Apple iOS 4.2 Hands-On 212
adeelarshad82 writes "Apple's highly-anticipated iOS 4.2 update for iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch finally arrived this morning, along with an update for Apple TV. The update includes Airplay, which enables wireless streaming of video, photos, and music from your iOS device to Apple TV. AirPlay is an exciting new development for iOS device owners who also have Apple TVs. As long as the devices are on the same wireless network, they automatically detect each other. AirPlay also lets users multitask while streaming video to an Apple TV. Unfortunately though, AirPlay is a one-way street. Users cannot stream something they rented on Apple TV to their iOS device. The iOS 4.2 update also included the introduction of AirPrint, which is the wireless printing solution for the iPad. (The ability to print to a printer attached to a local PC or Mac was dropped from the release, however.) Other minor changes Apple squeezed into this update were: better Word document fidelity in iWork, multi-tasking, and Game Center."
Still not available to everbody ... (Score:2)
As of 1:12PM EST a "Check For Update" still tells me that 3.2.2 is the latest version.
Hoping I can get the update today and play with it.
Re:Still not available to everbody ... (Score:5, Informative)
Beware that the user agreement for iTunes gives Apple permissions you probably don't expect, like gathering data on how you use you machine. Expect that they see app log files. Many of the disc ripping and burning utilities, as well as video conversion utilities such as HandBrake log the files or disks processed. ClamX AV keeps a log of files scanned. Note the use of "verfiy compliance" below:
From the popup user agreement seen when updating iTunes:
"4. Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the Apple Software and to verify compliance with the terms of this License.Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you."
In the past after crashes/force-quits etc., there was an option to opt-in to sending this additional information automatically and periodically. Later it acts without you seeing it, and you're not told how to reverse the opt-in.
There are settings in the prefs for the console app to turn off sending the "anonymous" info. I use the quotes, because besides you IP address, some of the log files contain things like your user name (that of home folder).
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/SubmitDiagInfo.8.html [apple.com]
Even if you don't mind Apple collecting the info, you might not wanting it sent over some net connections.
transmission is periodic, not just after a crash.
Some are using the utility Little Snitch to block outgoing connections to radarsubmissions.apple.com
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2141147&tstart=105 [apple.com]
There's a utility that Xcode installs that can configure some reporting. /Developer/Applications/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa;jsessionid=57C8B4C60DD7F68968B6617155516075.node0?messageID=11555436� [apple.com]
Looking under "Diagnostic and Usage Info" in console shows a number of things that get sent.
With the current terms of the iTunes agreement, I have to wonder if this info-gathering behavior is now enabled without the crash opt-in user approval. Maybe there's not a problem, but this is worthy of examination. It seems a bit much for the iTunes license to affect things outside the use of iTunes.
Apple makes great hardware and is generally very responsive to issues. If there's a problem and users are vocal about it, they seem likely to do what they can to satisfy people.
Really-- I think they have a sense of humor... (Score:3, Funny)
Really-- I think they have a sense of humor like those IBM guys...
One of my favorite clauses in the Apple iTunes Terms and Conditions:
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#SERVICE [apple.com]
You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of nuclear, missile, or chemical or biological weapons.
I know Apple products are great and all, but they do have their limits of use.
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meh, that silly "weapons" clause has been floating around EULA's forever in one form or another.
From Windows 2000 Professional for example:
http://proprietary.clendons.co.nz/licenses/eula/windows2000professional-eula.htm [clendons.co.nz] ...You specifically agree not to export or re-export the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (or portions thereof) [...] (ii) to any person or entity who you know or have reason to know will utilize the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (or portions thereof) in the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or bi
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Export compliance is a serious business, and very expensive if you start to selectively manage what you export. Better just to put in a blanket statement like that and not have to worry (probably).
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I know Apple products are great and all, but they do have their limits of use.
