iLikeMyiPhone.com

Any iPhone user will definitely use the iPhone not just as a phone but  alot more - games included. And with more openGL 3D applications to play with, iPhone’s battery life is seriously taking a big hit. Just imagine using your iPhone on a train journey with all those GPS, Location aware features, games, internet and a lot more.

The idea is to conserve the battery charge rather than use a 3rd party add-on which might cost like $100! While we all know the basics of conserving iPhone’s battery, let me list them here :

Monitor battery usage for each app using iPhone’s hidden Numerical Battery Indicator

• Apple introduced this hidden feature (Numerical Battery Indicator) in iPhone 2.0 firmware. All we have to do is enable it using BossPrefs to change the concerned plist file. BossPrefs tool is a nifty little tool to achieve enhanced productivity the Graphical way! You have to use Pwnage to jailbreak your iPhone and install BossPrefs app in Cydia.
• All you have to do is monitor the battery charge as you use your favorite apps (which you use for longer periods and more frequently). This way you can save your much needed battery by choosing the right app to whale away your time with

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Turn Bluetooth/WiFi/3G off unless really required

• That makes complete sense. WiFi / 3G or any radio (bluetooth, IR) generally tends to drain power. Use them with caution! Efficient usage of these radios may help you achieve better battery.

Display brightness

• Though auto brightness is on by default, you might want to play around with the display brightness slider given that it plays a major role in deciding how much juice your battery can hold and for how long!

Auto lock Your iPhone

• 1 minute is the best but don’t pull your hair if you are performing SSH related tasks on your computer/iPhone, you must then set it to ‘Never’.

iPhone battery Charge cycle

• Well, time and again it was told that Li ion batteries just don’t care how much they are charged not requiring a full charge cycle but it is always a good practice to wait for the battery to die completely reach the threshold level 10~20%(red indicator) (thanks Dizzy and David) and then recharge it.
• It is also a good idea to recalibrate your iPhone battery every few weeks. All you have to do is let your iPhone run out of battery charge completely and then charge it fully. You now know what to do at home, play lots of games on your iPhone and then leave it to charge

mail.app Fetch Cycle for Email

• If you choose a fetch cycle of 15 minutes, the battery drains power at the same rate. Your best bet is to go ‘Push’ (MobileMe or Exchange). Forward your Email (Google, Yahoo,….) and expereince Me.com for a battery savings push alternative!

Use your headphone for listening to music, watching movies

• Well, this is not even a tip, more like common sense. Ignore it completely as we all know how to enjoy the stuff on the iPhone.

written by kiran \\ tags: battery, battery indicator, digital battery, iphone

When Cydia first surfaced in the 1.1.4 era, I thought I shouldn’t complicate the readers of iLikeMyiPhone, particularly when there is a user friendly installer.app lingering around! Come iPhone 2.0 firmware, I have no other choice but to recommend Cydia given its enhcanced performance, possibility of various critical apps (Summerboard, BossTools and the like) and an intuitive user friendly interface! Apple’s own AppStore closely resembles installer and Cydia though AppStore seems terribly buggy when it comes to installing an application from your iPhone. Cydia does just this much more intuitvely by letting the user know what is cooking in the background. installer.app though leaked as of today needs much more compatibility testing but Cydia has been going great guns ever since Pwnage saw the light of day!

Recommended apps from Cydia to follow soon!

Cydia Interface Step by Step

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Quick Facts / F.A.Qs

How to get Cydia?

• You have to use Pwnage to Jailbreak your iPhone 2.0 and Cydia is a piece of cake given its inclusion in Pwnage software itself. Download all the essential upgrades initially and Cydia works best, trust me

Is Cydia Stable?

• So far so good! Yet to face an issue! Launch Cydia frequently and it will perform the needed updates from time to time. As simple as it gets!

What are all the apps available?

• Loads of them already if not overwhelmingly high at the moment. Check my recommended apps from the screenshots below (new apps keep popping up all the time, check check check!)

Why should I even use Cydia when AppStore/installer.app does the same job?

• Installer.app is buggy at its best so far and AppStore has some serious restrictions on the type of apps it can SELL, while Cydia thwarts those limitations and best off all its FREE! Even better : Installation and updation of an app on Cydia is a zillion times faster than the AppStore apps!

