MacMAD Blog

My young niece has an iPod touch that has been working fine for her, but recently the headphone jack has become unreliable, and she can’t listen through headphones. One or both channels keep cutting out.

Apple appears to have done a good job with the headphone jack on the touch, even using gold plated contacts. However this unit has done very hard service with continuous use by kids and probably cats and dogs, too, and the jack is just worn out.

Typically, any repair of a modern electronic device like the iPod costs almost as much as a new one. So what to do?

One could buy and use a wireless Bluetooth stereo headset. It’s a neat idea, and her iPod is one of the models that supports it. But they are kind of expensive, and we’re on a kid’s budget here.

How about the dock connector? Is there some way to get audio out of that? Turns out there is.

I found an inexpensive product to do just that. However with the dock-connector solution, you don’t get volume control, so you need some way to adjust the volume. So here’s the complete solution, in two budget products.

This entire deal costs $12.50 before shipping and tax. The local Radio shack had the volume control cable, but the other connector had to be ordered. The dock connector is an especially great deal for $3.51, and could be useful for connecting iPods and iPhones to various components.

The volume control is even smaller than it looks, so the whole setup won’t be too unwieldy.

Update: The dock connector has been received, and all is working great! Note: the photos above are links to the sites selling the products.

-Jamie

The App store, as well as Android Marketplace, needs a systematic way to try an app on a trial basis. Right now, all risk is on the customer. If you buy an app and it doesn’t meet your needs, you are just out the price of the app, with apparently, no recourse. It’s really difficult to tell from comments and screen shots whether a given app is any good, or whether it will work for you. iTunes lets you hear a good part of a song before you buy. Apple should extend this idea to apps, by allowing a trial period.

Some publishers publish a trial or free version of their app, but what I’m looking for is a general scheme that works for all apps. I would be much more likely to buy a paid app, especially a more expensive one, if I could try it first.

Does anyone know of any existing way to do this?

-Jamie

The public WiFi at the Brevard County Library system works a lot like the system at some hotels. There is no password or access controls to access the WiFi network itself, but you do need to authenticate to access the internet.

Now at the library, “authentication” means you enter your library card #, or just click the guest button.

You get a popup window that says something like “Don’t close this window. You can minimize it, but don’t close it.” As long as that window stays active, you can browse the internet in another window or in other applications.

The iPad totally fails at this. Why? Because it Does Not Have Multitasking! Safari only has one active window at a time. If you open another Safari window, or switch to another app, your internet connection is dropped.

The iPad is totally unable to use the free public WiFi in this environment. By contrast, I was able to use the internet via the library’s WiFi on my Andorid phone. Why did this work better? Because it has multitasking.

This is the poster child for Why You Need Multitasking.

Updated Jan 17, 2010

Q: When is a playlist not a playlist?

A: When it won’t play.

I have an iPod Nano, 2nd generation. I have a pretty simple routine for using it. I have two smart playlists in iTunes that I sync with the Nano, one contains music, and one contains podcasts. Every week, I update the podcasts, randomize the music, and sync my iPod. I always leave my iPod set to “shuffle songs”. Whether I am listening to music or podcasts, I want to pick the next one randomly. I don’t want to listen in alphabetic order. I listen to my iPod primarily in the car, and mostly listen to podcasts as opposed to music. I typically have several episodes of each podcast in the playlist. While driving, when one podcast ends, I don’t want to fiddle with my iPod, I just want it to start playing the next podcast. I also don’t want to listen to all the episodes of a single podcast before hearing any of the others. (Who could stand 4 episodes of Car Talk in a row?) None of the available sort orders in iTunes seems right. Date Modified seemed like a good choice, but some providers modify a lot of their podcasts at the same time, so I would get, say, a bunch of NPR podcasts in a row. So the best for me is random, aka shuffle. If I do hear the same one twice, or something I don’t like, all I have to do is hit the next button on the iPod to skip past it.

Way back in 2006, this stopped working for me when I upgraded from firmware 1.1.1 to 1.2. As I understood the situation then, in iPod Nano firmware 1.2:

1.) Any playlist with only podcasts won’t play.

2.) A playlist with some songs and some podcasts will play, but only the songs will play. A playlist with 2 songs and 10 podcasts plays, saying “1 of 2″.

There was some discussion about this on the Apple support forums, but no real resolution, except to revert to 1.1.1. Surely, I thought, Apple would fix this egregious bug in later firmware versions. However, Apple never says what changes are made in any of the iPod firmware releases, so I just stayed with 1.1.1.

When iTunes 9.0.2 came out, it was incompatible with the old firmware and all of a sudden, I couldn’t connect my iPod to iTunes anymore. I was forced to update the firmware to 1.3.1 (BTW, this was way, way too difficult), and the problem was back.

