5 posts tagged “arstechnica”
Create Ringtones for free with just iTunes
By Jeff Smykil | Published: August 07, 2008 - 03:58PM CT
There are a few different ways to create ringtones for your brand new,
shiny iPhone. While some bystanders might find the playing of your
favorite song annoying, it can quickly inform you to exactly who is
calling without taking the phone out of your pocket, purse, or man-bag.
For instance whenever Clint Ecker hears the song Gin and Juice, he knows that that it's Ars Technica's Managing Editor Eric Bangeman on the other end, and he can ignore the call accordingly.
The Apple Blog offers a way of creating ringtones sans Garage Band or any other third-party software, and all it requires is an up-to-date copy of iTunes and a little time. It uses the start-stop time feature in the audio file's Get Info area, and requires you to cut the track down to the specific 30 seconds you desire. After that, you just convert the clip to AAC, drop it on your desktop, delete the file from iTunes, change the extension to .m4a or m4r, and then drop it back into iTunes. It's not the easiest process, but at least it is free.
Of course, there are more methods of doing this for free in addition to third-party applications that automate the process for a price. Either way, it's cheaper than paying Apple almost $2 a pop.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/07/create-ringtones-for-free-with-just-itunes
Students add vibrating feedback to iPhone keyboard
By Justin Berka | Published: February 27, 2008 - 08:59AM CT
The
iPhone initially received some criticism for its touchscreen keyboard,
but the clamor has subsided as more and more people have gotten a
chance to try it out. Still, having some type of tactile feedback would
be nice, particularly for times when you want to text without looking
at the device. A patent application
suggests that Apple is looking at ways to offer haptic (tactile)
feedback, but a few enterprising PhD students from Glasgow weren't
willing to wait. Those students have created a prototype application
that provides haptic feedback when using the keyboard.
The team was able to introduce vibration feedback by using the different speeds and settings of the iPhone's "vibrotactile actuator." When pressing a button, the actuator generates a vibration pattern that feels like a "smooth rounded button," and when the key is released, another vibration pattern gives the user the feel of a key snapping back into place. The third type of feedback provides users with information about where the keys are. By tracking the position of the fingertip, the team's application generates tactile feedback when the user's finger encounters the edge of a key.
Unfortunately, the haptic feedback technology is only contained in the team's HapticKB application, and can't used with Safari or any other app. The team is also working on lists with haptic feedback, as well as on launching applications using the haptic technology, but there's no word on when the new prototypes will appear. In the meantime, the HapticKB application can be downloaded from the iPhone-haptics project page, so if you want to mess around with it, give it a try (and let us know how it works in the comments).
Yes thats right, we have an unlocked iPhone. The hardware is only used to unlock
the iPhone, and can be removed after it's unlocked. Thanks to gray, iProof,
geohot, dinopio, lazyc0der, and an anonymous contributor for making this
possible. Thanks also to everyone who donated and stuck with us in
#iphone.unlock. Our group has agreed to release the method in one week. The
current method involves taking apart your phone and doing some complicated
soldering, with a high probablity of a bricked phone. Although after the phone
is unlocked all the hardware can be removed. We hope to find a software unlock
very soon. So in one week exactly from this blog post(thats less than the time
it takes to ship a turbosim) we will release simple step by step instructions
for unlocking, probably not even involving hardware. Sorry about the wait, but I
assure you it will be worth it.
I found this at
http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007/08/full-hardware-unlock-of-iphone-done.html
In a video up on the Finding Jtab on the iPhone blog, a shaggy-haired young hacker holds up an iPhone and proclaims "This is the world's first unlocked iPhone."
By unlocked, he means he's gotten around having to use the iPhone with AT&T. In the video, he holds the phone up to the camera to show the T-Mobile connection indicator on the screen, makes a phone call, and then removes a T-Mobile SIM card.
He says he and his team had to take the phone apart and perform some complicated soldering, but they hope to have a software unlock figured out when they post details of their hardware unlock in a week.
Ars Technica also has a blog post up with a few guesses about how the team pulled it off.
I found this at
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005210.html
By Justin Berka | Published: August 21, 2007 - 07:36AM CT
If
you're an iPhone owner (and perhaps even if you're not), chances are you've at
least kept an eye on iPhone hacks like the Turbo
SIM unlock, as well as on application
development progress. Perhaps you've gotten a few hacks working, or maybe
you'd like to do more with your iPhone but get scared off by lots of command
line mumbo-jumbo. No matter what group you fall into, improved tools like
Installer.app and a slew of iPhone hacking guides will get your feet wet and
allow you to do some more advanced tricks, all in no time flat.
Installer.app is a UIKit package manager for the iPhone, and is designed to let users easily download third-party iPhone apps over EDGE or WiFi. You can jailbreak your iPhone and install the package manager with only one command, which makes this a good choice of hack for people who want cool applications without much fuss. It's a beautifully simple tool, but if you haven't played with the command line much, I'd recommend following Gizmodo's detailed instructions to get up and running with Installer.app.
On the more complex side of things, tools like iPHUC give users more control over their iPhones by facilitating file transfers and the running of scripts. iPHUC requires you to be comfortable with the command line, but it's quite an improvement over previous tools used to get to the core of the iPhone's OS. If you'd like to try it out but think you might PHoneUtilityClient something up, Macworld has a long tutorial on jailbreaking the iPhone and installing SSH and other applications using iPHUC. Again, it's a bit command line heavy, but it will set you up to try some of the newer and wilder hacks, if you so desire.
No matter what your expertise level, tools like Installer.app and iPHUC highlight just how far iPhone hacking tools have progressed in a fairly short time. They're both worth a try if you'd like to start hacking your iPhone, but if you're still not comfortable tinkering with a $600 device, I'm sure there will be newer and more improved tools in the near future.
I found this at
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/08/21/iphone-installer-and-new-guides-make-iphone-hacking-easier-than-ever
From
the fine geeks at Slashdot, they tell of how ArsTechnica recently got their
iPhone bills, one of which was 52 pages long! Impressive or outlandish? A little
tidbit:
“We’re starting to get bills for the iPhone here at Ars, and while many of us have had smartphones for some time, we’ve never seen a bill like this.”
52 pages long! Can you believe it? All I have to say is that’s a lot of pages and one can only hope there was VERY detailed itemizing shown to take up 52 pages! What do you think? Over the top? One of the bills was 34 pages… I’ve never seen anything like it…
You can check out the rest of it here.
I found this at iphonematters.com
http://www.iphonematters.com/article/52_pages_in_the_making_the_iphone_bill_873/
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