iPhone Acupuncture

I've always had extremely low volume from my iPhone's speaker. My roommate's iPhone, much louder than mine. My girlfriend's iPhone, much louder than mine. I've had speaker envy.

Today I read about a trick on Engadget that involved poking holes in the speaker housing with a needle. Sounds scary, but what the hell, can't get any worse, right?

Right. In fact, it worked great. My phone is significantly louder. I couldn't believe how much louder. The is by far the best mod I've ever seen.

iPhone Update for my Jail Broken iPhone

I have an iPhone running software version 1.1.1. It's jail broken and full of great applications. I'd like to update to 1.1.3, which was announced at MacWorld. Does anyone have instructions on how to roll back my jail break, update to 1.1.3 and then re- jail break?

Would be very helpful... Thanks.

Use Last.fm With The iPhone

Finally! I've figured out how to use Last.fm in conjunction with the iPhone. MobileScrobbler.

I wrote back in September about how disappointed I was that the Last.fm application didn't pick up songs played on my iPhone, like it does for the iPod. Well now, if you have a jailbroken iPhone, crank up Installer and download MobileScrobbler. Just sign into your Last.fm account, turn on Edge scrobbling and you're all set up.

High-give to you, MobileScrobbler!

Leopard Out Today

The much anticipated Mac OS X Leopard will be released to the public at 6pm EST today. Frankly, I can't wait. I've never been one of those line people, but I'm actually considering going up to the 5th Avenue store and checking it out.

Already getting some feedback on that idea via Twitter. I've got some time to kill this evening anyway...

Andrew Baisley Opening Up For Development

Facebook did it. Myspace and Apple (iPhone) are doing it. So, why shouldn't I do it? It's all the rage these days. And hey, it's better than being a hipster or a scene kid.

Andrew Baisley, the person, not the blog, is now open for development.

While I won't let any of you go near my application programming interface (API), I will start to consider how to go about publishing my personal software development kit (SDK). What port do you think Yahoo! Pipes would fit into? Oh, never mind.

Mac vs. PC on Web 2.0 Websites

Does anyone have market research on the percentage of viewers on Mac across Web 2.0 websites? The average number going around, for all sites, is about 5%. But this includes the sites that we all browse everyday at work. Look around you, even as a Mac user, your office is likely full of Windows boxes.

A friend at beYOU.tv explained this theory to me the other day. That the types of websites we visit at work and at home are fundamentally different and that the market share of Mac to PC in those locations is also fundamentally different.

Meaning, Web 2.0 sites, like video sharing sites, are likely to have a higher percentage of views from Mac users than, say, The New York Times website.

The graph above shows the percentages on this site for the previous month. Not that I'm implying this is a Web 2.0 site, but 26% is a hell of a lot higher than 5%.

Apple Humor

This is actually quite funny. Go to Apple's website and type "virus" in the search box. Check out the search suggestion it makes.

via tumbl.us via The Big Noob (they have some cool shirts, by the way)

Using Gmail on the iPhone

Using Gmail on the iPhone is a huge headache, especially if you receive a lot of email in your Gmail account. I was looking for a better way and found some great instructions on CatCubed for using Gmail through an IMAP server. Full instructions can be found on the CatCubed site, but here's a brief recap for my readers.

You'll need to start with three things:

1. An iPhone (...)
2. A Gmail account
3. An ISP or host that supports IMAP (I used 1and1, which hosts this page)

Steps:

1. Create an e-mail account on your ISP or host. You can give this account any name you want - it's not a publicly facing address. For example, mail@domain.com.
   
2. Set up a filter in Gmail to forward all mail to your mail@domain.com address, and auto-archive (skip the inbox)
3. Set up your iPhone to receive e-mail from the mail@domain.com IMAP server and send mail through smtp.gmail.com - your Gmail account will continue to be your outward facing e-mail address
4. Set up Mail (OS X) or the e-mail application of your choosing to do the same. This can be done in multiple locations. For example, I have Mail set up at home and Outlook set up at work.

What happens:

Gmail will continue to filter spam and store all messages, so there's a central archive, but when you delete an email in Outlook, Mail or on the iPhone, it's reflected in all places. IMAP servers store the status of the message on the server, POP stores it in the application that particular e-mail was downloaded to. This way, you don't need to archive messages in Gmail, on your iPhone and in any other application you may use to gather mail - everything is synced!

Again, more details can be found on the CatCubed site here.

Broken iPhone Screen

Well... that didn't take long. I picked up my phone this morning and the screen was almost entirely shattered. Don't know how it happened, but I'm in the Apple store now getting a replacement. They were great about it - even transfered my contacts over so I would have them before my next sync at home. The new one wasn't charged though, so now I'm just hanging out in the Apple store, waiting for a charge. Fun.

Interpol Tonight

I'll be seeing Interpol tonight at the garden, right up front in the pit. If we're Facebook friends, keep an eye out - I plan on posting live mobile pictures during the show. Well, assuming that I have signal and that it won't be too dark for the iPhone's crappy camera.

We'll see.

Giving In

I suppose I've been giving in a lot lately. I caved on the iPhone and now, after jumping off my high horse, I've caved on Facebook. Yes, I now use Facebook. Feel free to look me up.

I gave up on MySpace several months ago, citing the horrible design and completely overbearing ads. MySpace isn't really in trouble because of Facebook and, while they may loose a number of users to Facebook, I don't think they're going away anytime soon. They may be in trouble, however, if they don't start cleaning up their act when it comes to user experience.

People have told me over and over that the user experience on Facebook is a dream. That it's smart, easy and intuitive. I didn't really buy it until I started using it. It's awesome. They built this entire platform with us, the users, in mind. It really is nice. And, to be honest, I don't mind the occasional sponsored post in my news feed. Nor do I mind Facebook's move to include profiles in Google (et al) search results. Isn't the point of a social network for people to be able to find you?

I firmly believe that MySpace will continue, for a long time, to be a major player in social networking. They have one thing that FaceBook doesn't currently have and that's an uncommon friendliness to advertisers. As long as there are celebrity and movie and band and book and other product profiles people who are interested in those products will stick around. Period.

Used correctly advertisers can create campaigns that are highly targeted to the "short tail." Their key customers, the ones who really care about their product, will continue to patronize MySpace landing pages. It's not for me, but people have proven time after time that they respond to professionally created campaigns. That's not going to just go away.

So, high-give to Facebook. High-give to MySpace. And damn, seriously, high-give to the iPhone.

I Did It

I finally broke down and got the iPhone. Actually, I'm posting this very message from the phone. I'll update on my thoughts once I've had some more time with it.

50 Ringtones

According to Engadget, Apple is going to give all current iPhone owners a $100 Apple gift card. This is to make up for the fact that Apple announced yesterday it would be dropping the price by $200. Smart move by Apple - get those pissed iPhone fanboys to stop complaining and have them give you the money right back when they buy 50 ringtones.