Posted on Aug 27, 2009

Sync Google Calendar/Contacts to Everywhere with Exchange

I see it all the time – some new blog post detailing how to sync your Google calendar and contacts to somewhere, usually to the iPhone, using some new 3rd party service or crazy trick. Many people suggest NuevaSync to sync directly to the iPhone, or using CalDAV to get your calendars to iCal so they can be synced through iTunes.

Fact is, they are missing a key feature of Google apps that lets you sync to a lot of places, including the iPhone, directly and with push updates – Google supports Microsoft Exchange for both contacts and calendars.

With the Exchange support, you can get push updates to any device or application that supports Exchange, including Outlook on the desktop and the iPhone with v3.0 software and above. It doesn’t get around syncing to iCal (unless you’re already on Snow Leopard, which supports Exchange out of the box), but it’s damn good for mobile devices.

Here are the instructions for setting it up on the iPhone, and you can use the server settings from there to set up any other device/app that supports Exchange.

Posted on Feb 19, 2009

Better iPhone User Agent Regex

David Walsh recently published a blog post detailing how to detect iPhone and iPod Touch users on your website via the user agent string, and while the concept is fine, I much prefer a slightly different method using regex to do the detection. In PHP:

  1. if(preg_match(‘/Apple.*Mobile.*Safari/’, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’])  {  
  2.     header(‘Location: http://yoursite.com/iphone’);  
  3.     exit();  
  4. }

Using this regex, you are not only covered for the iPhone and iPod Touch (in one call, even), but also potentially for any future Apple mobile devices.

And for those interested, the actual user agents for the iPhone and iPod Touch are variations of:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3

Posted on Oct 7, 2008

How to Make a Full-Screen iPhone Web App

There has been a fair amount of talk lately about a feature introduced in iPhone firmware 2.0 and above that allows a developer to make a web application, once saved to a user’s iPhone home screen, run in a full-screen mode without the Safari toolbars. AppleInsider wrote about it, with a fantastic demo available on the website of the WebApp.net framework.

While there has been a lot of talk about the result of this technique, I haven’t seen anywhere that describes exactly how to make your application run full-screen (sans buried deep in the Apple Developer Connection documentation). It’s actually incredibly simple, just add the following code into the <head> of your site:

  1. <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes" />

Once you’ve done this, when someone saves your application to their home screen it will subsequently start without the Safari chrome. Make sure that if you do this your application has adequate navigation and plenty of feedback during loading, as users won’t be able to use the Safari back/forward buttons nor see the standard loading bar.

Posted on May 10, 2008

Pre-Launch Access to Schmap.com on the iPhone

Schmap.com, a local city guide and travel information provider, is all set to launch a very sexy looking iPhone interface in public beta on Monday. The Schmap iPhone interface encompasses the company’s City Guides and Local Search services, plus a unique feature that auto generates maps when the iPhone is turned sideways.

The Schmap guys were nice enough to pass on to me a code that will let you access the Schmap iPhone interface before it launches on Monday. To get a sneak-peek, browse to http://schmap.com/iphone on your iPhone and enter the access code 724627.

Posted on Feb 13, 2008

iPhone 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 OTB Jailbreak/Unlock

For those that have iPhones that came with firmware version 1.1.2 or 1.1.3 out of the box, your pleas for a jailbreaking and unlocking solution have been answered. Thanks to the work of Zibri and the folks from Unlock.no, it is now dead simple to jailbreak and unlock these devices – even simpler than it is for older devices. To grab the simple tool to jailbreak and unlock your device, based on Zibri’s original code, head to the Unlock.no front page.

Posted on Feb 9, 2008

Simple iPhone 1.1.3 Upgrade Instructions (with Unlock)

After the resounding success of my firmware 1.1.2 guide, I have decided to put together a guide to upgrading an iPhone to firmware 1.1.3, both jailbroken and unlocked for use on any network. This guide involves a lot of steps, but it will ensure that you have the best possible result by the safest means. Keep in mind that there is no state you can get your iPhone into if you do something incorrectly that cannot be reversed, so don’t be afraid to try.

This guide is for owners of iPhones that came with firmware 1.1.1 or earlier out of the box. Unfortunately, iPhones that came with firmware 1.1.2 or 1.1.3 out of the box run a newer version of a key software component (called the bootloader) that prevents unlocking using this method. Continue Reading

Posted on Dec 3, 2007

Simple iPhone 1.1.2 Upgrade Instructions (with Unlock)

Comments for this post are now closed and the guide is made available for reference only. I have published my guide to jailbreaking and unlocking firmware 1.1.3, please refer to that to upgrade to the newer firmware version.

I have been messing around for a day or so trying to get this to work, but I think I’ve nailed the method for upgrading an unlocked and jailbroken iPhone to firmware 1.1.2, and preserving the unlock and jailbreak. What follows are the steps to get your iPhone to 1.1.2 written as simply as I could manage. These instructions look long (and they are), but they are easy to follow and anyone with basic computer skills should be able to get it done. Remember: there is no predicament that you can get your phone into that can’t be repaired.

Continue Reading

Posted on Nov 13, 2007

Cautious Android Excitement

Like many, I have been watching the news related to Google, among other’s, announcement of the Android mobile platform and the Open Handset Alliance. Until today’s release of several videos demonstrating the UI and parts of the system itself, there was not a lot of meat to get excited about. Now, I am filled with cautious optimism over Android.

