How to force recovery when an iPhone reset fails

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A couple of years ago, I sold my original iPhone.  At that time, O2 was the exclusive iPhone carrier in the UK and so I needed to jump through various hoops to unlock it and prepare it for resale. Now the time has come to dispose of my iPhone 3G as I have a 3GS for work use (I can get by with a simple phone and my iPad in my personal life).

My iPhone 3G was “officially” unlocked by O2 so it should be a simple case of securely wiping the data from the device.  I say should, but it wasn’t (possibly because I’d previously jailbroken the phone in order to run background tasks without updating to iOS 4, which is unbearably slow on a 3G).

Resetting the iPhone to wipe all the data is straightforward enough (select Settings, General, Reset, Erase All Content and Settings, Erase iPhone) but after the iPhone had been erased (Apple says this can take up to 2 hours but it was only around an hour for me) the phone kept on rebooting, before freezing with the display showing the Apple logo and a frozen progress “ring”.  After a while it timed out and rebooted, only to get stuck at the same stage.

Fearing that I’d somehow “bricked” my iPhone, I turned to Google and found a MacRumors forum post which provided the answer:

  1. Hard reset the iPhone by holding the sleep/wake button and the home button together.  Release the buttons before the device turns on.
  2. Launch iTunes.
  3. Hold the home button on the iPhone at the same time as plugging in the USB dock connector from your PC/Mac. Eventually you should see the Connect to iTunes display.
  4. Follow the restoration process in iTunes to download and install the latest iOS release.
  5. Once the iPhone has been recovered, it can be activated if required and then either restored from backup (I didn’t want to do this as I’m selling the device) or set up as a new iPhone.

Now the phone is securely wiped, reloaded and ready for resale, it’s time for me to recycle it…

Recycling mobile phones is really simple to do and it helps the environment too. So go on, dig out that old phone and recycle it now! (Sponsored link)

Jailbreaking does not equal piracy

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A couple of night ago, Mrs. W was watching Channel 4 News as they ran a lengthy package on “how iPhone jailbreaking is fuelling app piracy“.  The trouble is that Channel 4’s Benjamin Cohen seems to have confused jailbreaking (the process of allowing non-authorised applications to be installed, rather than using Apple’s walled garden approach) with piracy (copying, distributing and installing applications against the wishes of the software creator).

I have a jailbroken iPhone – and it’s not so that I can pirate apps.  Frankly, if you’re a teenager who’s made a hundred grand in your bedroom from writing iPhone games, well done and good luck to you.  But don’t complain when there are 20% more people running your software than paid for it – you should have thought more how you were going to control the use of your app.

The reason my phone is jailbroken is simple – I want to use an alternative music player (Spotify) whilst I’m tracking my exercise progress (with Runkeeper).  That requires multi-tasking and Apple doesn’t allow multitasking on my iPhone 3G.  In a sense that’s OK – the IOS4 operating system that allows multitasking seems to need more powerful hardware (so why it’s available for the 3G is anyone’s guess) but I can make it work using a simple jailbreak and an application called Backgrounder.

Basically, Apple charged me a lot of money for a desirable piece of computing hardware and is their business model relies on increasing obsolescence so that I buy a new device.  If I have the technical ability to make that hardware do more for me and avoid buying a new phone, then why shouldn’t I?  I haven’t installed any unlicensed software, I’m not putting additional load on my mobile provider’s network, and the hardware is out of warranty already.  You could even argue that, by not buying a new iPhone, I’m making better use of my legacy computing device and doing my bit to save the planet!

It’s kind of analogous to the guys who “mod” their cars to move away from the manufacturer’s specifications.  Sure, they won’t get warranty support, but if they get a few more horsepower or whatever it is they are looking for out of their vehicle, that’s up to them.

So, back to the point – whilst it may be possible to use jailbroken phones for piracy, jailbreaking does not equal piracy.  If I was so inclined, I could run unlicensed copies of Windows on my PC, or install an unlicensed copy of Adobe Photoshop on my Mac, but I don’t hear national broadcasters suggesting that all Windows or Mac users are software pirates.

