where did you get the idiotic idea that the iPod database encryption was a feature? Where did _you_ get the idea it was put there specifically and for the only purpose of stopping non-iTunes use with the iPod?
if by feature you mean "ensures you will be using apple software unless you go out of your way to figure out why your iPod now reports 0 songs" yeah, I guess it is. OK, now you're starting to see my point. Really. Evil Corps say "Steve, your stuff is wide open so our blah farking blah fix it". Steve says "Sure, I'll, you know, fix it." Apple releases trivial roadblock, Evil Corps (whose names tend to end in AA, have you noticed?) smile and nod, Steve rolls his eyes, and 2 days later the fix comes out from the mods community. I think Steve knows this. If Apple wanted to REALLY lock us out, they could. They haven't.
Of course, I love your last line. You act like any joe can actually go about doing even the first of your 3 step process. Sorry, perhaps I should have written it as "It's no big deal to wait a couple days until someone analyzes and releases a workaround." In the case of the last iPhone firmware upgrade which, yes, the unjail process didn't work on immediately, it took all of an hour or two to get the updated unjail process out there. Again, something changed, scripts had to be tweaked to adapt to the change, and everything continues to work as before. We agree that there was a change to the database, we disagree on the real motivation. But, if they wanted to lock us out, they would have long ago.
I have no problem adding actual features to your database. YOu change it so you can include pictures and movies? great. I'm not sure I understand your point on this last part here.
Well, it'll take more than luck to change the past: Apple did make a proposal to Verizon and they said no. I'm sure they're kicking themselves now.
Wow, I'm glad it worked out that way though. I can't get a decent Verizon signal at my house (rural) or at my desk (large metro area). It doesn't meet my needs. AT&T, I can get 4 bars of signal at both. So if Verizon was the only choice, I might have passed on the iPhone.
I can't help but think that the vocal anti-AT&T crowd is nothing more than Ford vs. Chevy, VI vs EMACS, and Windows vs. Mac, all over again. Plenty of folks are very happy with AT&T, we just don't go around ranting about how it's not a problem because, well, it just works.
Personally, I have no interest in getting an iPhone. Maybe if they knocked another $250 off the price, I'd raise an eyebrow, but right now, it's only on my radar because of all the coverage it's gotten on sites like this one. Fair enough - I switched from a (Palm) Treo and the workflow is substantially better and, as I say, I had coverage issues with the Treo. Also, the Treo's battery was getting tired and, while I could have sent it off for a third-party or factory replacement, I figured it was time to move to a new phone. Getting a better carrier (AT&T) as part of the deal got me better coverage where I use it and, oh by the way, dropped my bill by 20 bucks a month.
Actually, the deal with the last set of iPods, is that they added a database function that took a whole several days for the hacks community to catch up with. They didn't do it to lock anyone out of anything, they added a feature.
And, please read this article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9037398&intsrc=hm_list This is Steve discussing this very topic. He wants to discourage people unlocking the phone from carriers Apple has contracted with; he's not talking about someone installing Tetris.app on their iPhone. I think perhaps some of the confusion is in the term "hacks" which the press has been misusing for decades. Jobs doesn't like the specific class of them which impacts his contractual agreements; he hasn't said or done anything to interfere with app installs.
And - when new firmware comes out, it's easy enough to see what changed, take out that which kills your mod of choice, and release a change manifest that anyone can apply if they choose. This isn't a problem, even if it was a problem, which it isn't.
Yeah, I think the idea was to be able to do those things without unapproved hacks. Not that Installer.app is difficult to use, but it'd be nice to know that Apple wasn't going to release an update that will break everything. When, though, is the last time Apple released any update that broke modifications to any of their products, which was insurmountable? Because, I can't think of any. Again, they make it disabled by default, but don't do any of many obvious things to block people from doing what they want.
The keyboard gets easy to use after a week or so, really. And, unix apps, most are already there and you just need Terminal.app or the VT100 emulator which are out there free (see link below for pointers). sshd, rsync, couple of shells...just ssh into it from any other system and work on it that way, or you can use the terminal.app on the phone itself to modify things directly.
1. Native iChat functionality Download "AppTapp installer" from http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/ and install it. Then have it install "MobileChat", or one of the other native apps for chat.
