iphone

What You Need to Know About Upgrading to an iPhone Xs or Xr

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I just got a new iPhone Xs Max. I had an iPhone 6s which I liked a lot, but it’s been a few years and with more travel I thought I’d enjoy having a better device with me. There are a few things that bit me in the duff. Some two-factor authentication (2FA) apps like Duo or Google Authenticator store their data in the iPhone Secure Enclave, which isn’t backed up to iCloud or via iTunes. That means that when you switch devices (or if you lose your device) you could lose access to your accounts, or it’ll be a serious pain to regain access (which is the point of 2FA). So don’t trade in your old phone until you’ve …

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Apple Deserves What It Gets From This Battery Fiasco

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Yesterday Apple issued an apology for the intentional slowing of iPhones because of aging in the iPhone battery. As part of that they announced a number of changes, like a $29 battery replacement and actually giving people information and choices about how their device functions. This says a few things to me. First, it says that have gouged consumers for the cost of a battery all these years. Second, it tells me they are scared enough of these class-action lawsuits to admit fault publicly. There are a million reasons why an iPhone might perform poorly, especially after an upgrade. This has little to do with the battery, and likely more to do with background maintenance tasks that happen after an …

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Software is Always Broken

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I’m sitting here watching my iPhone update to iOS 11.0.1. Apple says that there are just a couple of fixes: some security updates and a fix for the Exchange email problems. The update is sure taking a while, though. That’s consistent with my knowledge of how software development works. Color me skeptical that the first point release of a new iOS only has a couple of changes. My bet is that there are hundreds of fixes for all sorts of problems reported during the beta, but weren’t large enough to stop the release. Development of software like Apple’s iOS or VMware’s vCenter never stops. At a certain point someone takes a snapshot of the way it looks and decides that …

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Apple Lawsuit Over iOS Advertised Capacity

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In case you hadn’t seen it, Apple is being sued over the fact that a 16 GB iOS device does not have 16 GB of space usable on it. The Verge has a good story on it, link is below. In contrast, Macworld’s Susie Ochs has published a whiny, elitist article entitled “Apple faces dumb lawsuit over the size of iOS 8.” This link is also below if you’d like to witness the cesspool that Macworld has become. I don’t think the lawsuit is dumb, at all. On one hand computers have never included the space consumed by the OS when listing their storage capacities. Consider that an OS installed on a PC stays fairly static over the life of the …

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How To Find Your iPad/iPod/iPhone's UDID Without The Device

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Sometimes you need the UDID for your iPad, iPod, or iPhone and you don’t have the device. Or you do have the device but it’s b0rked, like from installing development iOS and forgetting to add the device to your account. And you’ve got a Windows desktop, so all the Mac instructions out there don’t help a ton. It’s simple. Start->Run, then: %appdata%Apple ComputerMobileSyncBackup The folders there are named according to your device UDIDs. You can probably use the folder dates & times to figure out which is which, or if you need to get more detailed open Info.plist or Manifest.plist and look at the applications that were installed. If you need your device’s serial number check this post. Good luck!

iOS 5: Promise Good Despite Some Rough Edges

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I have been running iOS 5 on my iPhone 3GS since the developer release of the GM seed. I upgraded my first generation iPad today. To summarize my experiences: iOS 5 on my 3GS seems to be decent, though I’ve noticed reduced battery life even with most of the over-the-air stuff off. iOS 5 on my iPad has been a process, with the upgrade failing, the sync taking hours, and iTunes claiming that the device is full of “other” data. When I’m done with this post I’m going to go nuclear on it. I do major iOS upgrades on my devices with a particular routine. First, I make sure I get a good backup, and I go into the iTunes …

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How To Power Your Stuff While You're in Copenhagen

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Denmark’s power is 230 Volts and 50 Hz, which means that if you are traveling from a country with another power specification (like the United States, at 110 Volts and 60 Hz) you have some considerations to make. Last year when I was there for the VMworld conference I had my Dell laptop, my iPad, my iPhone, and my Nikon D80 digital SLR camera. I left my electric razor at home; devices with motors in them need step-down transformers so they don’t catch fire. Step-down transformers are heavy and annoying and have fuses that blow. I can shave with a disposable razor for a week, no big deal. I planned to charge my iPhone off my laptop’s USB, thereby saving …

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