iOS 4.2: How to get your lost media back

Are you greeted by blank space where your endless media files used to be? Don't panic, there's an easy solution for the iOS 4.2 bug Apple users are experiencing.

IOS 4.2 is finally available, and with it some obligatory glitches. One that Apple Forums seems to be seeing a lot of is lost media. Users are complaining that post OS upgrade, theirApple devices are missing podcasts, videos, audio books, and most significantly music. The amount of space the invisible files are taking up still appears and re-syncing won’t do any good.

It looks like the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch are being affected by this technical error (any iPad users out there experiencing this?). Before you start from scratch and re-sync every single thing to your device, try this quick fix that’s circulating the web:

Connect the iPhone (or iPod Touch if it be the case). Allow iTunes to open, and then select the name and/or icon of the device so that it displays the media loaded on it.

Select “music,” and play a song from the phone’s library.

Sync your iPhone. This should be quick: You aren’t actually loading any new content, you’re just trying to get the device to recognize the files that were already there before.

After clicking eject, disconnect the iPhone from your computer. Now check the phone’s iPod library. Everything should be there.

Bioserie iPhone 4 Cases Made From Plants

These new iPhone 4 cases from Bioserie, come from plants of all things, and should be biodegradable.



Seeing iPhone cases being made from renewable resources, such as these bamboo ones fromGrove, is slowly becoming more of a common sight. Adding to this eco-friendly mix now is bioserie, who is expanding its line of iPhone cases made from bioplastics to include models for the iPhone 4.

bioserie said its new iPhone 4 cases, which will be available by early September for around $35, are made from a new proprietary blend of biobased components that come from “annually renewable plant material.” The company says its new cases, being fully biobased, contain no toxic ingredients and offer lightweight protection – 0.4 ounces – for one’s iPhone. Part of the case design includes something called screen protection feet, which reportedly allows safe facedown placement of your mobile.

Each case will sport a textured surface allowing for better comfort and grip. Available color choices will include black, white, orange, two shades of green and red. Eco cases are also in the works for the iPad and this, along with the iPhone 4 model, joins a line up of offerings for the iPhone 3G/3GS, iPod touch and iPod nano.

“We believe it is possible to enjoy technology without harming the fragile ecosystems of our Earth,” said Kaya Kaplancali, bioserie CEO, in a statement. “We’re exploring the cutting-edge of green science to develop products that allow consumers to enjoy their iPhone 4 and other Apple devices in an environmentally-responsible way.”

The Best iPhone Apps

We cut through the fart machines and virtual lighters to uncover the top iPhone applications developers have to offer. Here is what we rank the best.

Check out Best iOS 4 Ready Apps for multitasking capable apps.

It’s now been over a year since we first gazed upon the well-stocked shelves of the iTunes App Store. While our Top iPhone Apps were tough to choose the first time around, the task was even tougher a year later, with over 65,000 apps now cluttering up the marketplace. Even for a specific task like calculating your blood alcohol content after a night of drinking, you can find over a dozen apps that fit the bill. That’s a lot of apps. Which ones belong on your phone? We scoured the App Store yet again to deliver our favorites in five different categories.

Categories

• Productivity

  EverNote, Free

  Evernote’s “Remember Everything” mantra sums up this clever little app quite nicely. It turns your phone into the ultimate digital archive by collecting snapshots, written notes and voice recording, then making them all available with a simple search – from your phone or your PC. Character recognition performed by Evernote actually makes the text in photos you shoot, like a concert poster or business card, into searchable text, no typing needed. For those of us cursed with a decidedly non-elephant-like memory, Evernote makes a killer digital substitute.



• Games

  Doodle Jump, $.99

  Any app with four and a half stars from 2,700 reviews and counting has to be doing something right. Such is the case with Doodle Jump, which earns its hallowed place on the list with ultra-addictive gameplay that you’ll learn seconds and won’t be able to put down for hours.



• Video & Music

  Pandora, Free

  If you know anyone with a 16GB iPhone that has absolutely zero music loaded on, you can probably blame Pandora. The ultra-popular music app mimics the functionality of Pandora.com by spinning one artist or song into a never-ending playlist of similar tunes, which you can vote up or down along the way to further tune it to your tastes. To our amazement, it even works when you tread outside metropolitan 3G coverage into EDGE zones, meaning you really have to head off the beaten path to lose your tunes.