2. Ability to tether the device Check YouTube, some guy demo'd that during week 2.
3. Some level of copy and paste.
4. Ability to clear all SMS conversations
That's about it. Not sure I can help with the last two, but check out all of what apptap can do. Make sure you install "summerboard" so you can scroll your main screen once you get too many icons to display on one page. You'll also want to add "community sources" so you can have more stuff to choose from. The list increases a couple times a day.
Third party native apps have been available since about 3 weeks after it was released to the public. Simple installers since about a week after that. Games with and without the accellerometers, tools to change your gui's arrangement and appearance, full Unix functionality, and on and on and on. I don't feel particularly locked away from anything; I have apache and a wiki running on mine, can ssh into it just like any other Unix box, and deploy and change apps and files accordingly. The only thing I'm "locked away" from is changing my carrier, and I understand that that was solved about a month ago as well, I just have no reason or interest to change. There is an SDK, it's not from apple but (shrug) not sure why that matters.
It seems like a lot of the objections to features that aren't there, have already been taken care of by third party developers. Just like was predicted. Of course, Computer World didn't do their research and see what the current state of the mods community is.
Oh well my now ex-girlfriend took care of that problem by dumping me while trying to work out how to afford the ring to ask her to marry me with... Sounds like the bank may have inadvertently done you a favor on that one.
Perhaps you don't understand that I don't want to have to keep load the ringtones every time Apple decides to update the product. Yes I don't like ATT and I've seen lots of mods. But the last thing I want is to have to reload the stuff if Apple develops a firmware update the breaks it. That type of situation is a pain in the ass. Seems to me, what you're looking for is an app which backs up your mods before you upgrade firmware. Kind of like sync in iTunes, but for third party stuff. Thanks for the idea, hope you don't mind if I run with that.
You make is sound like everything is just a cakewalk, but it's not. My gf is non-technical, so I have to do all the hacks for her. I'm pretty sure that she could follow "go here, download ibrickr.exe, and click on the big buttons that tell you what to do".
Funny thing is, she's the PC user and i'm the mac user. As I said, I'm waiting to see how things turn out. If this continues to be an ongoing battle that breaks certain things every time there's an update, then I'll pass until the phone has most of what I want. Fair enough, I suppose a 3 minute, 5 step process is beyond some people.
Your fanboyism doesn't make me want it any more, just the opposite. Somehow I have doubts that you actually have ever tried, let alone owned, an iPhone.
My girlfriend bought me one for my birthday, but I told her to return it. It's not that I don't want one, but with all the restrictions and constant updates
FUD much? There's been exactly 2 updates, in 2 months. Maybe a third one in the next week or so. Hardly "constant". All the restrictions? AT&T or O2 as a provider?
and the breaking of ring-tones, What ring-tones are broken? The mods community is ready several hours after each firmware upgrade, giving you the mechanism to get any files you want to it.
I'll take the wait and see approach. I don't care to pay for all the extra nick nacks. Seems like you're doing the "wait" part but maybe missing the "and see" part. There are TONS of good free mods out there, free for the googling. 7 weeks ago, yeah, it hadn't been unjailed yet. Today, ibrickr.com for instance, can give you a shiny gui with pushbuttons to do 95% of what you want to do, effortlessly.
You pay a load for a device so don't load it with a shitload of pay for service features. I prefer Apple to open her up a little more and if they don't I'll pass and take the red pill. How much more open do you need than a 3 minute process to install sshd, a terminal app, ringtones, backgrounds, and anything else you want? Don't get me wrong, it's possible I suppose that you missed all the iPhone hacking links on the main page but, you describe the state of the iPhone mods community a week after release, not 2 months later (now).
In case you want to learn about how to do this, I've set up a site called ipodtouchmods.com which discusses how to do things like this, and several of us are writing tutorials to common tasks that people might otherwise find intimidating. Really, it's just another Unix box, once you unjail it, you can deploy arbitrary files (or apps, or ringtones, or images, or or or or) to it just like copying files to any other Unix box.
About the URL - yeah, it's mostly iPhone right now, but the other URL was already taken.
Those that were too stupid to get out in time got what they deserved. Everyone knew what was coming. People act now like there were no weather predictions, and that it was going to be really bad. It's unfortunate that this was modded as flamebait. Even from 1000 miles away, the news coverage for a couple days before showed that this one was going to be unusually bad. And the closer it got, the more it was going right for NOLA. At some point, yup, you decided not to leave when told to? It's your fault you're stuck.
