I think this is my first post on iPhone ( barring the rant). o_O. Surprising, since I purchased the iPhone from eBay close to a year ago. Anyhow, being the computer freak enthusiast that I am,  I keep a track of most of the latest software that appears on the tech scene.  I generally have a zero-day update policy – any new version/update that arrives for a software I generally update it. I’m probably amongst the few folks who also read the release notes and change logs prior to upgrading, to find out if there’s some new functionality or enhancement that has been added to the software which isn’t so obvious. (Of course, some say if the new feature isn’t obvious in the UI, it is unlikely to get noticed, to which I agree. That said, do read the release notes. It will contain some good information). With the iPhone purchased, however I had to break this habit.

The core reason being – the iPhone’s carrier lockdown. Its pretty known that the iPhone is carrier locked – which would mean that you cannot just pop in any random SIM and it would start working. There are, of course, ways around this thanks to some amazing efforts by bunch of zomg-awesome folks.

The little side effects of this meant that I have to be extra careful whenever I use iTunes for fear of updating the iPhone firmware to the latest version – instantly losing the unlocks achieved and turning my iPhone into an iPod Touch with a mobile phone antenna that cannot be used

There’s a saying which goes with folks who use unlocked iPhones – if it works fine DO NOT UPGRADE! So then, why did I take the plunge and upgrade to the newer version ?

Couple of reasons:

• Some of the newer apps – eg, the Digg app, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, and some more that I purchased ( can’t recall the names) require iPhone OS 3.1.2 atleast. This wasn’t the primary reason, however.
• My iPhone had become tremendously slow and unresponsive. So much so that 4 of the 10 calls that I receive would result in the iPhone freezing up, not responding to “Answer”  for about 10-15 seconds. 10-15 seconds may not seem a lot but when it comes to phone calls, a delay of even 5 seconds would indicate that the person is not available would result in missed calls, and considering my calls to my iPhone are most when I’m at work, and I get incoming ISD calls that I cannot call back from my phone – this was the most concerning part.

There’s no doubt that the random lockups and freezes were due to the various software that I had installed from Cydia – these often run in the background( example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ) causing resource starvation and lockups.

Taking into consideration the above factors, I decided to take a backup, wipe my iPhone clean, upgrade to 3.1.2, jailbreak & get it unlocked again. However, I could not just grab the 3.1.2 firmware and upgrade it right away – reason being – baseband updates.

Baseband is the part of the iPhone which controls the telephony and other communication functions, and is an independent system from the iPhone OS which controls the apps. When I purchased the iPhone, the baseband was at 04.26.08 (“04.26″) version, and I had no intention for the baseband to get updated with the newer version – reason being the 04.26 baseband has the most number of options of carrier unlocks. I wanted to upgrade the iPhone OS to 3.1.2, without touching the baseband. This was possible by getting my hands on the custom firmware created using Pwnage tool ( more details at RedmondPie ). Now with the firmware ready with me, I proceeded with updating my iPhone. Before starting the update, I took a final backup, noted down some important stuff ( read: office mail settings). Next, I hit shift, and clicked on the restore button, pointed to the custom .ipsw file and had my fingers crossed. The update went fine, but the RedmondPie article had me confused and a little concerned, since the article mentions

After the installation is done, iPhone will restart automatically and you should now have a fully jailbroken iPhone running on firmware 3.1.2.

which was not true in my case. The iPhone screen was showing the connect to iTunes icon.

I was uncertain at this point, then realized, the phone was not jailbroken. So next went over to download redsn0w. Once downloaded, launched it, pointed it to the ipsw file and it did its thingamijig and *ta-dah*  the iPhone came alive, jailbroken, and confirmed it was still on 04.26

Next step was to install ultrasn0w – which was pretty easy, just went over to Cydia and installed it. Rebooted, and my carrier was recognised. Finally, all that remained was restoring my backup. That was even easier, since the moment I launched iTunes, it prompted me, asking if I wanted to restore from my previous backup. Gave the affirmative choice and – about half hour later, my iPhone was ready – with all settings intact ( heh, including the battery percentage meter on the status bar and my office mail settings!).

