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iPhone - Official Thread

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Terrell said:
It's always been like that, though. The thing people are cranky with (it seems) is that some apps are KILLING the iPod app, or giving you no control methods for your music while the app is in use. Which, as I said, is developers being lazy.

Perhaps developers are given the choice to kill the iPod app in order to use more memory?
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Well, depending on how it was delivered, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it really.


That is what I was thinking. If they just created a site with the iPhone in mind, Apple couldn't do much about it.
 
I have to wonder why Bank of America even friggin' bothered with an app. Their "app" is really just a frontend for their mobile banking web app. As soon as you get past the first nice-looking menu it's just as if you're surfing there on a flip phone.
 
kaching said:
How are 3G iphone owners experience with the 3G speeds so far? I finally had a chance to go into an AT&T store today to see if 3G might be worth the upgrade alone, but I was finding it wasn't much faster at loading web pages than my 2G iphone is. The 3G model indicated it was on a 3G network but, performance wise, you'd hardly know.

I get about 900kbps-1200kbps over 3G, according to speed tests. I believe EDGE maxes out at around 200-300?
 
Worm_Buffet said:
Perhaps developers are given the choice to kill the iPod app in order to use more memory?
Does a game like Spinblox seem like the kind of game that requires more RAM? Like I said, lazy developers. No sense in trying to chalk it up to being anything else.
 
nakedsushi said:
How are you guys all dealing with charging the phone? Do you wait till the battery is almost gone before charging it, or just plugging it in whenever?

Its good to 'exercise' the battery. Let the battery run down to empty or near empty at least once a month.
 
Terrell said:
Does a game like Spinblox seem like the kind of game that requires more RAM? Like I said, lazy developers. No sense in trying to chalk it up to being anything else.

Considering they are all still under an NDA and can't even talk to one another about the tips and tricks they can do for iPhone development, I wouldn't just chalk it all up to "lazy developers".

Apple needs to lift the NDA so they can all share their knowledge and insights. I'm sure we'll see better apps when that happens, and it'll build a sense of community amongst the developers as well.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Considering they are all still under an NDA and can't even talk to one another about the tips and tricks they can do for iPhone development, I wouldn't just chalk it all up to "lazy developers".

Apple needs to lift the NDA so they can all share their knowledge and insights. I'm sure we'll see better apps when that happens, and it'll build a sense of community amongst the developers as well.
How would lifting the NDA help in this circumstance? Do we really think that Apple wouldn't provide basic information with the SDK to developers about how to run iPod functionality in the background?! Do we REALLY think Apple is that stupid that they would deprive developers of a function that anyone who owns an iPhone would want?!
 
Was just thinking about getting my first iPod and couldn't help but notice that iPhones are now $100 cheaper than an iPod touch with the same amount of storage. What the hell? Could I just get one of these and use it as an iPod/web browser and not get a cell phone plan?
 
Morts said:
Was just thinking about getting my first iPod and couldn't help but notice that iPhones are now $100 cheaper than an iPod touch with the same amount of storage. What the hell? Could I just get one of these and use it as an iPod/web browser and not get a cell phone plan?

you need to sign a cell phone contract (usually 3 years), hence why it is cheaper.
 
MercuryLS said:
So after about an hour of fiddling, i've got an unlocked 2.0 iPhone (2G version). Fucking awesome :D

Nice. It took me a day and a half to unlock mine. I searched the web for an unlocking method, that took about a half an hour. It took me a day to figure out how to put the phone into DFU mode. Thanks to youtube (Which I totally forgot to check) it all worked out.
 
Terrell said:
How would lifting the NDA help in this circumstance? Do we really think that Apple wouldn't provide basic information with the SDK to developers about how to run iPod functionality in the background?! Do we REALLY think Apple is that stupid that they would deprive developers of a function that anyone who owns an iPhone would want?!