• Utilities

  The Weather Channel, Free We’ve combed through every free weather app out there, and this one takes the cake for usability. A simple interface makes it so painless to view the current, hourly, 36-hour or 10-day forecast in a hurry, that we usually dig out the iPhone to do it, even when we’re in front of a computer. You can even view accurate weather maps superimposed over the Google Maps interface, zoom in as far as you care to, and animate the radar data. Ads do provide a bit of clutter, but that’s the cost of free


• Fun

Fandango, Free Cut to the front of the theater ticket line (without being rude) by whipping out this app and buying tickets online before the next person in line even gets up to the window. You can also find out more about new movies, view trailers, showtimes, and find theaters close to you.

Pinger’s Textfree Is Massive, Now Over 3.5 Billion Messages Sent

It’s a promise sounds too good to be true: free, unlimited texting to and from your iPhone. And even if a service did manage to offer it, it certainly couldn’t be sustainable, could it? Pinger, a startup that launched back in 2006 as a voicemail service but has since pivoted in a big way, would beg to differ: the company has managed to become immensely popular on the iPhone by offering free text messages to users through an application called Textfree. And it’s just blown past another major milestone: users have sent 3.5 billion text messages using Textfree since it launched in March 2009.

So how do the do it? The key, unsurprisingly, is ads. Textfree has gotten such massive distribution that it can now turn a profit by placing ads in the application (the company has been profitable since December). Textfree doesn’t insert ads into your conversations — rather, it shows basic display ads which get 1.4 billion ad impressions a month. The application has been downloaded 7 million times which gives you an idea of its reach, but it’s also extremely engaging: users open it an average of ten times a day.

Using Textfree isn’t quite as straightforward as ‘normal’ text messaging, but users don’t seem to mind. The service assigns each user a new telephone number, free of charge. From then on you can text as much as you’d like, and can receive inbound texts that are sent to this special Textfree number. This can obviously be slightly irritating if you already have a phone number (i.e. on an iPhone), but remember, there are millions of devices running iOS that don’t have phone service, namely the iPod Touch. And Textfree gives all of those users the ability to text as much as they’d like, provided they have a Wifi connection.

The iPod Touch has proven to be Textfree’s bread-and-butter — 70% of its users are on the device. And Pinger says that carriers actually like their service, because it turns all of these iPod Touch users into extra nodes — they may be sending free text messages, but they’re certainly going to be sending and receiving messages from users who are on traditional carriers.

Textfree originally launched last year as a premium application that would charge users $6 per year for unlimited texting. That proved to be quite popular, but Pinger found that it could do even better by shifting the app to a free model and relying exclusively on advertising to generate revenue.

Website:	pinger.com
Location:	San Jose, California, United States
Founded:	November, 2005
Funding:	$11M

Pinger makes good things for mobile phones. We believe in creating fun, useful products and services that just work. Our flagship applications, Textfree, Doodle Buddy and Stickwars have been downloaded by millions of iPhone and iPod touch users. … Learn More

Redesigned iPhone 4 Due out September 30?

A Mexican exec has claimed that a new iPhone without the antennae issues is due out on September 30, the same day the free bumper initiative ends.

It has been a few weeks since the Apple’s antennae-gate issues were last discussed, so we were due. A new rumor based on a somewhat unconfirmed report on a Mexican website is reporting that the iPhone 4 will no longer face the antennae problems as of September 30.

Marco Quatorze, Director of Value Added Services Telcel said that as of September 30 Telcel will be available in new devices that do not have the malfunction of the reception, and explained that the company will have several options to make changes from one phone to another.

Below is a translation courtesy of Google. It is somewhat imprecise in the wording, but the important part is in bold:

“If the previous plan is over, you will need to hire a new change for iPhone 4. If, for example, already has one and take three months for payment, change the cell with a re-employment and takes into account the previous time, so instead of paying 24 months, only done in 21.”