The whole process took about  2 hours, but it was worth it, as now my iPhone is noticeably faster!

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That got your attention ? Well, brace up, this is a rant.

Note: This is something I had stored on txtb.in, long, long ago. I decided to post this because people keep saying the same old shit – ‘its only 4k in US blah blah. This post was triggered by that guy Pranav ( ). Pranav – if you’re trying to reject this –

pranav.shastri: its a noob noob world

Sathyajith: and you believed that too /eyeroll

pranav.shastri: i didnt…thts y i wanted to clarify frm u

cos i knw u gt urs frm there

Sathyajith: pranav.shastri204: frickin iphone is $99 in US man
Sathyajith: no it isnt
pranav.shastri: yup it is

pranav.shastri: hmmm

Related posts:

1. Upgrading to iPhone 3G to iPhone OS 3.1.2, with keeping the baseband at 04.26
2. Back In India

Most of the Ruby gang are very well aware of the “Stupid SMS series”. For the uninitiated, it was Nitin’s way of…. umm… timepass ? by sending SMS to all of the Ruby gang which made absolutely no sense whatsoever ( I hate to admit it, but it’s true, Nitin is a version of “The Amit“).

Anyways back to the post,  couple of days ago, as I was spending time in morning, my iPhone started to buzz away. It wasn’t very surprising, since getting a message in morning isn’t something out of the ordinary. Opened the message only to see it was a blank SMS from an unknown number. Ignored it at first, but then the buzzing went on continuously. In a matter of few minutes my inbox looked like this:

I got a breather for few minutes, and then it started AGAIN. Much worse than first, “wave” if you will. The way I was getting, I was wondering if it was some sort of mass-SoSS (Sending of Spam SMS, my term, just move on). In an hour, I got nearly 100 blank messages. 100. ONE HUNDRED. Think about! One frikking hundred messages.

What’s worse is that because of the way iPhone works, soon as you get an SMS, there’s a popup on the screen showing (x) new SMS. And you can’t make it go away. Not by pressing Home button, lock, unlock yadda, yadda, yadda – nothing. Only way to make it go away is by tapping the “close” button ( yeah – think about tapping “Close”x100 times). I was frantically trying to switch off the sound and vibration, so that it becomes less irritating and doesn’t resemble a giant sex toy vibrator. Meanwhile I was thinking of an blacklist application, so that this frikkin’ madness can  stop and I distinctly remember reading about iBlacklist on Cydia. Immediately launched Cydia so that I could install it. Now since I was accessing it via EDGE, I loath having to open Cydia because it has to undergo an entire refresh repository cycle. Given that these SMS were coming in thick and fast, the data connection would timeout and Cydia would crash

Finally, I was able to connect to Cydia and install iBlacklist. Next step was to figure out, who this bugger was. Suksy pointed me to a site where I could get details on approximate location, based on the number (thanks dude – much appreciated!) & figured that this bugger is a Chennai guy and has a Vodafone connection. Next up called Airtel and spoke to them about my predicament. Airtel customer care mentioned that since it was a Vodafone number they couldn’t do much, but they informed me to call up Vodafone customer care or the Cyber Crime cell. I tried to  give Vodafone Vodafail customer care number but all I got was a “Number is too busy”. ENTIRE FREAKING DAY. Ever heard of Customer Care numbers being busy whole day ? Yeah.

I posted on Chip forums if anyone had Vodafone number, Giri informed me that he was near a Vodafone centre and asked me to send the number over to him. Ashwin also asked me to send over the number to him, and I did so.Giri replied couple of hours later informing me that Vodafone Vodafail is helpless and could not do anything ( HUH?? MORONS!). Anyhow at this time iBlacklist was taking care of the SMS and I got involved in work. Next day, I got a call from the same number (I’d setup the blacklist for SMS, not calls), the guy seemed frantic and kept saying he got the phone just yesterday, he has no idea how this happened, said he won’t do it again. (heh). He also mentioned something about getting calls from Bangalore and asking not to get his number barred (heh, Ashwin at work). Anyhow I said OK, OK in my broken Tamil never got a call or SMS from him. I did examine the blacklist history, and seems that there was close to 170 SMS that I received from him. With Rs. 0.25 charged per message, I can only feel sorry for the unwanted expenditure of the guy. Oh well.

