Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weißnachten, Feliz Navidad, Mele Kalikimaka, Meri Kurisumasu, and a Happy Festivus to the rest of yus!
Pages
-
Categories
- Categories
-
Archives
ok, so i’ve been meaning to keep updates flowing on my frequent topic of convo – the lack of physical keyboard on the iPhone – but now i have not one, but two juicy glimmers of hope. yes indeedy.
the first comes in the form of the Nuu Mini Key, which debuted at a tech conference in september… have a squint at the gallery over on engadget, but here’s a good pic:
- Nuu Mini Key
pretty nifty huh? except (at time of writing) noone has picked it up for production yet. shucks.
however, today there’s a new fella about: Boxwave’s Keyboard Buddy. just a slider, not a slide-tilter (which in my opinion is better, more like my G1) and the keys highlights are white and a rather fetching blue.
(product site, via engadget)
- boxwave keyboard buddy
the Boxwave Keyboard Buddy is $70 but at least it’s available now. gotta say, if i do get an iPhone any time soon, at least i’d feel comfortable knowing i could get one of these.
problem solved. ok, nearly. it still has the issue that it’s technically a bluetooth peripheral and uses up more battery power than an attached keyb, but hey it’s the closest to a solution so far.
woah, woah, WOAH. hold the phone. here is a nice little glimmer of hope to brighten the seemingly never-to-be-fulfilled ideal i have for what kind of iDevice would make me happy…
as Marvin the Martian would say, “isn’t it lovely? hmm?” and no gaffer tape in sight either…
now hurry up and make one for the iTouch and iPhone, ‘kay?
(via Geeky Gadgets)
some of you may remember earlier rants about the lack of hard keyboard on the iPhone (and iTouch and now the iPad, these shall now be collectively be known as ‘iThing’) and how that was one of the things preventing me from getting one.
the other reasons have gradually been remedied (MMS and cut&paste- check (thanks to OS3), better camera- check (if iPhone4 rumours are to be believed), background processes / multitasking- check (when OS4 hits), fascist app store- still the case, but hell with it…) BUT there is still no option for a hard keyboard.
now i speculated recently that seeing as OS4 will be pretty much universal between iPad and iPhone/iTouch (currently running slightly different flavors of the same OS) and the fact that the iPad works with bluetooth keyboards, that eventually the iPhone/iTouch might also be able to when OS4 arrives…
so, on to the point of THIS post.
i used to say to colleagues that questioned my foresaking iBliss for something with a hard keyboard that if the iThing supported bluetooth keyboards (and if i could find a small one) then i would contemplate an iPhone and tape one to it.
after my last batch of speculation i’ve been keeping half an eye out for dinky bluetooth keyboards and have just seen one that may just fit the bill.
this + duck tape + iThing?
is only $43 and according to the product site it already works with the iPad, so i’m quite tempted to get one and see if it works with my iTouch when OS4 arrives…
if so, well that might just make the iPhone a little more tempting.
(via Geeky Gadgets, product site: brando)
to remove the adbox on the home type page:
#pagelet_adbox{
display:none;
visibility:hidden;
}
to remove the big ad bar on a profile page:
.adcolumn_wrapper{
display:none;
visibility:hidden;
}
assuming you’re using Firefox, put this code into a file called userContent.css in your profile folder (if you’re using OSX it’ll probably be ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/profiles/[numbers].default/chrome/)
i would imagine this’ll work with other browsers, if they allow custom stylesheets. enjoy.