Microsoft has not abandonned the mac platform, it as just ignored it greatly.
OK, fair enough, apparently I confused "not doing anything of value" with, well, "not doing anything of value". The only purpose for MS Anything on a Mac is for switchers who can't wrap their mind around the fact that you can do the same things with other apps, but the logo looks different.
Make sure you uninstall internet explorer and all of the other microsoft software they run on Mac's these days first.
Obviously you're trolling but, in case anyone is tempted to take you seriously, IE has been end of lifed by Microsoft for quite a while on Macs, and same for MS's office suite. Better free solutions exist for Mac users of course. But don't let inconvenient facts get in the way of you spreading MS's FUD for them.
You can't eject the chip in an iPhone. It's a cute device, just not ready for prime time.
Now, here we have a guy who doesn't bother to find out facts before pretending to speak authoratatively on subjects which he is clearly ignorant. Next you'll be telling us you can't install sshd, a terminal.app, apache, native apps, and an NES emulator on it, I suppose.
When you're talking to a population of people who are likely to know you're wrong and to call you on your errors, why bother to pretend you know what you're talking about when you clearly don't?
Actually, the local hospitals around here (Wisconsin) have increasingly been taking down the signs about cellphones. Science can, sometimes, overcome folklore. Around here (Washington) the signs won't be coming down anytime soon. I did ask one of the nurses at the doctors office I was at why the ban on cell phones, and it actually had nothing to do with safety. The reason why the phones are banned at that clinic is that an increasing number of phones have cameras, and they are somewhat concerned about the possibility of photography going on in the areas that are supposed to be more private. I can kind of see that but, if it's a privacy issue, you'd probably also not be there in person in the first place to take a picture. But, OK,...
I don't know how large a problem that would be, but with HIPAA the way it is presently, I wouldn't be surprised if a ban like that made a bit easier to conform to. Or it could just be a replacement bit of folklore to replace the more outdated bit. HIPAA is about health care providers not giving information out about patients (to an extreme - EMT's are forbidden from finding out the outcomes of their patients). Doesn't address someone peeping between the curtains and seeing or hearing something they shouldn't.
That's easy for many things, but not so easy when you are doing non-invasive monitoring of electric signals from the body. A false alarm would still cause problems, and I can understand why you want that type of equipment to be sensitive to the limit that it can detect spurious signals.
Most signals that your body generates, monitored by biomedical equipment, has a frequency of 250 Hz or less. The Verizon/AT&T Edge network is at either 850 or 1900 MHz. So - give or take, they're 4 million times higher in frequency. Filters being what they are, they're pretty good at rejecting things that far out of band. Telemetry systems also have their own bands to transmit in.
hospital equipment shouldn't malfunction when presented with interference on a widely used spectrum
Normally it doesn't. Most critical equipement is designed to be solid.
I work in the medical devices field and have done so most of the time since 1990. Systems are tested rigorously for both RF Emissions and RF Susceptibility.
*BUT* on the other hand, the designer didn't have the opportunity to run tests between their product and every fucking crazy stuff emitting radio-noise that a patient may try to subject it to. Nothing unique about the iPhone in this regard - edge network has been around for many years.
Phone are forbidden to be on the safe side of things, not because all medical equipement is so sensitive that the whole hospital will crash if a GSM phone comes by.
Actually, the local hospitals around here (Wisconsin) have increasingly been taking down the signs about cellphones. Science can, sometimes, overcome folklore.
(And sometimes, there are suprising interactions, like the iPods' touchwheel interfering with pacemakers) I haven't read about that, can you get me a link where I can see this? Knowing what I do both about pacemakers and iPod touchwheels, I find this quite surprising.
On the other hand, that doesn't prevent the iPhone from having a mode where it is actually off. Of course it doesn't. There's "airplane mode" where all the RF sections of the iPhone are off, and there's also "off" which is of course different than the "I'm not using it right now and the screen is dark" mode. The only way their phones could have been fetching email while they were on vacation is this:
1. They configured the mail client for automatic updates (I think manual is the default)
2. They took 3 iPhones with them on vacation so they wouldn't use them (plausible?)
3. They put the iPhones into screen lock mode, rather than off or airplane mode.
It seems to me that being surprised that the device would do what you have configured it to do when you leave it turned on, is on par with being annoyed that your cellphone rings when you've already hung it up. If I could embed an image at this point, I'd pick one of the "You're doing it wrong" series.
