Ralf Rottmann – CTO at GrandCentrix, Blogger for The Next Web, iOS and Android Developer, Social Media Addict
Over at the increasingly famous The Next Web blog, I’ve covered my first weeks without Entourage 2008 and why I ultimately switched back to Microsoft Entourage. If you’re an Apple prosumer, I’d love to get your feedback and tips. In case you’ve got a solution for any of the issues I’m mentioning, please don’t keep it as a secret, post it here!
Should you prefer a direct dialog, DM me (@24z) at twitter.
Preface: I love to get in touch with my readers. Are you on Twitter? Follow me @24z please!
If you happen to be a The Next Web subscriber, you might have stumbled across my How-to-get-Snow-Leopard-early article. I’ve been running Snow Leopard for a while and the speed improvements on my MacBook Pro (one of the latest unibody models) alone are a reason to upgrade every one of my iMacs within the next two days.
While 99% of my software library has always been working fine for all previous updates, I regularly ran into severe issues with Vodafone’s Mobile Connect hard- and software. As far as I am concerned Vodafone Germany never managed to get out a software update in time. In fact, I occasionally had to wait for 8-12 weeks until I could use my UMTS modem on a new operating system. For a corporation which claims to always be at the edge of technology it’s a shame.
And again, my Vodafone Mobile Connect card did not work on Snow Leopard. It started with obscure error message during install and ended with the device not being found.
Twitter tipster @svhennig pointed me to the solution:
The Austrian A1 website offers a version of the “Mac OS Dashboard Software” which works absolutely perfect on Snow Leopard. Though the system requirements state “Leopard 10.5.0 – 10.5.6″ I can confirm Version 3.04.01.00 (14,6 MB) is fully working on 10A432 with Vodafone Germany. This is the direct download link. (Version 3.04.06.00 seems to be available, too. I did not try it. In case you’ve been successful, please leave a comment.)
Thanks to Sven sharing the link. Hope it helps others, too.
If you’d like to get more random thoughts about Snow Leopard, iPhone Development and everything else from me, start following me on Twitter.
I have received scattered reports of a potential issue in the latest release of the iPhone and iPod touch operating system, version 3.0.
Readers reported that after their iPhone got stuck and they had to force a hard reset (keeping the Home and the Power button pressed simultaneously for a couple of seconds) some applications showed wrong icons on the Springboard/Home Screen (namely icons of other apps which are also installed).
Today I’ve experienced this issue myself, on an iPhone 3GS with a factory fresh OS 3.0.
Here’s what I did to resolve it:
Hope this helps. Let me know in the comments!
For the small amount of readers, that have subscribed to my blog, but are not yet subscribed to the best European Technology blog, I’d like to highlight my coverage about my first weekend with the new iPhone 3G S – where “S” stands for “Speed”.
The short version: The iPhone 3G S simply rocks. In case you’ve been slightly disappointed by the “minor” changes Apple made to the very successful iPhone 3G, you might find the article inspiring.
When my iPhone 3G S arrived early Friday morning, I was expecting to be disappointed. To the contrary: I’m totally overwhelmed by the positive impact of this performance upgrade to almost every single aspect of my daily iPhone experience.
It’s awesome. It totally rocks. If you’re still contemplating whether to update or not, stop it. Go update right away. At the end of the day, it’s not about video, voice control or a neat compass. It’s speed that matters.
Continuing it’s 2 week release cycle, Apple has released Beta 4 of the iPhone OS.
This time it requires to in addition install a pre-release version of iTunes 8.2. I’ve just upgraded all our devices and it worked like a charm.
Took some 15 minutes and the device got upgraded seamlessly. Hope this fixes the annoying “dial pad displayed with downwards offset” bug which prevented users from accessing the “CALL” button.
Now heading into a full day workshop in Cologne. Keep you posted later. For real-time updates, please follow me.
The news are out: Apple on Tuesday released the second beta of its much acclaimed iPhone OS 3.0. I’m running it for some 10 hours on two iPhones now – both not jailbroken and not unlocked – and my overall first impression is extremely positive.
