On Friday, July 16, in the Year of My Lord and Maybe Yours But Possibly Not So Don't Get Offended 2010, the mighty Steve Jobs strode into a press conference and announced that Apple Inc. would solve a technological issue related to its new iPhone 4's antenna by covering it with rubber.
Huzzah!
Yes, after a crazed three weeks, which saw the iPhone 4 debut to mass consumption at the rate of three million units sold along with tales, videos and Unsolved Mysteries-style reenactments of dropped calls due to holding the phone at a certain point, the hysteria was finally over. The proletariat sated. The press could finally get back to important things like Obama's golf game and Lilo's inability to hire a lawyer or appropriately bedazzle her SCRAM bracelet. And all it took was the promise of free bumper cases for all, and to all a good night.
Seriously, can we all just calm down now? I realize the antenna issue is real and valid. I understand that Jobs's alleged response of "don't hold it that way" was akin to a doctor telling a man with a broken leg to simply hop on the other one. But the hew and cry that arose from technoverse was, let's be honest, a tad silly. After all, if the problem annoyed a person so much, said person was more than welcome simply to return the phone. Which 1.7% of iPhone 4 purchasers did for various reasons. This rate of return, by the way, was less than a third of the 3GS's.
The issue, it seems, is that people put a little too much faith in their magical pocket phone computer cold fusion device. When said device was found not to have literally been handed down from on high as some sort of immaculately conceived chunk of technological salvation, some people felt cheated. I can understand that feeling. I assume that when I buy something, it'll fulfill the purpose for which it was intended. Like making a phone call. But if a problem arises and the fix is as simple as putting the phone in a case—which most people do anyway—I tend to get on with my life. And, in fact, most iPhone 4 owners have done just that. Of the eight or nine new iPhone 4s floating around my office (I still do not have one—PayPal donations accepted), the grand total of complaints I've heard about it is zero. Most people (and by "most people" I mean "my boss") just wander around taunting non-iPhone 4 owners and rejecting my ideas. Bastard.
Some people thought Jobs would announce a recall. Seriously? Even if a recall was/is needed, I can't fathom a company—even a company like Apple—being able to engineer a solution and means of fixing three million phones in just three weeks time. And what's with all the press surrounding Consumer Reports' "can't recommended" edict? How many sales will Apple actually lose from that report? Five? Even my mom knows better than to turn to Consumer Reports for advice on technology. That's why she had me.
Anyway, if you've got an iPhone 4, I hope you enjoy your free bumper or third-party case. If you're still not satisfied with that solution yet refuse to return the phone, I'm thinking Radio Shack will be happy to sell you some solder and an iron. Go nuts.
Later,
Fox
58 comments
—
Last by derFunkenstein at 9:28 AM on 07/26/10
They said it couldn't be done. And by "they" I mean the spongmonkeys in my brain who, when not singing about the moon and Quiznos, chattered on about my failure to build a 100% working Hackintosh. Well I've got some news for those tiny, toothy, walleyed bugaboos:
Suck it.
That's right, people. While half of you were shooting YouTube videos of yourselves putting your thumbs over the lower left corner of your new iPhones and dropping calls AT&T was going to drop anyway, I decided to do one final Google search to solve my UUID error (officially reported as "_CFGetHostUUIDString: unable to determine UUID for host. Error: 35") that was causing Time Machine to flip me 800GB's worth of the bird.
I tried a different search string. A string I can no longer remember. A string that nonetheless brought for a link that brought forth salvation that brought forth the putting back of my credit card. And lo, it was glorious. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.
In my previous searches for fixes to the UUID error, I found numerous posts on InsanelyMac.com singing the praises of the PlatformUUID.kext—a kernel extension that supposedly passed along a valid UUID to the system, thereby raining showers of gold-spewing baby seals down upon the masses. Or at least, your Ethernet address. Problem was, no one ever said anything more than "I used PlatformUUID.kext and it worked for me! W00t!" Well, that's just swell, ScarJoStalker71, but dropping that kext into my Extras folder (a folder of, duh, extra kernel extensions created by Hackintosh installers) did a whole lotto jack squatto.
Until I found The Post.
