Before, during, and after the introduction of the iPhone 3G, many people were hoping/asking/whining for a better camera in the iPhone. One with more than 2 megapixels, that is. Unfortunately, more megapixels wouldn’t have made the iPhone camera better. The extra pixels wouldn’t help with anything, in fact, and could even hurt under some circumstances.

 Here’s why. Obviously, there are many cameras with a higher megapixel count that shoot better pictures than the iPhone. But giving the iPhone more megapixels won’t make it shoot better snapshots any more than buying an expensive car will make you rich. It’s the other way around: because these cameras have better lenses, they can get good mileage out of better image sensors. The first problem with the iPhone’s camera lens is that it can’t focus. Unless Apple has been successful in hiding the iPhone’s autofocus capability from all of us for the past year, the iPhone’s camera has a fixed lens. The iPhone’s lens must be able to produce a (reasonably) sharp image regardless of the distance between the phone and the subject, because it can’t adjust its focus. There are two ways to do this: be more liberal in what’s accepted as “sharp” and make the lens opening (aperture) smaller.

Apple managed to strike a fairly reasonable balance here: the iPhone takes pictures that are within the sharpness range expected from a 2 megapixel camera, while the aperture is a respectable f/2.8. If Apple were to use a higher resolution image sensor with the same lens, the pictures wouldn’t be any sharper—and 2MP sharpness in a 5MP camera is just not acceptable. The other option would be to reduce the size of the lens opening, but that way, the amount of light that reaches the sensor is reduced and the iPhone would have an even harder time taking decent photos under dim lighting.

The other problem is that the more megapixels that are crammed in the same size sensor, the smaller those pixels get. Since individual pixels are gathering less light, many will be “underexposed” and produce a lot more noise (see long explanation and examples.). That’s the last thing that the iPhone’s camera needs. And, some would argue that the iPhone doesn’t have enough flash memory to store lots of high-megapixel photos. But I’d think that Apple would be happy to solve that particular problem by selling would-be iPhone photographers a higher-capacity camera phone.

So 2 megapixels is just fine, thank you—until such time that Apple manages to shoehorn an autofocus lens into the iPhone, thereby removing the need to control focus with the aperture. (Yes, the Nokia N95 has autofocus, but it’s also nearly twice as thick as the iPhone.) The software that determines the white balance, on the other hand, can use some work. )

via http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/06/18/more-iphone-camera-megapixels-would-be-worse-not-better

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone News | No Comments »

If you’ve jailbroken your iPhone running the 2.0 firmware, you’ve currently just got the Cydia application for installing new apps, not the old, familiar Installer app that was the far more ‘mainstream’ option up through firmware 1.1.4.

Good news if you’re hankering for Installer though - an update last week on the RiP Dev blog sounds very positive:

Hi folks! Many of you are wondering what’s up with Installer 4. No, we haven’t slowed down the work on it, and are currently in the final stages of hooking the GUI to the back-end. We will be contacting the authors of the major repositories in a few days to invite them into the testing process and to prepare for the upcoming repository changes.

Installer Kicks App Store’s Arse?

So hopefully we are not far off seeing Installer released for iPhone 2.0 - and it’s looking awfully good in the preview screenshots like the one above.  Check out more of them HERE.

After having spent a few weeks with the App Store now, I have to say the content of it (i.e. the number of cool apps) is very impressive.  But … the performance, the actual working of the App Store is not so great.  I’d say Installer kicked its butt in working solidly and just doing its job reliably. 

I say that because I just can’t recall Installer crashing very much, if at all.  The App Store (on both a V1 and a 3G model) is much more flaky, for me at least.  It regularly crashes and individual installs hang up for ridiculous amounts of time, with no ability to stop or pause them.  When an install would fail on Installer it would fail quickly and decisively, would announce its failure, and let you retry or just get on with something else.

Apple get lots of things very, very right on the iPhone - no doubt about that, but in this area, I think they could still learn a thing or five from the guys who develop Installer …

via http://justanotheriphoneblog.com/wordpress/2008/07/30/installer-for-iphone-20-coming-soon-better-than-app-store/#more-4085

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iphone applications | No Comments »

Everyone knows that it’s hard to get your hands on an iPhone 3G these days. But that’s to be understood. After all, with a worldwide release, the iPhone is in serious demand, pulling Apple stock a bit thin. Even so, the 16GB model is running out much quicker than all other models.