While the first beta had severe quirks, the biggest one being it extremely slow which even rendered it useless for some folks, this second beta performs even better than the current official version 2.2.1. This is not only true for all the built-in applications. Tweetie, Byline, VisualDial and other applications are launching way faster than on 2.2.1.
Another area which seems to have improved a lot is keyboard responsiveness. From a developer’s point of view iPhone OS 3.0 has a ton of new features that I already love. From an enduser’s perspective the landscape-mode-everywhere highly responsive keyboard is the single most important feature for me. (I tend to write a lot.)
Spotlight search has been redesigned slightly and is almost twice as fast as on Beta 1.
MMS and Tethering work just fine with the two German carriers I’m using (T-Mobile and Vodafone).
For a second beta this seems to be a great release and it’s a promising outlook towards the final version which is expected for the June 2009 timeframe.
Apple today released the second beta of it’s major iPhone Operating System update. While the first beta brought a great range of new features for end users and developers, it was pretty slow and partially unstable. Not that much of a deal as it’s therefore considered in beta.
I’m at this moment installing iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 2 to my devices and keep you updated whether speed and stability have been addressed in this second beta release of the greatest mobile OS ever.
Updating failed. iPhone jumped to restore mode. This was an iPhone 3G 16 GB running on Beta 1. No jailbreaks. No unlocks.
Now restoring.. . Restore went just fine. Now trying to restore settings and apps from a OS 3.0 Beta 1 backup.. . Worked fine. So everything is back. Time elapsed: approx. 30 minutes.
Now trying the next device.. . Updated just fine. It’s a straight T-Mobile Germany iPhone 3G 16 GB.
The first thing I notice with Beta 2: I’m perceiving a huge performance increase compared to Beta 1.
I can confirm the Vodafone Germany and the T-Mobile Germany carrier bundle published here work on Beta 2, too.
OS 3.1.2 iTunes 9 Update: Still works. Prior to following the instructions given below you have to quit iTunes 9, and enter
defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE
in a Terminal session. There you go!
OS 3.0 Beta 2 Update: The info provided in this post works for the latest Beta 2 of iPhone OS 3.0, too.
Let me first say sorry for a blog post title that is far too long. However, with a little bit of Google magic it finally brought you here, didn’t it?
Recently I’ve posted an article about enabling MMS (and Tethering) on your iPhones for the German mobile operators. The article was inspired by my partner site iPhone-notes.de and the fantastic work André Sendowski does over there.
As I ran into a couple of problems with my iPhones I thought I’d write a quick follow up and might help others avoiding some of the trouble. Please be aware that most of the stuff in this area must be considered “guessing” as nobody really knows the details of what’s going on behind the scenes.
As usual you do everything at your own risk.
As one of my findings it appears as if there is no one-solution-fits-all. It seems as if you not only need the correct carrier bundle but your specific settings also depend on the tariff/contract you’re running on.
I’ve now got MMS, Tethering and 3G data connectivity confirmed running for both T-Mobile and Vodafone. So if you happen to run on the same tariff as I, it should work out for you, too.
This is one of my development devices. It’s a regular, legal, netlocked, iTunes activated iPhone 3G 16GB running on iPhone OS 3.0 (7A238j). As I hardly ever do anything with it, I’ve chosen the cheapest contract option: Complete XS.
The device has never been jailbroken or unlocked.
It works with this carrier bundle and the APN in Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network set to:
APN: internet.t-mobile
Username: t-mobile
Password: tm
This is sort of my production machine. It’s another iPhone 3G 16 GB. I’ve purchased the device in Italy where iPhones have no netlocks. This device has never been jailbroken or unlocked and runs iPhone OS 3.0 (7A238j). I’ve subscribed to the special iPhone tariff that Vodafone is offering in Germany (and which is a 100% flat for just everything, highly recommended).
It works with this carrier bundle and the APN in Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network set to:
APN: web.vodafone.de
Username:
Password:
Note: Once you install the carrier bundle it likely sets Username and Password to “vodafone”. You’ve got to manually delete username and password. Keeping the username and password set did not work for me!
