While it’s great to receive updates for iPhone apps, these are not always welcome as the update can often change the app’s functionality dramatically, such as when Occipital were forced to removed the Amazon results from their otherwise excellent RedLaser app; for many, this was the main attraction for using RedLaser, so did not want to update.
While you are not forced to do so, it means that you cannot use the ‘update-all’ button; you then have to individually install updates, which can be tedious with a large number of updates. It would be better to be able to opt to ‘ignore updates for this app’, but I can’t see Apple adding this functionality.
Although there are several causes for reduced battery life on iPhones, I found that this was my problem with a rapidly flattening iPhone battery.
When I first got my iPhone, I found that, after an overnight charge, the battery wasn’t even lasting until the end of the afternoon. The phone was also getting quite warm. I initially put this down to overuse of a new gadget, but even when I wasn’t using it much during the day it was still needing a top up to avoid it dying on the way home. Additionally, this didn’t happen at the weekend when I used the phone a lot more.
I then noticed that while I was at work, owing to the perfectly reasonable company firewall settings, I couldn’t connect to my .mac* or gmail email accounts nor send any email. In order to do so, I would turn off the WiFi to use the GPRS (I’d be lucky to get 3G on O2 despite being inside the M60). I then found that the battery life improved so that the phone would now last all day until late evening.
Basically, what seemed to be happening was that the iPhone was continually ‘banging its head against the firewall’. Rather than realising that it could not connect to the mail servers, it would continually retry, and in doing so and using the WiFi it was draining the battery.
Obviously, as I stated at the opening line, there are several reasons for reduced battery life, but check that your iPhone is not needlessly wasting power on futile WiFi connections.
* Yes, I know it’s called MobileMe now
I’ve just received the following text message from O2 (iPhone provider in the UK):
Get the most of apps and the web by using Wi-Fi, at home or out and about. It’s quicker, especially for apps like video, and really easy to set up. Tap the link and we’ll take you through the steps.
What they’re really saying is “It’s better for us if you don’t use our network for data”. They’re obviously feeling the pinch with data usage. Maybe if they implemented and maintained the data network that we are all paying for then they wouldn’t have a problem.
While using the app “WiFiZone@UK” I got the error message “Low mem2” on the iPhone (3G OS 3.0). Tapping OK cleared the error message which repeated several times.
I haven’t seen it since and a Google search doesn’t help.
Has anyone else seen this or have any idea what this semi-cryptic message means?
Not content with removing the FireWire interface from iPods in favour of the exclusive use of the inferior USB interface, Apple has removed the FireWire charging option from the Nano 4G, iPod Touch 2G, iPhone 3G. Unfortunately, most third party manufacturers of docks, speakers and car interfaces, used the FireWire charging option on their interfaces, rendering them useless for charging the latest iPod/iPhones.
Worse still, plugging one of these latest iDevices into an older dock connector throws up a warning message (see left, click for larger) suggesting you switch to flight mode. Not what you want to do if you still want to receive phone calls!
Enter Scosche Passport
which is an adapter that sits between your iPod/iPhone and the normal dock connector and redirects power to the USB power pins. (Scosche also make a Home Dock
version for use in a speaker dock). Unfortunately, and wrongly, the iPhone still displays the warning message, despite the fact that the iPhone is now clearly charging. Hopefully Apple can fix this bug in a future software release.
At only £5 more than a Griffin car charger, I can now have my iPhone connected like my old iPod 3G with no need for a separate car charger. It also has the added advantage that I can choose whether to charge the iPhone when it is plugged into the Dension Ice-Link or allow it to drain – My iPod 3G used to remain permanently connected to the Ice-Link and its battery suffered as a result, now being unusable without external power.
My only criticism is that the size of the Passport makes the overall connection a little flimsy; it would have been better if it was made as an in-line lead so there was no load on the iPhone’s connector. Alternatively it could have been made shorter but wider, but its size has obviously been chosen to fit the width of an iPod Nano. The false warning on the iPhone is also a nuisance.
All this could of course have been avoided, had Apple done the right thing in the first place and left the FireWire charging pin connected.
My iPhone 3G has started rebooting when attaching to the Mac for syncing. This has only started recently and is intermittent, but it would appear that I’m not alone. It is obviously not supposed to do this because according to Little Snitch, mdcrashreporttool is connecting to iphonesubmissions.apple.com to report the fault:
Tried using Google while out and about on O2 3G but Google thought I was a malware bot and produced the following message:
Since when has performing a search on Google been classed as suspicious activity?
If you’re looking to buy an iPhone and wondering whether it will pair up on Bluetooth with your TomTom GPS, I can confirm that my iPhone 3G pairs successfully with my TomTom GO 500. The firmware versions are: iPhone 3G (v2.2.1 (5H11)) and TomTom GO 500 (v7.903).
It actually pairs up better than my Nokia 6300 which, as noted in a previous post, fails to properly import the phone book into the TomTom, choosing only to offer one number per contact. By contrast, the iPhone clearly tags each number with work, home, mobile.
I also now have names and numbers of incoming callers showing again on the TomTom. Since switching from my SE k750i to the Nokia 6300, I had lost this, as the Nokia did not pass any information to the TomTom about the incoming call.
Back in 2005 when looking for a ringtone for my mobile that sounded like the Trimphone from the 70s, the only one I could find was unfortunately an American style single ring version that someone had posted on a forum, but I have recently edited it in Garageband to shorten the ring and make it the proper UK style ring-ring.
I thought I’d share it so you have the choice here of an m4a version that will work on Sony Ericsson and Nokia, and an m4r version (essentially the same file but renamed) which will go straight into iTunes for syncing with an iPhone.
Trimphone image based on image from FunkyWorm on Flickr used under Creative Commons Licence