They don't even need the serial number. Had a problem with mine, a row on the touchscreen went dead. Called, and after going over my troubleshooting steps (reset, reset-all, re-install firmware), within 5 minutes the tech (who spoke English and seemed to be in the same country I am) agreed "Yup, it's broken. Sorry about that. What's your phone number?"
Next morning FedEX dropped off a loaner (free). Two days after that my phone had been replaced with a brand new (by appearances and packaging) iPhone. Total cost to me: 0. Total time between calling Apple support and having a fully functional iPhone: about 12 hours. Time spent on the phone? 10 minutes, max.
They do support well. People who say "Meh...it's just a phone" are the same type who see a luxury car and say "Meh...my yugo gets me to work just fine".
It's even better than that - since it's store credit, the insane markup on Apple products means they are probably only going to end up giving away $30 to $40 worth of things away. Strange logic you've got there. The apple online and retail stores sell all sorts of things, many of which even a non-apple-owner would find useful. At competitive prices. The thing you're also missing, is that if I've bought an iPhone (I have), I'm likely to buy other things because of direct personal positive experience with the products. Did I deserve to get a free $100 bucks off my next purchase of any vaguely IT-ish product? Not at all. Did I expect it? Nope. Am I gonna spend it on more Apple stuff? Sure. Was I gonna buy that stuff _anyway_? You bet. So tell me again how I'm only gaining $30 or $40? Seems to me it just made my next iPod purchase go from $300.00 to $200.00...
I agree with what someone else said though - if you want things on the day, you pay extra. It's always been the way, though maybe 2 months after release is a bit soon for a price cut like this. Jobs cites the holiday season as a reason - why not cut the price in November then? At least that lessens the chance that every iPhone owner is going to want your head impaled upon a pike so they can wave at it in a funny way.
I find it odd that people are treating Apple poorly because they're (a) dropping the price, and (b) giving early adopters (adapters?) something that is completely unexpected but a nice gift. Somehow they're the bad guys for doing this. Not saying you specifically, but an awful lot of that sort of thinking in this thread.
It's a good phone. It integrates the various apps well. One-button checks for traffic, weather, stock prices, email, etc etc etc. The workflow is well thought out and intuitive. Yeah, I can do all (well, most) of this same thing with my Treo but, the UI on this thing is so much better. And my monthly contract with AT&T is 20 bucks a month less than I was paying Verizon. I'm not seeing a downside.
With pop3? A ton! Sent email getting popped in your inbox. Configurable with a default that I agree with and you don't (shrug)
All incoming mail going into your inbox, regardless of filters that send it to archive. Could be on that one, I don't filter my gmail so I guess I can't comment. I prefer my mail feed raw so I can delete stuff and control it. But, I'm having a hard time reconciling defaults being not as wanted by some to be major problems or whatever the OP was saying. Works for me, and my gmail box is finally manageable in size because I can sort through the old cruft during meetings.
I also suspect that this is more a pop3 thing than specifically a gmail thing.
weren't there still issues with the iphone and gmail? Dunno, been using it since week 2 (didn't want to wait in line), haven't seen a problem - what's the nature of the issues that I should be seeing?
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Where did _you_ get the idea it was put there specifically and for the only purpose of stopping non-iTunes use with the iPod?
if by feature you mean "ensures you will be using apple software unless you go out of your way to figure out why your iPod now reports 0 songs" yeah, I guess it is.
OK, now you're starting to see my point. Really. Evil Corps say "Steve, your stuff is wide open so our blah farking blah fix it". Steve says "Sure, I'll, you know, fix it." Apple releases trivial roadblock, Evil Corps (whose names tend to end in AA, have you noticed?) smile and nod, Steve rolls his eyes, and 2 days later the fix comes out from the mods community. I think Steve knows this. If Apple wanted to REALLY lock us out, they could. They haven't.
Of course, I love your last line. You act like any joe can actually go about doing even the first of your 3 step process.
Sorry, perhaps I should have written it as "It's no big deal to wait a couple days until someone analyzes and releases a workaround." In the case of the last iPhone firmware upgrade which, yes, the unjail process didn't work on immediately, it took all of an hour or two to get the updated unjail process out there. Again, something changed, scripts had to be tweaked to adapt to the change, and everything continues to work as before. We agree that there was a change to the database, we disagree on the real motivation. But, if they wanted to lock us out, they would have long ago.