Running Spotify and other apps as background tasks on an iPhone 3G

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 14 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I like shiny toys as much as the next geek, but I don’t have an iPhone 4 for two reasons: firstly, I’ve spent far too much money on an iPad (so I have much less use for a smartphone); and, secondly, I consider iPhone upgrades to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary so my existing iPhone 3G has some life in it yet (even though the case has some nasty cracks and I may need to replace the back soon).

Given that my 3G needs to soldier on for a while, I’d like to be able to use it’s full technical capabilities, rather than being governed by Apple’s marketing decisions – and one feature I’m missing is being able to a run third party applications in the background. For example, I would like to use Spotify instead of the built-in iPod app whilst Runkeeper is tracking my rather slow progress at pounding the pavements of Buckinghamshire.

Luckily for me, even though Apple doesn’t allow multitasking with iOS 4 on the iPhone 3G, there are some clever hackers that have made it possible:

  • First up, you need to allow the iPhone to run apps that are not available from the Apple AppStore. This is commonly known as “jail breaking” the device and there are various methods evolving as Apple tightens up the security on the device – jailbreakme.com is probably the easiest way for people who haven’t yet upgraded to iOS 3.2.2 or 4.0.2.
  • The next step is to install the Backgrounder app, using Cydia (the package manager installed by the jailbreak process). Backgrounder is customisable and includes an FAQ with usage details but the basic principle is to start the app you’d like to run in the background (e.g. Spotify), then activate Backgrounder.
  • Now, when you leave the first app and switch to run something else (e.g. Runkeeper), the first app should keep on running.

Activating an iPhone: some gotchas along the way

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Yesterday, I wrote about my problems with an offically-unlocked iPhone that suddenly detected it had a new SIM and needed activation.  Today, I downloaded and installed iTunes on my Windows 7 notebook PC and borrowed a sync cable to connect the phone and activate it.  Here are a couple of things I found on the way:

Now, I’ll make sure that I have a bent paperclip (iPhone SIM removal tool) and sync cable in my bag when I go to work… just in case my iPhone falls out with its SIM again.

iPhone – SIM = iBrick

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Now that I’m out of contract with my iPhone, I’ve switched my account to something more reasonably priced whilst I wait for a new handset/phone operating system combination to grab my attention.  At the same time, my work e-mail was switched over to an ActiveSync service and I wanted a 3G handset for that so I’ve “donated” my iPhone to business use for a few months.

I soon got fed up of activating the phone (via iTunes) every time I switched SIMs between home and work (I don’t use my work number at weekends and when I’m on holiday), so I redirected my personal number to my work number.  Everything was good - I listened to a few podcasts on the drive to work, made some calls, connected to my e-mail service, got back in the car (listened to some more podcasts) and drove to meet a partner at their offices – but then my iPhone decided that it had a new SIM (it didn’t) and that it needed to be connected to iTunes.  That caused a few problems:

  1. I don’t have iTunes on my work PC (and nor should I have).
  2. I don’t have an iPhone/iPod sync cable with me.
  3. I’m working away from home… and I’m not going to drive for up to 2 hours in either direction just to get my smartphone working.

It doesn’t take took much imagination to work out that an iPhone that doesn’t make calls is not a very good phone.  And it turns out that it’s not really a very good “anything” because, as I drove to the hotel this evening, I found a number of other things that an iPhone without a SIM is useless for:

  • It couldn’t work as a camera to take pictures in the late-afternoon winter sunshine.
  • It couldn’t work as a GPS/sat-nav device for helping me from the office to the hotel… resulting in a 30 minute drive around Reading using my sense of direction and the setting sun as a compass whilst avoiding the city centre and the motorway…
  • It couldn’t work as a music player to provide entertainment on the drive.
  • It couldn’t let me access my e-mail (not even over Wi-Fi) when the hotel had failed to read my reservation details correctly.

In short: an iPhone minus its SIM might as well be an iBrick – far from the device Apple described back in 2007 (a mobile phone, iPod and Internet device), it’s a useless piece of electronic hardware.  And, just to be clear, this is an offocially unlocked iPhone (i.e. unlocked by my carrier) that has not been “jailbroken”.