On the brightside, I’ve noticed that iBlacklist is an awesome app. Will post more on it soon.

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I get quite a lot of mails asking about Airtel’s GPRS services and their settings, so I thought I’ll post this here.

First things, you should know that Airtel provides 3 types of GPRS services:

• Airtel Live
• Airtel NOP (or Net On Phone)
• Airtel Mobile Office

So what’s the differences between them ?

1. Airtel Live – Airtel Live is the so-called “free” GPRS service. Free in the sense that there are no monthly rentals. You get access ONLY to their Airtel Live portal, where you can download some wallpapers, games, ringtones etc. Note that EXCEPT when explicitly mentioned, these downloads ARE NOT free, and will be charged. Majority of the time, Airtel Live will be activated free of cost, and people start exploring and downloading these games and then wonder why their balance has gone low. Now you know why. There have been instances (has happened to my sister) where just opening Airtel Live Portal has resulted in dwindling of balance/credit.
2. Airtel Net-on-Phone (or NOP) – This is my preferred way of GPRS. You have to pay a rental of Rs.5 a day for pre-paid, or RS 99 a month for post paid. There are NO charges for browsing, downloading(provided you download games, ringtones from free sites like getjar) and the speed- its reasonably okay. What makes NOP a killer is that its reasonably priced, and you get access to ALL sites. There’re couple of downsides though, such as blocking of ports – essentially this means that only Port 80 is open(so that your web browser can communicate), and most other ports are blocked – so you cannot make use of your phone’s Email client, Instant messenger etc. Other bad part is that you cannot use your Phone as a modem on this plan. Also I’ve been told that for some circles like Maharashtra, Goa, NOP has been discontinued. I hope they don’t discontinue it in Chennai circle. It’ll be huge loss for me!
3. Airtel Mobile Office: The big daddy of GPRS services – Mobile is same as that of Net on Phone, except that it’s charged at Rs 15/day for pre-paid users. Postpaid users – I think its like Rs 650 a month for 1GB of usage – there’s no Unlimited plan(a huge deal breaker for me). UNLIKE the Net-on-Phone plan, all of the ports are open – so you’re free to use an application of your choice, and they’ll work fine. This plan also allows you to use your phone as a modem, for those emergency-need-to-get-online-ASAP situations.

With a little introduction, lets have a look at configuration and settings.

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First, this assumes that you’ve already activated GPRS. If not, call up customer care(dial 121 from your cellphone) and ask them to activate GPRS. It should be activated within 5 minutes, and you should get the settings soon.

However for some phones the settings might not be accepted, you’ll have to enter them manually.

So in your phone, just search for a settings -> Internet/Data accounts -> Create a new account.

Enter the following details:

Name: Just give a name of your choice

Address or access point: This is a critical one. The 3 services have different access points.

• For Airtel Live: airtelfun.com
• For Airtel Net-On-Phone(NOP): airtelwap.com
• For Airtel Mobile Office: airtelgprs.com

Username: Leave it blank

Password: Leave it blank

Next search for Proxy server option, and enter the following details

Proxy server address/IP: 100.1.200.99

Proxy server Port: 8080

Do note that Proxy details are require ONLY FOR Airtel Live and Airtel NOP, Mobile Office doesn’t require any proxies.

That’s it! Save the settings, restart your phone(this is a must) and start surfing!

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Previously I’d posted about Digia @web – a fully, finger touch operated WebKit-based browser for UIQ3 phones like the Sony Ericsson P1i would be available for download soon in this month. All About Symbian has confirmed that the beta version is now available for download.

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To download, head over to Digia’s Support Forum and register. Once your account is activated(which might take couple of days, as a queue system is in place) you will receive a link to download it.