EDIT: just noticed another ad sidebar on the notifications page… here’s the code for that one too:
.UIStandardFrame_SidebarAds{
display:none;
visibility:hidden;
}
just pondering. the new iPad will be working on pretty much the same OS as the iPhone right? (or the new OS 4.0… whichever…)
and it has the option of a keyboard dock or just a dock and using a bluetooth keyboard right?
sooo… does that mean that by then the iPhone OS will support a bluetooth keyboard without someone having to hack the shit out of it?
cos if i could use an external keyb with an iPhone (yeah you can get some pretty tiny BT keybs) then that may solve one of my previous gripes… 
just pondering.
with everyone going on about the new Chrome beta released recently for OSX (though i’d love to know what i’ve had installed in this for the last few months) i thought i’d give it a go…
one of the supposed amazing features of Chrome is the ‘extensions’ (like add-ons for Firefox) so i thought i’d try some of those too… except i can’t. the mac builds don’t support them yet. great. a bit of infomining reveals that the dev build of the beta for mac does support extensions, so i download and install that. twice. and extensions still “aren’t enabled”… oh the fail of it.
Chrome Extensions supported in the dev build? well apparently not.
then i found out that bookmark manager doesn’t work in the mac builds either (so you can add bookmarks but not change them, move them, delete them etc) and that was enough to make me give up.
sort it the fuck out Google, i’ll try again when you make shit that works.
thought i may as well type up my experience of rooting my gPhone -to inform, enlighten and mebbe even educate anyone thinking of doing the same.
this is not a ‘how to’, but a ‘this is how i did it’. there are a few different ways of rooting and modding, but this is how i did mine.
before i start i want to make clear that anyone undertaking such a risk commitment does so at their own risk and is nothing to do with me. i am not responsible for bricked phones, delusions of grandeur, the current economic downturn or global warming.
ok, ass well and truly covered, i shall begin.
a bit of background- the reason that i decided to root my gPhone was as follows- as well as generally loving tinkering around with such shit, a couple of months back an official OTA Android update borked my phone (read previous posts) and it looked like the only way out was a factory reset (ie wipe everything and hope for the best)… some ‘solution’ huh? so, as addressed before in a few posts, the official Google ‘support’ was laughable and i was relying on the community for answers. which is pretty much how it goes when rooting. the major drawback that puts people off (aside from numpties bricking their phone cos they don’t know what they’re doing) is the ‘oh it’s nothing to do with us anymore’ reaction when Google (or whomever) realise that you have shunned their stock builds for something shinier. so yeah, losing official support- “oh no, how will i cope?” </sarcasm>
so with that decision made, the main problem lay in the catch 22 that i needed to back up my important stuff (contacts, texts, etc) before i would wipe my phone, BUT i couldn’t get to said stuff until i rooted my phone (which involves a wipe) because the daft-ass privileges on the gPhone mean that you can’t even READ the onboard storage (and therefore copy anything off it)…
so yeah, a bit stuck. until, after much much research and going-in-circles, i stumbled across an app called ‘instant root’[1]. this app utilises an exploit in the bluetooth stack that can give a user root privileges WITHOUT HAVING TO REFLASH YOUR PHONE. now this is major w00t, as i could then copy my texts database from my phone to be replaced after the ensuing shenanigans.
(yes, i was skeptical about a one-click app giving root, but it did indeed work. it says in the readme that it will only last until the next update, but it did exactly what i needed, so i was happy. also, apparently this exploit has been closed in donut (v1.6) so it may not work from now on)
so, i have my texts database copied to my memory card[2], my bookmarks backed up using ‘bookmark backup and restore’[3] and my contacts backed up with a free beta version of Sprite Backup[4] NOT using gmail sync. gmail sync appears to only sync one way. i turned it on (having never used it before now) to back up my contacts and instead of copying my phone contacts to my gmail it started removing any contacts that weren’t in my gmail… not much damn use if you ask me!
with everything backed up, and me having (temporary) root privileges, the fun can begin. i hooked my gPhone up to my computer via a USB cable to transfer the stuff i’ll need, and so i can grab screengrabs (using DDMS) for this post. i transferred the apk installer for a program called ‘flashrec’[5] (allows you to flash a bootloader recovery screen that will allow you to flash a new rom) and a rom image for the Cyanogen Mod[6].
now follows the notes/screengrabs that i took as doing it.
installing flashrec from my sdcard using appmanager.
the time is 16:59.