Perhaps some have forgotten, but Macs were considered weapons!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxz3k2zQJI [youtube.com]
"As for Pentium PCs, well... they're harmless"
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Beware that the user agreement for iTunes gives Apple permissions you probably don't expect, like gathering data on how you use you machine. Expect that they see app log files. Many of the disc ripping and burning utilities, as well as video conversion utilities such as HandBrake log the files or disks processed. ClamX AV keeps a log of files scanned. Note the use of "verfiy compliance" below:
It's absolutely absurd to think Apple is reading your Handbrake or ClamAV logs. This sort of wording is about how iTunes tells Apple what kind of iPhone you have and what apps you have so it can tell you what updates are available.
Apple is very keen on privacy. I'd be extremely surprised if they did anything even remotely as far-reaching as you are implying.
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Welcome to Slashdot, where Apple collecting technical specs on your device is something to beware, but don't you dare criticize Google for driving WiFi-snooping vans around your neighborhood to gather emails and passwords.
Printing not dropped from 4.2 (Score:4, Informative)
The required files for CUPS in OS X and 10.1 for windows were dropped from the current release and printing can be enabled with third party software on the mac or by obtaining files from the earlier beta of 10.6.5.
Re:Printing not dropped from 4.2 (Score:5, Informative)
Easiest way to enable it on the Mac is to find a program called "Hacktivator".
http://netputing.com/2010/11/11/airprint-hacktivator/ [netputing.com]
I did it with the GM, and it works perfectly.
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Funny, I remember Apple buying CUPS in 2007. Were they thinking about a fork for iOS then?
"Other minor changes"? (Score:5, Funny)
The OP's priorities seem a little odd.
The big update of iOS 4.x is multitasking. Its far from being a "minor" update.
And since AirPlay requires the purchase of an additional device, I doubt its a high priority to the majority of ipad users.
Does not require extra purchase (Score:2)
And since AirPlay requires the purchase of an additional device
It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
It makes more sense to use AirPlay with an AppleTV, but people who use mac minis as media PC's can make use of AirPlay as well (although in that case I'd think most people would be putting video on the mini to start with so I'm not sure how widely used it will be).
Re:Does not require extra purchase (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
A Mac is an additional device. :-)
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That's funny... My boss did. So did two other people that I work with, and two other friends.
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I'm considering buying the iPad, have been. I want two for my house. I'll likely purchase an iPad before I purchase any other Apple computing device aside from the two iPhones my wife and I carry.
You were saying?
Oh that's right, YOU'RE A TROLL! Begone forthwith
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I would maybe sort of consider having iPhone as owning an Apple device.
But you're not wrong about gp. (Although I wouldn't mind some stats anyway :) )
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It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
How?
This is the first anyone has mentioned this. Also, none of the people on the iOS developer forums seem to know how.
Are you sure you're not confusing AirPlay and AirPrint?
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The ability to print to any Mac via AirPrint was supposed to show up in 10.6.5 but for unknown reasons this feature was pulled. Though there are 3rd party apps like Printopia and Fingerprint that will enable add the missing functionality. You can also download the missing files from earlier 10.6.5 seeds to re-enable AirPrinting.
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Sure. But the feature I'm responding to a comment on is AirPlay, not AirPrint. You can send to an AirPlay device from a Macintosh (or Windows PC), but not to a computer.
(Which is no shock. I'm sure content providers would see streaming to a general purpose computer as a way to enable content piracy. So we can stream to the AppleTV, which only has HDCP-enabled HDMI as a video output option, but not to computers, which can often do all sorts of things with video beyond simply displaying it.)
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Hmm, I could have sworn I saw ability to stream to iTunes from any iOS device as part of the announcement... I will test later.
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And since AirPlay requires the purchase of an additional device
It doesn't, because you can AirPlay to any Mac.
Really? [apple.com] (Apple does not support it. You can do it with AirFoil, which is not Apple-supported, could break in the future, has been around for a while, is not related to iOS 4.2, and requires the purchase of the software.)