Business Insider is also covering the story, but still, take the quote with a grain of salt. There could be more to his meaning, or the quote could be incorrect, but it does coincide with the end of the Apple plan to send out free bumpers to iPhone owners. When the bumper plan was announced, Steve Jobs gave an end date of September 30. It makes sense that since Apple first announced the bumper plan on July 16, the Apple designers would have had time to fix the issue. After all, despite Apple’s initial stubborn refusal to acknowledge the issue, it is highly unlikely that Apple would knowingly choose not to correct an issue that has already been exposed, especially one that has a fix as simple as insulating the casing.

The real issue is how will current iPhone 4 users respond, and will Apple offer them any potential exchanges? It seems unlikely following the bumpers. Will iPhone 4 owners even care? What say you? Are you an iPhone 4 owner, and do you care that a slightly redesigned iPhone 4 is on the way?

Wavetooth Waterproof Bluetooth Headset For Underwater Activities With iPhone

Your nature of work probably needs you to go underwater or around high water level area. Occasionally you might need to communicate or take instruction from somebody at the control center to get the work fixed. Carrying a waterproof phone probably might not be convenient enough especially when you need to free your hands to get the work done. The Wavetooth Bluetoothheadset from Brando perhaps is a good aid designed to do exactly what you need.

The Wavetooth Bluetooth headset features waterproof capability up to 3 meters or 10 feet deep in water and has 13 hours extra long talk and music time or up to 250 hours standby time. This waterproof headset can be used together with various Bluetooth enabled telecommunication gadgets such as iPhone, Smartphone, etc. Users can clearly listen to instruction from someone on the other side or enjoy music while swimming, snorkeling, bathing, etc.



The Wavetooth Bluetooth headset comes with a waterproof case, waterproofearphone, stereo earphone for music, neck wire and USB cable. The waterproof bag case can hold a cell phone with a maximum size of 70 (W) x 120 (H) x 15 (D)mm. The design of the case is made of thin and strong clear material to allow users easy control their Smartphone or iPhone over the case surface. This interesting waterproof Wavetooth Bluetooth headset is priced at $57. A summary of the features includes:

IPx8 Certified to waterproof (3-metre/24-hours)

“Noise Rebound” technology makes clear talk

Touch Functionality through case surface

13 hours extra long talk and music time

Easy to detach and rotatable clip

Light reflective

Battery – 360mAh Li-polymer

A2DP / AVRCP / HF

Standby 240-hours

Version 2.1 + EDR

Netflix iPhone App Review

We review the new Netflix iPhone app which finally brings Netflix to the small screen and puts thousands of titles at your fingertips – literally.

Whether you’re still rolling with a chipped-up 8GB iPhone 3G, or just sprang for a flashy new 32GB iPhone 4, you can now claim to carry 17,000 titles in your pocket.After rolling out an iPad app back in April and repeatedly signaling its intention to carry its streaming service over to the smaller of Apple’s mobile platforms, Netflix launched the long-awaited Netflix iPhone app on Thursday. But does the iPhone really make a good pocket TV? We spent an agonizing Friday taking in King of the Hill, The Office, and The Kids in the Hall on the couch to find out.

Navigation

Like the Netflix interface on just about every other device, the iPhone app prompts you to enter your username and password, then bam – you’ve clicked past the turnstile into a dream cinema. Netflix automatically builds a welcome page based on movies similar to the ones in your instant queue, in the same genre, plus recently watched films and new arrivals.

Unfortunately, some of the niche genres ran so long, they end up illegibly truncated. For instance, one read, “Romantic Comedies Featuring a Strong Fe…” Clicking on the category pulls up a header that’s even shorter, so you might not ever find out exactly what category it is you’re reading.

Besides “home,” you’ll find three other icons lining the bottom of the screen: genres, search and instant queue. Genres acts like a “browse” feature – a rarity missing from many other Netflix implementations – but it still has some major crippling that prevented us from using it much to find movies. It offers only the main Netflix categories with none of the useful subdivisions. You can click on dramas, for instance, but then you get one massive, unorganized list, rather than getting to choose among indie dramas, biographies, crime dramas, and so on. Likewise, after you choose a movie of interest, the app lacks to ability to recommend similar films, as you can online. Unless you care to sift through 300 movies to find one that interests you, you’re better off simply adding films to your instant queue from the Web.

Playback

Despite a browsing interface that lags a bit behind what you can get on the Web, Netflix managed to nail the player in its mobile app, which approaches perfection.