The Post was on an archived EFixUsers.com forum page from October 2009. Its author, a user named Skipper, detailed how to edit the PlatformUUID.kext file and repackage it up as part of the Extra folder's Extensions.mkext file (an .mkext file is basically a package of kext files, although I'm sure there's more technical stuff than that going on). You can find his post here; it's the last one on the page.
In retrospect, I should've guessed that I needed to somehow edit the PlatformUUID file. Somehow, I had it in my head that it magically assigned a UUID to my Ethernet port and passed that along to the system. Dumb. But frustration doesn't always yield clarity of thought. I'll refrain from political jokes at this point.
So, here's to you, Skipper. A man confident in both his technical skills and manhood at large. I salute you and your awkward obsession with "Gilligan's Island" and/or Barbie's best friend that never has any fun because she's a brunette. Well done, sir.
In other Hackintosh news, I must say thanks to Western Digital for having such a sweet, easy-to-use warranty service. From the outset of my Hackintosh build, one of the four WD drives I had purchased (one of the three 1.5TB Caviar Green drives) would spontaneously dismount whenever I'd perform large file transfers; e.g. when using it as a Time Machine drive or cloning my A/V drive. WD's online system shot me out a replacement drive via two-day air, and all I had to do was send back the whack drive. Okay, it would've been a bit nicer if they'd included a pre-paid return shipping label, but I'll survive. The new drive is working as it should.
So, that's it from Hackintosh land for, I hope, a while. I can supposedly upgrade to 10.6.4 without issue, but I don't really see the need to do that, so I'm going to hold off. Things are working. I'd like to enjoy that for a bit, if you don't mind.
Later,
Fox
15 comments
—
Last by dpaus at 1:14 PM on 07/05/10
If memory or Wikipedia entries serve correct, the 1980s were much more totally righteous than the 70s. I was born as Vietnam was winding down imploding to a halt, Tricky Dick was stealing the letters from G. Gordon Liddy's first name, OPEC hosed us by turning off the oil spigot and Jimmy Carter was flushing the can-do spirit of the free world down the peanut hole. By comparison, the 80s saw me going from third grader to high school senior; Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II kicking commie arse all over the Warsaw Pact; Bill Cosby's sweaters; and a show called Family Ties starring a scrappy little Canadian named Michael J. Fox.
All was right with the world.
Assuming, of course, you didn't mind being asked by children with underdeveloped senses of humor if you were related to said Michael J. at least 18 times fortnightly. At the time, I found it a tad oppressive. It wasn't until the late 80s when the tide shifted to catcalls of "Hey, Doogie!" did I realize just how innocuous the MJF harassment really was.
Anyway, I say all that to say this: I feel a bit like my Canadian surnamesake today. For today is my first full day using the new iOS 4 on my iPhone 3GS. And until all my apps are updated to properly utilize task switching multitasking, the biggest new feature I'm using is FOLDERS. So yes, I'm like Michael J. "Marty McFly" Fox in Back to the Future, which came out in 1984—the same year as the Mac. Finally using folders on an iPhone 26 years after the appearance of Apple's first GUI for the masses.
But I don't care. I love my folders. I've gone from 11 screens of apps to two. TWO! It doesn't look quite as elegant as all the individual apps, but maybe Jobs will someday unlock the power of custom icons for folders to make them purtier. You know, like we used to do in System 7.
In other updates to the iPhone OS, we have such groundbreaking features as: a soft orientation lock that only works in portrait mode; an updated Mail program with threading, a unified inbox, and (still) a complete lack of a "mark all read" function; a 5X digital zoom on the camera for enhanced noise; touch-to-focus while taking video (hey, actually useful); custom wallpapers for the home screen; iBooks for extra squinting time (curse you, iPhone 4 owners with your superfine Retina displays); and more.
Okay, so the big update doesn't really seem so big at the moment. As alluded to earlier, developers will have to take advantage of all the new APIs to really make iOS 4 sing. Things like local notifications require updates. Which require approval from Apple. Which tends to be capricious and random. While several of my apps have already been update to 4.0 compatibility, most have not. In fact, the new Facebook app that just came out last week actually crashes more under 4.0. But I expect that from Facebook because their programming always blows. I sincerely hope Navigon updates their navigation app pronto since they've been harping about how cool it will be to take a call while driving and still be able to hear the voice prompts. Also, I like downloading 1.6GB updates over 802.11g.
