Apple iPhone School

Jailbreak iPad 1 on iOS 5.0.1 with redsn0w

Douglas — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:11:08 +0000

For this jailbreak I will be using redsn0w for the Mac to jailbreak a first generation iPad running iOS 5.0.1. Most steps are the same on a PC and for other devices such as iPhone3GS, iPhone4, iPhone4-CDMA, iPod touch 3G, & iPod touch 4G. NOTE: iPhone 4S and iPad 2 are not supported at this time.

First you should make sure you are upgraded to firmware iOS 5.0.1. Just go to your Settings app, then General, then Software Update.

Next, sync & back up your device with your computer or iCloud. Now you can download the program redsn0w to your computer. The download links can be found here: blog.iphone-dev.org Once downloaded you’ll need to unzip the file and move the app to your applications folder. Run redsn0w to begin the jailbreak!

You’ll need to turn off your device and be ready to put it into DFU mode. Follow the instructions in the app on how to do that.

On the next screen you will need to make sure “Install Cydia” is checked and click next. Don’t worry about “Enable Multitasking Gestures” because that is part of the new iOS firmware 5.0.1. Now just click next and wait for the software to do the rest. You will see a few crazy screen shown below but soon your device will reboot and you will have a new application called Cydia where you can install all kinda of hacks and mods no available in the Apple App Store.

Note: A few parts of the process may seem like you device freezes up but things like “Moving Applications” and other steps just take a while. Be patient!

Firmware Update 5.0.1

Douglas — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:37:43 +0000

Apple recently released an update to the 5.0 software. The first issue they tried to address is battery life. I was defiantly having this issue on my iPhone 4S (AT&T) as my battery would be drained by about noon every day. I am a heavy user but my iPhone 4 always made it all day on one charge. This recent update did help and now I’m up to about 5:00pm each day. Apple has stated they are still working on more battery issues.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The next issue Apple addressed was adding multitasking gestures to the iPad 1. There is a hack in Cydia for this but now it’s not needed. You can just turn in on in your Settings app. Here’s a quick video of how these work:

Next is documents in iCloud were not syncing back to devices correctly and were even getting completely wiped out. Not kewl! I lost a lot of mine but between email and my iTunes backup, I restored them. Here’s an article explaining how I restored them. I don’t have a way to test this now so let us know if this helped you out.

Last, voice recognition has been improved for Australian users. Again, I don’t have a way to test this but if you feel this has or has not been improved, please share in the comments.

iOS 5.0.1 Software Update

This update contains improvements and other bug fixes including:

• Fixes bugs affecting battery life
• Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
• Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
• Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

Products compatible with this software update:

• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Newsstand

Douglas — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:00:16 +0000

Apple came out with a new way to organize your newspapers and magazines a lot like how iBooks works. The app is called Newsstand and organizing everything into one place. Instead of having different apps for each they are all on a bookshelf within the app. New subscriptions also automatically download in the background. The App Store has also been reorganized so searching and buying newspapers and magazines are much easier. A couple nice features are magazine covers update to the newest actual cover and the newsstand app shows a badge number to alert you of new subscriptions. Newsstand is part of Apple’s new iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Learn more from Apple at apple.com/ios/features.html#newsstand

iMessage

Douglas — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:05:10 +0000

Another new feature of iOS 5 is called iMessage. It’s like texting but you can only message to others with the iMessage app. Currently only the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch run the iMessage service. It’s great because it’s a part of the current Messages or Texting app. For iPads and iPod touches, you’ll get a new app that wasn’t there before. For iPhones, It’s part of the same app used before for texting but won’t cost as a text through your carrier if both parties have iMessage. This will not work for regular phone numbers.

When using an iPhone, you can tell if you’re sending a text message or an iMessage based on what is displayed in the typing field before you type something. Here’s an example:

With iMessage, you can also see that the message has been delivered. See the previous screenshot again. You’ll see the word “delivered” under the message. You can also tell what type of message is being sent because the bubbles will be green for text and blue for iMessage and you can see when the other person is typing when a … appears.

A final tip to help you get it set up best: Go to you settings app, then Messages and scroll down to “Receive At” and make sure your email you want to use is listed. I had the word error next to my phone number and had to turn iMessage on and off again in the settings to get it to work again.

Restoring iWork Files Lost When Switching to iCloud

Douglas — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:49:39 +0000

With the new option to sync my devices to iCloud instead of my computer, it sounded like a great idea. The problem was, after a couple days of being synced to the “cloud”, all my files in Keynote, Pages & Numbers disappeared on all my devices. I have my iPad, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S all syncing and it was awesome to watch my files push in to my devices and cross sync between them the first time. When I opened Pages a few days later and all the files vanished. I was not happy. I have a couple major documents on there and I was trying to remember where I might have backed them up. I know I had emailed myself some files just incase something happened but I was having trouble finding them in my email and I know it wasn’t all my files from all devices from all three apps.

Then I remembered that I had backed up to my computer before upgrading. Could I somehow extract the backup into uncompressed data and see my files? Yes! You can! I even found a free app to help with the process. (Note: It does not work if you use encryption to protect your files.)

Here are the steps I took to restore my files:

1. Download the app called iPhone/iPod Touch Backup Extractor found at supercrazyawesome.com.

2. Run the app and click “Read Backups”.

3. Select the backup you want to restore files from and click choose.

4. Find the app you are trying to extract files from. This will work for any app but we’re looking for Pages, Numbers or Keynote. They’ll look like com.apple.Numbers. Highlight it and click Extract.

5. Find that extracted file using Finder. Right click on it and select “Show Package Contents”. This will show you the folders inside the file. Find the Documents folder and your files should be in there!

