Why Apple’s Support Wins

My iPhone started acting up a couple of days ago. Any time the screen went blank (either via auto-lock or if I manually hit the lock switch) it took about 30 seconds and the iPhone would just shut itself off. If I turned off auto-lock, the phone stayed on for as long as it could (battery dependent, of course). It also only seemed to have this problem when running on battery power. Very strange problem, indeed. I restored my phone and set it up as a new phone and thought that would clear it right up. It definitely did not.

Next step, set up an appointment at the Genius bar nearby so I could stop there before work that evening. I walked in and talked to a very nice Apple Genius. I explained my problem to him and he only really had one option that he could try on his end. He was going to “restore” the firmware in case something went wrong there. Alas, it was not looking good for me. Until the king gentleman said to me “Well.. your phone appears to be a couple months out of warranty…”. I had gotten my iPhone 3G the day it came out, so I already knew this. But then he went on to say “.. but, we’re going to cover it for you. How about you just consider this a lucky day for you?”.

I was ecstatic! As much as I kind of want a 3GS, I figured I could make due with what I had until the NEW new iPhone came out later next year, but this plan was going to be thrown out the window if I had to subsidize another phone through AT&T as soon as they would let me. So now I should be able to make due with my iPhone 3G for another 7 months or so. Thank you Apple!

Which begs the question. With all the talk about iPhone killers lately, and all blackberry vs. android vs. iPhone debates, I can’t foresee a similar situation happening when you take your G1 or Droid or Whichever Blackberry 10 Billion that you have in after the warranty has expired and your experiencing some strange behavior. If you know anyone who has done this, I’d love to hear about it. I know it happens with much greater frequency with Apple products, though.

So, again, Thank you, Apple.

Poke A Keith adds OpenFeint support!

An update to Poke A Keith was pushed threw by Apple yesterday that includes OpenFeint support to add online achievements and leaderboards! There’s even a chatroom so you can talk with other Poke A Keith players or anyone on the OpenFeint network! Leaderboards let you compare your scores in a variety of categories with your OpenFeint friends as well as the world! It’s all available now so go get it!

Pros & Cons v1.1.0 FINALLY approved!

Pros & Cons was finally approved by Apple! It’s been over 2 weeks and the update is finally live. Lots of polish and a couple new features here..

  • Facebook Support added. You can now share your list ideas with your friends and see how they feel about those results. A great way to get a ‘second opinion’ on some tricky lists.
  • When you add a new list, it automatically asks you to name the list. This feature was added by just me observing some other people using the app and it seems pretty nature that you name a list right away from the beginning.
  • A new options pane inside the list gives you a couple of options for each list. It also gives you a more detailed look at the ‘score’ for the list so if you like more than just a ‘yes, no, maybe’ answer, you can see exactly how much better 1 side is than the other.
  • Some polish and under the hood fixes.

I’m pretty excited about this update, so download it now and start sharing on Facebook!

iPregnancyTest found on Wall-O-Apps

During WWDC, Apple had on display a ‘wall-o-apps’. It was a large wall of iPhone app icons matched by color. Each time an app was downloaded, that app’s icon pulsated or something. It looked very neat and you can read more about it here. On that same page, I grabbed the image above and believe I have found iPregnancyTest sitting pretty on the wall-o-apps! Yay!

iPhone 3G S Cometh! (AT&T Disappoints)

It’s no surprise by now that the iPhone 3G S was announced today. Apples announcement was decent. They couldn’t possibly live up to ALL of the rumors that were going around before the actual event. A faster phone is always welcome and the video recording/editing features looked cool. Voice commands. Compass. Autofocus camera. It’s a decent upgrade. The iPhone OS 3.0 showed really well with some new software that they highlighted. Pretty much, Apple didn’t dazzle with any huge surprises or anything (as far as iPhone is concerned) but they didn’t disappoint either.

AT&T on the other hand was a completely different story. During the event, AT&T was boo’ed at least twice. When it was stated that AT&T would have MMS by ‘late summer’, and when they were left out of the tethering partners announced. Then, shortly after the event, the pricing came out for us iPhone 3G users. Along with the lack of any sort of price cut on their plans that were rumored, AT&T didn’t really do anything to help it’s ‘cash cow’ one bit.

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iPregnancyTest v1.2.0 sent for review

I just sent off iPregnancyTest v1.2.0 to Apple for review. Things seem to be at about a week for reviews lately so hopefully that stays (or it speeds up? As long as it doesn’t get longer!) and in a week you’ll be able to enjoy Facebook Connect on your iPregnancyTest! Here’s what’s coming!

  • Facebook Connect support links your Facebook account to iPregnancyTest.
  • Baby-Daddy Generator was improved to take advantage of your Facebook friends in our super scientific iPaternity tests to determine who your iBaby’s Baby-Daddy is.
  • Result Sharing improved to take advantage of Facebook to let you post your positive results as well as your Baby-Daddy to your Facebook wall.
  • Baby-Daddy Picker introduced so you don’t always have to type the name of your Baby-Daddy. You can if you still want to, but now you have a list of contacts or Facebook friends (depending on if your connected) you can pick from. You can even type a few letters of the name you want to narrow the list down!