The madness of this situation is that it doesn’t have to be this way - Apple’s stranglehold on iPhone activation is just part of the way in which they control the iPhone ecosystem but they seem to miss the point of having a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) – i.e. that it’s the SIM that is supposed to control my identity and make it transferable between devices.  No other phone that I’ve used has needed to be activated using software once it has a SIM installed – it checks with the network if my details are valid and, if they are, I can make calls.  Simple!

A phone that doesn’t work is pretty useless as a business tool – even if it’s a phone as remarkable as the iPhone was when it launched a couple of years ago (in my opinion, Apple has squandered the lead it had over everything else in the market). The fact that it’s not possible to simply insert a valid SIM and boot up the device is just one reason why the iPhone is not an enterprise product, although plenty of companies will be forced to support them by VIPs wielding enough power to override IT policies (just as we saw with Blackberry devices a few years ago).  Thankfully a colleague is going to bring a sync cable with him tomorrow so I can (hopefully) get the thing working again in the morning – but I won’t be trusting my iPhone next time I travel long distance.

How UK iPhone users can save money…

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I bought my most recent iPhone (a white 3G) back in August 2008.  On an 18 month contract, that means I’ve fulfilled my commitment but O2 is quite happy to keep on taking the £35 a month which partially subsidises the handset cost!

I’ve been thinking about switching back to Vodafone and an HTC HD2 on Windows Mobile but, in the absense of a clear statement that says I’ll be able to upgrade that device for Windows Mobile 7 (in fact, I’ve seen an APC article that suggests I won’t be able to as well as a plea from Engadget for Microsoft to get off the fence), I’ll be staying put for a while.

In the meantime, @jonhoneyball mentioned some Simplicity deals from O2 for iPhone users.  There is an IT Pro article which suggests that O2 are pushing these deals to out-of-contract iPhone users but I’ve seen nothing to indicate this – although when I called O2 they knew about the tariffs and were happy to help me switch (although I did have to tell the upgrades department to stop trying to upsell me and to just do as I asked).

I’ve elected to reduce my £35 monthly payment to £20 on a rolling 30-day contract, halving my minutes from 600 to 300 but keeping unlimited texts, data, and Wi-Fi.  Alternatively I could have had a 12-month contract on the same terms for £15, or 600 minutes a month for £25 (900 for £30, etc.).  There are some gotchas though (O2 did let me know about these): the account defaults to online billing (no problem); picture messages are 20p (not 4 texts from normal allowance); SMS from abroad is also chargable; and voicemail is now taken from the inclusive minutes.  Even so, I should still be well within my limits.  After the initial 30-day period I can switch to another O2 tariff at any time, or give 30-days notice if I decide to terminate the contract.

Vodafone has similar SIM-only deals but there are caps on data usage – I don’t use much iPhone data but others might be concerned by them (My iPhone was unlocked a few months ago when other UK carriers started stocking iPhones – iPhone unlocking is free of charge for O2’s pay-monthly customers and £15 for pay as you go (PAYG) customers).

So, that should allow me to sit tight until either the next iPhone or a tasty Windows Mobile 7 device becomes available. And the £15/month saving will go some way towards the cost of my next partially-subsidised handset…

iPhone Wi-Fi connectivity via BT Openzone

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last year I wrote about O2 giving UK-based iPhone users free access to BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots but the last few times I’ve tried to connect all I’ve managed to hook up to is a login page.

I’ll be spending most of the next couple of days at Microsoft’s customer and partner launches for Windows 7 and, even though I have the option of Vodafone 3G access from my netbook, I thought I’d investigate further and at least give myself another connectivity option via the iPhone (at another recent event I found that O2’s 3G coverage is virtually non-existent inside the hospitality suite at Wembley Stadium so Wi-Fi would be a major step forward and I know it works in the Hilton a couple of hundred yards away…).

This is what you need to do in order to get an iPhone hooked up to BT Openzone if you’re presented with the BT Openzone login screen:

  1. Select a service provider of O2 from the Openzone login prompt (no need to enter a username).
  2. When prompted, enter your phone number and wait for registration to complete.
  3. If, like me, you’ve had multiple iPhones on your account (i.e. you have upgraded or had warranty replacements), then you may need to send an SMS message to 2121 containing the word WiFi and wait up to an hour (although, in practice, I didn’t find that it took that long).