Finally, after four years, I understand what the problem was. It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature”. Podcasts typically all have an obscure setting called Skip when shuffling turned on. Since I always had Shuffle Songs turned on, I could never play any podcasts as part of a playlist. The only way to play a podcast was one at a time. I now understand that firmware 1.1.1 was the last release for the Nano that didn’t implement the Skip when shuffling bit. It sure would have been nice if Apple had been telling us what changed in each firmware release.

Somebody at Apple decided, in their infinite wisdom, that nobody would ever want to shuffle podcasts. Well, hello, I do! I can understand that you might not want certain tracks to play in rotation, but when they are chosen by the user to be in a playlist, the user has spoken, and his choice should be honored.

There are a couple of things Apple could do about this. The best would be to fix iPod firmware to ignore Skip when shuffling when playing a playlist, but honor it when the user is playing everything on the iPod in shuffle mode. Another way would be an option in iTunes to clear the Skip when shuffling bit when downloading podcasts, or when creating a playlist.

Meanwhile there is a work-around. When you have your podcasts downloaded, before syncing them to the iPod, Select All in the playlist, Get Info, and click the options tab, and then select no for Skip when shuffling. When you apply this, it will get rid of the pesky Skip when shuffling bit on all tracks in the playlist.

This is a poor workaround, since the Skip when shuffling attribute is removed from those files, not just within the playlist, but in your entire library, and all devices syncing with your library. I approve of the designed behavior of Skip when shuffling in general, but it should not apply inside a playlist.

Does anyone know if this problem is the same on other iPod versions?

-Jamie Cox

Here’s a quick list of interesting links and products from MacMAD’s October meeting:

iGlasses Provides detailed control over your iSight camera settings
MacHeist Cheap Mac Software bundles every week
TidBits Long time excellent Apple & Macintosh news
PodWorks Free program to access, play and copy songs from any iPod to any computer
PD+Rescue Allows you to rescue songs stranded on your iPod or iPhone after your computer fails or goes missing. PD+Rescue allows you to move songs back to your computer from the iPod

I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere else. My niece has an iPod touch, and I sent her some photos by email. They looked fuzzy on the iPod. She specifically saved them into her photo browser on the touch. I discovered that if I sent a photo that was already scaled to fit within 480 x 320, that it would look dramatically better. Apparently, the iPod will scale down larger photos, but not very cleanly. The photos I sent weren’t a lot bigger than that, but I found if they were any bigger at all, they would look bad.

That size isn’t one of the built-in options for mailing from iPhoto, so I had to use a custom size. Anyway the pre-scaled photos look great.

I would think this applies to the iPhone also, but I haven’t tried it.

-Jamie

OK, OK, I know I’m one of those ” I got to have the latest one ” people when it comes to the iPhone, and to a lesser extent, the iPod. I admit it freely and unabashedly. That said, I like to think I can be objective when communicating my impressions of these devices to others who may be less (or equally) enamored of these Apple products, so here goes.

First off, I’ll have you know that I DID NOT wait in line at my nearest Apple store (some 60 miles away) like I did for the first two versions. No, I waited comfortably in my home for the little gem to settle at my doormat after an amazingly fast trip from China. Watching it travel via UPS web updates may be considered a slightly less painful form of torture than waterboarding, mainly due to the hold that Apple placed on it in Louisville for 2 days to guarantee a uniform delivery on June 19th. Nevertheless, it arrived safely, and a deep sigh was heard throughout the house.

My first impression upon seeing the new iPhone was: Uh Oh, did I just buy the same iPhone again, for gobs of money? Then I looked at the back of it and saw that no, this one is way different. Look, it has an “S” after the 3G! I kid, but that is the only difference between the two versions, on the outside. We were told it would look the same, but operate at a much higher level. Hmmm, where did I hear that before? Oh yes, the Snow Leopard update. Wish they used the same pricing scheme for the 3g as for Snow Leopard. I digress. I am not going to go through the iPhone 3Gs inner workings here, other sites have done that for us, and much better than I ever could. I am just going to highlight some of what I really like about it, and some I like a little less. What’s that? What about things I don’t like about it? I’ll forget you said that.

I use the iPhone 3Gs in this order of importance: Ipod, Mail, App’s, Phone, Hot Water Heater, just so you understand my frame of reference. I’ll get to that last one later. As an avid iPod user of the unit, I was always unhappy with the transport controls, specifically the lack of fine control over forward and back and everything in between. I really like their solution here, it’s simple and “touch intuitive”. After touching the in point of your media in the progress bar, drag your finger down to get varying levels of control on the speed with which you scroll through the piece. It will indicate Hi Speed, 1/2, 1/4, or Fine Scrubbing, very nice. If you want to rewind by 30 sec. increments, touch the reverse semi-circle with “30″ in the center of it, and back you go. I do not see a way to change that value, and would advise that be included in a small update in the future. I could swear that at some point I got it to go Forward instead of Reverse by 30 sec., but have been unable to reproduce that result, so I have to attribute that to eye fatigue of the observer (another small update item). There is another icon to the right that toggles through 3 playing speeds for podcast listening, which has always been something I just don’t understand. Listening to anything not in real time speed after 3 minutes makes me feel like that guy in “Scanners” must have felt just before his head blew up, no thanks. For podcasts, there is a Mail icon that will send an email with a link to it in iTunes. If playing music, the icons change to Repeat, Shuffle and Create Smart Playlist based on the song now playing, which you can save or refresh. You can still scrub the song as before, and those icons disappear and you are shown the scrubbing options as before. For video, scrubbing works the same but there are no icons or visual cues, and I appreciate that. (Ooops, the preceding paragraph describes part of the 3.0 update, not 3Gs specific).