I have no problem adding actual features to your database. YOu change it so you can include pictures and movies? great.
I'm not sure I understand your point on this last part here.
Wow, I'm glad it worked out that way though. I can't get a decent Verizon signal at my house (rural) or at my desk (large metro area). It doesn't meet my needs. AT&T, I can get 4 bars of signal at both. So if Verizon was the only choice, I might have passed on the iPhone.
I can't help but think that the vocal anti-AT&T crowd is nothing more than Ford vs. Chevy, VI vs EMACS, and Windows vs. Mac, all over again. Plenty of folks are very happy with AT&T, we just don't go around ranting about how it's not a problem because, well, it just works.
Personally, I have no interest in getting an iPhone. Maybe if they knocked another $250 off the price, I'd raise an eyebrow, but right now, it's only on my radar because of all the coverage it's gotten on sites like this one.
Fair enough - I switched from a (Palm) Treo and the workflow is substantially better and, as I say, I had coverage issues with the Treo. Also, the Treo's battery was getting tired and, while I could have sent it off for a third-party or factory replacement, I figured it was time to move to a new phone. Getting a better carrier (AT&T) as part of the deal got me better coverage where I use it and, oh by the way, dropped my bill by 20 bucks a month.
Actually, the deal with the last set of iPods, is that they added a database function that took a whole several days for the hacks community to catch up with. They didn't do it to lock anyone out of anything, they added a feature.
And, please read this article: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9037398&intsrc=hm_list
This is Steve discussing this very topic. He wants to discourage people unlocking the phone from carriers Apple has contracted with; he's not talking about someone installing Tetris.app on their iPhone. I think perhaps some of the confusion is in the term "hacks" which the press has been misusing for decades. Jobs doesn't like the specific class of them which impacts his contractual agreements; he hasn't said or done anything to interfere with app installs.
And - when new firmware comes out, it's easy enough to see what changed, take out that which kills your mod of choice, and release a change manifest that anyone can apply if they choose. This isn't a problem, even if it was a problem, which it isn't.
When, though, is the last time Apple released any update that broke modifications to any of their products, which was insurmountable? Because, I can't think of any. Again, they make it disabled by default, but don't do any of many obvious things to block people from doing what they want.
The keyboard gets easy to use after a week or so, really. And, unix apps, most are already there and you just need Terminal.app or the VT100 emulator which are out there free (see link below for pointers). sshd, rsync, couple of shells...just ssh into it from any other system and work on it that way, or you can use the terminal.app on the phone itself to modify things directly.
1. Native iChat functionality
Download "AppTapp installer" from http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/ and install it. Then have it install "MobileChat", or one of the other native apps for chat.
2. Ability to tether the device
Check YouTube, some guy demo'd that during week 2.
3. Some level of copy and paste.
4. Ability to clear all SMS conversations
That's about it.
Not sure I can help with the last two, but check out all of what apptap can do. Make sure you install "summerboard" so you can scroll your main screen once you get too many icons to display on one page. You'll also want to add "community sources" so you can have more stuff to choose from. The list increases a couple times a day.
Third party native apps have been available since about 3 weeks after it was released to the public. Simple installers since about a week after that. Games with and without the accellerometers, tools to change your gui's arrangement and appearance, full Unix functionality, and on and on and on. I don't feel particularly locked away from anything; I have apache and a wiki running on mine, can ssh into it just like any other Unix box, and deploy and change apps and files accordingly. The only thing I'm "locked away" from is changing my carrier, and I understand that that was solved about a month ago as well, I just have no reason or interest to change. There is an SDK, it's not from apple but (shrug) not sure why that matters.
It seems like a lot of the objections to features that aren't there, have already been taken care of by third party developers. Just like was predicted. Of course, Computer World didn't do their research and see what the current state of the mods community is.
Sounds like the bank may have inadvertently done you a favor on that one.
Seems to me, what you're looking for is an app which backs up your mods before you upgrade firmware. Kind of like sync in iTunes, but for third party stuff. Thanks for the idea, hope you don't mind if I run with that.
You make is sound like everything is just a cakewalk, but it's not. My gf is non-technical, so I have to do all the hacks for her.
I'm pretty sure that she could follow "go here, download ibrickr.exe, and click on the big buttons that tell you what to do".