I think the Facebook Connect support is going to make sharing your scores a lot more fun than the current implementation. Using your real Facebook friends and your Facebook Wall, you can now have fun and get comments on your iPregnancy results. Should be great!

Called It! (Maybe) Next iPhone might be called iPhone Video

This article just rolled by my twitter feed and I was quite excited to see a picture of a support page on Apple’s website that suggests the next generation iPhone could be called the iPhone video! What got me all excited was, in this article dated back to November 2008, i said..

Maybe it’s giving them a reason to introduce the ‘iPhone Video’ next year or something.. with that kick double sided camera and probably a way to film full 30fps videos. I actually just thought of that while writing right now but it really doesn’t sound too far fetched. Look out for the iPhone Video in July 2009! You heard it here, first!

Stupid? Yes. Am I still happy about it? Totally! That is all.

Pros & Cons for the iPhone approved!

Pros & Cons for the iPhone was just approved by Apple after a little more than 2 weeks! I built this one from the ground up to be very simple and intuitive. If you have any tough decisions to make and you just can’t quite figure out what the best course of action might be, you’ll want to give Pros & Cons for the iPhone a try! It’s available now on the App Store, just waiting for you to download it! … So why are you still reading? GO!

iPregnancyTest v1.1.2 just went live

iPregnancyTest suffered a tiny bit from the most recent update that added support for version 2.0 of the iPhone OS. This version of iPhone OS shouldn’t be run by ANYONE with an iPhone anymore. I noticed a couple of strange side effects because of it and sent off version 1.1.2 of iPregnancyTest. This version doesn’t contain much except that it DOES require version 2.2+ of the iPhone OS. If you are 1 of the VERY small percentage of people who are still running the very first version of the iPhone OS when the iPhone 3G was release you should really connect that thing to iTunes and upgrade to 2.2.1! The benefits are fantastic and I can’t see any downside to it. Just DO IT! Head over to bit.ly/ipregnancytest to downlod iPregnancyTest now!

Some site updates..

You might find a minute or two here and there that this site is down for a couple of days. Don’t fear! I’m just working on a couple updates! I updated my blog software today and went through making some little tweaks here and there. I’ve created a separate tab for my iPhone apps. I’ll hopefully have a nice forum up and running pretty soon as well. It will be mostly for the iPhone apps, but anyone can jump in and have some fun if you want. Just thought I’d stop in and let you know I’ve got some updates coming to the site.

Pragmatic Programmer offers iPhone books

I have purchased a few books from Pragmatic Programmer over the last couple years but it’s been a couple of months since I’ve visited. I went there today to refresh a couple of books I heard have been updated and found a couple new formats! They now offer books in PDF (like always) as well as epub (to be used with stanza on the iPhone) and Kindle! You just log in to pragprog.com from your iPhone and it lists your books. If you have the Stanza application (free) installed, clicking a book automatically downloads and installs it right in Stanza for you! This is fantastic!

iPhone OS 3.0.. Hands On..

The new software works pretty good! With months until the public release, I think they’ve got plenty of time to clean it up and getting it working great without a whole lot of the 2.0 bugs that came with that release. There are definitely some bugs. I haven’t found any real ‘show stoppers’ (yet) but if you don’t like to be annoyed by your phone every once and a while, I’d suggest waiting until the public release.

Two of the new settings no one has told you about… The biggest being the ‘Repeat Alert’ option! I’ve hated that stupid reminder that I have a text message since they introduced it. There’s finally an option to turn it off! There’s also a couple of extra options for when you hit the home button twice. You can now launch your camera or the new Spotlight.

All in all, I’m impressed with the new firmware and will be using it daily. I’d love it if AT&T would start provisioning the iPhones for MMS so I can test (and use) that feature. Anyone who was involved in the 2.0 beta remember how often Apple seeded out updates for it?

iPhone 3.0 software revealed!

You can find all the opinions everywhere, I’m going to (for once) try and do a quick and dirty list of new stuff announced for the 3.0 software and SDK.

The bigger end-user stuff..

  • Copy and Paste (Works everywhere!)
  • MMS (Contacts, Pictures, Audio and Location via Text)
  • Stereo Bluetooth
  • Note Syncing
  • .ics Calendar subscriptions
  • CalDAV Calendar support
  • Voice Memos
  • Forward and Delete text messages
  • Landscape mode for Mail, Notes and Text
  • Email multiple photos via Copy and Paste

Other ‘tags’ in the background graphic included

  • YouTube (Accounts, Ratings and Subscriptions)
  • iTunes Account Creation
  • Call Log (Please tell me this means I can delete 1 phone call!)
  • Create meeting invites
  • Proxy support
  • OTA Profiles
  • Shake to Shuffle
  • WiFi Auto-login
  • Anti-Phishing support
  • Auto-Fill support
  • Media Scrubber? (WTF?)