Even over 3G, movies loaded in a matter of seconds, and picture quality on the iPhone 4’s Retina display looks fantastic – even if it wasn’t quite pushing enough pixels to make use of the whole thing. Netflix wisely includes a button to toggle between letterbox and zoomed views, making it highly adaptable to both television and cinematic content. While the tiny scrub bar up top can make it difficult to pinpoint exact points in a two-hour film, we were extremely impressed with how quickly it picks up after lifting a finger – near instantly, as if the movie were playing off a hard drive.

While we experienced a few skips over 3G, the iPhone player seemed to cope remarkably well with cramming entire movies over the wireless airwaves. That said, it does suffer from the same problem as Netflix on many other platforms, including the Xbox: It doesn’t always pause as it buffers. We missed about 10 seconds of dialogue from one blip, then had to rewatch about a minute of an episode after rewinding, since it’s so hard to be precise with the scrub bar.

Fortunately, Wi-Fi seemed far more reliable, and while we’re not sure they’re streaming in true 720p, high-def titles like The Office looked phenomenal on the iPhone 4 screen. Given the choice between an iPhone 4 and a 32-inch CRT TV, give us the iPhone.

An Obvious Fit

Few would dispute the appeal of Netflix built into a set-top box like the Roku player, or an Internet-enabled Blu-ray player, but does Netflix really belong on the small screen?

Absolutely. Because without it, playing video on the iPhone is just too damn time consuming for most people.

Sure, every generation of the iPhone has always been capable of video playback, but the process of tapping into it has always been notably un-Apple in its difficulty. Unless you choose to suckle at the Teat of Jobs by buying overpriced video directly from the iTunes Store, cramming an episode of The Office from your DVD collection into your phone previously entailed ripping, transcoding into a specific Apple-approved format, then loading it onto your phone manually via USB cable, only to delete it later when you ran out of room.

On a device with always-on connectivity, streaming makes a lot more sense. Just as Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm captured the heart of lazy music listeners on the iPhone, Netflix has tapped into a built-in audience of roving couch potatoes who just didn’t have it in them to jump through the hoops to watch video on the go. For $8.99 a month (which can buy you about two movies on iTunes), consider us besmirched with our new pocket TVs.

Pros:

Free app, service only $8.99 a month

Excellent quality playback, even over 3G

Cons:

Web interface still wins for picking movies

Could handle playback stutters better

Also check out our picks for the Best iPhone Apps.

Netflix Comes to the iPhone and iPod touch

Netflix has extended its reach from the iPad to the iPhone and iPod touch, enabling subscribers to instantly stream movies and television shows.

Video rental leader Netflix has been a hit with Apple iPad owners, thanks to its app that enables Netflix subscribers to stream movies and television shows to the device. Now, Netflix has extended its Netflix App to the iPhone and iPod touch, enabling owners of Apple’s smaller-screened portable devices to stream video content.

“Apple has changed the game for mobile devices,” said Netflix cofounder and CEO Reed Hastings, in a statement. “We’re excited that our members can now carry Netflix around in their pockets and instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from Netflix right to their iPhone or iPod touch.”

In April, Netflix said it was planning to support the iPhone and iPod touch.

The Netflix app enables Netflix subscribers to stream available movie and television content directly to their iPhones, iPod touch, and iPad devices using either Wi-Fi or 3G networks. Users can select content from their pre-configured Instant Queues, view cast and synopsis information, rate content, or select from a number of categories and genres, including content newly available to Netflix. The app enables users to rewind and fast forward through a video stream, and users can pause any time they like. When users next access the video—even from a different Netflix-enabled device—the content will pick up where users left off.

The Netflix App is free; Netflix subscriptions start at $8.99 per month.

The availability of Netflix for iPhone and iPod touch is the company’s latest move to popularize its “Watch Instantly” Internet streaming service. Although Netflix built its name on a rent-by-mail DVD business, Netflix has been focusing much of its efforts into streaming video content to computers, television, and consumer electronics devices via the Internet.

Apple Files Patents for Mobile Payments on iPhone, iPod

Apple has filed patents involving Near Field Communication for purchasing items with iPhones and iPods. Patents would also create Apple currency with iPay, iBuy and iCoupons. Apple also has reportedly hired NFC guru Benjamin Vigier. While mobile payments are growing worldwide, North American adoption has been slow.
With mobile Relevant Products/Services-payment systems and services expected to surge this year to include more than three million users in the U.S., Apple appears eager to jump into the field. The computer giant has filed numerous patents involving Near Field Communication (NFC) in the last few months related to systems for buying airline or concert tickets, making payments to vendors, and transferring media from computers to iPhones and iPods.