Funny thing is, she's the PC user and i'm the mac user. As I said, I'm waiting to see how things turn out. If this continues to be an ongoing battle that breaks certain things every time there's an update, then I'll pass until the phone has most of what I want.
Fair enough, I suppose a 3 minute, 5 step process is beyond some people.
Your fanboyism doesn't make me want it any more, just the opposite.
Somehow I have doubts that you actually have ever tried, let alone owned, an iPhone.
FUD much? There's been exactly 2 updates, in 2 months. Maybe a third one in the next week or so. Hardly "constant". All the restrictions? AT&T or O2 as a provider?
and the breaking of ring-tones,
What ring-tones are broken? The mods community is ready several hours after each firmware upgrade, giving you the mechanism to get any files you want to it.
I'll take the wait and see approach. I don't care to pay for all the extra nick nacks. Seems like you're doing the "wait" part but maybe missing the "and see" part. There are TONS of good free mods out there, free for the googling. 7 weeks ago, yeah, it hadn't been unjailed yet. Today, ibrickr.com for instance, can give you a shiny gui with pushbuttons to do 95% of what you want to do, effortlessly.
You pay a load for a device so don't load it with a shitload of pay for service features. I prefer Apple to open her up a little more and if they don't I'll pass and take the red pill.
How much more open do you need than a 3 minute process to install sshd, a terminal app, ringtones, backgrounds, and anything else you want? Don't get me wrong, it's possible I suppose that you missed all the iPhone hacking links on the main page but, you describe the state of the iPhone mods community a week after release, not 2 months later (now).
In case you want to learn about how to do this, I've set up a site called ipodtouchmods.com which discusses how to do things like this, and several of us are writing tutorials to common tasks that people might otherwise find intimidating. Really, it's just another Unix box, once you unjail it, you can deploy arbitrary files (or apps, or ringtones, or images, or or or or) to it just like copying files to any other Unix box.
About the URL - yeah, it's mostly iPhone right now, but the other URL was already taken.
It's unfortunate that this was modded as flamebait. Even from 1000 miles away, the news coverage for a couple days before showed that this one was going to be unusually bad. And the closer it got, the more it was going right for NOLA. At some point, yup, you decided not to leave when told to? It's your fault you're stuck.
OK, fair enough, apparently I confused "not doing anything of value" with, well, "not doing anything of value". The only purpose for MS Anything on a Mac is for switchers who can't wrap their mind around the fact that you can do the same things with other apps, but the logo looks different.
Obviously you're trolling but, in case anyone is tempted to take you seriously, IE has been end of lifed by Microsoft for quite a while on Macs, and same for MS's office suite. Better free solutions exist for Mac users of course. But don't let inconvenient facts get in the way of you spreading MS's FUD for them.
That's a stereotypical response.
Yeah, yeah...your type always says that.
Now, here we have a guy who doesn't bother to find out facts before pretending to speak authoratatively on subjects which he is clearly ignorant. Next you'll be telling us you can't install sshd, a terminal.app, apache, native apps, and an NES emulator on it, I suppose.
When you're talking to a population of people who are likely to know you're wrong and to call you on your errors, why bother to pretend you know what you're talking about when you clearly don't?
I can kind of see that but, if it's a privacy issue, you'd probably also not be there in person in the first place to take a picture. But, OK,
I don't know how large a problem that would be, but with HIPAA the way it is presently, I wouldn't be surprised if a ban like that made a bit easier to conform to. Or it could just be a replacement bit of folklore to replace the more outdated bit.
HIPAA is about health care providers not giving information out about patients (to an extreme - EMT's are forbidden from finding out the outcomes of their patients). Doesn't address someone peeping between the curtains and seeing or hearing something they shouldn't.
Most signals that your body generates, monitored by biomedical equipment, has a frequency of 250 Hz or less. The Verizon/AT&T Edge network is at either 850 or 1900 MHz. So - give or take, they're 4 million times higher in frequency. Filters being what they are, they're pretty good at rejecting things that far out of band. Telemetry systems also have their own bands to transmit in.
Normally it doesn't. Most critical equipement is designed to be solid.
I work in the medical devices field and have done so most of the time since 1990. Systems are tested rigorously for both RF Emissions and RF Susceptibility.
*BUT* on the other hand, the designer didn't have the opportunity to run tests between their product and every fucking crazy stuff emitting radio-noise that a patient may try to subject it to.