So those are my thoughts. All in all, I realize this is an important update. One that would be even more superspecial if 1) all my apps were already 4.0 aware and 2) I were using it on an iPhone 4. Sigh.
Oh well, at least I didn't almost take my mom to the prom like Michael J. That's just creepy, yo.
Later,
Fox
16 comments
—
Last by Jason_Fox at 8:32 AM on 06/28/10
I promised myself I wouldn't write a blog about the new iPhone (a.k.a. iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0 and ranch on the side), as there has been both exhaustive and exhausting coverage on other, actual newsish sites, as well as weeks of basically correct speculation about the device leading up to WWDC. Nothing unveiled by WonderJobs was really a surprise. Except, perhaps, that he felt it necessary to hype an iPhone version of Farmville, which I'm pretty sure won't let you churn butter using the iPhone's accelerometer or nifty new gyroscope.
Yes, the new iPhone is awesome. Yes, I want one. No, I will not be getting one as I'm only a year into my 3GS contract. Such is my monastic life. Let's move on.
Hmmmm. Uhhhhh. Wanna hear about by Hackintosh battles some more? About how my fix for getting iTunes to authenticate then broke Time Machine and I can't get the stupid thing to work regardless of what kexts I install or system files I edit? How about how I can't even get a fresh install of OSX to even boot? No? You don't want to read another 600 whine-intensive words? You used to be a good time.
Truth is, I'm about to call it a day on the Hackintosh project. I mean, when your wife literally says, "You're spending too much time trying to get this thing to work. I know it's expensive, but why don't you just get a real Mac?" who am I to argue? Especially when the root of the Time Machine problem is actually a well-known Hackintosh issue known as the UUID 35 error. An error for which there are myriad fixes and patches. None of which have worked for me.
Of course, I'll be biding my time until Apple announces the new dual-processor, six-core Core i7 Mac Pros next week. Assuming it actually does, that is. The new Mac Pros were supposedly coming out last March, but Intel got nasty drunk on St. Patty's Day and puked all over the wafers or something. At least that's what I gathered from TextsFromLastNight.com.
Anyway, the Technicolor (but mostly green) rainbow residue has been hosed off the silicon, and Intel is pumping out Gulftown processors like nobody's business. Seriously, they won't tell anybody how many they're pumping out. At least they wouldn't tell me when I called. Curse you, Becky the Receptionist. You may be a formidable gatekeeper, but I am Vince Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer.
The question, for those like me who prefer things cost-effective (no snickering from the "Macs are too expensive" crowd, thank you), is whether to get the new model, the previous (or current as of this writing) generation or a 27-inch i7 iMac. Yeah, I know, the latter isn't exactly my top choice either, but it'd actually be just as fast as my Hackintosh without all the pesky fail. Nonetheless, knowing that I'll need to hold onto this machine for a few years makes want a tower.
I now return you to either the World Cup or oil spill coverage.
Later,
Fox
19 comments
—
Last by Jason_Fox at 4:28 PM on 06/22/10
When we last left the trials and travails of my Hackintosh odyssey (not to be confused with our sweet 2005 Honda Odyssey or your ever-lame Magnavox Odyssey), things were working just swimmingly. Assuming you consider swimming like a spastic fat man in weighted vest a good thing. While faster than my MacBook Pro, a Geekbench score of 5500 or so was still fairly sad for the processor/memory combo I was (and am) sporting (Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9650 at 3.73 GHz and 8 GB of 1066 MHz DDR2 SDRAM). The Sleep command would only work in the "it's time to say goodbye to Miss Buffytons" way, and my designated Time Machine drive would spontaneously unmount.
Originally, these seemed like issues I could deal with, as I downplayed them in an earlier post. But like a gaggle of hemorrhoids defying the soothing power of Preparation H, these glitches became increasingly annoying and bursting with unsightly discharge. Although they would let me sit down.
My first attempt at a solution was the no-cost method. I tried, at the suggestion of a couple of MacHole readers, the Kakewalk install found at puru.se. Indeed, as its Kiddie Kollege-like name suggests, this install was quite easy. Sadly, it did nothing to help my problems. In fact, because Kakewalk didn't technically support my motherboard, a couple of the various installs produced even worse results.
