Advanced Dynamic Ramblings

…and it was in my pocket. RedEye for iPhone is a new product that combines a free iPhone app with a Physical IR transmitter that allows you to control just about anything that came with a remote. The app connects from your iPod Touch or iPhone to the RedEye IR transmitter via Wifi and immediately sends commands to your equipment, including TVs, DVRs, stereo systems, etc… It appears to be quite nice to use, and the potential for this product is huge.

I’ve been mulling over universal remotes for a long time now, and have never found one that really excited me. Until now. The economy of using a touch screen device that you already own to replace cluttered remote controls is stunning. Check out some of the videos:

iTunes 9 was released by Apple today http://www.apple.com/itunes/whats-new/ and it contains a mush requested feature. With iTunes 9, you can now add, remove, and arrange all the icons on your iPhone right from your computer screen. It’s very slick, and it motivated me to get all my icons organized.

Another new feature is called Genius Mix, which apparently creates genius playlist automatically from up to 12 groups of music in your library. Initially I did not see how to access this, but found that if you go to the “Store” menu and choose “Update Genius” the mix icon will pop in below the standard genius icon.

iTunes Genius Mix feature

For some time now I’ve experienced oddities with the call waiting beeps on the iPhone. When I first noticed it, it was on a call between myself (iPhone 1st Gen) and a friend (iPhone 1st Gen). I could hear the call waiting tones when he had a second call coming in, and he could hear my call waiting beeps when I had a call coming in. It was kind of a nuisance, but I never tried to troubleshoot it.

Now that I’ve upgraded to the 3GS, the problem is much worse. So bad that frequently, the party I’m talking to thinks that it’s their own call waiting beep, but then they see that no call is coming in. It’s not a huge problem, but I decided to try to fix it.

I called Apple and spoke to a level 2 Product Specialist. She was both amazed by the problem and very interested. She got ATT tier 2 on the call and I demonstrated the problem to them repeatedly by calling my iPhone from my work phone. Conveniently, it’s one of the easiest problems to demonstrate to a tech over the phone. The ATT tech did a bunch of stuff to my account, but had no impact. They could still hear loud and clear whenever I had an incoming call.

After we let ATT go from the call, we wised up and I popped my SIM into a 3G phone made by LG. Voila. Problem gone. This confirmed that the problem was indeed local to the iPhone and not network based. Next we tried with the iphone sans wired headset. Problem gone. Just like the LG. Next I tried Bluetooth. Worked perfect. We both agreed that it must be the wired headset. I set a Genius Bar appointment and hung up.

Before I left for the store, I realized that I had a brand new wired Apple headset that I had never used. I plugged those in and to my amazement, the problem was back! At this point, it seemed that the iPhone itself was at fault, and was causing the problem by the way that it handled ANY wired headset.

At the Apple Store, they were also amazed and claimed to have never seen this problem before. This led me to believe that I just may have a defective phone. They pulled a brand new 32GB 3GS off the shelf and swapped it out with no hesitation. I didn’t bother testing at the store, because if this didn’t fix it, there could be no resolution without involving engineering.

I must say, however, I was a little surprised when I made a test call on the drive home and the problem was not resolved. Exactly the same problem. It’s interesting to me that no one is complaining about this, considering I just went through two pairs of Apple wired headsets, and two iPhones with no change in the problem. It must be happening to nearly everyone with a 32GB 3GS, and possibly more.

The circumstances are:

Using an Apple wired headset on an iPhone 3GS

Active call with party A

Incoming call from party B

Party A hears the beep from the incoming call loud and clear

One entertaining side affect is that I got to try the “Remote Wipe” function of the new iPhone OS 3.0. I used it on the outgoing 3GS and it took about 5 seconds, after which, the screen went black and it rebooted, then asked to be activated.

It may only be a 3 megapixel, but the focus control really hits it outta the park. Make sure to click the image, and then click again to enlarge it (if your browser resizes images to fit the screen)…

While ATT has given iPhone users free access to Wifi at most Starbucks (and 4,000 other locations), it’s always been a slightly cumbersome process. With the new iPhone OS 3.0, that is no longer the case.

Carry your iPhone w/ OS 3.0 into an ATT Wifi hotspot and it will automatically authenticate, not requiring the iPhone user to take any action to connect to the Wifi hotspot. This is very nice, and serves both the customer and ATT…

Since it’s almost unavoidable to use the hotspot when in range, ATT is effectively offloading some percentage of their data traffic from the 3G network to the local broadband provider. Yay!

SO MANY ANNOUNCEMENTS, I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN!

All new laptops, SD card slots on 13 and 15 inch models. FireWire back on 13 inch model. All aluminum models are now called MacBook Pro.

iPhone OS 3.0 with a TRUCKLOAD of new features…

“Find my Phone” lets you locate your iPhone from your MobileMe account. Tethering lets you connect your laptop to the internet through your iPhone (When ATT gets their act together)

Snow Leopard!!! It will only cost $29 for Leopard users. Built in Exchange support! Fast!

iPhone 3GS announced! Much faster, 7.2 Mb HSPA, built in compass, video recording, MMS (When ATT gets their act together), longer battery life, voice control, SpotLight search for iPhone…

For a play by play review of the event, see gdgt

I’ve worked with Qwest many times, and have generally been pleased with their support. This most recent debacle, however, had my blood boiling.

