Tag: iPhone

Making the leap to iOS 5

So, the time finally came to move the iPhone 3GS to iOS 5, given that it’s my primary communication device and I couldn’t afford to install Developer betas on it and risk being incommunicado.

First up, I tried to sync my photos with iPhoto ’09. There were some problems with this as it kept complaining about missing photos. My eventually solution to this was to grab a copy of Phone Disk and back up all the files on the phone.

Next I set Contacts to sync with iTunes, and synced it a couple of times.

Selecting syncing of apps seemed to indicate that everything was going to be deleted. So I option-clicked on the phone and chose ‘transfer purchases’, which seemed to eventually solve that problem.

Then I tried to sync. Unfortunately I kept getting an “Error -50”, which wasn’t particularly informative. I eventually worked out that iTunes was doing a backup before the update, which meant that it was wanting lots of disk space.

So, lots of disk space cleared I proceeded to update the phone. Hmmm… all my apps are missing from the phone.

So then I option click the device name again and use the ‘Restore from backup’ option. Two hours later iTunes has restored everything to the phone (I’m sure my Newton restored faster. Hopefully over the air syncing will speed this up now rather than relying on the slowness of USB).

Except that now all my Apps are on the phone, listed as “Waiting…” for download. So I go into the phone’s App store and choose to redownload my purchases. One by one… as every time I choose to download it the App store app returns to the launchpad screen. I suspect I can probably fix this by doing another sync (I’ll try over the air this time).

Musings on Apple’s Next Big iThing

Thinking about the iTablet, iSlate, or iWhateverItWillBeCalled.
For those who haven’t seen it, check out Apple’s Knowledge Navigator from the depths of 1987, a vision that Apple’s been working towards for quite some time now. Note the touch screen interface, and voice control. Not that far fetched from what an iPhone’s voice control can do these days (albeit with less intelligence, and more recognition errors in my experience).

Personally I’m hoping we’ll see more Newton like technologies in a larger screen format. With colour. And handwriting recognition (it’s in Mac OS X, but nobody really uses it. Now why is it there exactly?). And some of the Newton’s drawing and note taking user interface. And of course, with the Internet connectivity the Newton lacked (for the most part)!

Daring Fireball also has Newton musings. I don’t know about John Gruber’s handwriting, but I found the handwriting recognition pretty good, much nicer than Grafitti on the Palm. Plus, you couldn’t easily mix handwriting and drawings on the Palm.
I’m guessing we won’t see a return of NewtonScript though, and probably a good thing given the prevalence of Objective C across Apple’s product line.

New York City iPhone programmer job

In case anyone’s interested… posted on 2010-01-05

Our New York City client is a full-service agency for the digital age. They are looking for a full time, on-site, salaried Senior iPhone App Developer paying to $130,000 + benefits. Relocation assistance provided if required. US Citizens, Green Card holders, EAD or CAN only please.

The ideal candidate for this position will possess:

* 1+ years of experience with the UIKit framework
* 3+ years Mac development experience using Cocoa/Objective-C
* You should have at least one published iPhone app under your belt and some sort of portfolio or list of app/s to share
* C/C++ experience a plus
* Ability to develop against a variety of web architectures and services (HTTP, SOAP, REST, etc.)
* Knowledge of a scripting language a plus (Ruby, Perl, Python, BASH, etc)
* Experience managing projects in an SVN environment

TO APPLY: The absolute best way to apply for this job would be to not only submit your resume and/or portfolio or samples, but to elaborate on how your experience relates to the job description and submit your salary requirements to beau-AT-open-source-staffing.com

NSW Computer Crime Unit expert recommends not using Windows for internet banking

Computer expert Detective Inspector Bruce vad der Graaf from the Computer Crime Investigation Unit told NSW MPs to boot Linux off CD or use an iPhone for internet banking rather than using Windows. Interestingly he quotes the iPhone’s single-application-at-a-time as a plus, on the grounds it can’t be running any other dodgy applications at the same time as you’re banking (although I’m sure someone smart enough could probably get around those restrictions using some unofficial APIs…, given that the phone still runs Apple’s tasks at the same time as 3rd party apps).