Nothing unique about the iPhone in this regard - edge network has been around for many years.
Phone are forbidden to be on the safe side of things, not because all medical equipement is so sensitive that the whole hospital will crash if a GSM phone comes by.
Actually, the local hospitals around here (Wisconsin) have increasingly been taking down the signs about cellphones. Science can, sometimes, overcome folklore.
(And sometimes, there are suprising interactions, like the iPods' touchwheel interfering with pacemakers)
I haven't read about that, can you get me a link where I can see this? Knowing what I do both about pacemakers and iPod touchwheels, I find this quite surprising.
On the other hand, that doesn't prevent the iPhone from having a mode where it is actually off.
Of course it doesn't. There's "airplane mode" where all the RF sections of the iPhone are off, and there's also "off" which is of course different than the "I'm not using it right now and the screen is dark" mode. The only way their phones could have been fetching email while they were on vacation is this:
1. They configured the mail client for automatic updates (I think manual is the default)
2. They took 3 iPhones with them on vacation so they wouldn't use them (plausible?)
3. They put the iPhones into screen lock mode, rather than off or airplane mode.
It seems to me that being surprised that the device would do what you have configured it to do when you leave it turned on, is on par with being annoyed that your cellphone rings when you've already hung it up. If I could embed an image at this point, I'd pick one of the "You're doing it wrong" series.
get it completely wrong often, or is this your first time?
They don't even need the serial number. Had a problem with mine, a row on the touchscreen went dead. Called, and after going over my troubleshooting steps (reset, reset-all, re-install firmware), within 5 minutes the tech (who spoke English and seemed to be in the same country I am) agreed "Yup, it's broken. Sorry about that. What's your phone number?"
Next morning FedEX dropped off a loaner (free). Two days after that my phone had been replaced with a brand new (by appearances and packaging) iPhone. Total cost to me: 0. Total time between calling Apple support and having a fully functional iPhone: about 12 hours. Time spent on the phone? 10 minutes, max.
They do support well. People who say "Meh...it's just a phone" are the same type who see a luxury car and say "Meh...my yugo gets me to work just fine".
Fair enough, I was gonna anyway. Thanks Steve!
Strange logic you've got there. The apple online and retail stores sell all sorts of things, many of which even a non-apple-owner would find useful. At competitive prices. The thing you're also missing, is that if I've bought an iPhone (I have), I'm likely to buy other things because of direct personal positive experience with the products. Did I deserve to get a free $100 bucks off my next purchase of any vaguely IT-ish product? Not at all. Did I expect it? Nope. Am I gonna spend it on more Apple stuff? Sure. Was I gonna buy that stuff _anyway_? You bet. So tell me again how I'm only gaining $30 or $40? Seems to me it just made my next iPod purchase go from $300.00 to $200.00...
I agree with what someone else said though - if you want things on the day, you pay extra. It's always been the way, though maybe 2 months after release is a bit soon for a price cut like this. Jobs cites the holiday season as a reason - why not cut the price in November then? At least that lessens the chance that every iPhone owner is going to want your head impaled upon a pike so they can wave at it in a funny way.
I find it odd that people are treating Apple poorly because they're (a) dropping the price, and (b) giving early adopters (adapters?) something that is completely unexpected but a nice gift. Somehow they're the bad guys for doing this. Not saying you specifically, but an awful lot of that sort of thinking in this thread.
It's a good phone. It integrates the various apps well. One-button checks for traffic, weather, stock prices, email, etc etc etc. The workflow is well thought out and intuitive. Yeah, I can do all (well, most) of this same thing with my Treo but, the UI on this thing is so much better. And my monthly contract with AT&T is 20 bucks a month less than I was paying Verizon. I'm not seeing a downside.
I... I don't understand. Buy music? You lost me.
What, because artists, like software developers, should just work for free and hope they can eat somehow, is that it?
All incoming mail going into your inbox, regardless of filters that send it to archive.
Could be on that one, I don't filter my gmail so I guess I can't comment. I prefer my mail feed raw so I can delete stuff and control it. But, I'm having a hard time reconciling defaults being not as wanted by some to be major problems or whatever the OP was saying. Works for me, and my gmail box is finally manageable in size because I can sort through the old cruft during meetings.
I also suspect that this is more a pop3 thing than specifically a gmail thing.