It was time to admit the obvious: My mobo was poopoo.
Okay, my mobo, a Gigabyte X38–DQ6 from the Tech Report's Vaults of Dust, in and of itself was actually fairly good. But I could not find one Hackintosh install that natively supported it. In fact, I could not even find another Hackintosh builder that used it. Given that so many people were using other Gigabyte boards without issue, well, it was time to pull out the plastic and grab another Giga. But not by the nether regions. Pervs.
I was looking for a board in the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3 family. But what I found was a friendship that would last forever. No, sorry, veered off into movie trailer mode for a second. What I found was a GA-EP45-UD3P on eBay for a hundred bucks from seller yonmichi. Mr. Michi shipped that mother the day I bought it (Monday), and I knew my upcoming weekend was set. Good, geekish times lay ahead. Not counting the diaper changes and mall trips. Or other work. Or bills. Or . . . dang, stay young, people.
Swapping out the mobo wasn't the most difficult process, but it did teach me one thing: If you're going to spend a lot of time working inside your computer and your hands are man hands, you may not want to get the super-sleek case in which to house everything. Mainly because your video card will make it next to impossible to plug in your SATA and system status light cables without the use of needle-nose pliers, a mouth-held flashlight and a dentist's mirror. At one point, I seriously considered gutting my now-unused Dual 533 G4 (hey-oh!) case and putting everything in it just because the mobo swings out on the side door. Except for it not working at all, it would've been a swell idea.
Anyway, once the beast was reassembled, everything went smoothly. What? This isn't your first time at The MacHole? You say there's no way something I'm working on would just up and work correctly right out of the gate? Bastard. You're right, but still. Bastard.
No, it seemed my install, now polluted with various kext files and other code fragments inserted in a vain attempt to fix the old motherboard's issues via software, was now miserably unstable. A new install was in order. An install that, having done it a half dozen time already, should have been as easy as making a your-mom-is-easy joke. Just one problem. When installing OS X on a Hackintosh, you need to flip between boot devices. The Lifehacker install gives you about three seconds to hit any key before it continues booting with the default device. Sadly, hitting any key resulted in a system hang. So while I could do the initial install, I couldn't then switch over to my new system drive when booting. Kakewalk had the same issue. I have yet to figure out the cause.
My workaround was to unplug my system hard drive from the Hackintosh and plug it into my MacBook Pro. Once there, I could run the little program that installed the 8Kb of code that allowed it to boot in the Hackintosh. A bit more time-consuming. A lot more bloody. Yes, while trying to dislodge the HD sled from my Antec Sonata III 500 case, my grip slipped and I tore a divot from my left index finger.
It had such a lovely V shape. If only my finger shot lasers, I could've used it as a sight.
Being left handed, I was not amused. But it only took a couple of hours and no small amount of liquid skin to staunch the bleeding. And a week of bandage wearing. And two weeks of not putting much pressure on it. It's almost healed now, and I'm not even getting a cool scar from it. Jeezo, what a waste.
So, the next night, post bleeding, I reassembled The Supreme Hackintosh once again and, wait for it, keep waiting, huzzah! It booted! It upgraded to 10.6.3 on only the second try (yeah, it bricked the first time)! It sleeps *and* wakes up! It has a Geekbench score of over 9,000! My drives don't unmount! It let's me type unnecessary exclamation points without reprisal! Yay!
At this point, two issues remain: First, I still can't select a different boot device during startup—still hangs. So if something goes nutty on my boot drive, I'll have to plug it into my MBP again. Second, sleep works, but going through several sleep/wake cycles seems to make things a bit unstable. Not at the level of John David Stutts, but not stable enough to keep using without a reboot. I've messed around with sleep settings via Terminal: setting it to "1" caused the machine to shut down. I currently have it set to "3", and it seems to be working better. Time will tell.
Hopefully, this will be the last Hackintosh update for a while. Because who really wants to hear about my battles with hard drive sleds and kernel panics when there's the petty fighting of Apple and Adobe to discuss?
Exactly.