6. Now we need to send the files back to the cloud. Log into icloud.com and select iWork. Then, in the top right corner click the little gear and select “Upload Document”. Now just pick your files and upload them and they will push to all your devices logged into that iCloud account!

Let me know if this worked for you or if you have another tip on how to restore your lost iCloud files.

Notification Center

Douglas — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:56:37 +0000

There are MANY people who are interested in the new iOS 5 firmware for their iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. Also, many have made the switch to the iPhone since the new iPhone 4S. I get questions every day about the new features so I thought I would write about them here. First on the list of over 200 is the new Notification Center. Before iOS 5, when you reveived a text, facebook notification or alert from an app, it would look like this:

This was very annoying when in the middle of typing, playing a game, remotely controlling a keynote or taking a picture. Also, if you got a second notification, you lost the first. There was no way to go back and see a list of recent notifications. Now, with the new Notification Center, you can get notifications in your status bar. This is much less distracting. You can tap on the notification to open it or just let it go away. If you want to see all notifications just swipe down from the top of your screen. Here you can see all notifications from all apps and clear away ones you’re done with. There’s also a couple widgets showing current weather and stocks. The order and way you receive these notifications can be edited in your Settings App.

Another great feature dealing with the Notification Center is notifications on your lockscreen. You can now see them on your lockscreen and even swipe the icon of the app to open right to that app and notification.

Thank you Apple for finally adding this feature. It was really annoying…

Learn more at Apple’s website at apple.com/ios/features.html#notification

What are the New Features of iPhone 4S?

Douglas — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:20:11 +0000

Many people are asking what are the new features of the iPhone 5 and why should I upgrade? Today we will find out! We will be posting new features of the iPhone 5, iOS 5 and any other new devices/features throughout the day.

New Cards app, Apple prints a card with photo of your choice, mails it anywhere in the works for $4.99 card.

iOS 5 will be released on October 12th. Will work on iPad 1 and iPhone 3GS.

Find my iPhone now includes your friends.

iPod nano gets small software feature updates.

16 New clock faces for iPod nano.

iPod touch lower price starting $199, White…

iPhone 4S, Same design, A5 chip, 2x faster, dual core…

iPhone 4s can now download at 14.4 Mbps HSDPA.

iPhone 4s is CDMA & GSM, 8MP Camera, 3264×2448, 1/3 faster camera.

Also, has face detection, 2.4 aperture, 1.1 second until first shot and .5 between each shot.

1080p video recording, video image stabilization, noise reduction,.

Responds to things like, stocks, restaurants, directions, reads you messages and respond, checks calendar, location based tasks, search.

iPhone 4S sizes will be 16GB($199), 32GB($299), & 64GB($399). 3GS will be 8GB for free. iPhone 4 will be 8GB $99.

DSLR Slate

Douglas — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:46:53 +0000

When recording some video this week I thought it would be helpful to have one of those things you see on movie sets that have the take number and movie info and they clap the top down to make a clicking sound at the beginning of a take. These things are called clappers or slates. I checked in the App Store and found a few to choose from. I chose this app for quality look of screenshots, high start rating and the ability to install both on an iPhone and iPad. The app is $9.99 and allows you to easily insert all kinds of info to be displayed on the slate. They include a lot of camera info like ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, Framerate, etc. More features allow you to enter information on the movie like location, Producer, Director, etc.

Once you’re date is entered, you just tap the OPEN SLATE button and you get this:

To enter the info, you get nice big fonts and color settings for better viewing options:

Apple Invites Press to October 4th iPhone Event

Douglas — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:12:31 +0000

Most likely, Apple will be announcing both the iPhone 5 and the new iOS firmware at their October 4th event. The invitation to the press is titled, “Let’s talk iPhone.” This leads me to believe there will be voice to text built into iOS 5. I’ve tested it out a little using the updated Target app. It seems to recognize what I say really well. It would be great to have it integrated into the software as an option when typing in all apps.

Must Have iPad Applications #1-5

Douglas — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:00:16 +0000

If you have recently bought a new iPad I have some “must have” apps you should start out with. Of course, some apps you may wonder why they are so “must have” and argue that you don’t need them. Ok, you just might not. This is my list and there may be more that you would suggest (please do so in the comments). This is the first 5 and I will post more in chunks of 5 in the future. For what it’s worth, here’s my list:

This is the app, next to Google, that will teach you pretty much anything. Wikipedia is very accurate and way more up to date than the Encyclopedia you have on your book shelf. There are things that may contain errors but it’s just as accurate as a traditional Encyclopedia. Here’s a article and links to studies on it. Anyway, I like it and it’s a great way to solve arguments or have ready to teach your kids when they have those repeating “Why?” moments. Price: Free

Simplenote. I love this app. Yes, it is simple. A lot like the stock notes app. What’s great about this app is it syncs between other iPads, iPhones, iPod touches and even a web browser app. Price: Free

Flipboard is one of the apps that if it were the only app on the iPad, it would still be worth having an iPad. This app gives you access to your RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and all kinds of news and websites. What’s great about it is the way it both displays the info and interacts with touchscreen technology. With this app, you can consume a lot of information fast and effortlessly. All of this and it’s free!

If you’re using the previously mentioned app, Wikipanion, to search for a actor, tv show or movie and just can’t get all the info you want, you need the IMDb app. IMDb stands for Internet Movie Database. The app connects you to their website with loads of info on TV shows, movies, actors, and a lot more. It’s free and it’s great to have while sitting on the couch when you’re trying to figure out an actor’s name or what other movies they’ve been in.

The best Twitter app is, of course, from Twitter themselves. Originally called Tweetie, Twitter bought them and hired their original developer. It’s a smooth flowing app and supports multiple accounts. The in app browser is full featured and again, this app is free!