After this, you should be able to connect to the ‘net from your iPhone over Wi-Fi. Right, let’s hope Steve Ballmer doesn’t spot me using the iPhone…

HP iPrint application for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

It’s not very often that I come across an iPhone app that I think is worth blogging about. It’s even less often that I’m impressed by what is basically a printer driver but, a few days back, my manager told me about HP iPrint Photo for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

This application locates HP printers (like the OfficeJet 6310 that the company supplied me with) on a WiFi network (using Apple’s Bonjour technology) and allows me to print images directly from my iPhone. Unfortunately, when iTunes copies images from my computer to the iPhone it “optimises” them to such a low quality that they are pretty poor when printed (even at 10cm x 15cm); however the prints from the iPhone’s camera (from my 3G model – I haven’t tried the new camera in the 3G S) are perfectly acceptable. A demonstration video and screenshots are available on the HP website.

It’s a pity that HP can’t provide a driver to give my 64-bit copy of Windows 7 more than just basic printing features on the same device…

UK iPhone users up in arms – and to think that people say I whinge on this blog…

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

iPhone 3G S logoThis week’s announcement of a third generation of iPhone (the 3G S) has left existing UK iPhone users seething. You see, when last year’s iPhone 3G shipped, Apple’s UK partner (O2) let existing users upgrade regardless of the remaining contract length (they had to… it was in our contracts…) but, critically, the original iPhone was not subsidised – and its 3G replacement was. Now existing subscribers are waking up to the fact that they have to buy themselves out of their contracts if they want to move to a new device. Well, welcome to the big bad world of mobile telecoms guys – that’s the way it’s been for years and why should the iPhone be any different?

Don’t get me wrong – I have an iPhone 3G and I still have about nine months to run on my contract so I’m caught up in this with everyone else but I won’t be looking to upgrade to the 3G S. After all, Apple has committed to giving me the 3.0 software upgrade for free (something I wouldn’t get on a competitive platform – if I had a Windows Mobile phone I would have to wait for the telco to approve the software and, even then, they might not offer me an upgrade). I would like a better camera but I’ve managed with crappy iPhone optics for two years now and, anyway, I’m not convinced that the new one will be that good either – it’s still only 3MP and a camera phone is always hampered by a tiny sensor and poor quality glass (maybe even plastic!). I can live without a compass and, as for video… it’s hard enough to take a decent photo on an iPhone! Voice control will be good, but I don’t think that relies on the new hardware (I may be proved wrong on that). Finally, Apple claim that the 3G S is twice as fast as the 3G… but the network will still be the bottleneck!

The other gripe is the fifteen quid that O2 wants for using the tethering functionality on the iPhone. Here I think the complainers may have a point – after all we have unlimited data access on the iPhone already and why pay more (for what… more data than “unlimited” data!)? Then again, using a full-sized laptop (tethered) to surf with a larger screen will pull down larger graphics – which means more data – and a subsequent hit on O2’s network. The charge is broadly equivalent to that of taking out a contract for a 3G data connection but I would like to see a PAYG option for tethering – I’m simply not going to stump up fifty quid a month for a mobile phone contract (£35 for the base iPhone deal and another £15 for the tethering, minus a few pence from last year’s VAT cut).

If we’re lucky, someone will write a WiFi router application (like they did for Windows Mobile where the telco doesn’t know you are tethered – the laptop talks to the phone over WiFi and the phone looks like it’s using its 3G connection for its own data.