Once I get my download link, I will take the browser for a spin and see how it compares to Opera Mini 4.1 and Opera 8.5

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Digia have announced, Digia @Web, which is a new, fully finger touch controllable, web browser for UIQ phones. Designed for UIQ 3 and Symbian OS the @Web,  claims to provide the best mobile browsing experience, for Symbian UIQ based devices.  @Web is based on the open-source webkit browsing engine ported to UIQ by Digia.

Some of the features include

• Full finger touch UI
• Page control with finger
• Four zoom levels
• Intelligent Bookmark functionality
• URL auto-complete (from history)
• Automatic full screen browsing via auto-hiding Address bar and Navigation bar
• Page rotation for portrait and landscape browsing

Browser Engine features

• HTML 4.01
• True web page rendering
• JavaScript(tm) 1.5
• HTTP 1.1 with support to secure and non-secure browsing
• HTTP cache
• HTTP cookies
• AJAX support

@Web beta version download is supposed to be available on their website during this month, but as of now, they haven’t put it yet. Will update with the link once they do.

As for device compatibility, all touch enabled UIQ 3 devices such as the Sony Ericsson M600, P990, P1i, G700, G900, W950, W960i,  are supported.

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Since I’ve gotten my Dell Inspiron 1520 & a Sony Ericsson P1i, it’s been a mess of wires everywhere in my room – the data cable, different set of earphones for my laptop and the P1i – bsaically wires, wires everywhere and all messy, tangled up. I got really frustrated by this and started searching for an alternative. SInce BOTH my laptop and P1i supports Bluetooth and A2DP I thought why not get a Bluetooth headset? After scoping the net for a bit, I was rather confused as to which one to go for. I had a talk over IM with Suri, a good friend of mine from tech2.0 forums and he suggested me a Sony Ericsson HBH DS-970. After going through few reviews of it, decided to purchase it. Ordered it via Times shopping on Monday, and voila! 3 days later it’s here!

Here are some pics:

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As from the pic, it looks like a pendrive! Few of my colleagues asked me – How much capacity pen drive is it? Heh! Well I’ll review it soon, once I’ve used it for couple of days.

Wireless Freedom, here I come! And oh yeah, before I forget, it cost me Rs 3900, shipping was free.

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3. Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 Impressions

Ever since I’d seen a preview Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 at GSMArena, I’ve been floored by that awesome device. The good folks at WMExperts have managed to get a unit of Xperia X1, and take it for a spin. Lets see what they have to say about the X1. WMExperts also had a chat with Martin Winlet, the Director of Global Marketing for Sony Ericsson and he also answered some questions people had put to him. Here are some excerpts from their article

Hardware

WMExperts say that the X1 has a “curved slide” that angles the screen up, banana-style, when you slide out the keyboard. The hinge feels very sturdy without being difficult to use (go hinge nerds!), and overall the brushed metal to be found throughout the device is just beautiful. There are also no floppy rubber doors over ports or the MicroSD card slot to ruin the feel of the device. That feel, in case I haven’t made it clear yet, is great.

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The physical keyboard is pretty good, though perhaps not quite up to HTC’s standard on the Mogul or the Tilt. There is more horizontal separation between keys, which helps reduce incorrect key presses. That’s great if you’re a fan of two-handed use, but it basically guarantees that if you want to use this one-handed, you’ll use it with the slider closed.

The main buttons have this “X” theme to them, 4 laid out on either side of the way in an inverted diamond shape. The screen. Good god, the screen is really beautiful. Flush, bright, and very high resolution.

So yes, the hardware delivers. The software is Windows Mobile 6.1, so there’s not much to say there (we’ll get to these “Panels” in just a minute). If you like horizontal sliders, you will covet this device. If you don’t like them, you might well covet it anyway.

Under the Hood

Here are the specs, in case you’re wondering:

• HSDPA/HSUPA (Quad Band, too)
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• aGPS
• 3.2 Megapixel Camera
• 110 x 53 x 16.7 mm
• 145 grams
• 1500 mAH Battery
• Qualcomm’s MSM7200A CPU, 528Mhz (confirmed)
• 800×480 resolution Touchscreen (flush)
• MicroSD for expansion
• MiniUSB for data and chargin
• 3.5mm headset jack for music

They are, in short, nothing less than top of the line.