backing up my recovery image. so far so good
now flashing the new recovery image.
the time is 17:01.
it’s done.
turning my phone off, then rebooting to the bootloader by holding down the home button as i boot back up.
the time is 17:02.
shit. i get an error when making a nandroid backup.
quick google around and no joy.
decided to reboot phone as normal, and check my sdcard for a) space and b) corruption.
the time is 17:16.
sdcard seems to have enough space and doesn’t say it’s corrupted.
to be on the safe side, freed up some space. now have about 150mb free.
made sure there’s plenty of space on my phone too. have around 20mb free
now reinstalling flashrec.
ok, rebooted back to bootloader screen, performing nandroid backup
the time is 17:24.
backup complete! must not have been enough free space.
the time is 17:26
performed ‘wipe data / factory reset’. nearly shed a tear.
selected ‘apply any update from sd’ then chose the CM recovery image zip
is now happily unpacking/installing away
the time is 17:27.
‘install from sdcard complete’
the time is 17:29.
rebooting now, hopefully to Cyanogen goodness.
after a few tense minutes staring at the G1 bootscreen i am greeted by the cyanogen one. so far so good.
and eventually the google set up / sign in to account screen
the time is 17:34
phone finishes booting up into my new Cyanogen-flavored Android OS.
the time is 17:36
total time spent rooting (not including time spent figuring out the nandroid error): 16 mins
so there you have it. my experience of rooting my gPhone. i’ll spare you the hours spent putting my texts, contacts, bookmarks, apps etc back on there. 
[1] ‘Instant Root’, an app by neilandtheresa, removed from android market, so just google it.
[2] texts and mms database located at /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/databases/mmssms.db, mms attachments stored in /data/data/com.android.providers.telephony/app_parts
[3] Androlib page for Bookmark Backup and Restore
[4] sprite backup no longer in beta, paid app available in the market or google and you may find the apk for the beta (note don’t use beta one, you want beta two) (different backup file format)
[5] google it.
[6] www.cyanogenmod.com – custom builds of the Android OS, utilising the features released in dev branches (ie gets new features before the official builds) basically full of root goodness
Previously on ‘Ranting About the Iphone’:
ok, so it’s become somewhat of a running joke amongst my colleagues that i still don’t have an iPhone. especially considering how evangelistic we all are about Apple shiz in general.
the points i keep having to reiterate are that compared to my (rapidly becoming less) beloved gPhone, there are still some ways in which the iPhone is quite severely lacking. a couple of these have been remedied in the time since i made my initial decision between the two, ie cut-n-paste, MMS and a decent (ish) camera (in the S at least), BUT there are still a few major gripes.
namely:
- the iPhone OS not only being closed source, but the app store being ruled with an iron fist, leading to many cool apps being straight up denied. not a problem with an open-source OS like Android.
- lack of non-system background processes, meaning apps can’t be doing shiz when they don’t have focus (eg checking feed updates etc etc). i’ve read that this may change in future iterations, possibly allowing one app at a time to be ‘authorised’ to operate in the background. we’ll see
- no hard keyboard
now the latter is the one that i keep having to justify to people when making these points (ok, gripes)… there’s just no substitute for actually tapping at keys. when i got my first pocket PC (an XDA mini) that was the one thing to which i couldn’t adjust… then the MDA Vario came along and solved the problem.
as far as i’m concerned, the gPhone has a nice balance between nifty hardware ‘borrowed’ from each major competitor- the screen of the iPhone, the keyb of the Vario (etc) and the trackball of the Blackberry. so until the iPhone gets a keyboard that will always be one thing that makes me go “yeah but…”
so, to the point of this post. is there any chance of it getting one? well, my intrepid reader, read on…
Episode IV: A New Hope
the first glimmer of hope came in the form of some dude getting a jailbroken iPhone to pair with the Apple bluetooth keyboard.
not as portable as a gPhone, but it’s a start, right?