My basic assumption is that people are merely going after the largest capacity possible because they know the iPhone 3G cannot be updated. Even though it costs more, gadget hungry consumers are definitely favoring the 16GB model, as per the iPhone availability tool. 

If you haven’t gotten an iPhone 3G of your very own yet, sit tight. Keep your eye on the availability tool and you’ll get one, especially with Apple’s new ticket system. 

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Fun, iPhone Tips | No Comments »

Among the hardcore gaming crowd, John Carmack’s work with id Software is legendary for producing 3D gaming works such as Doom and Quake. Although Carmack is clearly comfortable pushing the limits of PC hardware, his latest interest appears to be in mobile games – and his sights are now set on the Apple iPhonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_iPhone .

Zoom”We wanted to do something for the iPhonehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone , but we just didn’t have the scheduling or the resources available,” Carmack said to Forbes. “I really regret not having something at launch.”

The launch that Carmack referred to was the launch of the App Storehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store  on iTunes, which coincided with the release of the iPhone 3G. The App Store allows iPhone and iPodIPod  Touch users to download and install applications and games for use on their mobile device.

While Carmack won’t have the usual dual-core CPU and blazing AMD or NVIDIA GPUs on tap, he seems more than confident that the iPhone is capable of delivering the graphical goods.

“The iPhone, as a device, is in the same generation power-wise as the PS2 or Xboxhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox ,” he said. “The graphics are a little lower but the RAM is a lot higher. … You could easily spend $10 million on an iPhone game, but the market just can’t support that yet.”

Anna Kang, president of id Mobile, explained that the game for iPhone would be based off an existing id property, meaning that it could be from id’s roster of first-person shooters, the old classic Commander Keen, or even the lesser known Orcs & Elveshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf  game from the NintendoNintendo  DS.

Carmack isn’t letting on that type of game it’ll be, but he intends to impress. “We have a title we want to develop exclusively for iPhone,” he added. “I’m not announcing anything specifically, but it would be a graphical tour de force.”

via http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-id-doom-quake-carmack,news-2132.html

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Game | No Comments »

I’ve FINALLY figured out a decent solution to the Google Calendar sync problem with iPhones. This is the best solution I could come up with until Google gets around to offering us free push calendars. Let me know if you can make an improvements or find something better.

Required hardware: Mac with OSX Leopard, iPhone/iPod touch.

1. Create a calendar in iCal as a temporary holding place for your iPhone events.

2. Setup Google Calendar to sync with iCal by following the instructions HERE.

3. Set the iTunes preferences for your iPhone to sync to both calendars from the previous 2 steps.

4. Download and install the Yellow Camp iCal Actions from HERE.

5. Create and save the following workflow in Automator:

*Get Specified iCal Items (add the [calendar from step 1])
*Move iCal Events (move to: [calendar from step 2])
*Find Events in iCal (find:[events], whose:[calendar] is: [calendar from step 1])
*Delete iCal Events

6. Add an entry to your crontab file to run your new workflow every hour as outlined HERE.

Don’t forget to use absolute paths or it wont work!
You can tweak the recurrence settings to your liking, just check out the man pages for “cron” and “crontab.”

That’s it!
Now every time you sync your iPhone to your computer all the new events you added to your iPhone calendar will be copied to your iCal. Once the cron job runs all those will be moved to the google calendar, which will then be synced with your iPhone.

via http://www.jedutainment.com/jedu/2008/07/30/free-google-calendar-sync-for-iphone-and-itouch/

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

A while ago, we wrote about a way to shorten the time that your iPhone running the 2.0 software takes to sync. In this method, you cancelled the part of the sync in which your iPhone was backed up. While this most certainly does improve sync times, you won’t be happy with yourself when you’re forced to restore your iPhone and you don’t have that backup.