According to the folks at Sony Ericsson, the battery life is supposed to be stupendous (think over 6 hours of talk time or browsing time), though of course that’s not finalized yet. As far as Windows Mobile’s performance goes, it’s as snappy as I’ve seen. Screen switching isn’t instantaneous, but it is a sight faster than on the Tilt. That’s likely because the X1 does utilize quite a bit of hardware acceleration, according to Winkler they are taking full advantage of the necessary drivers to do hardware acceleration.

Excepting the new panels interface (seriously, more on that below), the built-in software looks pretty standard. Of course, it’s not finalized, but I don’t expect that Sony has any plans to include Opera as the default browser.
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The Panels

Winkler (who we interviewed about the X1) spent quite a bit of time talking to us and answering our questions about the infamous panels. Some examples of panels they showed me:

1. A Google search page
2. A clock that showed time, appointments, weather (they said they were thinking of adding GPS coordinates)
3. A “mini aquarium” where you could feed the fish and pester them. Even better – the different fish reflected the state of the phone. One fish changed colors if you had voicemail, another if you had email, and yet another told you whether or not the phone was on silent or vibrate or LOUD or whatnot. This panel was super fun.

As far as developing panels, Winkler said that it’s relatively easy though not identical to developing a Windows Mobile app. Programmers can use stuff as simple as XML (to make a web-like panel) to C++.

Ok ok. Panels are neat. What we didn’t know though, was this: What the hell are they? Do they sit on top of Windows Mobile? Is it a completely new OS? What?

Panels are Today Screen Replacements. That’s it. You choose a panel and it replaces your today screen. That’s why SE said that “one of the panels is Windows Mobile.” What they meant was one of the “panels” is just the default WinMo today screen. The rest of them replace it.

On Sony Getting Into the Windows Mobile Game

A couple of details that I learned from talking to various people at the Sony Ericsson booth that might be of interest:

They took care to emphasize that HTC didn’t have a large hand in developing the hardware. “We designed it, HTC is just the ODM” was a phrase I heard twice. SE is (rightfully) very proud of this hardware and though they’re utilizing HTC to do the manufacturing, they really want to make sure that they get the credit.

Answers to your Questions

Some of the questions asked, and the answers:

From surur:

Is flash lite pre-installed – can you ask them to go to YouTube and play a vid?

Flash lite will be pre-installed, but the unit I used wasn’t connected to the net so I couldn’t test YouTube.

Would they consider shipping with Opera Mobile instead of PIE.

They will consider it, but don’t expect it. Software not finalized yet.

Main question – when is it shipping and to which countries.

They can’t and won’t say. Ditto price.

From Palm_forlackofchoice

will it ever see CDMA?

They’re not going to rule it out, but signs point to no.

How smoothly does that arc slider move back and forth?

Like butter.

Did you get to watch any videos on it? I read that it’s supposed to have DVD quality video. Thanks!

Sadly, no. However the high resolution and graphical acceleration gives me hope.

From Snowman

My main thing is how much do they think its going to cost (full retail price).

They ain’t saying.

Read up on the entire article with a dedicated gallery over at WMExperts

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1. How-to: Change the themes and icons of Sony Ericsson P1i
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Back in 1997, when I was in 7th standard, and an adolescent, I was a huge fan of Duke Nukem 3D – for its AWESOME graphics, the attitude, and of course the sex and the violence . Back in those days, I used to play it on my old computer – an Intel Pentium 100MHz, with 16MB RAM, an 8X Creative CDROM drive and a Creative SoundBlaster 16 soundcard and had a blast with its 320.x240 “high-res” graphics!
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Coming to the post, while on twitter, somehow the topic of Duke Nukem came, and Vimal George pointed me to the The Internet Tablet Talk forums, where a member has actually ported Duke Nukem 3D to the Nokia N800/N810 Internet Tablet. You can find the complete instructions over at the forums. It’s just amazing as to how far technology has progressed that allows you to play what we used to play on a bulky desktop onto a sleek handheld!

For more such games, do check out the N800 blog and Arnim’s Ports for Nokia

Cheers

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