Nope, my phone is not hacked.  I am just happy when it works.  My wife and I both have been having trouble with our POP mail accounts.  Really made me mad last night.  That’s another story.

To the update.  Apple released 1.1.1 today for the phone.  I’ll give you the things that I found that are neat or not neat. 

1. It updated fine.
2. Kinda scared me when it said “Activate iPhone” on the main screen upon completion.  Then, when iTunes was able to see it, it said “iPhone is Activated”.  I guess it phoned home to the mother ship.
3. iTunes Wi-Fi downloads are kinda nifty.  Good job.
4. Calculator icon did change…  Odd.
5. SETTINGS icons “seem” smaller.  I really think they are.
6. You can change sounds of Text messages between: None, Tri-tone, Chime, Glass, Horn, Bell and Electronic.  That’s new.
7. SETTINGS > SAFARI has a Developer option.  I never noticed that before.  It allows for a debug console when there are web page errors.
8. SETTINGS > IPOD has a Video section and TV Out section now.  I don’t remember Video.  The TV Out allows for Widescreen and the ability to adjust from NTSC to PAL.
9. They mucked with the REQUIRE PASSCODE time values AGAIN!  Now they have Immediately, 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h and 4h settings.  The are retarded.  That is all that I have to say about that.
10. SETTINGS > GENERAL > KEYBOARD allows the “.” Shortcut.  Cool.
11. New SETTINGS > GENERAL > HOME BUTTON selection allows double clicking the Home button to go to Phone Favorites or iPod.  It also allows you to show iPod controls when music is playing.  That is great!
12. New version is 1.1.1 (3A109a).  Ok.
13. New Modem Firmware is 04.01.13_G.  Ok.
14. New Model is MA712LL.  What the hell?  My MODEL NUMBER CHANGED???  It went from MA712 to MA712LL.  What the hell is “LL”?
15. The volume on the speakerphone is supposed to be louder.  When I play a song through it, it is WAAAAAY distorted.  I have been using BASS REDUCER setting on the EQ and it has worked well for that.  Now, even with it reduced, it sounds like poop.
16. Calendar has a neat new feature.  I was going through my calendar one day and there was a meeting at 09:00 the next day (was in DAY view).  The calendar was displaying from 11:00 - 18:00 so I did not see my 09:00 meeting.  Kinda sucked.  Now, the calendar auto-scrolls to the meetings.  That’s cool!

That’s about it so far.  I’ll have to play with it some more and give more updates.

–Tom

It kinda stinks that Apple is saying that they are going to break your iPhone if it is unlocked.  It doesn’t SOUND like they are going to break your phone if you have applications installed.  Only if you unlocked it from AT&T.  I don’t know this for sure, it is only what it sounds like.  I have not done any modifications myself.  I have to wish a “big good luck” to all on the upcoming update to the iPhone. 

I am hoping this update will fix / add things to my phone.   I am sick of waiting.  Enough new products!  Fix what is already there!

–Tom

I’m feeling a bit sad right now.  I had to log in to my car insurance website to do something and I didn’t know the user name or password.  I looked at my iPhone and tossed it to the side.  I then marched to the bedroom where I have the trusty Treo 650 still plugged in.  Just in case, you know?  I powered up it’s pitifully dim screen and it told me all of the events that I need to go to or take care of.  Never failed, always on time and got things done.  I then zipped right to the Memos application and found the password protected note that I left myself.  By now, I’m back in my office ready to enter the login information.  I read it from my Treo and felt sad.  This device (Treo) has served me many years.  I left it at home once while going to work and felt naked.  I could always rely on it.  I don’t feel that way with the iPhone.  It’s kinda iUseless…  Music is wonderful.  I even dig the headphones when most don’t.  But darn, c’mon, feed me features and useablility.  The audiobook that I mentioned earlier has revealed some rather cruddy traits of Mr. Jobs.   It seems that he is not the person to care about the customer, rather he cares about his image.  Boo.  Be careful, I still have my Treo-sans-service but I can jab you in the eye with the nubby antenna!