If the “s” stands for speed, it is accurate. Everything the 3G does, the 3Gs does faster. App’s load and function faster, touches are more responsive, web pages load more quickly. I think this has gotten short shrift in any review I have seen. We have all updated our computers to get faster processors, why should this be thought of any differently? It means less time waiting for things to happen, I’m a big fan of that. I did think that the 3G was slow, and the difference is very noticeable. The speaker seems louder, but I have no empirical evidence of that, so I’ll leave it at that. The screen is beautiful, but so is the 3G’s. Though I rarely need it, Cut & Paste works well but with a minor get-used-to-it curve. Not all App’s support it, so beware. For whatever reason, my AT&T bars are almost always full with the 3Gs, a development I view with some suspicion. I have had one dropped call in the week I’ve owned it, but I was inside my condo-of-solitude cement fortress at the time, so not too surprising. Overall I would say call quality and reliability is better, but I don’t know where to attribute that. Voice Recognition for dialing or music control is in my opinion not up to par here. Google’s app is much better than what Apple has with the 3Gs. Good thing I don’t use it anyway. I guess there are those who rely on it, darned if i know how or why. Voice recognition is a long time from being anything reliable, so I guess that along the way we have to take these attempts as some  path to enlightenment, learn and move on.

The video and picture from the 3Gs is new and improved, from 2 to 3.0 megapixel for the stills. Touch a spot on the screen and the iPhone adjusts focus, exposure and white balance automatically. Stills and video can be downloaded to iPhoto when connected to your computer seamlessly, but it’s the one touch upload to .Me or Youtube that makes it shine for me. The video looks good for a phone (640 x 480), and you can edit a single clip easily by dragging either end point left or right.

GPS is also faster and more accurate. The new magnetic compass is a stand-alone app, but it’s integrated into most GPS app’s on the phone. This adds a directional component to your view, as the phone moves so does your view. This is toggled on or off by touching the Locate button. It also displays a cone of accuracy, the wider the cone, the less accurate is the directional data. Very nice.

OK, I’ve been playing with voice control a little more, and it seems that it works well but you have to give it certain commands to which it will respond. The problem is, I don’t know what those commands are unless I go here and listen to the tutorial. Voice control is for dialing and iPod control only, so the command set should be small and memorizable, but I haven’t yet.

I absolutely love that many app’s are now viewable in landscape mode. It was mine and others’ first complaint with the original iPhone. It should not have taken 2 years to get that feature, but it did. I find it especially useful when viewing mail.

Now, the heat issue. Yes, it does get warm if being used for more than a 5 minute stretch. So does the 3G, I feel no difference between them. The claims of discoloring due to abnormal heat have been answered; seems certain cases have a dye that will stick to the back of the iPhone. A simple moist cloth is the remedy.

So, there it is, all your iPhone 3Gs questions and fears allayed! No? Well, maybe it helped just a little. I like the iPhone 3Gs, and I’m glad I made the purchase. “Nuff said.

Eric Emerick

Mom was having some issues with her iPod Shuffle (2nd generation). I worked on it, but it was still not making reliable connection via USB. So, she wanted to buy a new iPod. I helped her pick one out, and she chose the iPod Shuffle again, this time the 3rd generation. This new one has the much-maligned control on the cord.

Some folks that want to accessorize their iPod with different earbuds don’t like the proprietary cord, but I’m here to tell you that this product made my mom very happy. She’s figured out how to work everything, and she especially likes having playlists, which the previous Shuffle lacked. There’s a lot to be said for the minimalist user interface. Not having a screen is a positive advantage for older folks who would have trouble seeing it anyway.

The problem with the old one was in the headphone jack/USB jack. I took it apart, and there was some cracked plastic, which I managed to reinforce with some metal and some epoxy. This was nearly a miracle, since this thing is really tiny. When you get it apart, it’s about 2/3 battery, which doesn’t leave much room for anything else. It does look like the jack is the weak point, and since you have to plug and unplug every time you switch between listening and charging, it is likely to be the first thing to fail.

Anyway, she’s happy with the new one, and the old one seems to be working as well now.