I noticed that whenever I had difficulties getting MMS working, I could also not use the data network for Internet connectivity. The error given was: “Could not activate cellular data network”. André told me, that there should not be any association with the APN you can set via the iPhone Settings application as the carrier bundles contain an internal and separate APN configuration for MMS which is not even accessible from the iPhone. However, if I put “vodafone”/”vodafone” back in, MMS functionality is gone for me.
Hope this helps and feel free to leave your remarks to help others.
Unfortunately I’ve recognized that people who got iPhone OS 3.0 without an Apple Developer membership tried to get their UDIDs registered via other members of the program, who have started to sell their 90+ slots. Please do not post any UDID registration request or offering in the comments. Your comment will never get approved and killed without further notice. I’m sorry.
OS 3.0 Beta 2 Update: The info provided in this post works for the latest Beta 2 of iPhone OS 3.0, too.
My German partner site iPhone-notes.de proudly presents updated carrier bundles that unlock the latest iPhone OS 3.0 Internet Tethering and MMS features.
Basically the steps described by iPhone-notes.de blogger André Sendowski are completed within just 5 seconds and allow you to share your iPhone’s Internet connection via USB and Bluetooth.
All you need is an iPhone 3G which runs the current iPhone OS 3.0 beta. Your phone doesn’t need to be jailbroken! So plain old regular T-Mobile Germany iPhones will do just fine.
If you speak German, head over there and get the details!
In case you don’t but happen to have a contract with any of the German mobile operators, here’s a brief description in English:
Download the appropriate .ipcc file. You might want to use Firefox as Safari tends to mess around with bundles.
Here are direct links to the downloads provided by iPhone-notes.de.
Note: The T-Mobile Germany carrier bundle download below is the only one not pointing to the iPhone-notes.de site as I could not confirm the one over there working. Instead it links to a version which definitely worked on my fresh, clean T-Mobile Germany iPhone 3G.
Next open iTunes with your iPhone 3G connected via USB. Click the Check for Update button while pressing the Option key. Navigate to the downloaded carrier bundle and select it.
After a few seconds your carrier settings have been updated. Restart your iPhone 3G. Try out Tethering by going to Settings > General > Network > Internet Tethering.
Thanks to André for this fantastic work!
(There’s an additional post available here, outlining confirmed solutions for T-Mobile and Vodafone that work on my devices. You might want to go there now.)
Just a quick note with more details in a few hours:
Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0 Beta pre-installation advisory document states that once you’ve updated a device it’ll be in a “locked state” with no way of going back to an earlier firmware.
While this might be perfectly true for regular iPhones it has not been the case for one of my first generation development devices. I’ve been able to do the following:
This particular device is now running perfectly on the Beta 3.0 release with unlock working fine – Cydia and Installer are obviously gone, as it has always been the case when applying updates.
To avoid confusion: I’m not aware of any solution, yet, that allows to jailbreak/unlock an iPhone running the current beta of OS 3.0. I did the following: I restored a first generation (not the 3G!) iPhone to the default Apple Firmware 2.0. I then used QuickPwn on a Mac to jailbreak and unlock. This gives me an unlocked iPhone 2G with Firmware 2.0. I then updated to the regular 3.0 Beta via iTunes.
The unlock is preserved, so the update seems to not wipe the modifications done on the 2.0 version. Effectively I’ve now got an unlocked iPhone 2G running OS 3.0 Beta. Cydia and Installer are gone (always happens during updates) but jailbroken apps still run!
Important Note:
Everybody: While it might be legal, I cannot actively support people buying iPhone Dev Portal UUID registrations through my web site. :-)
I’d therefore kindly ask to not submit any new comments related to paying others for getting registered to their iPhone Dev Programs.
I leave comment moderation turned off for the moment but will clear all future comments which do not obey this rule. Had to turn comment moderation on because some readers could not resist to continue to post UUID adding offerings. Sorry. Once everybody has calmed down, I’ll switch it off again.
Hope this clarifies things.
Note: I generally do not encourage jailbreaks or endorse unlocking hacks. I run one of my development devices jailbroken and unlocked in order to make sure, that my App Store software works on these modified devices, too.