Hmm... all the iPhone developers screaming about not being able to share information means nothing of course and the fact that they're annoyed as hell that they can't talk about things amongst one another means nothing as well. I'm not saying that they can't figure out how to use iPod and their apps at the same time, but their ability to optimize and make cleaner, more efficient apps could be very compromised.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Hmm... all the iPhone developers screaming about not being able to share information means nothing of course and the fact that they're annoyed as hell that they can't talk about things amongst one another means nothing as well. I'm not saying that they can't figure out how to use iPod and their apps at the same time, but their ability to optimize and make cleaner, more efficient apps could be very compromised.
I'm not really sure what the NDA amounts to in practice, as far as limiting dev discussion. There's plenty of discussion on Apple's own developer forums which aren't in any way locked behind secure access login or the like. And there's plenty of sites offering various iPhone SDK tutorials.
 
kaching said:
I'm not really sure what the NDA amounts to in practice, as far as limiting dev discussion. There's plenty of discussion on Apple's own developer forums which aren't in any way locked behind secure access login or the like. And there's plenty of sites offering various iPhone SDK tutorials.

Hmm... so why have various blogs been reporting that the developers are a bit annoyed with Apple that the NDA hasn't been lifted yet. For example:

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/09/iphone-sdk-nda-still-in-effect/

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080728-iphone-nda-doing-more-harm-than-good.html

amongst others.
 
kaching said:
How are 3G iphone owners experience with the 3G speeds so far? I finally had a chance to go into an AT&T store today to see if 3G might be worth the upgrade alone, but I was finding it wasn't much faster at loading web pages than my 2G iphone is. The 3G model indicated it was on a 3G network but, performance wise, you'd hardly know.

3G has made the internet actually usable on the iPhone, before I was going to mobile pages and iPhone webapp pages and now I can go to any website I was in just a few seconds. I am VERY happy with the speed boost.
 
Chorazin said:
3G has made the internet actually usable on the iPhone, before I was going to mobile pages and iPhone webapp pages and now I can go to any website I was in just a few seconds. I am VERY happy with the speed boost.


Same here. I didn't have an iPhone before, but I have compared where I live (3G) and another town nearby when visiting a friend (Edge) and the difference is noticeable. Especially when doing something like trying to surf GAF.
 
Chorazin said:
3G has made the internet actually usable on the iPhone, before I was going to mobile pages and iPhone webapp pages and now I can go to any website I was in just a few seconds. I am VERY happy with the speed boost.

But it kills the battery a lot quicker :(

I'm hoping that the next revision has Edge-like battery life with 3G speeds.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Hmm... so why have various blogs been reporting that the developers are a bit annoyed with Apple that the NDA hasn't been lifted yet. For example:
I'm sure everyone would be happier if they didn't have to deal with an NDA at all. I'm just saying that there appears to be plenty who are ignoring it and even Apple doesn't seem to be doing much if anything to police it.

I'd be willing to bet that it's the blogs who are more bothered by it than the devs, just because it's easier to go after the blogs if they break the NDA than it is to go after an anonymous dev posting on a forum.

The thing that seems to have devs more legitimately annoyed right now is the approval process for getting their apps on the App Store.

Chorazin said:
3G has made the internet actually usable on the iPhone, before I was going to mobile pages and iPhone webapp pages and now I can go to any website I was in just a few seconds. I am VERY happy with the speed boost.
Thanks, I just wish I could have seen that for myself at a friggin' IN-STORE AT&T kiosk. You'd think a store in the heart of Philadelphia would at least be in a good 3G spot, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.
 
Terrell said:
I get that this is an exciting new platform and all, but that's no excuse to rush and dump garbage into the App Store for the prestige of being one of the first to have their stuff in the store. So many apps are outright missing features they should all have, not to mention other sloppy presentation/functionality issues. And then there's the problem that the App Store is geared towards ALL nations that the iPhone is available in, and almost none of the apps are multi-lingual (not even Monkey Ball, WTF SEGA!!) or feature support for their functions in other countries (none of the movie theater apps supported use in Canada and the feature is only coming in an update after the Canadian App Store rated the apps into oblivion and beyond.
Just like on desktop platforms, developers have no obligations to localise their applications. Why force them to when they might not even have the resources to do so. It's best to keep it that way. If one app is available in more languages than a competing app, then they may just be rewarded with more users. No point making it a requirement.