Proof of Concept?
next up was the report of a new Apple keyboard that would house a dock for the iPhone, looking very pretty but with no info on if it’d happen. looks to be a concept with no uptake. shame really.
apparent concept for Apple keyb with iPhone dock
getting there
then there were claims from 2008′s Macworld expo of ‘the first bluetooth keyboard to be compatible with the Iphone’, even pictures of the thing… but at the time of writing, the ‘BTKeyMini” still isn’t on McAlly’s website, nor anywhere to my knowledge.
pic of the 'BTKeyMini' keyb
so, the idea is there, the product isn’t. TBH the above keyb doesn’t even look that portable compared to, say for example, the folding keyboard for palm devices circa 2001/2…
what we need is something about the size of the iPhone itself… enter this next fellow.
hack the planet iPhone
here’s a nifty video of someone who’s taken an external keyboard for something or other (looks like half of a databank) and hacked it to an iPhone… while i don’t pretend to understand how it was done, it was done. so it’s possible.
ooo shiny.
now to make it look nice. enter ‘Planet Mat’ and his concept for the ‘iPhone Elite’… notice the nice retractable keyb…
or at least something like his second idea (more along the lines of what i was originally envisaging) of an add-on keyb- part peripheral, part case. like this:
concept for an iPhone add-on keyb
isn’t it lovely?
so yeah, where the crap is it people? get to it!
things i have noticed while writing this post-
1) this was supposed to be a brief ‘i wish’ post. oh well.
2) no matter how many times i type it i still type ‘keyboard’ as ‘keybaord’. dammit.
ok so aside form the bug that noone seems to give a shit about, my dialer storage is still growing exponentially and causing me other problems, so i’ve decided to submit a bug report for that too and see if anything actually happens…
here’s a copy of the issue i’ve submitted on the android code site:
nothing showed up in a search for “dialer storage” so i’m starting a new report.
my dialer storage used to be around 3/400kb and since the recent ‘security update’ a few weeks ago it’s been growing larger every time i look at it.
it currently stands at 10mb which IMHO is way larger than it should (or indeed used to) be.
all of the space taken up is in the ‘data’ portion (total:10mb, application: 0mb, data:10mb), and the ‘clear cache’ option says 0kb and is greyed out.i haven’t added any custom ringtones for people recently (ie any time near experiencing this issue), and in the time i’ve been experiencing this behavior i’ve added maybe three contacts at most (no extra info, pics, ringtones etc)
aside from being an annoyance, it keeps bringing up the ‘storage space low’ warning. which has now caused its own set of problems.
resultant problem 1:
i have recently found out that while the ‘storage space low’ warning is showing, the phone will not sync. which means that over the last week or so (yes i’ve now got to the stage of ignoring the warning, as i’m not prepared to lose any more apps i actually would like to use just because a part of the OS is growing) i haven’t been getting my gMail and i’ve been missing events in my calendar. not good.
is the ‘not syncing while storage space is low’ thing a bug or a really daft feature?resultant problem 2:
since getting the ‘storage space low’ warning AFTER the recent ‘security update’ i now have all of the issues detailed in the thread here:http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2949
i have had the storage space warning before the update and never had any problems. everyone in this thread has had problems starting with a combination of two things- the recent update and subsequently getting low storage (for whatever reason)
this bug report has been declined, for reasons unknown.
a pretty crippling bug is being ignored, meaning lots of people are left with the choice of a pretty much useless phone, or losing all their data.
not much of a choice IMHO.so to reiterate- my point is that through one bug my storage space is growing and taking over my phone.
this bug is combining with an apparent bug in the recent update, and has now caused another issue that makes my phone gradually more and more unusable, one that is being ignored by the support team.any info on either of these bugs, or how to make my phone usable again (without the standard response of ‘master reset’, losing all my data is NOT a viable option) would be greatly appreciated…
cheers!ps- random (hopefully useful info)-
had handset since: aug 2008
carrier: t-mobile
never rooted / otherwise messed with
firmware: 1.5
build no: CRC1
link to my new bug report on the google code site:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3505