Later,
Fox
27 comments
—
Last by Dr. Zhivago at 8:38 AM on 06/13/10
So. On the day I posted my last vomiting of ill-regarded words, Gizmodo lights up the technosphere with video, photos, description, drafting illustrations, ¼-scale clay mockups and an origami version of the semi-top-secret-except-we-already-knew-most-of-the-features-anyway iPhone 4G. (If you've been stuck reinstalling OS X on your Hackintosh the last 10 days—or was that just me—click here for the goods.) For those whose blood sugar has crashed and are unable to click on the Gizmodo link, let me summarize:
- On March 18, 2010, Apple engineer Gray Powell took a disguised prototype iPhone 4G to a German bierhaus in Redwood, California, to test the phone's new Fraulein Attraction Processor that Apple had scored in its acquisition of P.A. Semiconductor.
- After viel bier, Powell stumbled home or into a cab or, more likely, to a tattoo parlor to get a third "Zune Suxxorz Ballz" tat.
- A dude (now identified as 21-year-old Brian "Terry Bollea" Hogan) at the bar found the iPhone and, after waiting around for its owner to return (so he claims), took it home to spoon.
- The next morning, The Hulkster discovered the iPhone had been remotely bricked. It was then that he noticed the phone felt different than a standard issue 3GS. Sure enough, the shell was nothing but a clever ruse hiding the flat-bottomed girl within.
- Powell called the bar. No phone. Full-on freak out commenced.
- A friend of The Hulkster, possibly Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, called an Apple support number and mumbled something about having a prototype iPhone with "sweet nunchuck skills.dis54" The lowest-level Apple minions hung up.
- Beefcake allegedly dialed up some tech sites and got Gizmodo to cough up five large for the non-working but still dissectible prototype.
- After much poking and prodding, Gizmodo published a couple of articles and videos of the phone. Nerd bowels across the world spontaneously, simultaneously evacuated.
- Apple sent a letter (demanded by Gizmodo) requesting their phone back. Gizmodo complied.
- Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house is raided by The Man at the request of Apple. No, not at the request of Apple. Yes, at the request of Apple. No, at the request of some guy in a black turtleneck named Steffan Jobes. The police actually broke down Chen's door while he was at dinner. And nothing harshes an In-N-Out buzz like finding the fuzz going through your wife's dainties upon your return. Trust me.
- The Internet and Jon Stewart called B.S.
And there you go.
I understand Apple being peeved that their top-secret (to them) device got plastered all over the net. And I understand that the legality of both selling the device to Gizmodo and Gizmodo buying the device are a bit nebulous. But come on, Apple. The only people you're harming in your little witch-hunt are yourselves. Your guy goofed. Period. Should The Hulkster have tried a little harder to get the phone back? Sure. But maybe if you hadn't bricked the thing and instead stuck a non-defeatable alert screen on the phone with, here's an idea, a contact number on it, things might've gone your way.
Should Gizmodo have paid money for it? Is that what journalists do these days? Heck if I know. I'm just glad the five grand went toward and iPhone and not another shot of a stumbling Lohan. And in an age where most news is spewed out with equal parts snark and venom (Venark? Snenom? Bennifer?), it's hard to get worked up about a journo fattening some guy's PayPal account to hand over a device that, oh wait, an Apple employee left sitting on a bar stool in a public place.
So yeah. Maybe Apple could just chill out a bit. Not like we didn't already know about the front-facing camera or higher-res screen. And is anyone not going to get the 4G now that they've seen the new form factor? I'm actually more likely to trade up now that I've witnessed the practical glory of the flat back. Always did seem dumb to have a curved back on a phone with a touch interface. You know, because it's nice to be able to set it down on a table or sherpa and be able to scroll without wobbling. Little things.
Anyway, Apple, please, go back to being the Susan Powter lookalike with the high-waisted orange shorts and less of a Red Forman drone. And me, well, I'll start spitting out these analogies before Stewart steals all my best material. Well, probably not.
Later,
Fox
69 comments
—
Last by clone at 12:06 PM on 06/14/10
I hope you channeled Mel Allen while reading this post's title. If you don't know who Mel Allen is, you're probably a soccer fan. Now excuse me while I search for torrents of old Baseball Bunch episodes.