Re:"Other minor changes"? (Score:4, Informative)
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Depends. I still have to test it, but 4.0 flat out broke compatibility of those devices with a lot of 3rd party devices - namely card stereos that let you connect directly to the unit.
4.1 fixed some of that, but still left it very buggy. Most people said that the music would stutter every 30-40 seconds. My own setup (Sony CDX-GT700HD and an iPod Touch 2nd gen) didn't stutter, but the iPod would crash randomly when connected to the car stereo. About once every few hours it would reboot itself while playin
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Actually airplay streaming to the iOS device would be neat, since the ipad is a perfect streaming client. But it wont likely happen for whatever (Steve Jobs latest idiotic fad) reason. I am glad there are other solutions which do exactly that, but airplay is the typical half assed apple solution which is perfect 60% of the road and the rest of the 40% only will be added if they feel it with a sting in their wallet.
Multitasking _for_the_iPad_ (Score:3, Informative)
What the GP means is multitasking for the iPad, which has so far been absent, thus this is a huge release for iPad owners while only a minor release for iPhone owners.
Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:2)
...and its been stellar. The only thing I find odd is quitting apps. The Home button now goes back to the home screen. To quit an app, you must double-tap the home button to display the task bar where you can close apps much like removing apps from the home screen: tap and hold reveals (-) buttons where you can close items.
Not all that obvious, and you can not close an app unless you switch out from this app because the currently running app is not displayed in the task bar.
Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:4, Informative)
It's been that way on the iPhone 4 and 3gs since iOS 4 came out.
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Yeah. Didn't make it clear I'm running iPad.
The OS is stellar in general, is what my comment was. Handy been closed to multitasking iOS yet because I didn't renew my iPhone after my gen 1 drowned.
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"In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it" - Steve Jobs.
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It's not a task manager.
It's a task BAR :-p
But yeah, it needs refining.
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Cydia has implemented it better - their backgrounding lets you hold down the home button to background and tap to quit. Not to mention proper app running in the background rather than just state saving.
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i ran cydia's multi tasking on an iphone 3G when 4 first came out. it sucked was being nice. it literally runs the apps in the background which is completely useless if you're not using the app.
the people who coded apple's multi tasking used to work for Palm and did it in a way to to use as less resources as possible. this is why Android phones are generally more powerful hardware wise than same generation iphones but feel more laggy.
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We know why Apple implemented it the way they did, but it has significant disadvantages too.
Try running a softphone. An incoming UDP packet can't wake the app, whereas on Cydia it will work just fine.
They've used a solutions for phones which have a tiny battery on tablets that have a much larger one.
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As an Android and iOS developer your comments seem a bit misguided. As long as an Android device is properly responding to onPause() and onResume() there is ZERO reason an Android app should be eating resources in the background. There are no UI events passed to an application that is backgrounded on Android.
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As long as an Android device is properly responding to onPause() and onResume() there is ZERO reason an Android app should be eating resources in the background.
"Resources" are not limited to just "UI resources" - they also include CPU, RAM, bandwidth, and interactions with integrated hardware. The very fact that an app continues running in the background means it consumes more resources than if it weren't. This is true on BB devices, and I assume Android and iOS as well.
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In Android it isn't your job to kill off applications. They are supposed to sit there and eat memory when it is available. If you have 512MB of RAM, what is the point of having half of it empty just to make some graph in some resource app you have look pretty? Fill every bit of RAM you can with apps you are using or commonly use so they open quickly. When the system starts getting low on RAM and needs to free some, let Android send the app it wants to kill a Destroy command so the app can save its bundl
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I'm no EE, so I don't know if the impact is significant or not, but wouldn't "wired" RAM that is actively storing bits require additional juice. Volatile RAM, like that used in smartphones, doesn't work like flash. There is a power penalty for apps that are storing stuff in RAM. If you are literally doing nothing with the phone, it doesn't make sense to keep the whole 512MB of ram wired just because you happened to use applications before, especially if the OS has functions for the app to essentially be
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I would agree with everything you said, but....my experience with the HTC Evo was that in Eclair, having a task manager was a must. Before the Froyo update, I had to regularly kill applications by hand because the phone would become sluggish to the point of being almost unusable and battery life would plummet. Killing apps that I didn't want/need made an immediate and noticeable difference. After the update though, I disabled auto-kill on my task manager and found that everything was pretty much fine.
