Why buying a discounted iPhone 4s now is stupid

iPhone 5 will likely be announced next month and everybody who follows tech news knows it. And every who does follow will know that many vendors and even Apple themselves have dropped the price of their iPhone 4s. A good,time to buy you say? Not unless you think you cannot afford a brand new iPhone 5 which maybe 50-100 bucks more costly. But, if you can afford it and you still want to get it, it is downright silly.

Here's why...

Solution: Restore and Update button greyed out in iTunes after upgrade to iOS 5.0.1

I recently ran into a problem after upgrading an iPhone to iOS 5.0.1 where the Update and Restore buttons on iTunes are greyed out (not allowing you to click on either). I believe this problem is not related to the iOS version, but rather the network service provider. Usually if there are any setting changes to the network providers' network, you will receive a notice in iTunes when you plug in your phone the first time after upgrading, that tells you an update to the carrier settings is available and offers to upgrade it for you. If you do not upgrade, you may not be able to receive a signal and your iPhone/iPad may show "No Service" on the status bar.

Especially with iOS 5.x where you can activate your device without connecting to iTunes, this issue may happen more easily. Or if you are using an iPhone which is locked to another network other than the one on your SIM card, this could happen also. So what happens now that you have No Service on your iDevice and you are unable to even Update or Restore?

iOS 5.0.1 Untethered Jailbreak for pre-A5 devices released: RedSn0w

If you have been following the development on the iOS jailbreak community, you would probably know by now that the untethered jailbreak has been released for iOS 5.0.1 for all iDevices (except for iPhone 4s and iPad 2). Few hours right after the release announcement, I jumped in immediately to restore my iPhone 4 (which was on iOS 4.3.2) and jailbreak it. Dev-team has release the latest RedSn0w tool (version 0.9.10b2) that includes the exploit to jailbreak the iOS 5.0.1.

There are some pre-requisites before you try and jailbreak your iDevice. Click on for more...

How to enable CAPS LOCK on your iOS keyboard

I'm sure many people use capital letters when typing messages on their smart phones. And iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) does a good job at automatically capping your first words right after the last fullstop. It will also capitalize certain words automatically like, ASAP, FYI and also all the first letters of names or days, like Michael, John, Monday, Tuesday, etc... You get the drag. But besides that, when and if you want to type a whole word in capital letters for whatever reasons (for example, trying to show that you are shouting, gasping or just want to stress a certain word in your sentence), many would repeatedly type in the "SHIFT" key repeatedly for every letter being typed. There is an easier way...

Bejeweled Blitz - AppStore FREE download

Popcap has just released a new version of Bejeweled Blitz for the iOS (no Android version reported yet). Unlike the Bejeweled 2 (which also have Blitz mode included), it is a purely only Blitz mode. What is the Blitz mode? Its a 1-minute game play mode that you try and score as many points as you can and you will able to compare scores with your online friends (on Facebook and Google+). If you have played it on Facebook (FB) or Google+ (G+) and also on your iDevice, you should know that many of the features that you are able to play on FB and G+ are not available on the Bejeweled 2 Blitz (B2B) app previously.

Transition from iOS 4.x to iOS 5 and Jailbreaking

I have recently made a transition from iOS 4.x to iOS 5 on my iPhone 3GS and I can say it wasn't a particularly smooth sailing journey. Of course we're talking about jailbreaking it as well. My plan was to do this:

1. Sync & backup iPhone 3GS with iTunes
2. Fully restore iPhone to iOS 5
3. Jailbreak iOS 5 with redsn0w
4. Install AppSync 5.0+ from Cydia
5. Restore from backup to iPhone with iTunes.

Sounds easy right? Wrong! Now usually when after I sync and backup the iPhone before an upgrade of the firmware, I will do a backup of the backup first so I can do it again if I screw it up. I have written an article on how to do this before and you can see it here: [Restoring from a backup for iPhone, jailbreak or not!]

eBuddy XMS vs. WhatApp... FIGHT!

Blackberry's BBM service may be popular, but it is limited to BB-to-BB messaging. iMessage maybe supported by a monstrous Apple, but again limited to iOS-to-iOS messaging. In our imperfect world of multiple mobile OS platforms, you can't seriously expect everyone to own multiple devices just so they can send free messages to all their friends, can you? Well, maybe some will answer, yes you can, but not all of us are so fortunate. That is where apps like eBuddy XMS and WhatsApp comes and save the day. Of course there are a thousand more apps out there that does similar functions, like Pingchat, Facebook Messenger, TextPlus, etc,  but these are my 2 favourites. I also wrote a review on Viber, that has also added text messaging functions, but its more popular for its free VoIP calls service. Check out that review here: [LINK]

But today, I'm going to compare just XMS (ver 2.0.1) and WhatsApp (ver 2.6.7) on the iPhone iOS (that's the only one i own)... jump in!

Apple's new iOS5, anything else new?

It was the Apple's WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC) yesterday. There were no new consumer hardware introduced as some have expected, but there were 3 main things. No iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 that was rumored to be announced. The 3 things were the OSX Lion, iOS5 and iCloud. I'm not going to talk about OSX Lion as I do not own a Mac (but I am surprised at the $29 upgrade price!). I'm going to talk mainly about the new iOS 5 and some of its main new features that they have added.

Restoring from a backup for iPhone, jailbreak or not!

Here's a myth that most people believe, "You cannot backup or restore a jailbroken iPhone". The fact is, you can. And yours truly have done it a million times (over exaggerated of course). I personally do not use AptBackup, PKGBackup or any Cydia apps to help me backup my apps' settings and data. iTunes can do all that for you. What does that mean? It means that not only are you able to backup your iPhone's settings, the legitimate apps and its data (and settings), but you will be able to also backup your Cydia apps' settings. I will tell you how...

redsn0w untethered Jailbreak for iOS 4.3.1 on the iPhone & iPad

I'm always asked this question by my friends, "Hey dude, is the iPhone iOS 4.3.1 jailbreak out yet?" ever since iOS 4.3 was released. Finally, the Dev-team have released the latest jailbreak for the iOS 4.3.1. What more.... it is an untethered jailbreak. The tethered jailbreak was released earlier but I would always refrain people from using it. Imagine you are out and either your battery drained or you need to reboot your iPhone after a Cydia app installation or you have a non-responding phone which needed a hard boot? With a tethered jailbreak, you'll be running around like a headless chicken.

My first impressions of Angry Birds Rio

At the end of February 2011, we were treated to a preview of this new game which gave us a vague view of what is to come. Gone are the pigs that use to terrorize our birds and its offsprings (eggs). Gone are the snorting of the filthy little pigs that once laughed and taunt our birds from their hideous wodden castles.

Angry Birds fans will surely reqoice with the release of Angry Birds Rio. The new nemesis, humans apparently! Birds have been captured and shipped to the faraway land of Rio de Janeiro (hence the name Rio). Our birds have travelled along to save their comrades. They are caged and stored in shipping warehouses in which we will see hundreds and hundred of crates and chains use to stack the cages. The objective is to free the captured birds from their cages.