Targeting a specific market/area is fair game to me too. Not every country has the same services available. What annoys me though, is that these apps are available in countries where they're not supported. This makes sense if people might find the app useful if they're going to a particular country where it can be used, but the least the developers could do is explicitly state what countries/areas the app works in, rather than assume everyone lives in the US.
 
Iron_Scimitar said:
Its good to 'exercise' the battery. Let the battery run down to empty or near empty at least once a month.

no. that applies to nickel based battery tech.

The only reason to let li-ion batteries drain down is to recalibrate the battery life indicator.

Two things kill li-ion batteries like those in laptops and the iPhone, heat/temperature, and deep drain cycles.

I thought this was common knowledge at this point, clearly noted on my laptop manual. Li-ion batteries are designed to last longest with shallow cycles, as in if you could get 100 deep discharge cycles you could get thousands if the battery was never below 50%.

So to recap...charge every night, short drain cycles are good, and keep it out of a hot car (esp a fully charged one).

Battery University is a good place to start. Here is a link so you will know I am not full of shit...but this is well documented all over the place.

All kinds of good tips and info:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

The natural degradation of li-ion regardless of use is also why having non user replaceable batteries completely sucks.
 
Ptaaty said:
no. that applies to nickel based battery tech.

The only reason to let li-ion batteries drain down is to recalibrate the battery life indicator.

Two things kill li-ion batteries like those in laptops and the iPhone, heat/temperature, and deep drain cycles.

I thought this was common knowledge at this point, clearly noted on my laptop manual. Li-ion batteries are designed to last longest with shallow cycles, as in if you could get 100 deep discharge cycles you could get thousands if the battery was never below 50%.

So to recap...charge every night, short drain cycles are good, and keep it out of a hot car (esp a fully charged one).

Battery University is a good place to start. Here is a link so you will know I am not full of shit...but this is well documented all over the place.

All kinds of good tips and info:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

The natural degradation of li-ion regardless of use is also why having non user replaceable batteries completely sucks.


so why does apple's own site say to drain the battery once a month?

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

Use iPhone Regularly
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).[/quote]
 
suaveric said:
so why does apple's own site say to drain the battery once a month?

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

Use iPhone Regularly
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).[/quote]

To recalibrate the battery life indicator. This was in my post which you quoted. As I noted this is the only reason. This is also confirmed by the link I provided.

Basically I would never purposefully do this, as every so often you will end up sufficiently draining the battery to recal the indicator. Again, this is reducing the battery life, and only serves to increase the indicator accuracy.
 
itunes is a piece of shit. How do i backup my phone? I don't want to sync, i don't want all my music and shit to go on my phone, i want the opposite, i want to take whatever is on my phone (sms, music, call history, etc) and back them up on my pc. How do i do that?

Edit:
WHAT THE FUCK? I tried syncing from within itunes and i lost all my music! This is the ONLY pc i've ever synced my phone from before. wtf is this shit. Isn't there a better way to do this?
 
suaveric said:
Good to hear. Which one?

Also, is there an Apple or AT&T upgrade plan or do i have to go through the hassle of buying it and activating it seperatly. Can i back up all my data and throw it on a new phone through itunes?
 
Gamer @ Heart said:
Good to hear. Which one?

Also, is there an Apple or AT&T upgrade plan or do i have to go through the hassle of buying it and activating it seperatly. Can i back up all my data and throw it on a new phone through itunes?

i thought edge was 2G? its fallback is the edge network.
 
koam said:
itunes is a piece of shit. How do i backup my phone? I don't want to sync, i don't want all my music and shit to go on my phone, i want the opposite, i want to take whatever is on my phone (sms, music, call history, etc) and back them up on my pc. How do i do that?

Edit:
WHAT THE FUCK? I tried syncing from within itunes and i lost all my music! This is the ONLY pc i've ever synced my phone from before. wtf is this shit. Isn't there a better way to do this?

Yeah...you need to go and uncheck what you don't want to sync in iTunes.
 
suaveric said:
i thought edge was 2G? its fallback is the edge network.

Ah ok. I have always heard them mentioned independently, so i was confused.
Knowing this, i really want to upgrade, especially now that my battery drains incredibly fast meaning i would have to replace in amonth or two for 70 bucks anyway.