Is
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Yup. go steve jobs. [engadget.com]. Do as I say, not as I do?
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Yup. go steve jobs. [engadget.com]. Do as I say, not as I do?
Sorry but I'm really lazy. If you don't give me a stronger hint about what's behind the link, I'm not going to take the trouble to check it out.
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99% of the time, you have no need to get at the task manager (by which I mean the actual interface to kill apps, not just switch between them). The only time I've ever need to use that was when Mail freaked out on me and forgot how to download messages. Previously I'd have to restart the phone, now I can just kill the app and try again. Just like how in day-to-day use of my laptop, I don't need to use the Force Quit menu. On rare occasion something goes very wrong, but by and large I don't need to mess aro
Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been there since iOS 4, and Apple says that you should normally not have to fully quit the apps anymore due to how multitasking works. They shouldn't consume much resources when not being in use. So that's probably why quitting stuff has been moved out of the way a bit.
I can confirm that Apple isn't bullshitting on all this, since until my pretty rare iPhone 3Gs resets, I often end up having 15 apps running at a time with no noticeable impact to battery life or sluggishness.
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Which can be interesting if you run tomtom. When you're in a store you will hear "turn left on main street" coming from your pocket/purse/etc. if you don't kill the app.
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The apps listed on the taskbar don't mean that they are on memory, just that they have been recently executed. Sadly, there is no visible way to know if the app is still on memory. iOS will automatically close programs when a new one request more memory than currently is available.
When hitting the home button twice and choosing a program, if it doesn't resume where you left it, it means that iOS closed it (or that the program doesn't support the multitasting API)
Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:4, Informative)
Double-tap home, find it in the list, tap-hold, click the minus sign.
Sure, but do not need to... (Score:3, Informative)
It's not totally obvious how to quit apps, but there's generally no need - because any app you quit is really more suspended than backgrounded, so it's using no system resources just sitting there (unless it's set to do some background task like playing music, and then you want it doing something of course).
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What I want, let me CHOOSE what apps stay running. That way I dont have to go into my phone weekly and disable the 60 apps running in the background.
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Jailbreak, use RemoveBG, an add-on for SBSettings. A lot faster than zapping jiggly little icons.
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The only thing I find odd is quitting apps. The Home button now goes back to the home screen. To quit an app, you must double-tap the home button to display the task bar where you can close apps much like removing apps from the home screen: tap and hold reveals (-) buttons where you can close items.
Apps don't really run or quit on iOS. They suspend their operation and re-start their operation. The list you are talking about is more like a list of recently run apps. When you press the home button you are putting the app in a state of "suspended animation", when you double-click the home button and choose another app then your current app is again put into a state of "suspended animation"
It's up to the app itself to decide how to handle the suspend and wake events. Some apps keep a snapshot of their sta
Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, my previous reply is a bit off. Apparently the task bar method does send a message to the app to quit, I wasn't aware that it also did that. Here's the two methods to get an app to quit:
iPhone 101: Quitting apps in iOS 4 [tuaw.com]
Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. Unless said apps are made to multitask and recognized as such, they are effectively put to sleep and revived for instant-on to where you left it. Processes that need to run can register special threads that keep running. Eg, chrono apps, chat apps etc.