The larger developer stuff..

  • Push Notifications
  • New Streaming Video/Audio API
  • Turn-by-Turn direction support
  • Maps app embeddable API
  • Bluetooth Peer-to-Peer support with Bonjour
  • In-App Purchases (Paid apps only. Free apps are still always free)
  • Accessory app support (Apps that control accessories)
  • In Game Voice

Some smaller stuff seen on the backsplash graphic..

  • Text Selection
  • Proximity Sensor
  • Shake API
  • Data Detectors
  • iPod Library Access
  • In-App Email
  • Battery API

That was about it. Most of the ‘big’ news should have been around for a while, but whatever. They’re coming this summer and I’m stoked. I’ll update again (maybe.. If I’m not gagged by a super tight NDA) after I install the beta. I’m excited!

iPhone 3.0 Software (/hardware?) being revealed soon!

According to MANY places, Apple has scheduled an event where the iPhone 3.0 OS and SDK will be revealed! This is less than a week away now so I figured I’d recap what I would LOVE to see included! Feel free to chime in with any additions.

  • Copy and Paste! Of course this is going to be here. Your going to be hard pressed to find an iPhone wish list that does not include copy and paste. Why? Because it’s silly that Apple still hasn’t figured out how to do this. This is one of those things that has to be included in 3.0!

UPDATE: Success!

  • MMS Support! Another feature that hits a large percentage of wish lists. I know email is a pretty good substitute for MMS, but that only works if everyone you ever communicate with has an iPhone or another phone that’s more email-centric than anything. I still think this can go 1 or 2 ways (or both?).

UPDATE: YES!

The easiest solution here would be that AT&T switches over from the craptastic proxy they have now (that sends a stupid link with 2 passwords you have to memorize and shows off a tiny picture) and start offering some sort of email forward option for users that can, instead, forward an MMS message to one of our push email addresses for instant delivery. I honestly don’t know why AT&T hasn’t done this yet! Let’s go, AT&T!

Since we’re talking about new software here, we’d all love to see native MMS support in the new 3.0 OS! Either via a brand new MMS app, or just add the functionality to the Text app. I don’t feel like there are any reasons to not include this in a major software update.

  • Updated camera. The iPhone camera is pretty archaic from current smartphone standards. I stand by my theory that the next hardware update to the iPhone will concentrate on the camera. Calling it something like the iPhone Video which will have a fantastic camera, a possible flash, the ability to record videos at full 30 fps and maybe even in 720p and how about the video conferencing that we heard about in the 3G rumors from last year?

UPDATE: Because this is a hardware issue (I’m fairly certain), this was not addressed. Boo.

  • Theme support! The iPhone’s interface is nice. It’s simple and clean. I like it. But I also know that customization is important to a large majority of users. I do think a little polish couldn’t help. Android and the Palm Pre are looking pretty sharp and Apple is going to have to stay ahead of the game. Either a smaller SDK or an extension to the current SDK could attract new developers (artists) who want to develop themes and sell them on the App Store. This is more money for Apple and more money for the talented developers who make quality themes.

UPDATE: No sir.

  • Background/Push apps. Both would be great. I understand Apple’s concern over simplicity, stability and battery life. I don’t want my battery to last any shorter than it does already. The push notifications idea is fantastic and I’m pretty certain will see some form of it in the 3.0 OS. I would love to see certain types of applications able to actually run in the background though. Music apps like Pandora and Last.fm can’t really benefit from push notifications. Apple could introduce another ‘state’ that an application can be in. Give developers the same freedom the iPod app has and make it part of your review process to make sure the app truely NEEDS this functionality before approving it. I.E. A comic book reader app does not need any true background support, so make sure they don’t receive it during your review. Apple, take the ball and run with it. Hopefully we’ll see more about this on Tuesday.

UPDATE: Kind of. Push apps are a go, background processes are not.

  • Standardize the review process! This isn’t really a 3.0 thing. There doesn’t need to be new software for this to happen, but I’m sure a new major software update is a GREAT place to announce and launch something that you should have been doing all along. A list of CONCRETE standards that all apps are placed when being reviewed. Hell, show us exactly what happens when you review our apps! Do anything to make developers much more free to do their thing without having to worry about not being approved for something stupid and petty.

UPDATE: Another no go. A question was asked about it in the Q&A portion but there wasn’t really an answer.

That’s all I got. I tried to keep this to things I really think will or definitely should be in 3.0 and/or the updated hardware. Throw your 2 cents in if you have them!

UPDATE: Overall? I think it went quite well. Sure, most of the features announced are things everyone and their mothers have been asking for since 1.0, but hey, better late than never, right?