIM. I was amazed that it actually worked!.

After that, I had to register on AppStore by providing my private information. Even if you want to install a free software, you are still required to put in your credit card detail - what the heck?!

Then I found that the iPhone refused to load any of my music files that were accumulated over the years – not even the polyphonic ring tone that I have been using for years. That was the final straw. I had no option but to jailbreak, after which the whole user experience became much more acceptable. At least the process was much easier and quicker than cracking my N95.

Now the women and children in my household can better enjoy the over hyped iPhone 4 before they get bored with it, just like the old XM5800.

Applemania

As I walked pass the Telstra TLife shop in Sydney CBD today, it was deserted more so than usual. Then the bright lights and 3 storeys of ceiling-to-floor glass walls from the building right across the street grabbed my attention, and it was fully packed! I had walked pass the building many times before but never noticed it until then. Suddenly I realised that it was the new Apple Store on George Street, Sydney which was just opened 5pm yesterday. They had renovated the building and now it stands out among its neighbouring 100-year-old sandstone buildings.

I am not an Apple user (that's right, not even iPod) but I am a visual person - I am drawn to anything that looks good. Apple products certainly fit the bill. Usually the first thing I notice about the Mac is its high quality screens. In Uni, I used to have arguments with my die-hard Apple devotee friend about Mac being over priced, under-featured toys comparing to PC. But we always agreed that Mac had good monitors.

On 2nd floor of the Apple Store, I briefly attended a workshop on Apple iWeb. As I was late, I did not catch the whole story, but in the conclusion note, the presenter said that the product (iWeb v2.x) was designed for small/family/fun use rather than large-scale business eCommerce sites. I guess that is true to all Apple products as Apple really projects an image of making technology fun.