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My personal experience with older apps on iOS 4.2.1 is that they don't go to sleep nicely. They basically just close. Two examples I have of this are the Huffington Post and USA Today apps. If you leave them (say to change what you are listening to in Pandora) and come back via the quick app switching bar (double click home button) they will simply restart as if you just launched them. Other apps, like Twitter, deal with the switch beautifully. It is going to be a bit before iOS apps deal with multitas
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If an app is linked against pre-4.0 libraries, pressing the home button kills it instead of putting it to sleep. Simply recompiling the app against the new libraries will enable multitasking support (there are some changes you might want to make, but I don't think any of them are required).
So far as I know, this isn't for any technical reasons. The early 4.0 betas enabled multitasking for all apps, and it was only midway through the beta that the behavior changed so that legacy apps quit instead of slept.
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My personal experience with older apps on iOS 4.2.1 is that they don't go to sleep nicely. They basically just close. Two examples I have of this are the Huffington Post and USA Today apps.
Apps need to be specifically written to "go to sleep nicely". No app is guaranteed to sufficient notice to sleep under iOS and if the app takes too long to close on its own it will be terminated so that it doesn't slow down the device. It's up to the app to save its state sufficiently as it is running so that it can sleep and wake nicely.
Obviously some apps do this nicely and other apps don't. For some apps it really doesn't matter because every time they start up they want to go through the same process, o
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A thing to be careful with: Turn by turn navigation software will typically keep navigating in the background unless you completely close it using the taskbar. I used my phone to get me somewhere in Boston last month (walking). I used to Home key to background the task and stuck the phone in my pocket when I got there. 30-45 Minutes later I pulled the phone out and again and realized that I was all but out of juice. The phone had been navigating the whole time I ate lunch,and GPS navigation *devours* ba
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Other minor changes... (Score:2)
Re:Other minor changes... (Score:4, Informative)
And AirPlay is basically UPNP Media. My GF's droid auto-detected my World Book Storage and Xbox Media Center and made available all our videos/pictures/music on her droidx. This stuff is becoming child's play. I can play HD movies on her phone through my old xbox to the TV. And control it from her phone.
I wish Apple hadn't made a whole new standard, but I guess that's their deal.
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Childs play huh.... Please do an instant rewind with a UPnP media box. it SUCKS.
SMB share is the only way for it to work smoothly. WTF cant they simply do it that way?
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yes upnp media but somewhat less flakey, the problem upnp has mostly is that the servers are somewhat flakey, and especially on the mac there is a lack of decent upnp clients.
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Airplay is basically airtunes with video support, so no big difference there. And it still sucks because it just allows you to push the media from itunes 2 itunes or from ios to a speaker or itunes, but not onto your ios device, if you want video streamed onto the ios device you have to use a different option, but why then use it at all.
Re:Other minor changes... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh, that isn't even close to what happened. Steve said something about how he didn't like task managers; then Apple releases iOS 4 which includes a task switcher thing. Haters gotta hate I guess, but pointing to the task switcher and screaming "haha you admitted you blew it" is really stupid. (For one thing the iOS multitasking implementation had already been written at the time of the quote, but I digress.)
Look guys, the task switcher isn't a task manager; it just lists recently used apps. Important point: it lists recently used apps *whether they are even running or not*. It's almost all interface. The only manager-ish thing it does is that when you remove items from the list, they are killed if they were even actually running. This is not very useful for improving battery life, since they aren't likely to be using any battery unless you see the "playing music" icon or "using GPS" icon (but go ahead and clear things out if you like voodoo). Mostly the app-killing feature is useful to reset apps that have gotten themselves suspended into a bad state.
Re:Other minor changes... (Score:4, Funny)
You "don't care" enough to post multiple messages in threads pertaining to devices you don't own.
Got it.
How bout they just fix A2DP (Score:2)
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what about us poor iPhone 3G users... (Score:2)
... have they somewhat improved the miserable performance of these devices on iOS 4.x? I hate being continuously reminded that I'm not complying to the upgrade treadmill by using a not-yet-2-years-old-paid-500EUR-for-the-privilege phone... :/
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The 3G is essentially the same processor platform as the original iPhone and IMHO would have been better off if Apple capped the 3G at iOS3, as they did the original iPhone.