Could someone link me to a 3G coverage map?
 
koam said:
itunes is a piece of shit. How do i backup my phone? I don't want to sync, i don't want all my music and shit to go on my phone, i want the opposite, i want to take whatever is on my phone (sms, music, call history, etc) and back them up on my pc. How do i do that?

Edit:
WHAT THE FUCK? I tried syncing from within itunes and i lost all my music! This is the ONLY pc i've ever synced my phone from before. wtf is this shit. Isn't there a better way to do this?

Welcome to the 'iTunes synced my phone / touch and I lost all my music' club.
 
Terrell said:
Does a game like Spinblox seem like the kind of game that requires more RAM? Like I said, lazy developers. No sense in trying to chalk it up to being anything else.

You can't infer anything from one game looking bad while not allowing the iPod to run at the same time. Perhaps the developers of Spinblox do not need to disable the iPod functionality, maybe they do. Just because you can't justify that need by virtue of its visuals doesn't mean either way.

As I think I said, it's only speculation on my part. Maybe you need to disable the iPod just to allow your app to use audio? Are there any apps out there that run concurrently with the iPod and also play sound?

At any rate, it's not just "lazy devs". You realize that with the iPod being a native functionality of the OS, it would actually be more work to go out of your way to disable the iPod if it wasn't necessary?
 
koam said:
itunes is a piece of shit. How do i backup my phone? I don't want to sync, i don't want all my music and shit to go on my phone, i want the opposite, i want to take whatever is on my phone (sms, music, call history, etc) and back them up on my pc. How do i do that?

Edit:
WHAT THE FUCK? I tried syncing from within itunes and i lost all my music! This is the ONLY pc i've ever synced my phone from before. wtf is this shit. Isn't there a better way to do this?

Did...did you delete the music from your computer after it got sent to your iPhone?
 
koam said:
itunes is a piece of shit. How do i backup my phone? I don't want to sync, i don't want all my music and shit to go on my phone, i want the opposite, i want to take whatever is on my phone (sms, music, call history, etc) and back them up on my pc. How do i do that?

Edit:
WHAT THE FUCK? I tried syncing from within itunes and i lost all my music! This is the ONLY pc i've ever synced my phone from before. wtf is this shit. Isn't there a better way to do this?

You can't. Your iPhone is associated with a single iTunes library. Plug it into another machine and it will not back up music etc.

You can sync contacts/calendars/etc. across multiple machines by checking the desired content.

I use Mac iTunes at home, Windows iTunes at work, and never have any content syncing issues. You have to quit thinking of iTunes as complicated, and then it all starts making sense.
 
Worm_Buffet said:
You can't infer anything from one game looking bad while not allowing the iPod to run at the same time. Perhaps the developers of Spinblox do not need to disable the iPod functionality, maybe they do. Just because you can't justify that need by virtue of its visuals doesn't mean either way.

As I think I said, it's only speculation on my part. Maybe you need to disable the iPod just to allow your app to use audio? Are there any apps out there that run concurrently with the iPod and also play sound?

At any rate, it's not just "lazy devs". You realize that with the iPod being a native functionality of the OS, it would actually be more work to go out of your way to disable the iPod if it wasn't necessary?
I used Spinblox as an example, but there's a number of completely simple apps that are missing this feature, too, ones that don't even HAVE sound.
Once again, I use the not-so-high standard of Trism to back my claims. Trism runs its sound effects over-top of your playing audio tracks. It does everything an App Store app SHOULD do.
And yeah, I'm also aware that iPod functions are native to the OS, but that still requires code for proper function and integration while another app is running.

I'll state it again, a lot of these problems we're discussing are the developers' fault. Calling them "lazy" may have been a blanket statement, when it's obvious some of these developers were just in too much of a rush to push their app to the store that they thought "oh well, I'll just update it later" (which leaves no wonder to me that the update approval process is so bunged up) And if that's the case, no amount of information sharing is going to stop this problem. I love the App Store as much as the next guy, but I refuse to support developers and their "gotta get it posted, who cares that it's unpolished and missing features" ideals. I don't support it on any other platform, why should I support it on this one? It's not like OSX Mobile is somehow a more difficult platform than a PC or console.
 
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