However, iPhoneFreak has discovered another way to improve your times. By default, diagnostic data from your iPhone is sent to Apple every time you sync. (This data does not contain any personal information, only crash logs and the like.) Apparently, this takes a good bit of time as well. Follow the steps after the break to disable this.

1) When your iPhone is connected to your computer, open iTunes and select your iPhone in the sidebar. Uncheck the “Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected” option.

2) Unplug your iPhone, and then plug it back in.

3) Select your iPhone in the sidebar again, and right click it. Then select “Reset Warnings.”

4) Sync your iPhone.

5) You will receive a pop-up message. Uncheck the box in the message, and then click “Don’t Send.”

Note that you can now have your iPhone launch iTunes and be automatically synced again.

Posted on July 30th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

1.Terrible Battery life

The iPhone 3G’s life is pretty meager, lasting only about 200 minutes when web browsing with 3-G, according to testing by AnandTech. To save battery life, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when they’re not in use, calibrate the battery in its first week, carry around extra chargers and be conservative with surfing on 3-G.

2. No Bluetooth Data Transfer
You can’t transfer files over Bluetooth with iPhone. Lame.

3. No Full Outlook Sync Support
Though iPhone 3G syncs with your Outlook contacts and calendar events, it doesn’t sync notes or to-do lists.

4. No Cut-and-paste
No explanation necessary. (However, this may be implemented soon).

5. Camera Needs Pimping
The iPhone sports a crappy 2-megapixel camera. The least it could include is a flash.

6. No Packaged Data Download Manager
This isn’t applicable to U.S. iPhone owners, but in Australia, Aranez was required to purchase an additional, limited data package. He wishes there were a download manager to tell him how much he was downloading.

7. No Voice Dialing
Nope — as high-tech as iPhone is, there’s still no voice dialing (although it could be coming soon).

8. No Front-face Camera
This would be useful for video conferencing (although this would probably make the battery life even worse.)

9. Lack of Handwriting Recognition
If the iPhone is controlled with a touch screen, why not include handwriting recognition? (It’s available for Chinese, so maybe an English version will come eventually? )

10. No Turn-by-turn GPS Software
IPhone 3G’s GPS is a 2D map that spits out textual directions; it isn’t true turn-to-turn navigation like most GPS devices today. (Although this may be changed soon ).

       
And here are Gadget Lab’s additions to the list:

1. Still Can’t Type Horizontally for Non-web Apps
You still can’t type in landscape mode in applications other than Safari. At least incorporate that into e-mail and text messaging…

2. No Multimedia Text Messaging
One of the oddest omissions on a device as sophisticated as iPhone. Seriously, what gives?

3. IPhone 2.0 Is Buggy as Hell
Out of all the bugs, the most annoying is general lagginess when doing a lot of things — like writing a text message or loading the App Store. Argh.

And the rest of our list would overlap with the complaints about meager battery life and lack of copying and pasting/voice dialing.

via http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/cheat-sheet-mr.html

Posted on July 29th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Fun | No Comments »

If this is real (and it probably isn’t) a lot of you can relate to the pains of tech support with less than knowledgeable parents. For a few minutes, you know what it is like to be John Mayer…meh.

Posted on July 29th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Videos, iPhone Fun | No Comments »

Since iPhone 1.0, tapping the “Status Bar” in Safari would scroll you instantly to the top of a web page. With the iPhone 2.0 update (available for the original iPhone and pre-installed on the iPhone 3G), Apple’s added the same functionality system-wide. Tapping the status bar (the topmost bar where the clock resides) in nearly every application will now scroll you immediately to the top of a list or page. This is especially handy for scrolling through contacts, songs, or anything else with a particularly long list of information.

Posted on July 29th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone Tips | No Comments »

Just a few days after Pwnage Tool launched as a Mac-only first jailbreak application for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 software, there is now a Windows solution as well.

Winpwn 2.0 is the answer for Windows users looking to jailbreak iPhone 2.0 / 3G models.  Among its features are:

• Support for both 1.1.4 and 2.0
• Custom Image Support
• Custom Payload Support
• 3g iPhone support

More details and Winpwn download are at:

http://www.winpwn.com/index.php/Main_Page

Posted on July 28th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: iPhone News | No Comments »