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We're replacing my wife's 3G at Christmas, it just can't keep up anymore. My 3Gs runs 4.x flawlessly though. Which kind of make me sad, I'd like an excuse to upgrade to the prettier screen :-)
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... have they somewhat improved the miserable performance of these devices on iOS 4.x? I hate being continuously reminded that I'm not complying to the upgrade treadmill by using a not-yet-2-years-old-paid-500EUR-for-the-privilege phone... :/
You are unfortunately in the minority. Most 3G users should have already upgraded to the iPhone 4.
At least in the USA, the process is pretty ridiculous:
1) Upgrade to the iPhone 4 for $200 while keeping your grandfathered-in unlimited data plan
2) Wipe and then jailbreak your iPhone 3G
3) Sell your iPhone 3G on eBay or Craigslist for $250
4) Profit.
Everyone I know that had a 3G used this method for upgrading - at least in my area Verizon is no better than AT&T so there is no reason to wait for them to
do as I did... downgrade to 3.1.2! (Score:2)
There is a lot of material online to guide you through the process.
Other minor updates??? (Score:3, Informative)
TFA is all about AirPlay, which to me is a niche feature. Maybe not minor, but I doubt most iPhone/iPad owners will ever use it. There are a lot of nice updates, as shown on Apple's site:
http://www.apple.com/ios/ [apple.com]
AirPrint, Find My iPhone/Pad/Pod, on-demand remote wipe, respond to calendar invitations, SMS message tones, on-device TV show rental... Lots of features that I suspect will get more use than AirPlay.
Minor like "Quicklook" in OSX 10.5 (Score:2)
It was a seemingly minor thing when released, but was one of the biggest usability increases in OS browsing since the file browser.
Every single person I show this to (who hasn't already used it) is impressed by the capabilities... and it was a minor addition to 10.5.
I think AirPlay will be the same. Sure you have UPnP and DNLA, but Apple has solved some of the biggest issues with those file-sharing implementations that make it work different and better (ie, seamless cutover from one device to another, supp
PS3 Media Server? (Score:2)
Would be nice if Airplay would stream through something else. That handy Remote app from Apple is great but limits you to your iTunes library on your computer. I'd rather see it work with another iPhone.
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Then do yourself a favor and move your media to a upnp server, airplay is an apple only upnp clone.
MIDI (Score:5, Informative)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that 4.2 gives the iPhone/iPad native MIDI support. As a musician, this is huge.
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QUICK! Someone fire up canyon.mid!
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Really? My only exposure to MIDI has been really annoying sound-tracks on badly designed web pages that blare a badly representation of an instrument at deafening volumes.
I was wondering if anybody actually used it for anything that didn't sound like a cheap Casio keyboard (ie. Complete Crap).
What does this do for me as a user? Will it make games better?
Re:MIDI (Score:4, Informative)
MIDI: Musical Instrument Digital Interface :)
Rather than transmit music as an audio stream, MIDI sends parameters describing how an instrument is being played - the note, intensity, expression variables and such. The MIDI music you heard on old websites sounded crappy thanks to how that information was used to create an audio stream to feed to your speakers. That is, the software instruments on your computer sucked. This is not a fault in MIDI's design, but in the specific software implementation on your computer. Or, it's quite possible the music just sucked.
Re:MIDI (Score:4, Informative)
Really? My only exposure to MIDI has been really annoying sound-tracks on badly designed web pages that blare a badly representation of an instrument at deafening volumes.
That's not true. What it is is your only exposure that you're aware of. You've heard a lot of MIDI-involved music, just no one ever told you that's what it was. Turn on your radio.
I was wondering if anybody actually used it for anything that didn't sound like a cheap Casio keyboard (ie. Complete Crap).
MIDI doesn't mean the sounds, it means the protocol for interfacing electronic musical equipment. Turn on your radio, you will find no shortage of non-"Complete Crap" MIDI music.
