my Computer Quest: iPod Touch

Showing posts with label iPod Touch. Show all posts

08 December, 2011

The iTunes saga: unable to copy movies and music to iPhone

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

English: Original iPhone 8GB, iPhone 3GS 16GB ...

Image via Wikipedia08-Dec-2011

I am one who wouldn’t go for the iPhone for my own use – I wouldn’t die just to get an iPhone. However, somebody dear to me wanted it, and so she got it.

Here comes the nicer part: I didn’t bother ‘learning’ this gadget, so I didn’t know anything about it when my wife asked me to go and configure it, something that I would usually do with my phones (since I started using one back then in 1999). I have zero knowledge of iPhone, so I didn’t know what to do.

Natural thing, I checked from the web. There is no manual, and sort of everything that you do with and about the iPhone is by trial and error method. And since I was keeping the acquisition of the iPhone a secret, and I was quiet about it, I cannot any longer, for I have to ask those before me, before us, who are using iPhones and have already done much configuration on their units.

That’s what we did.

But the natural thing to use is, I thought, the iTunes. Or so I thought.

I actually keep on messing up the movies that I would attempt to copy over from the computer to the iPhone, and sometimes succeeding, but at many times, and with much frustration and headache, fail. I would even be erasing, accidentally, what I have already copied over.

What?!

All the while I thought that iTunes is the problem, especially that when Apple team released an upgrade, that some features were disabled, some were taken out due to security and vulnerability issues, etc., etc., so I thought that iTunes IS the problem.

And I was wrong.

You see, I found one forum, where users are having the same problem like me, exactly. And you know what? It was a very simple solution. I mean, if I were a user smart enough, I would have figured it out myself. But sometimes, you could trip over a pebble…

There is a section entitled “LIBRARY”, and there is that section that pops up and disappears, as and when a device (meaning your iPhone unit) is plugged in or not. By way of nature (I mean my natural way), I would copy the files (movies) into the Movies folder under the Device node. And why not? That's where I want them appearing, right? It doesn’t matter actually whether the checkbox “Automatically sync…” is ticked or not. For my case, it is unticked, so whenever I click on ‘Sync’ button, what I put in the Movies folder are immediately wiped out, to my surprise!

Then, I found out it was being put in the wrong place…

I have to put it in the “LIBRARY” node, in the Movies folder. I did that. I even added in some mp3 files in the Music folder, and, as was suggested in the forum, make sure that the files I wanted to copy over are ticked.

So now I have the movie and music files put in the LIBRARY node, in the Movies and Music folders, respectively, and when I clicked on Sync, the transfer was a success!

What I did next is to tick the ‘Automatically sync…’ box, and while my device was disconnected, I added in some more files, in the LIBRARY section, (for where else, since the 'Device' isn't present, not available; it is disconnected) and unticked some of the files already inside, and when I plugged in my device, naturally, the sync process was immediately triggered.

Happy now?

Yes! At least I know now how to manage files on the iPhone. But I’m still not getting an iPhone for my own use…

Till then, my friends.
“…to the audience we’ll never have…”

25 February, 2010

The Protective Apple

Image via Wikipedia

APPLE REMOVING RISQUE IPHONE APPS

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WASHINGTON - Apple has begun removing risque iPhone and iPod Touch applications from its online App Store, including some which had previously been approved for sale, according to reports on Saturday.

Technology blog TechCrunch and The Wall Street Journal said the new policy towards adult-themed contents had resulted, for example, in the deletion of applications featuring bikini models.

TechCrunch said Apple had begun notifying application developers earlier this week that apps with "overtly sexual content" were being removed.

The Wall Street Journal said the move appeared to be part of an effort by Apple to clean up the App Store ahead of the shipping late next month of its new iPad tablet computer.

The newspaper said the App Store, which offers more than 140,000 programmes, will be an important part of the marketing of the iPad, which Apple intends to promote as a device for families and schools. AFP

From TODAY, Monday, 22-Feb-2010

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13 June, 2009

Keeping the Apple sweet

By evolving the iPhone slowly, Apple didn’t risk alienating millions of users

Ariel Tam in San Francisco, online and technology editor
ariel@mediacorp.com.sg

THE star of this week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was arguably the iPhone 3G S, the long-awaited third-generation model of the smartphone. But to me, and perhaps the 5,200 developers present at the annual event, what was more exciting was the June 17 worldwide release of the iPhone 3.0 software update.