A patent would also create iPay, iBuy and iCoupons, Apple's own currency for products.

New iPayment Guru

In keeping with Apple's long-standing policy of keeping mum about upcoming products until they are ready to launch, it's saying little about its mobile-payments strategy. But the recent hiring of a leading NFC guru, Benjamin Vigier, suggests Apple is planning to make mobile payments a key feature of its next iPhone.

A site that covers NFC technology Relevant Products/Services reported that Vigier will be Apple's product manager for mobile commerce Relevant Products/Services. Vigier has been working with NFC since 2004 and worked for mFoundry, managing the PayPal Mobile service and Starbucks' bar code-based mobile payments service; for mobile-phone networks; and a bank, Near Field Communications World reported.

NFC is a short-range, high-frequency technology that enables the contactless exchange of data Relevant Products/Services between devices that are within about four inches of each other, allowing a chip inside or a sticker on a phone or credit card to complete transactions with scanners in stores, ticket counters, and other venues.

Growing Fast

A June study by Gartner estimated that the number of people using mobile payments will soar 54.5 percent from 70.2 million in 2009 to 108.6 million people worldwide. It also expects that 2.1 percent of all mobile users will adopt payments.

But the adoption rate is far slower in North America, where mobile-payment usage is expected to grow from 1.9 million users last year to 3.5 million this year. In Asia and the Pacific, the rate is expected to grow from more than 41 million users to more than 62 million, according to Gartner.

"We all know that smartphones are going to be used for buying things, and with NFC, it makes the idea of a 'mobile wallet' a reality," said Gerry Purdy of MobilTrax. " You simply select the debit/credit account you want to use and then swipe it at the NFC terminal."

Purdy said that at this stage, Apple, like all other concerned vendors, is trying to figure out the most profitable business plan to exploit NFC.

"Apple would likely create a system that would only work within the Apple world, however," Purdy added, noting that other partners will need to be involved. "You put the NFC chip on the back of a phone, but in order to get the mobile wallet to work, you need NFC inside and also software from folks like VivoTech." 

ElementCASE Vapor iPhone 4 case review

As soon as we saw the page go up on ElementCASE’s site, we knew we had to have one. The Vapor case for the iPhone 4 is perhaps the meanest, most bad ass-looking bumper / case we’ve seen so far. It’s made from a solid block of “aircraft grade aluminum” and features a non-conductive coating on the inside to do away with that pesky antenna issue. We’ve been playing with two different Vapor cases for a couple days and here are our thoughts:

The construction of the case is top notch — really solid, though we would have liked a better system of taking the case on and off. To get your iPhone situated nicely, you have to bend the large frame a bit to fit your iPhone, then carefully insert the phone making sure the sharp edges of the frame don’t scratch the handset, then you have to attach the second piece and get it nailed down with 4 screws. Once the phone is in the case, it all comes down to personal preference. The case is manufactured well, fits snuggly on the iPhone 4, but does have a couple draw backs. Since the aluminum is so thick, the headset jack gets recessed, the vibrate switch and volume buttons can be a little hard to press, and the on / off button, while accessible through an integrated button, loses a bit of tactility.

All in all, the ElementCASE Vapor case for the iPhone 4 is the most aggressive-looking and lust-worthy case we’ve seen so far. While we love the concept of the Vapor case, the execution misses the mark in a couple ways. Some people might not like the added thickness and weight it adds to the handset, and the case makes the phone’s buttons pretty recessed. Plus, at a starting price of $79, it’s up there on the expensive scale.

Best iPhone Jailbreak Apps and Games

Peruse the apps Apple doesn’t want you to have with some of our favorite jailbreak apps for the iPhone.

Now that jailbreaking an iPhone is as simple as visiting the right website, it’s hard not to want to tread into the exotic, somewhat sketchy seeming world of jailbreak apps. But what can you get from the grey market that you can’t get from Apple’s bright and shiny App Store? Just plenty.