What does this do for me as a user? Will it make games better?
No, it won't make games better, and for you specifically, it will probably have no real impact. If you were a musician, however, this is *HUGE*. Imagine being able to control your entire musical setup from an iPad or iPhone. Or go the other way and record from your keyboard directly to an iOS device.
I want AirPlay Reverse (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems really pretty dumb to stream media (except when on travel or sharing a few recent photos) from the smallest device you own in terms of storage space, and battery life. I want to be able to stream from my Mac (PC whatever) TO the iOS devices. I'm perfectly fine with limiting the formats so I have to transcode on the sender. That would make the appleTV a perfect media center thin client. It would also give me all sorts of music when mowing the grass for instance with my phone. I could watch a movie in bed that I just downloaded from the net without adding media that might be a one-time viewing into my iTunes library and syncing.
Apple already does this with the airport express and DAAP (and friends: DMAP, DPAP), this should not be a big leap to treat my iPhone as an airport express of sorts.
Sheldon
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There are various solutions to achieve that, none by apple which does not like to have its devices as clients as it seems. Twonky media server and a upnp client does it so do various streaming server and client solutions which are readily available.
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That "except when on travel or sharing a few recent photos" is huge. These are mobile devices after all! Visit your parents, hit a button on your phone and you can pop a video on their TV. Go to a party with a cool song no one's heard, you can play it to the hosts speakers with no cables. AirPlay solves the problem of everyone huddlin
Find iphone (Score:2, Informative)
PDFs and jpeg 2000 images (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately Apple still is behind the curve on making PDFs readable. Many new PDFs use jpeg 2000 for images which leave portions of my PDFs blank. It's the same on the iPhone. I can read them fine on my PowerBook G4 and MacBook Pro and even my Windows 7 box, but not on the iPad.
[John]
Wireless streaming? Nothing new here. (Score:2)
"There are nearly 8,000 products on the market that are DLNA Certified [10]. This includes TVs, DVD and Blu-ray players, games consoles, digital media players, photo frames, cameras, NAS storage, PCs, mobile handsets, and more" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLNA [wikipedia.org]
Android devices are already supporting this, you can bet the coming onslaught of Chrome tablets will support it too.
Apples wireless sharing offering is looking a bit silly.. why
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It's not the same thing -- with AirPlay, you're streaming video content decoded on the iOS device to the AirPlay "target". So you can do it with Netflix, YouTube, not just things where you have the media files stored locally. I've even used it to send the audio from iOS games to external speakers (by sending to an AirPort Express, which has no video, so the test was audio-only). It's more like a network-connected external monitor+speakers than that.
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Out of curiosity, what benefits are there to jailbreaking my iPhone 4? I played around a bit with it on my old 3G but most of the features I added are now supported natively.
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wifipass - dumps out the list of wifi passwords in your device. Handy for transferring them to a buddy or to your next phone.
synergyclient - So you can u
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The biggest benefit, I guess by now are flash (which is still flakey as hell) and the various emulators as well as native filesystem access.
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I also just got IntelliScreen which lets you add tons of functionality to your lock screen. Now when I click on my phone I instantly see my upcoming calendar events, waiting mail messages including a quick preview, so I can read email messages without having to even unlock the phone. I find this very helpful since I
Free tethering, lock-screen widgets (Score:2)
Are the two that I'd be interested in... but neither are really important to me. Nice to have the option, though.
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Probably USB related. Just a guess though, I have no idea - I thought it was a little odd too.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unless there's some point I'm missing?
You are missing the point that some people take their iPads with them to work, to meetings and other places. Other people keep their iPad next to their bed.
Now consider how difficult it is to "mute" a device with an audible alert going off.
First you, you have to press the home button to wake the screen, then swipe right to unlock the screen, which might trigger an unlock sound and then press the volume rocker.
If you are in a meeting, the last thing you want to do is pull out the iPad, enable the screen, swi