Apple iPhone OS 3.0 shown during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. AP

The iPhone 3G S is, of course, very attractive, and will likely drive hordes of existing iPhone users to upgrade. But the hardware upgrade appears to be a token effort to keep up with the Joneses rather than a bona fide re-design. The improvements are evolutionary and predictable enough that it didn’t take a doctorate for industry watchers to get the details right, such as the improved camera, faster processor and more memory.

Of course, the iPhone 3.0 update is not without its critics. Some gripe that despite its admirable list of fresh features, iPhone 3.0 is little more than a bug-fixing release because many features, such as copy-and-paste, MMS and searchable emails should have been added long ago, and rivals have had them for years.

But the iPhone 3.0’s trump card is backward compatibility. The Palm Pre, launched in the United States last week, operates on the new webOS software unable to run on Palm’s older phones like the Treo. Palm can only gain as many new followers on this platform as it manages to sell Pres to. That’s an uphill task.

The new iPhone 3GS being unveiled at WWDC in San Francisco, US.

By contrast, the iPhone 3.0 software will not only run on any generation of iPhone, but any generation of iPod Touch. Apple announced it has sold a total of 40 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices, which translates to an instant base of 40 million iPhone 3.0 users. Application vendors will be able to tap that vast user base to offer iPhone 3.0’s ability to make micro-payments within applications, such as renewing subscriptions or checking out an online shopping cart. That means two revenue streams: The purchase price of applications, and micro-payments within them.

The ability of developers - and Apple, which takes a cut from transactions - to instantly monetise iPhone 3.0 will mean immediate momentum, unlike competitors that might need to wait for user adoption to ramp up before it can show their developers and investors more than mere projections.

Apple’s App Store might not be as big a goldmine for the company as its iPhone and iPod hardware, but software and hardware are symbiotic parts in Apple’s business strategy. One drives the growth of the other, and both portions are profitable. Now that Apple looks like it will triumph on both fronts with its latest announcements, we could be looking at exponential growth from the company, even in this economic climate. There are already more than 50,000 applications in the App Store since its inception less than a year ago, and more than 1 billion apps have been downloaded.

From this perspective, there’s method to the madness of Apple’s slow improvements to the iPhone’s software. A more aggressive stance might have made it tough for Apple to ensure that the version of its operating system today would be streamlined enough to run on the first-generation iPhone and iPod Touch.

Apple’s latest App Store innovations come in the wake of copycats springing up, with Nokia’s Ovi Store, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry App World and Google’s Android Market all vying for a share of the pie that Apple painstakingly created. Keeping existing developers loyal while wooing new ones is crucial, and the iPhone 3.0’s micro-payment abilities could prove just the carrot to do the trick.

It should be obvious by now that while people are drooling over the new iPhone, Apple is hoping for a windfall in profits generated by apps and transactions, and hopes its developers see the same dollar signs it does so they will stay and drive the iPhone-App Store ecosystem.

From TODAY, Tech Comment – Friday, 12-Jun-2009

10 June, 2009

July launch for new iPhone in Singapore

Image by Donatello Trisolino via Flickr

Now this is more like it! Maybe now I can get my iPhone. As I said, let those who want to swim on the first, second and third waves do so… they'll get all the sharks. Now it is clean water, and the unit is more stable, more gadgets loaded, have additional features – and, CHEAPER!

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By Ariel Tam in San Francisco, TODAY | Posted: 10 June 2009 0835 hrs

Come July, SingTel users in Singapore will be able to get their hands on the Apple iPhone 3G S, the most significant hardware upgrade yet for the popular touchscreen smartphone.

"The new iPhone 3.0 software, with useful new features including Cut, Copy and Paste, Landscape Keyboard and MMS, will be available as a free update to all existing SingTel's iPhone 3G customers from 18 June 2009," SingTel said Tuesday in a media statement. Pricing details will be released when available, it added.

The iPhone 3G S (S stands for "speed"), unveiled on Monday at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), boasts an operating speed double that of its predecessor. 7.2Mbps HSDPA (3.5G) support has been added, allowing for accelerated Internet surfing.

In the United States, the iPhone 3G S will cost US$199 for the 16GB model and US$299 for the 32GB model with an AT&T plan when it launches there on June 19.

Confirming recent months' speculation, the new version sports a 3-megapixel auto-focus, auto-exposure, auto-macro camera that lets you tap on the screen in order to focus on an object. You can record VGA videos at 30 frames per second, trim them and share them via YouTube, email and MMS, which is finally making its debut in this third version of the iPhone.

Battery life -- long a bugbear for many iPhone users -- has improved, with the 3G S estimated to last three hours longer than the iPhone 3G for surfing the Internet over WiFi, six more hours for music and three more hours for video playback.