Set up:

One of my clients was unable to send or receive emails on Friday, just before Memorial Day weekend. He called his email provider, Qwest, before he called me, and during the call, the Qwest rep decided that the appropriate solution was to completely remove his account from Qwest.net and set up a new MSN account at q.com. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough information to put the brakes on this “solution”. Don’t even ask me how MSN relates to q.com… It’s beyond me, I don’t care to peel back the layers to figure it out, and I shall remain intentionally ignorant on this topic.

With the Qwest.net account deleted, and a new q.com account in it’s place, all incoming emails to the qwest.net addresses were bouncing back to their sender.

Tue after Memorial Day Weekend:

I send an email to said client (unaware of the specific problem) and it bounces immediately. I realize that the problem is with Qwest, and not a particular setting in his email program. I call Qwest and begin the process of trying to reactivate the Qwest.net account that died on Friday. After 3 seperate calls totalling approximately 3 hours, Qwest is unable to achieve this trivial task. We shift gears and set up free Gmail accounts. My client says that he can manage updating all of his contacts with his new email address. Later that day however, he realizes that one of the qwest.net email addresses was used for making upcoming travel arrangements. Many emails had been sent out, and there was pretty much no way to reach out and reliably update all those contacts with the new Gmail address. I agree to do battle with Qwest.

This is the recording of that call:

I’ve edited out the hold times, but it’s still quite long…

Audio of call

Apple gained traction early on with the iPhone utilizing ATT’s distribution network and brand awareness in the carrier vertical. I argued that Apple’s retail network was plenty to get the iPhone moving, but obviously Apple didn’t think so. As a result, the iPhone that everyone knows, is one that ATT has signed off on, one that ATT has subsidized, and one that doesn’t do ANYTHING on the cell network that ATT doesn’t approve of.

The fact that Skype for iPhone only works on Wifi is no accident. It’s also not an engineering problem. It is simply NOT in the interest of ATTs current revenue model, as Skype over an unlimited data connection would net the user unlimited calls for $35/month.

With the market penetration for the iPhone where it is, I don’t think that the iPhone can really benefit any more from carrier (ATT) availability. Of course, the downside, is that Apple would need to price the iPhone so as to generate appropriate (Apple) margins, as there would be no subsidy.

The upside would be an explosion of potential functionality for the iPhone, as Apple would not be constantly seeking ATTs approval for every feature. Apple would be free to build the phone that they want to build, but also responsible for creating a value proposition for the customer.

ATT should focus on infrastructure, which is their core business. Apple can focus on hardware. The same goes for any other handset manufacturer out there, but the iPhone has an advantage now, with two years of rapid, subsidized growth under it’s belt. If ATT wants to sell a locked, subsidized version of the iPhone (probably with custom firmware), then they can work that out with Apple and see how well it sells.

I dream…

A settlement was reached in California over a lawsuit alleging that iPod nanos are too easily scratched. The result is a $22.5M fund for distribution to certain iPod nano owners.

Here’s the deets: http://www.ipodnanosettlement.com/index.html

Apple’s page for identifying iPod models: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353#ipodnano

Apple today released details about the next iPhone OS version… There’s a whole lot of good stuff, and I think it’s safe to say that almost every major deficiency is being addressed with this update:

Via Engadget:

App and developer functionality (more here)

• Peer-to-peer connectivity over Bluetooth for gaming and other info-swapping.
• Paid apps will have the potential to be subscription fee-based, and can include optional paid content that can be bought from right inside the app.
• Developers can now build apps that call out to Google Maps, and can also finally bring Apple-blessed turn-by-turn to the phone.
• Devs can also connect with hardware accessories over in their apps now, such as a blood pressure monitor — or perhaps a keyboard? Connectivity works through the dock connector or over Bluetooth.
• Long-promised push functionality will at last be included, but apps won’t run in the background.
• Developers can add streaming video and audio to their apps, along with in-game voice use.

General functionality

• Cut, copy and paste. At last! You can shake the phone to undo and redo the action, and it works with both text and photos, allowing Mail to send multiple photos at a time. (more here)
• MMS, along with forward and delete for multiple messages. (more here)
• A2DP stereo Bluetooth.
• Unlocked Bluetooth functionality on 2G iPod touch. (more here)
• Spotlight has been added to a new home screen page to the left of existing pages, allowing for universal search on the phone. (morehere)
• Tethering is built into 3.0, and Apple will work with carriers on that — who will have the last say on its implementation, most likely.
• App Store will be available in 77 countries.
• Parental controls for TV shows, movies and App Store apps.
• Auto-login for WiFi hotspots.

Apple apps

• A new app called Voice Memos which lets you record notes and reminders.
• A revised Stocks app, with news stories and a landscape view.
• Landscape view available for Mail, Text and Notes.
• CalDAV support has been added to Calendar, along with subscriptions support in the .ics format.
• Apple’s major apps have all been expanded with search functionality.
• Note syncing to Mac and PC.
• YouTube account support.
• Form auto-fill.
• Phishing protection.
• Shake the shuffle iPod playback.

Check back for more updates on the iPhone 3.0 OS!!!