So, I’m sorry for my fellow UK iPhone users but this is the reality of signing up for a mobile phone contract – either buy an unsubsidised (expensive) phone and be free to move around or have a subsidised one with a contract that the telcos will enforce. As for tethering, it is an additional feature, so hoping that O2 wouldn’t charge for it was probably a little naive. With any luck there will be a 4th generation of iPhone this time next year and most of us will be freed from our contracts by then!

iPhone 3.0In the meantime, the iPhone 3.0 software is due out next week… it looks like I had better upgrade iTunes to 8.2 then…

More on integrating an Apple iPhone 3G with Audi’s telephony and audio systems

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few days ago, it was my birthday. Whilst 37 is not a particularly significant age to celebrate (I prefer to think of it as the 16th anniversary of my 21st birthday), I did get a little present at the start of the month (hopefully it wasn’t an April fool’s joke) when my new company car was delivered. Bye bye Saab (I liked you at first but you soon showed yourself to be a Vauxhall Vectra in disguise… with aftersales service to match…) – this time I’ve gone down the German route and plumped for an Audi A4 Avant S-Line. I have to say that, even though it’s still early days, this could shape up to be one of the best cars I’ve ever driven (especially with the extra toys I’ve added to the spec) – mind you, I’ve always liked German cars and have bought a few Volkswagens over the years.

Don’t worry – I’m not going to start writing car reviews – but I did write something a few months ago about integrating an Apple iPhone 3G with Audi’s telephony and audio systems and I wanted to write a follow-up, now that I’ve had some opportunity to spend a bit more time with a suitably equipped car.

First up, telephony integration. This is simple, as long as the car has the Mobile Telephone Preparation Low option. No cradle is required as the mobile phone preparation provides Bluetooth connectivity. As I wrote in my earlier post, just pair the iPhone with the car using the code 1234 within 30 seconds of opening the car and inserting the key (i.e. activating the car’s systems). The handsfree device will be something like Audi UHV 0000, although the number will vary and, once paired, calls will ring the iPhone and the car simultaneously. The Bluetooth logo and signal strength are displayed on the Audi Multi Media Interface (MMI) display:

Audi telephone connection (MMI)Audi telephone connection (Driver Display)

My iPhone 3G is running software version 2.2.1 and I seem to have no difficulties accessing the phone’s number lists and directory (although voice activation/control is not available – the phonebook that this refers to is the voice tag system, not the directory accessed on the phone over Bluetooth):

Audi accessing iPhone phonebook (Driver Display)

One thing to note – the car can only act as a handsfree for one phone at a time (although it can pair with up to 4 devices). When I’m “on the clock”, I turn off the Bluetooth on my iPhone so that the Nokia 6021 I use for work can access the car systems.

If you’re still having trouble, Audi provides a Bluetooth FAQ as well as a PDF with details of supported handsets (which is now over a year old and so does not include the iPhone 3G, although it appears to work).

Because Apple has not provided Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) functionality on the current iPhone 3G or the first-generation iPhone, to integrate my iPhone with the music system so that I can access the phone’s playlists, etc., I needed to specify the Audi Music Interface option and buy an AMI iPod cable for £29. I think there is a minimum requirement on the sound system for this too (mine is the Audi Concert system).

The AMI is in the glovebox (close enough for a Bluetooth signal for the phone to carry on working) and the cable will charge my phone at the same time. The only problem is that the iPhone complains that the AMI is not a supported accessory and wants to go into airplane mode. If I tell it not to, the AMI will usually find the iPhone and let me navigate the playlists, etc. but I have found it seems to work better if I put start the iPod application on the iPhone before connecting:

This accessory is not made to work with iPhoneAccessory connected
Audi AMI access to iPhone playlists (MMI)Audi AMI access to iPhone playlists (Driver Display)

The good news is that the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 software is expected to include A2DP (and it should work with the iPhone 3G – but not the original iPhone), after which I should be able to stop using the cable (although I may just leave an old iPod semi-permanently connected to the car at that point).

[Update 12 December 2011: Even though iOS is now at v5.0.1, I’ve been unable to use A2DP. This worked in another Audi I drove recently so I assume the car needs a software update too.  This information from an AudiForums thread might be useful too:

“First, the difference between AMI and MMI, which threw me off, so hopefully someone else will find this helpful. This is for my 2011 A4… I don’t know what other years/models it may apply to.

  • MMI (Multi-Media Interface) is just the screen/knob system that controls the radio/sat/cd/settings/etc.
  • AMI (Audi Music Interface) is the link between the MMI system and your iPod or other MP3 device. It is a port in the glove box that you can attach different cables to for different music devices.”]