Apple also revealed features of its new iPhone 3.0 software update, which will be free to iPhone users and will cost iPod Touch users US$9.99 to download from June 17. One new feature is Find my iPhone - a handy tool that lets MobileMe customers locate their lost/stolen iPhone on a map and wipe data from their device remotely.

The current iPhone 3G will be retained in the line-up in an 8GB version, but the price is falling to US$99. This marks the cheapest official US price for an iPhone, and is also the first time Apple has made an entry-level iPhone model simultaneously available alongside a cutting-edge version.

Meanwhile, Singapore's StarHub said on Tuesday its customers continue to feedback that they'd like to get the iPhone and be connected to its network. "We really want to meet these requests and have continuously indicated our keen interest to Apple to distribute the iPhone," said StarHub consumer sales head Ng Long Shyang.

- TODAY

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

09 June, 2009

Apple unveils new iPhone without Steve Jobs

Posted: 09 June 2009 0758 hrs

Apple kicked off their annual WWDC with announcements of the new iPhone 3Gs.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple made hot-selling iPhones even more appealing on Monday, premiering a speedier new model complete with a video camera and slashing the price of its predecessor to 99 dollars.

Apple vice president of marketing Phil Schiller made the announcements at an annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco bereft of any sign of the firm's renowned chief executive, Steve Jobs.

Schiller said the new iPhone 3GS, the first model to capture video, will be available on June 19.

"The 'S' stands for speed, because this is the most powerful iPhone we've ever made," Schiller said. "What is inside is entirely new."

He said a 16-gigabyte iPhone 3GS would cost 199 dollars while the 32-gigabyte model would cost 299 dollars.

He said the price of an original eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G dropped to 99 dollars from 199 dollars as of Monday.

Schiller also said a next-generation iPhone 3.0 operating system will be released worldwide on June 17 as a free upgrade to owners of the smartphones.

Senior vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall said meanwhile that sales of applications for the smartphones had passed a billion in April.

Apple also reported it has sold more than 40 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices, which are essentially iPhones without mobile phone capabilities.

Enhancements crafted into the iPhone 3.0 operating system include downloading rented videos and customization to additional languages including Arabic, Hebrew, and Korean.

A new "Find My iPhone" feature lets people use an Apple online Mobile Me service to locate lost or stolen devices.

"It will show you on a map where your phone is," Forstall said. "You can send it a message and it plays an alert sound whether or not you left it in silent mode."

The feature also lets people remotely erase all data from lost or stolen iPhones, then reload the information using iTunes if they are reacquainted with their devices.

The new operating system also lets iPhones connect to one another wirelessly for communal activities such as playing games.

"The iPhone has just blown everybody away," said analyst Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computer research at Gartner.

Dulaney noted that Apple and AT&T, exclusive provider of iPhone service in the United States, made no mention of reducing service plan prices that "are a challenge for people."

Also missing was an upgrade that would enable iPhones to run several applications simultaneously, a feature analysts say is needed by businesses and would match a capability of market new-comer Palm Pre.

Apple hit a disappointing note with an otherwise enthusiastic audience when it announced that its new Snow Leopard computer operating system would not be available until September.

People using the previous generation software will only have to pay 29 dollars to upgrade.

A "near-final" version is being given to developers at the conference so they can begin tailoring programs for the system.

"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple senior vice president of software engineering.

"Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."

Snow Leopard lets users spell with Chinese characters on MacBook touchpads and includes a new version of Apple's web browser, Safari.

Safari software made available Monday is "multiples" times faster than Microsoft's latest Internet Explorer 8 Web browser, according to Apple.

Apple on Monday also launched upgraded MacBooks while cutting prices on its historically high-end laptop line.

New MacBook models feature slots for SD memory cards commonly used in digital cameras and more environmentally friendly lithium batteries promising to last as long as seven hours before needing charging.

Improved MacBooks could also be customized with beefier processors and as much as 500 gigabytes of storage space. Prices on the enhanced MacBook line range from 1,199 to 2,299 dollars.

Approximately 5,200 software developers from more than 50 countries registered to attend the sold-out conference, according to Apple.

The presentation featured humor and barbs aimed at rival Microsoft, but no sign of 54-year-old Jobs, who has been on a medical leave of absence since January.

Apple has been notoriously secretive about Jobs's health since he underwent an operation in 2004 for pancreatic cancer but has been adamant that he is returning to the company's helm at the end of this month.

- AFP /ls

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

my Computer Quest

08 December, 2011

The iTunes saga: unable to copy movies and music to iPhone