Scratched Iphone ? there's a fix for that

I know that most of you guys reading this would have applied a case of some sort on your brand spanking new iphone. Whether the case is still on the iphone now is probably a different story, eh ?


Well you're not alone, I'm in your position. When I first got my iPhone 3Gs I left the original plastic protection for about 1-2 weeks till I got my case from ebay. It was one of those plastic cases that protected the side and back and clicked on nicely to the iphone. The front was meant to be covered by a clear plastic stick on, but I didn't get around to applying this.

Now I don't have that many scratches on my iphone, purely because I'm careful in making sure that the phone is not in the same pocket as the keys - left pocket for the iphone and right pocket for the keys. But somehow, with all these measures that I have taken to try and protect the phone from scratches I have still managed to scratch it ... slightly.

If you are in worse position than me, then you should check out this forum post which explains how to fix it.

When I had the 3G, I bought the ZAGG Invisible shield. Oh boy was that a mistake for two reasons:

1. It is nightmare to get it on... and it doesn't cover the phone completely. There are still gaps, small gaps. 
2. The corners which are a little annoying, end up sticking to fluff in your pockets and don't end up sticking to your phone... in the end you are left removing the whole thing.

Hope this help...

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Books that are Apps

I downloaded my first Book as an App, and this is major selling point for the new iPad, so I thought I would try this out.

I was disappointed and feel that this is not worth it.

I'm planning to travel to europe, so I decided to download the City Guide by Lonely Planet, I decided to get this via an app because I am going to go to several countries and couldn't afford the weight of paperback books. My expectations of a book as an app is that it would utilise features of being an application etc.. After purchasing the city guide, I felt that it hardly used the features of being an App. It offered some basic GPS location etc... where you see what is around you. Granted that this is a nice feature, but what I was disappointed about was that the book/app contained very little images and it was hard to read.

In fact I have found other apps, that are offered for free that are 10 times better than the lonely planet.

Now the problem is that I have downloaded the application, used it, found that it is rubbish and I am stuck with it. Most of the application in the App store work off micro payments, which means that you can sell items at small prices and if someone doesn't like it then they are only out by a small amount and the author still gets paid for the usage. However, the problem with the Lonely Planet book/app was that it is retailing at the same price as the hard copy. If this was only offered as a hard copy this is how it would have turned out:

• Make a trip to the mall to a book store
• Go to the travel section, look for the books about places I going to go to
• Flick through the books, read the sections that interests me (not sections that someone else decides)
• Compare different books to see which one suits me (keeping in mind that some people may actually prefer the way that lonely planet sets out its book).
• Pick the one that I want, most likely not the lonely planet book.

Now when people wonder why anyone would jail break their phone, some will say it is to be liberated and to be able to customise the phone the way that they want. Others will say that they want to try out an application before committing to it.

Thanks for reading...

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Upgrading from 3.0.1 to 3.1.2...jail breaking at the same time

As you may know, I have been trying to figure out how to move on to Firmware 3.1.2 safely from 3.0.1 without screwing up my iphone. Undoubtedly you may think that there are plenty of tutorials available online, and I acknowledge this. What I was concerned about was that I used a particular method to jailbreak my 3GS, which I can no longer remember (i think it was purp1erain, or something). Never the less, there are a number of articles describing the dangers of jail breaking an iPhone and Apple had also made a statement stating that it is not worth the risk.

So with that in mind, my $1200 investment had to be secure and hence my angst in making sure that i was doing everything correctly.

For anyone that is in the same position as me, I hope the following will help you.

I have now successfully upgraded my firmware from 3.0.1 to 3.1.2 and have jail broken my iphone. To do this follow this tutorial that I used from www.redmondpie.com.

Basically this is what I did:

1. I downloaded Pwnage tool 3.1.4, click here


2. I downloaded firmware version 3.1.2, click here


3. Backed up my iphone data:
   
   
   • Connect your iphone to your computer
   
   
   • When the Iphone icon appears, right click (or CTRL + Click) and select Back Up
   
   
4. Once this is backed up, open pwnage tool and follow the steps in the guide from redmondpie.com
5. After you have successfully completed jail breaking your iphone, if your iphone was previously unlocked(which means that you can use any carrier and it is not locked to a particular carrier), then make sure that you unlock it. This had caused some tears for me since after the jail break, I could not make calls until I had unlocked the phone.
6. Once you have done all of this, open up itunes and allow it restore the information from the backup that you made earlier.

Unfortunately, the downside about jail breaking and getting applications from third party sites is that after the upgrade you need to hunt them down and re-download them. Sometimes, the links are broken etc... I guess this is a small price to pay for the convenience of having the freedom of a jail broken phone. From now on, I think I'll backup my IPAs even the ones that I downloaded via Installous, I'll write up a post about this once i have done this.

Thanks

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