Need to justify your switch to the dark side before you throw that ominous jailbreak slider? Take a look at some of our personal favorites.

Also check out our picks for the best Apple approved iPhone apps.

RockApp, Free through Cydia

When you jailbreak using the latest exploit – Jailbreakme.com – you only get one third-party app store installed: Cydia. RockApp is basically the Ford to Cydia’s General Motors, doing much the same thing, but a little different. It contains a lot of software you simply can’t get from Cydia, and even has what we consider a better interface. Apps typically cost more money, but every single one comes with a free trial, so you can make sure it’s worth purchasing before breaking out the credit card.

MyWi 4.0, $19.99 through RockApp

Use your iPhone’s 3G connectivity on your laptop without paying AT&T a dime. MyWi works with both Wi-Fi and USB, though we actually recommend the latter because tethering drains the battery so quickly. Unlike some alternatives, it also requires no desktop client: Just connect the cable, let the app work its magic, and you’re online wherever you have cell signal. Unfortunately, MyWi recently doubled the price from $9.99 to $19.99, and has taken to the unsavory practice of holding existing users ransom for the $10 difference if they want it to work with iOS 4, leaving a bad taste in our mouths.

nes4iPhone, $4.99 on RockApp

Relive the glory days of the original Nintendo with this polished NES emulator for the iPhone. The virtual controls can’t quite match the red and black buttons you mashed back in ‘89, but we figure having every NES game ever made in your pocket more or less makes up for it. Granted, it doesn’t actually come with any ROMs, but crafty, subversive types (like those who jailbreak phones in the first place) will quickly figure out how to load their phone with them for free. Even your snotty rich friend with arcade games in his basement never had that much entertainment stockpiled in his closet – much less in his pocket.

My3G, $3.99 on RockApp

Like its sibling MyWi, My3G lets you contort AT&T’s 3G connection in ways AT&T never intended. More specifically, you can run apps that are supposed to only have certain features over Wi-Fi networks, like FaceTime, over 3G networks. Video streaming performance obviously suffers, so your results may vary, but a free trial will give you plenty of time to make up your mind.

Winterboard, Free on RockApp

Don’t care for the iPhone’s tasteful but bland home screen? Winterboard lets you reskin every aspect, including custom icons for apps, or choose from the hundreds of themes that artists have already cooked up.

IntelliScreen, $9.99

The iPhone’s default lock screen is a waste. Sure, you get a pretty picture of your choosing, but what about useful tidbits of information you might want to check on the fly without thumbing through menus? IntelliScreen allows you to add news, e-mail, weather and loads of other information directly to the lock screen. You can even totally customize the layout by resizing and rearranging the widgets with multitouch.

xGPS, Free on Cydia

Maps is never handier than when you’re in a foreign city with no idea where you are – but if you’re abroad, that probably means you have no Internet connection, too. XGPS actually allows you to download Google Maps data through your computer ahead of time to access it later, like at 2:30 in the morning when you have no idea how to get to your hotel and it’ starting to rain.

iDiscrete, $2.49 on RockApp

Friends grilling you about some of the photos and video they dug up on your iPhone after you passed it with it in your hands after your 76th game of Solitaire? It’s OK, we dress up our dogs and make them play house, too. IDiscrete not only allows you to hide your secret files behind a password, it blends in so well that the casual inspector of your phone won’t even know you have anything to hide. The “password” is actually a series of strategic screen touches on a fake load screen, and you can even disguise the app as one of your unused Apple icons, like stocks.

iBlacklist, $11.99 on RockApp

It’s none of our business why you have bill collectors, exes and inebriated friends calling you at all the wrong times, but iBlacklist is here to help, not to judge. As the name implies, it can blacklist certain numbers, but also do a whole lot more. You can whitelist the people you do want to access your phone for stricter control, choose one of four actions (from hang-ups to busy signals and send to voicemail) for blocked callers, and even schedule which times, or even days of the week, to apply different types of blocking.

FastSnap, $0.99 on RockApp

Oh, how we wished Steve Jobs would concede to the power of the button and endow the iPhone 4 with a hard shutter button for the camera. No dice. But those volume buttons will double for them nicely with FastSnap, which lets you use either the up or down volume button to trigger the camera. Brilliant! File this one in the why-didn’t-Apple-think-of-that category.