MYBLOG by Ouriel

The new iPhone 3G: available everywhere, except israel.

Will be sold in 70 countries eventually. i Think there is already more iPhones in Israel than in the whole Middle East all together. So Who cares ?

[iPhone tip] No sound while you call?

So you are calling with your iPhone, they can hear you well but you can't hear a thing including the tone while it dials? Here is what you should do.

Just call someone with your headset plugged in the iPhone. If you don't hear a thing with your headset either then you have another problem, but this should work. While you are on the line with your friend slowly take the headset out of your iPhone and everything should be back to normal

I have no idea why this happens, but this was really freaky. Thanks again to my twitter friends for the tip

Technorati Tags: iphone sound tip call hack fix

Apple finally sells the iPhone in the Middle East but not in Israel. Who cares?

Apple has announced a deal to sell through Orange France the iPhone in a list of Middle east countries including Jordan and Egypt. Still no announcement of any agreement for Israel. But honestly who cares? Israelis are not waiting for Apple. If you live in Israel you already realized how popular is the iPhone here. Like me they brought it from the US where the dollar is low and unlocked their device.

On average 1/3 personn i meet has an iPhone here. You can buy easily (at a high price though) an iPhone in Israel in physical stores (a picture i took myself here above) or on the internet (just google "iphone israel"). Well done Steve Jobs!



Technorati Tags: iphone, orange, israel

10 things the iPhone should/must have

I am a big fan of the iPhone and i am slowly fading out from my blackberry. Will probably totally with the upcoming active sync which will bring exchange capabilities to the iPhone. I have been intensively using it for the past 2 weeks. here is a list of things that i think the iPhone should/must have

• Copy paste: A true feature not a substitute
• a training program for writing/tour: when you first take your iPhone in hand there is nothing to take you through iPhone capabilities specially for typing and learning to type correctly. And there are plenty of none obvious tricks (like accents) you should know
• auto complete dial: When i want to dial a contact i need to go to contact book and then check the number i want to dial. i want the possibility to do that directly from the dialer. Just like on the blackberry with an auto complete feature
• wireless sync: the only way to sync your iphone (equipped with Wifi) is to connect it to your computer. There are a few solutions out there to enable wifi sync but they are REALLY not easy to implement. One of them is called WiSync.
• easy sim contact import: Normally your sim card should have some contacts, but the iPhone does not recognize them and does not enable you to import them. Zyb allows you to consult your data but not yet sync it with your iPhone, same thing with Plaxo. Easy sim import is a must. Plaxo import would be great too
• easy online/offline backup: this is THE weak point of the iPhone. There is no easy backup solution and way to manage it. I found tones of apps to do that but nothing great. iTunes is supposed to back your iPhone. But i don't want to use iTunes. And i want this backup to be available outside my computer, online
• Pause dial for calling card: one key feature missing in the dialer is the ability to introduce "pause" which is really useful for calling cards. On any phone if you press twice # you should get "p" which is pause, meaning the necessary delay to introduce the next data (like a conference call code). iPhone does not have that
  [update: my bad, i run a search on google and found a solution, you can have the "pause" signal by just either pressing * 2 seconds in regular dial or by just pressing the "pause" key in the add contact menu, i just tried with my calling card and it works great (firmware 1.1.4)]
• desktop search: iPhone comes with a hard disk. now up to 16gb someday soon double and triple. I want the equivalent of Spotlight on iPhone to search my files by type, date, size. This is just so obvious we need that. For now i use the application MobileFinder but this is not good enough and really too geeky
• easy delete for all heavy files not just video: i am still surprised there is no easy way to delete data from your iPhone directly. And you may need that for heavy files or just get rid of files you don't want to keep without connecting your iPhone to your computer. there is an easy possibility for pictures and emails (just drag your finger from left to right on the right of an email and a delete button appears). But this should be possible on any file. I discovered you can also do it for videos (like email below) but i would like to do it for audio podcasts or any other file i have on my iPod
• single login for youtube/maps/youtube, itunes: all the google apps are really well integrated in the iPhone. BUT you cannot leverage your history from the web and need to start again from scratch. All my youtube favourites, Google archived maps...But also iTunes track record...Nothing is considered in the iPhone where i need to start from scratch again
• Real bluetooth, with data transfer: BlueTooth works on iPhone but only for Headset. Data transfer is not enabled. I use Drop Copy to do that within a same wifi network.

bonus:

• abbreviation shortcuts: possibility to write emailOO that converts in my email
• contextual keyboard for email fields (adding @ and .com) so i don t need to play with the keyboard touches
• play video from podcast menu: i want to be able to launch a video from the podcast menu, not only from video menu
• hard disk mode: this is available on the iPod, i want it also on the iPhone so i can store raw data on it.
• Detailed call history: i want to know how long was a call (not really important though)
  

the iPhone is sold in Israel

I came back proudly from my trip in the US with an iPhone, thinking i would still be an early adopter in the Israel where the iPhone is not sold. What i realized when i came back was that i was a late adopter: 1 person out of 2 that i meet has an iPhone.

I just twitted that and Orli points me to this page (and Niv to this page) of this site for second hand stuff where an iPhone can be bought from 500 USD++ (2000 NIS) meaning nearly 1.5 times the official price. Of course those iPhones were bought abroad and brought back to Israel.

There are tones of easy ways to make it work with your cell operator (you can even change the name of the operator like i did on this screenshot).

Buying an iPhone in the USA is particularly a no brainer with the strong Shekel and the low dollar. Apple has not officially started to sell the iPhone in Israel and by the time it happens a large part of the population will already have an iPhone.

