The iPhone Ranch

Big changes are coming! Since I can’t keep up with both Movable Beast and the iPhone Ranch, I’ve decided to merge the two and just have iPhone content be a part of the overall Movable Beast site. Since the combined site will have many different “sections” or topics, I’m probably going to switch to a new WordPress theme by top-notch designer Brian Gardner that lends itself to a more news-friendly format.

Pals of the iPhone Ranch will find that they can still use their old bookmarks; they’ll be automagically redirected to Movable Beast. Expect to see this change before the end of 2007, since I want it in place and ready to go prior to MacWorld Expo 2008.

I just downloaded and installed the iPhone 1.1.2 update, which is a huge file — 160.2 MB. Apple, of course, is rather coy about what is actually new and different in the update, other than saying that it contains “bug fixes”.

After a rather slow download (my guess is that everyone with an iPhone with the exception of my wife is downloading it), the device reset and is now showing the “chasing it’s tail” indicator under the Apple logo on the startup screen. This has been going on for a while, so obviously there’s a major ROM update that is underway. Upon completion, the iPhone displayed an indication that it wanted me to disconnect and reconnect the device, with “Emergency Call” displayed in English, French, and German in case I needed to make a 911 call.

Other than that, not much has changed. In the devices list in iTunes, there’s now a battery charge indication next to the name of the device, but I really can’t see what else is different. More later…

What with the price of the iPhone coming down $200 and my $100 Apple Store credit from the first iPhone, I decided that it was time to get my wife a new phone. She had been using an old Motorola flip phone that basically sucked, and she had been eyeing my iPhone lustfully since Day One. With her birthday coming up in about a week, I thought it was a perfect time to buy one.

The second experience was just as good as the first, although it didn’t go as quickly. The purchase process in the phone was definitely faster (I was in and out of the Apple Store in about five minutes). When I bought my iPhone, I set up a new number on AT&T so everything was up and running immediately. For Barb’s iPhone, I entered the “transfer” information during the activation and within a few minutes I received notification that the phone was activated. Yeah, it could SEND phone calls, but it couldn’t receive. It ended up taking about 12 hours for the change to make it through the combined systems of T-Mobile and AT&T, which isn’t that bad when you think about it.

As a surprise, I’ve also set up her phone with her home email account, added some favorite bookmarks, and set her weather widget to show the weather at home. It must be nice to be married to an ACN and have someone set up all these great things for you!

If your iPhone is now running on firmware version 1.1.1, here are some great keyboard shortcuts that showed up.First, doing a double-tap on the space bar inserts a period, a space, and puts your keyboard into caps mode. Also, if you’re in a password field, pressing the shift key will put your iPhone in caps lock mode. Anybody found any other updates that provide new functionality?

The iPhone “finally” got a new application yesterday with the introduction of iPhone Update 1.1.1. The new app? The iTunes Wi-Fi Store. You’ll need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network in order to use the new application, but the functionality is quite cool. You can see this week’s Featured New Releases, What’s Hot, and a listing by music genre. I like the latter listing, since I’m too damned old to like any of the crap that is featured in the pop, rap/hip-hop, etc… genres. I go more for classical and jazz.

The store gives you a chance to listen to those great little 30-second tidbits before purchasing with One-click, and any music you purchase from the Wi-Fi store is synced back to your Mac or PC. I know one thing for sure - I’m going to be buying a lot more music now that this service is available on my iPhone. It gives me something to do while I’m just hangin’ around!

The update is easily installed - just connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC and sync it. Go to the Summary pane for your iPhone and click the “Check for Update” button. A few minutes of downloading and installing ensues, and then you’re up and running again.

There is some concern for all of those people who have been “illegally” installing software on their iPhones. As reported earlier in the week (not by me), Apple announced that they could not guarantee that future updates would work with anything but official Apple software. Some hacks have already failed, with the corresponding cries from the hackers. Bummer, dudes. Just be patient and wait for “REAL” software for the iPhone.

Just a short note. I moved The iPhone Ranch to a new server this morning, so you may have either experienced some “weirdness” for a short time or you may see some odd things happening for the next day or two. I don’t think you will, but just be forewarned if anything odd DOES happen.

Just a reminder t’ all readers o’ T’ iPhone Ranch that today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

www.talklikeapirate.com

Dirty Sam Flint (AKA Steve)

It’s official - Apple and UK mobile carrier O2 today announced that those on the other side of the pond will be able to buy their iPhones starting November 9th! Now here’s the odd news - despite the fact that most European mobile phones use 3G networks, the iPhone that the Brits will be getting is just like ours (EDGE only). That’s not going to endear the product to those who expect broadband-like speed whenever they start browsing the web from their handheld devices.

Steve Jobs also took the time to announce that the iTunes WiFi Store will be launched later this month so those of us with iPhones or the new iPod Touch can spend our money downloading tunes wherever and whenever we’re attached to WiFi.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, WiFi

There’s a lot of speculation about the Apple Event scheduled for September 5th. It’s widely expected that Apple will announce some new wide-screen iPods that will probably look a lot like iPhones. But many of us are also hoping that games and ringtones are going to be announced at the same event.

The latest version of iTunes has several internal links that refer to installing and removing games, and I seriously doubt if that would have been added to the software if not for something happening soon. There’s also a great deal of talk about being able to create a ringtone from any song purchased from iTunes, which would also be cool. I’d love to be able to edit the ringtone, however…

You can be sure that I’ll be watching anxiously next Wednesday to see what Apple announces!

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod

Hey, iPhoners! Update 1.0.2 is now available, so the next time you sync your lovely device, be sure to click on that “Check for updates” button in iTunes. The only thing Apple will tell us is that the update has “bug fixes”, which is interesting considering most of the major bugs seemed to be quashed by Update 1.0.1. The update went smoothly on my device, taking only about 3 minutes to install.

Frankly, I’m eagerly waiting for 1.1, which will hopefully have some new features like the ability to add games to the iPhone…

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone