Dear iPhone 4 owner,

Apple recently announced that iPhone 4 customers who purchased an iPhone 4 Bumper are eligible for a full refund.

As of today, we have automatically processed your refund. If you would like to check the status of your refund, click here.

Thank you for choosing Apple.

Sincerely,
Apple Retail Store Support

One of the features missing on the iPhone is HTML signature for Mail, and if you are using two different email addresses like me you probably want to have two different Signatures, right? Even with the new iPhone 4 you can’t.

I created a solution for that (without jailbreaking the iPhone) and I use it all the time.

Yesterday I decided to share it with the world, please go here to use it and drop a line if you like it or if you have any suggestions .

*** UPDATE – Use coupon code [carbon50] at checkout for %50 off.

For days I looked for a nice affordable iPhone 4 Cover.
I love the bumper but wants some personalization and protection to the back of my iPhone.

Since I couldn’t find anything, I created one, Check it out – works great with Apple Bumper.

http://www.coolgeex.com/products-page/iphone-cases/iphone-4-carbon-fiber-back-cover/

Front facing camera, FaceTime, LED flash, speed, the screen, folders, multitasking, HD video, speaker quality, design, multiply exchange servers.

All and more are GREAT FEATURES.

BUT…..

Since I got my new iPhone (Jun24) I’m busy with troubleshooting a new issue every day.

FaceTime not working after porting a number.

FaceTime disconnecting every 30sec or so.

Bluetooth headset & Car Bluetooth connects and disconnects every few minutes .

Bluetooth muffled on other end of the line.

When exchange server configured Auto-Lock disabled. (enabled if exchange removed and reinstalled but shows nothing on the Auto-Lock settings page)

Passcode lock settings missing.

And the BIGGEST PROBLEM: Can’t be used as a phone.

Most of my calls ends with a drop-call, I barely press the End button (with or without the Bumper).

** I tried everything that I can think of to fix the problems, I also tried everything that I saw online.

The thing that bother me the most is that Apple does not recognize most of the problems, I actually been offered by Apple Store employee to return my iPhone 4 and get a new iPhone 3gs – Just ridiculous.

If you just Google few of this issues you’ll find that lots of iPhone 4 users are sharing the some problems, here is a partial list:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2481487&tstart=0

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2475125&tstart=90

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2469599

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20008764-233.html

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=947641

http://appletoolbox.com/2010/06/iphone-4-facetime-doesnt-work-after-porting-number-from-sprint-verizon-or-t-mobile-fix/

Here we go:

On the 24th I upgraded my iPhone at an Apple store.
I also got a new iPhone with a new line and ported the phone number from T-Mobile. (2nd phone)

The Apple store employee that helped was very nice and the new iPhone worked great, including FaceTime.

Once my T-Mobile number was ported FaceTime stopped working.

The iPhone could not receive FaceTime calls but could initiate FaceTime calls.
When I tried the caller ID that appeared on my UPGRADED iPhone were the Other iPhone New Temporary number I got until the port from T-Mobile completed.

So from that I understood that FaceTime servers registered the phone number as the FaceTime user name, but the problem was that the servers registered the temporary number (a number ATT gave us until the port from T-Moblie will complete).

So I started troubleshooting the iPhone, this is what I did:

Restarted the iPhone
Tried using FaceTime with other people.
Reset the network settings
Called AT&T to reActivate the sim card.
Restore the phone from backup.

Nothing worked… So I called AT&T Again – no help.
Called Apple Care / technical support – no help.
Went back to the Apple store- nothing.
Called AT&T again and they put Apple Rep on the line – no help and a very rude response.  (first time from Apple)

The AT&T rep that helped me finally understood the problem from being with me on the phone for hours trying to find a solution and she got AT&T engineer on the phone that fully understood the issue and thanked me for bringing it up.

He had no solution but he gave me his personal phone number to discuss the progress of resolving it.

He said that he will work with Apple engineers until it will be resolved.

He also understood that this is a problem that will welcome any new (porting) AT&T / iPhone user.

In the meantime I kept on trying to fix the problem my self so I tried to:

Reset the iPhone content and settings and reActivate with iTunes. Finally it worked.
But when I restored the phone from backup it stopped working again. So I figured out that theres a file (plist or cookie) on the phone that saves the Facetime user information.

This time I reseted only the phone settings. And when I tried FaceTime again the phone registered the right number.

I know that most Apple reps can not understand the problem or give a solution.

So try just Reset the Settings (only the settings) and it should work.

I tried it on 3 different phones and it did the job.

* Please leave a comment if my solution helped you.

Do the following:

1. Go to the App store
2. Download the new Apple Store App
3. Reserve your iPhone to pickup at a store near you

This is the only way that I found working at the moment, Good Luck!

You’ve all seen by now the new iPhone, and Gizmodo covered it A-Z from rumors to facts.

They also covered the features missing they like to see.

One of the features that I see in my iOS4 GoldMaster edition is the ability to Gift an App.

It does not working yet but this is a cool feature for parents that want to buy apps for their kids without giving them full access to their iTunes account OR if you just want to Gift someone you Love.

First we’ve seen ATT Upgrade eligibility jumping from November 21st to June 20th.

Now we can see that iPhone Upgrade eligibility already Available.

Does it mean that Apple will allow iPhone 4 Pre-Ordering starting tomorrow?

All hints leads for iPhone 4 in stores at June 18. It looks like ATT & Apple learned from last year mistake and making sure that Apple Fanboys will be able to get the new iPhone without standing in line.

Did your upgrade eligibility changed today? Please let us know.

We’ve since confirmed that this isn’t an isolated incident, but it’s definitely not showing up for everyone. AT&T could be rolling this out across their database slowly. Another possibility: they may not have intended for anyone to see this yet, and just borked the query for a handful of people. AT&T offered up early upgrade paths for long-time iPhone owners with both the 3G and the 3GS. MobileCrunch

The change also showed on my account, here’s a screen shot:

Here is one option for Why will AT&T will do something like that?
Apple : Jun 7th Steve Jobs Announce The New iPhone at WWDC
AT&T : Set early upgrade date to AROUND June 20th (Mine set to Jun 20) so early adopters can still upgrade though AT&T’s & Apple systems.
Apple : Pre-orders start after Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC.

Just a thought:

Verizon: Apple Booked an event for 22nd. The Event Will be for Announcing The All New CDMA iPhone (Verizon).

******I don’t think that the iPhone will be on Verizon this year, AT&T just gave Apple customers a great plan for iPad GSM Internet, I don’t think that AT&T will do it if they didn’t got something back from Apple.

Like the iPhone US Monopoly.

So now Opera came out with their Mini Opera browser for the iPhone.

When I first played with the Opera Mini browser on a non iPhone devices I was impressed, so naturally I wanted to be able to use it on my iPhone.

And I knew that Apple will never let it happen, but yesterday Apple surprised me by Approving The Opera New App, and now I understand why.

The new Opera browser have some nice features, but (and a big but):

“Opera Mini makes the Apple Safari Mobile Browser look good”

After testing the two rivals browsers using AT&T 3G and Wifi I found that Safari is the browser that I’m going to use.

Safari preformed faster and the user interface/experience was better than the Opera Mini.

If I had to make the decision for Apple, I will definitely Approve that App.

Yesterday I installed the iPhone OS on my iPhone 3Gs.

It is a beta version and there is few bugs that I found, but I really like it, Apple just took the time to add the missing iPhone features.

I really think that this is the “biggest and most exciting iPhone software update yet”.

• Multitasking is cool, but it will be more useful when all the Apps will support it.
• The Folders are great, I hate crowded desktop on my Mac and even more on my iPhone, Folders solved the problem.
• Mail is now more similar to his desktop brother, you can view all your mail boxes in unified inbox.
• I was missing the Camera zoom feature and now they put in the camera App, no need for 3 different camera Apps to get all you need from one camera. I just hope that the new iPhone will have LED Flash.
• The Game Center looks Cool but I didn’t have a chance to try it out (none of my friends installed it yet)
• I do have a different background on my iPhone now, this is a nice refreshment from the old boring dark background.
• Connecting Apple Bluetooth  keyboard is very cool, not perfect yet but you can always press the Eject button to switch back to the iPhone Keyboard.

There’s lots of new features and settings like Photos (closer to the Mac iPhoto) and playlists but this is probably the TOP features.

Today, Apple unveiled plans for the biggest and most exciting iPhone software update yet.

iPhone OS 4 will include over 100 new user features for iPhone and iPod touch owners to enjoy.

And for developers, a new software development kit (SDK) offers over 1500 new APIs to create apps that are even more powerful, innovative, and amazing.

iPhone OS 4 will ship this summer for iPhone and iPod touch, and for iPad in the fall. A developer beta is available now.

I already downloaded the new OS developer beta and about to install it, very exciting.

Check out the full details at : http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/

There’s lots of fixes, I did not see any new features yet but I’ll let you know.

You can see the list of all the fixes at:  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4014

Update:

The console have a new feature: Diagnostic and usage data collection.

With Mac OS X v10.6.3 and later, Mac OS X can automatically collect diagnostic and usage information from your Mac and send it to Apple for analysis. The information is sent only with your explicit consent, and is submitted anonymously to Apple.

You can turn it off by going to console->preferences and uncheck the option.

I tried to turn it ON again but it doesn’t let me.

iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today.

Submit your iPad app now for an initial review by the App Review Team and receive feedback on its readiness for the grand opening.

The iPad Pre-Order is now available.

Apple just added a new iPad tab at their  home page.

** The iPad also comes with a new button/feature that we didn’t see during Steves’ keynote:

The button let you Lock the Screen Rotation, a feature that i really want on the iPhone

The iPad is coming and Apple fixing last bugs…

BGR received some exclusive iPhone OS 4.0 details from one of BGR trusty Apple connects.

Here are some iPhone OS 4.0 features, according to BGR source:

• There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)
• “A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.
• Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.
• The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.”
• The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.

Source: BGR

As it looks for now, I see a better reliable WiFi Connection on my iPhone 3Gs. before the update I could not connect to certain Cisco Wireless routers and now it works like magic.

About the battery meter! we’ll see soon.

iTunes 9.0.3 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• iTunes no longer ignores your “Remember password for purchases” setting.
• Addresses problems with syncing some Smart Playlists and Podcasts with iPod.
• Resolves a problem recognizing when iPod is connected.
• Addresses issues that affect stability and performance.
iTunes 9 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums, movies, TV shows, and more.

• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.

• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and more — available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.

• Home Sharing helps you manage your family’s iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.

• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.

• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and Podcast episodes.

• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.

• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).

• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.

Billings Touch (Billings 3 iPhone companion) was submitted to the App Store today.

The app will be available in a free trial form from the App Store once it’s available. This “free trial” form will be Billings Touch, with no expiry period, but with features locked like sending out invoices, amongst other things.

To unlock the features, there will be a fee(undetermined) that you will pay through an in-app purchase, converting the trial to the full version.

Finally….

Marketcircle advertised on their site that an App for the iPhone will be released in the beginning of 2009, then they changed it to the following:

“In the second half of 2009, you’ll be able to purchase a companion to Billings for your iPhone. Track time & expenses and then wirelessly sync with Billings at home or at the office.”

I saw a demo of the App before and it looked promising, I guess that I’ll have to wait and really see if the version released is similar to the one I saw.

This update will eliminate the noise made by the optical disk drive during system startup and wake from sleep on your Mac. This update works with the following EFI updates:

iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.4
Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2
MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.4
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.8

To complete the firmware update process, please follow the instructions in the updater application (/Applications/Utilities/SuperDrive Update.app). The updater will launch automatically when the installation is complete.

]]> http://www.coolgeex.com/apple-release-an-efi-update-that-eliminates-superdrive-noise/feed/ 2 http://www.coolgeex.com/iphone-os-3-1-2-software-update-is-out/ http://www.coolgeex.com/iphone-os-3-1-2-software-update-is-out/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:00:21 +0000 Cool Geex http://www.coolgeex.com/?p=229

I have so many Issues with my iPhone, lets hope that the update will fix them.

UPDATE: There’s also a carrier update

• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums,
movies, TV shows, and more.
• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.
• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and
more — available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.
• Home Sharing helps you manage your family’s iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes
can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.
• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.
• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in
iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and
Podcast episodes.
• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.
• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).
• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility
with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.

update, update, update…

According to the Installation script I need to change my partition type from “Apple Partition Map” to “Apple GUI Map”.

To do that a disk reFormat is required.

According to Apple fresh install of the Snow Leopard from the update disk will not work.

For the rest of you that need to reInstall Leopard and Then Snow Leopard –> Skip It and Install Leopard Directly from the update disk.

Good Luck

First Thing, Backup Backup Backup !!!!

You Can use SuperDuper Or any Partition Cloner

Make sure that your backup drive is the same size or bigger then your current drive.

1. Connect your backup hard drive to your Mac.

2. If you’re using SuperDuper Using the default option of “Backup – all files” will automatically create a boot-able backup, one which you can later boot to as if it were your internal drive. This is great if you want to test something, have a fully cloned system to revert to, or in this case, to copy to your new drive without loosing a single setting. Click the Copy Now button, and then click Copy in the next dialogue box.

3. Sit back and wait. Once the copy is complete, you will have what’s known as a full boot-able backup. Now you can do whatever you want to your internal hard drive – your data is safety stored on your new backup drive! Just to make sure, it’s always worth booting to that drive and checking that everything went according to plan. It only takes a minute, and it’s better to do it now rather than find it didn’t work.

4. Restart your Mac. While it starts, hold the Option key until a display appears. This asks you to choose a hard drive to boot from. Clicking on your backup, and then clicking on the arrow below it, will tell your Mac to boot to the backup. You’ll know that you have successfully booted to your backup rather than your internal drive because the backup will now appear at the top of your Finder window side panel, like so:

5.Now that you have everything backed up, it’s time to install your new hard drive!

Replacing Your MacBook’s Hard Drive

In order to protect yourself against ESD and static electricity in general, it’s always a good idea to ground yourself

For more information about ESD cause and prevention, see the Wikipedia article.

Replacing a MacBook’s Hard Drive

1. Turn your MacBook upside-down, with battery side near you. Use a coin to turn the lock slot to the unlock position. This will allow you to remove the battery.

2. Inside the bay, there is a small L-shaped bracket running down the left and far edges. This is removable with a Phillips #0 screwdriver. Unscrew the three screws along the far (longer) face. Don’t be fooled: these screws are not removable from the plate itself. Once unscrewed, the plate should pull out very easily.

Depends on your mac, it should be pretty easy to replace the hard drive.

3. Fit the battery back in its slot, and then use the coin to lock the cover in position.

Turn your MacBook over. You’re ready to continue onto the next section!

Restoring Your MacBook

This section is primarily aimed at those who have created a boot-able backup and would like to restore from that backup. This will allow you to get back to where you were with your last hard drive – all of your software updates, data, and music will be there.

Preparing Your New Hard Drive

The first thing you will want to do is to turn on your computer, but at present the drive you have just installed won’t show up on your desktop (assuming you could boot to a desktop). First, the hard drive needs to be formatted and partitioned, and doing so from a backup is very simple.

As soon as you hit the power button, you must hold down the Option (or Alt) key. This will produce a display offering the option to boot to all boot-able devices connected to the MacBook. There will likely be only one: the backup you made to your external drive. Select it, and then click the arrow button to continue to boot from this device.

Partitioning Your New Drive

Once your Mac has booted to the desktop, you’ll probably see a message asking if you wish to initialize a device. If this does appear, you will choose to Initialize, but if it doesn’t you will want to launch Disk Utility, which can be found in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.

Using the Options button at the bottom, make sure that GUID Partition Table is selected (this is the new standard by which Intel Mac hard drives can be found as boot-able devices, which you will want as it will be your main hard drive) and click OK. Now click Partition, and when the dialogue box appears, click Partition again. Wait a few seconds while you watch the blue progress bar flash from left to right, and then notice that the name you selected for your drive is now displayed below the manufacturers name in the left-hand column. You now have yourself a usable, formatted, partitioned drive. Easy, huh?

Restoring from your Backup

Now you can close Disk Utility. SuperDuper! will recognize the new drive, so you open SuperDuper!. Using the same settings as before (only in reverse), you can restore the backup you are currently using to the new drive. You will want to copy from your external hard drive to MacBook HD which will also now appear on your desktop. Once the transfer is complete, you’re ready to go!

Reboot your MacBook once again, holding the Option (or Alt) key to choose the internal hard drive. Click the arrow button to boot from it. You’re done!

If You Don’t Have a Boot-able Backup, or Wish to Use Your Restore Disks

Start by turning on the MacBook and inserting Restore Disk 1. As soon as you hit the power button, you must hold down the Option (or Alt) key. This will allow you to boot to all boot-able devices connected to the MacBook. There will likely be only one: the restore disk you just inserted (it may take a minute to show up. If it doesn’t, try holding the power button until the machine turns off, and power it back on again holding the Option key). Select it, and then click the arrow button to continue to boot from this device.

Once the machine has booted to the Restore Disk, you can choose your language. After the next screen appears, you will notice a familiar looking Menu Bar across the top of the screen. Under the Utilities menu, you should see the Disk Utility application. Selecting this option will allow you to follow the same instructions for performing this procedure as if you were booted to a backup drive.

Once you have partitioned your drive, you can close Disk Utility. Your new hard drive will now be fully recognized by your MacBook. Continue to walk through the on-screen instructions for installing Mac OS X to complete the process. If you want to really show off, you can click the Customize button in the bottom of the window part way through this process to choose not to install certain bundled applications, language packs you won’t use, and so on. Deselect all of them to slim down the space required to install Mac to a mere 2GB! This is the real benefit of the fresh installation over using SuperDuper! to restore, however, you can always use the Migration Assistant to recover your user account to a fresh installation if you previously backed up using SuperDuper!

Congratulations on your new hard drive, and good luck with filling all the empty space!

Inspired by macinstruct

Using Fluid, you can create SSBs to run each of your favorite WebApps as a separate Cocoa desktop application. Fluid gives any WebApp a home on your Mac OS X desktop complete with Dock icon, standard menu bar, logical separation from your other web browsing activity, and many, many other goodies.

(From FluidApp.com)

Go Download The App From http://fluidapp.com/ and create yourself a customized App.

Here is a simple Example of creating an Yahoo Mac Application

Google Chrome doesn’t provide an option to load Incognito by default so I created one.

Windows

If you’re using windows

1. Place a Google Chrome shortcut on the desktop.
2. Rename the shortcut to Incognito.
3. Right click on the shortcut and select ‘Properties’.
4. On the ‘Target’ field add an –incognito to the end of program path. (Note: Make sure there is a space between the last apostrophe and the dash)
5. Your incognito browser is now ready for launch.

Mac

If you’re using Mac

1.Set google.com as your home page

2.Open Apple Script Editor and copy paste that script:

tell application "Google Chrome"
activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
tell process "Google Chrome"
tell menu bar 1
tell menu bar item "File"
tell menu "File"
click menu item "New Incognito Window"
end tell
end tell

tell menu bar item "Window"
tell menu "Window"
click menu item "Google"
end tell
end tell

tell menu bar item "File"
tell menu "File"
click menu item "Close Window"
end tell
end tell

end tell
end tell
end tell

3. Compile and Save, You’re done.

Here is the code. Replace PIN_HERE and GV_NUMBER with your Google Voice pin # and your google voice number.

Enter this in Script Editor then compile and run:
[applescript]
set mymypin to “PIN_HERE”
set gvnumber to “GV_NUMBER”

tell application “Address Book”
repeat with thePerson in people
set nums to the phones of thePerson
repeat with num in nums
if the (label of num) contains “GV” then
tell thePerson
delete num
end tell
else
set gvPhone to {label:”", value:”"}
set label of gvPhone to “GV” & the (label of num)
set value of gvPhone to gvnumber & “,” & mypin & “,2,” & the (value of num)
tell thePerson
make new phone at end of phones with properties gvPhone
end tell
end if
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
[/applescript]
Use that method until Google will release API for Google Voice