After viewing this video in particular, one can see that at this point in the development cycle, it appears as though Google is looking to pull in the best features of Windows Mobile and the iPhone UI. On first inspection, Android looks most like Windows Mobile, especially the home screen. Once the device is in use, however, a very ‘smooth’ quality reminiscant of the iPhone can be seen. The browser especially is obviously modeled off Apple’s efforts, though there is a lack of finish at this early stage.

The most interesting and exciting part of Android is the level of openness. The iPhone is a great product, but like many Apple releases, it is basically Apple’s way or the highway. Sure, Apple has now announced an SDK for third party applications, but it is an afterthought, rather than Google’s release of an SDK months before devices are in the hands of customers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPhone, but should Android provide the same slick UI elements on an open platform, I will switch in a second. Many features demonstrated on Android so far are available on other handsets, such as Google maps, but with Google’s announcement of a $10 million competition for the best applications, I am looking forward to seeing what can be done. Particularity, I am keen to see where developers go with the built-in OpenGL support. Already Google has shown some pretty cool features, though, like Street View in the Maps application.

What I am really curious about is where this leaves the Apple/Google relationship. Google is basically releasing the best competitor to the iPhone, despite Eric Schmidt serving on Apple’s board, and Google taking a large part in the development of the iPhone. I was surprised at Google’s involvement with the development of the iPhone originally, considering its love of all things open, and this proves my point in a way.

Indeed, if Android shapes up to be the open version of the iPhone as it is appearing as at this early stage, there might just be an iPhone for sale out of my place.

Posted on Jul 4, 2007

The iPhone UI Revolution

I have held off from blogging about the iPhone here much thus far, but I am going to chuck some opinion out there. This is not just about the iPhone though, it is more about how the industry needs to react because of it.

Let me say this right off the bad: the iPhone is not a device I would buy myself. It is an influential device that will do fantastically in the market, that is for sure, but its omissions are too deal breaking for me. They are also things that could have been easily remedied by Apple, and I am sure they will be fixed in a second-generation product, but for now I will do without a device that can’t record video, use 3G networks and A2DP headphones, and other things I appreciate. But more on my actual iPhone pros and cons in a future post.

What the iPhone has achieved though, is forcing the industry in general to rethink the whole user interface paradigm. Touch sensitive devices have long used a stylus, and are only now evolving to use the finger. This fact, combined with the swishing, swirling, and sliding seen in the iPhone’s UI make it a much more organic device, one that consumers may find easier to ‘relate’ to.

On top of this more organic approach to UI design, the iPhone’s interface just looks so damn good. Sure, Windows Mobile is functional, S60 is pretty, and so on, but the iPhone interface is sexy. User interface design cannot take a back seat to device design any longer, and Apple has shown us that an attractive physical design can be accompanied by a functional and attractive UI design.

While other manufacturers may not have to play catch up to Apple with technical specifications, they definitely need to with UI design. Verizon’s new Motorola Q9m features a fun circular UI enhancement, and devices like the LG Prada and HTC Touch are certainly steps in the right direction, but the iPhone just integrates everything so nicely; this is what Apple does best.

The iPhone is not the device it could have been, but for UI design, it is revolutionary. If manufacturers take nothing else away from the iPhone release, I hope it at least forces them to take a step back and reevaluate the user interface experience.

Posted on Jun 4, 2007

On Online Journalism: Why it’s the Place to Be

I have been in online journalism for several years now, surely not that long compared to a lot of the veterans I know, but enough to realize a few observations about the industry. I love journalism, and can’t imagine doing much else anymore, and I solidly believe that the place to be is not in print, but online.

By no means am I saying that there isn’t a place in the future for print media, but I believe that its place in the world will change. No longer will print media be where people turn for news, instead I believe that more and more people will look to the internet – we are seeing this already, is isn’t a new thing. Print media will transform into a place for feature articles and longer pieces, mainly due to the major advantage that online journalism has over print: speed. Print media still has the advantage of portability currently, which is why it still has a place with feature articles and the like, but even that content is available online and will be made more accessible with the advent of e-readers, UMPCs, and other fun gadgets.

I can think of many times I have been up in the wee hours of the morning preparing an article on a piece of news that has just dropped. I can write a story and publish it online before most print media outlets are even aware of it. Take the announcement of the iPhone for example: I was preparing an article during Steve Jobs’ keynote, with the article live on MobileBurn not 30 seconds after the facts were revealed. Tech magazines would have had to wait until the following month at least to report on the news, and even newspapers would have had to have held off for an afternoon edition, if not the next day. It just makes sense for people to turn to the most recently updated news source, which will almost always be the internet.

Online media also has the ability to be very specialized. At MobileBurn, we do better reviews of handsets than almost any print publication out there. We know phones, it’s what we do. Most magazines have to cover a broader range of subject matter, and as such do not have the same depth of knowledge on all topics. The perfect publication would be made up of specialists reporting on what they know best, and this is far easier online. It does happen in print, but through RSS feeds and other syndication technology readers now have the ability to view exactly the content they like, rather than one publication choosing who is the best in a field.

I have no problem writing feature articles for print media, I quite enjoy it, but I really do believe in online media.