Okay, that failed.
Since I last darkened the halls of The Tech Report with my shambolic musing, much has happened in the world of Apple. Assuming you interpret "much" as "three." These events, in ascending order of geekfroth-inducing power: new MacBook Pro models, iPhone OS 4.0 development preview and, what was it, oh yeah, the iPad went on sale. Or, as I responded to them, "Cool, too bad I'm broke," "Cool, multitasking at last," and "Meh, a big iPod touch."
In terms of upgrades, the new MacBook Pros feature Core i5 and i7 processors, Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics chips, higher-capacity standard hard drives, and Mini DisplayPort outputs that now support audio. Early benchmarks show the new machines to be faster than their previous counterparts. Yeah, I know. Shocking. Nonetheless, I must now devise a plan to pawn off my now previous-gen MBP to the new guy at work and score one of these. This plan will involve marshmallow crème, a Flip HD and a gaggle of Billy Barty impersonators. And, naturally, keyboard cat.
Apple's preview of iPhone 4.0 on April 8 was stuffed full of so many new features, enhancements, and APIs that I kept waiting for Steve Jobs to offer the assembled media a "wafer-thin mint." To make the gluttony more palatable, Apple broke out the feature set into seven "tent poles," the biggest of which, in my opinion, were the aforementioned multitasking and Apple's new iAd advertising system. Some have argued that Apple's multitasking scheme for the iPhone is nothing more than a fancy process switcher masquerading at the Multithreaders Ball. Are the proponents of such a silly metaphor correct? Who cares? People want background processes running to VoIP notifications, audio control, etc., etc. without perceived loss of battery life. If this works, fantastic. Still better than MultiFinder.
I haven't delved into the nuts and bolts of iAd enough to spew forth my opinion, but it's probably coming. After all, I'll undoubtedly be creating some super-sweet tiny ads for it in my day job. Like others, though, I hope this doesn't spell the end of ad-free paid apps. Hopefully, the pseudoscience of impressions and clicks doesn't infect every developer out there who hopes for a continuous revenue stream via iAd placements. Word to the potentially unwise: ads are supposed to make you like something, not loathe it.
And so we've come to the iPad. As neato keen observers of this blog may recall, in my preview of the iPad, I fell fairly squarely in the camp of believing Cupertino's "magical" new device would be little more than a midnormous iPod touch. Within moments of the iPad going on sale, lo, two Saturdays ago, the blogocube was awash with instareviews declaring that those of us bivouacked in said camp just didn't get it and were probably proud owners of Google G1s.
Obviously, a trip to the Apple Store was in order. But not on that Saturday. Or Sunday. Or even that week.
Eventually, I trekked to one of the four Apple Stores within 10 miles of my residence (so spoiled compared to my Amiga-owning days), joined by a couple of co-workers. Mac-dweebs all, we descended upon the semi-barren store (middays at this particular mall are heavy on strollers, light on Macheads) and each settled in front of a delightfully tethered 16GB iPad.
We touched, we pinched, we swiped, we shook, we opened Mail, we played movies, we tried to cut the tether with a pair of blunt nail clippers while the Geniusii were distracted by soccer moms looking for iPhone cases to match their track suits (fail).
Three minutes later, we hit the food court as a collective "meh" exited our not-so-collective mouths. Indeed, the iPad did seem to be a giant iPod touch. Perhaps it was the lack of iPad-specific apps the Generati had installed. Or that spending a combined $1,200 to have a really slick Scrabble board wasn't all that appealing to me. Or maybe I just don't get it.
Which is fine by me, since it saves me a nifty chunk of cash.
I hope the iPad does turn into something supercool. But I've been hoping that about my Apple TV for almost two years and, well, I think we all know how that's turned out. Of course, the iPad is definitely not a "hobby" for Jobs & Co., so it could eventually become some sort of quasi netbooky thing of value in my arsenal. But for now, it's really hard to justify filling a gap between my iPhone and MacBook Pro when I can't even see any light peeking through.
But if you've got one and dig it, share the love and let us know why. I promise only 68% of readers will taunt you.
Later,
Fox
55 comments
—
Last by DrCR at 1:17 AM on 04/28/10
Loading ...