–Tom

Alright, I messed with the ringtones by doing the M4R file rename trick.  It worked great with the 7.4 iTunes.  No problems.  As you might have read earlier, I had problems with Outlook 2000.  I fixed that by syncing my iPhone with my computer at work.  This way, I get my work calendar and all is good since it is Office 2003.  That was all cool until my ringtones vanished.  I thought that the ability to sync my phone with Outlook outweighed having ringtones so I was not upset. I assigned one of my superbly-created ringtones to my wife’s phone number.  Well, since I lost the ringtones with the new computer sync, she no longer rings.  I changed all of the stupid settings on the phone to make her ring.  No luck!  She will only vibrate now!  That stinks.  When I get my new MacBook Pro soon, I will just restore my stupid iPhone and call it a day.  When this thing decides to goof up, it really messes up.

–Tom

Apple announced that O2 is the carrier in Britain. I hear constant complaints about the download speeds of EDGE. It is not that big of a deal. If you COULD download stuff with the iPhone, it might make a difference. If you could tether the iPhone, it might maake a difference. You can’t do either so there is no big deal. I even read an article that most forign countries are so used to 3G because they SMS approximately 80-90% of the time. Does 3G make you type faster?

–Tom

I have been somewhat patiently waiting for an update to my iPhone.  I would like a significant update pronto.  The iPod Touch is already selling and the wireless downloading is already included.  Where’s mine?  Is it really broken and they don’t feel comfortable updating the iPhone?  I would like some big changes that work and are documented.  Is that too much?

–Tom

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Apple secretly removed (well, now checks) support for Outlook 2000.  It was working and with iTunes 7.4, they DISABLED it.  I thought that it would delete my contacts (495 of them) and I was CORRECT!  My brother called a couple on that very day and complained that his contacts have dissappeared!  I asked if he was running Outlook 2000 and he said yes.  I asked if he saw a dialog box that prompted XXX changes on this computer during this sync.  He said yes.  But the difference is that he clicked the “OK” button on that dialog.  Poor guy.  He then RE-ENTERED his contacts and synced the next day.  The stupid thing deleted them again.  What the heck?  Apple just gave Redmond more business because we both have recently been FORCED to buy Office 2007! 

–Tom

I got my voucher from Apple today for $100.00 at the Apple Store or online.  We now need to do my wife’s phone and get another $100.00 voucher.  It is pretty painless.  Just enter the phone number and serial number and you get a text message back with a code.  You then enter the code on the website and you get a voucher.  That’s it.

–Tom

I started digging around the internet today and found a website that was really interesting.  People around the world have really been messing with the iPhone like mad.  It is refreshing AND disturbing.  Although disturbing, I really have been spending some time there.  Great job guys/gals.

–Tom

I am the guy that says “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”  That means that I am running an older copy of Microsoft Outlook (2000 I think) and am really still happy with it on my laptop.  The iPhone’s supported mail client list includes Outlook 2003 and 2007.  They aren’t really different on syncing and such over the years.  I have successfully been using Outlook 2000 since getting the iPhone.  No sweat.  Now, with the 7.4 release of iTunes, it no longer works.  When I connect my phone it alerts me that 495 contacts will change on my computer.  I have just been canceling it until I could really look at it.  I finally had time and decided to check the box that allows the computer to overwrite the iPhone.   I looked for it and it wasn’t there.  I noticed that it was telling me that there are no supported email clients on this machine!  Sheesh!  You could give an advanced warning!  What if I let it alter my contacts?  Would they be cleared?  Kinda stinks.  I have ordered Outlook 2007 and will go ahead and use it with that.  But the stinky part is that I have to wait for my MacBook Pro until I install it.  Have to be all on the up-and-up you know…  They could have warned me about the major change of finally CHECKING the version.  The also don’t need to modify it if they don’t support it.  Take an hour and type up a little text file with things that change.  That is all I ask. 

 –Tom