There is a parallel that can be established between that and the movie industry. When a movie is good and people want to see it they don't want to wait to see it on screen, they download it specially when the international roll out date is delayed compared to the US one. This is not legal but it happens.

iPhone is paying the price of its success: people want it and find ways to get it earlier in alternative channels of distribution.

iPhone Hack to make it stand still (without touching it of course)

I can't help trying to find hacks that make my life easier once i get something new. I complained in a previous post about the absence of solution to have your ipod stand still specially when you want to watch a movie. I finally found a solution while i was on a plane looking at my Bose QC3 Headset extension (that i never use). I just plugged it into the iPhone and plugged inside my regular headset as you can see below and it works perfect

Don't worry, no need to buy a Bose QC3 headset, you can find one like this in any store for a few bucks and if you travel you ll enjoy it.

Copy/Paste available on the iPhone..Kind of

Someone was more upset than others and decided to create a small web app for the iPhone to solve on the biggest problems: the absence of copy paste feature. It is not great, works only from the browser pages and has lots of limitations but that is the first app that enables that and it is better than nothing.

It is called iCopy and you can find it here. It is a matter of time before Apple brings a native feature in an upcoming firmware. this is so obvious...

Discovering more iphone problems

I am becoming a huge fan of the iphone experience but there are big missing points. In addition to what i already mentioned

• 3rd party Headset do not work (the connectivity does not allow the connection also it is a standard jack) so you probably need to buy an adaptor.
• don't like the white headset: does not match the black iphone. But i tried my blackberry back headset and it works fantastic
• no top/bottom scroll: for long list of results or long pages. You need to scroll on and on...
• Imap email works great but the contact book is not dynamically synched with gmail. iPhone 2.0 will be compatible with Exchange Server but you need exchange server. Not good enough for most people using webmails
• iPhone itunes apps is not synched with your desktop iTunes profile: for your podcast history for example, purchase history...
• No direct download of Podcast from iTunes. Really bad
• NO BACKUP. if you change iphone one day or if it crashes or if you need to restore the OS you loose everything: your contacts, your bookmarks, your settings...everything. This is a must and it is clear someone will come up with something. People have not realized it yet enough cause the device is still in first generation
• email contextual fields: in the browser email field is not identified and i need to painfully write it when the keyboard could suggest the .com and @ automatically...

Technorati Tags: iphone

iPhone: first impressions

I just got an iPhone. Here are my first impression after less than 12h of usage

• Beautiful, really awesome device.
• Fast, very fast.
• Fantastic Browsing experience
• I can't believe they did not think of a copy/paste feature
• Unlocking is damn easy (specially with Ziphone.org)
• no smart dialing for calling cards
• not special text shortcuts like on blackberry (type "oo" write Ouriel Ohayon). Would be SO useful here on the iphone with this keyboard (the only shortcut is the double space for "." that blacberry has for years)
• still not getting used to the keyboard
• surprised by the quality of the camera
• Youtube access is smart but not smart enough: i should be able to log with my account and retrieve favorite/history from the web. Same thing with google map (mymaps...)
• Gmail IMAP works great. the only problem with imap is that it does not sync your contact book. so i still need to import/export it off line or access gmail online. They need a sync protocol for contact books
• amazed by the number of blogs/forums on the iPhone
• Still an iPod. therefore can be improved (hate the usage of iTunes...)
• Still using my blackberry on the side as it is the best for email.
• Wifi connection is good. no short list of best hotspot of classification by free/non free

Technorati Tags: iphone

10 ideas to make an iPod Killer

I love the iPod and will probably switch to an iPod/iPhone. Everybody is trying to run after Apple but no one really made it. From my modest user experience there are a few things that combined together would be the killer product (meaning a much better compelling user experience and usage value) i would buy instead of an iPod for the same price

• Wireless Sync with rules. I hate to sync my ipod by having to connect it to my PC i want to tell my iPod to sync according to rules i set. Make it Bluetooth and Wifi for the same price 
• Player sold with a cradle. I can't believe Apple does not sell the iPod with a cradle make it stand nicely on your desk 
• No need for special soft. i Hate iTunes (specially the fact you need to create a library to import your tunes). already said it. I want to be able to manage my files just like i do on a regular explorer 
• Open to all main sounds formats: not just AAC and Mp3 but all of them (Ogg, Wav,...) no more need to encode. 
• Does not require video encoding: reads all main formats natively including Divx and automatically encodes to fit the screen 
• A back stick.When i travel i need to hold my iPod to see what's on it. I want a small back stick to make it hold right on the go 
• Display the number of songs by album/artist. This is a stupid details but i never remember the music i have in my iPod and even less how many songs are added per artist/album. this would be helpful to know if i want to hear this artist/album without having to click in the file 
• Exploration mode within shuffle: I most of the time use the shuffle mode. but sometimes i like a song/artist and i want to access more of this artist or album. I want to do that VERY often. 
• Regular USB connector. I want to have one connector for everything. Of course apple does not use any standard connector. 
• A smart protective skin with control access for moving/traveling. The first thing your iPod will suffer from are scratches. this is inevitable, from day 1. Specially the screen. This is not a gadget but a must have: something that protects my screen (that is sold lots of money separately). or even better a anti scratch screen. 
• bonus: the iPod headset is really crap. no noise reduction and no remote control. 
• bonus 2: a simple embedded fm tuner and microphone.

I am assuming here this new device would have the same killer features the iPod already have including battery life, user interface and great design. Since we all know we pay a premium on the iPod because this is an apple product, i am sure that you can make most of those for the same price. Most of those do not need special R&D or imagination. This is just repackaging of existing and even cheap stuff

Someone listening?

update: someone took that story to DIGG and it looks like at this speed it will end up soon close to the homepage. i must have touched a sensitve subject :)

Technorati Tags: ipod, mp3