Is the User Interface for Cydia neat/confusing?

• It can never get any more user friendly! Resembles AppStore and installer in the best manner possible with the ability to add sources, delete, modify applications!

Will it void my warranty?

• Hell yes but you can always revert back to the official firmware from iTunes. You just have to do a quick GOOG search before opting for a warranty claim and it will get easy as a pie! Easy huh?!

Great to see Sauirk’s efforts. Consider donating to this college kid’s efforts, you never know what he has in store for you in the near future!

written by kiran \\ tags: AppStore, Cydia, free, installer.app, iPhone 2.0

With a not so impressive launch, MobileMe team had a rough outing ever since! The much touted term ‘Push’ definitely didn’t make much sense given the delays involved, not to mention the long hours of server issues. Apple clearly under-estimated the number of users probably. Though they sold MobileMe packages ($99 and $149) they failed to accomodate all of them on the server which led to outages.

After lots of chatter all around the world that Push is dead in MobileMe especially since it dropped the ‘Push’ feature till yesterday (most users) which led to users reflashing their firmwares hoping to get the ‘Push’ effect from the service. I myself bought MobileMe for uninterrupted email, contact, calendar sync which finally started working as advertised starting July 23rd, 5 pm. That is a welcome addition! For someone playing with pwnage, I don’t think reflashing firmware is always fun! Anyway, I just wanted to tell the community that Push service is finally working, I tested email, contact sync and it works great! Though the 15 minute Mac/PC sync delay is yet to be polished.

Save the battery and use PUSH! [Noob's question : What is Push Email?]

Push uses a unique technology wherein a tcp port is constantly open with the iPhone and alerts the iPhone (so far, no battery is used since we didn’t yet fetch the email after the alert). Once mail is fetched only then does the battery come in to the picture. Hence, MobileMe is a tremendous service with all the right intentions!

Forward any email to Me.com account and simulate the push experience on popular email services like Gmail. Looking for a cheap MobileMe account, head over to this post for an amazing $3 per month deal!

written by kiran \\ tags: MobileMe, Push

These are the most essential files for Jailbreaking/Unlocking iPhone 2.0 and since they are scattered all around the place, I thought of providing a single link which would definitely ease the process.

DOWNLOAD THE COMMON FILE

I am working on a video as well as detailed Pwnage 2.0.1 guide for the noobs. Pwnage is rock solid but some surprises here and there surface every now and then.

written by kiran \\ tags: Downloads, iPhone 2.0, iPhone Bootloaders, jailbreak, Pwnage 2.0.1, unlock

Finally, dev team proved it yet again that there is no other iPhone hacker team more valuable than themselves! Yes, they releasd the ultimate hacking tool for your iPhone now enabling you to fully utilize what iPhone 2.0 is capable of (MobileMe, Apps and a lot more!). iPhone 2.0 is now available for T-mobile and other unofficial carriers which constitue a major chunk all around the world!

You will need the following files :

iPhone 2.0 firmware file from Apple (Let iTunes Download this for you)

3.9, 4.6 Bootloader Files (bin)

Pwnage 2.0

Once you have all the files downloaded, you are ready to rock and roll! A comprehensive guide to unlocking, jailbreaking and activating your iPhone 2.0 for the total noob is in the making! Stay tuned

written by kiran \\ tags: iPhone 2.0, iPhone Bootloaders, iPhone Firmware Downloads, pwnage 2.0

Apple published an apology for the MobileMe mixup finally! They have indeed taken off the word ‘Push’ from any of MobileMe’s service descriptions on me.com too! The best part being a free 30 day extension of your MobileMe service. Apple clearly indicates that they will start using ‘Push’ word once the 15 minute delay involved in Mac/PC sync is ironed out. Have a look at Apple’s apology notice. Thanks to Pixel Fantasy at Flickr for sharing this information

written by kiran \\ tags: MobileMe Apple

The world is waiting for an unlock solution and iPhone Devs supposedly delaying the release of pwnage 2.0 (software which puts an end to ATT’s monopoly!) to combat the iPhone 2.0.1 firmware update which is about to hit your computers after a not so performance efficient iPhone 2.0 demonstration. Dev Team may be doing the right thing as we don’t want our iPhone 2.0 to be bricked after a minor software release shortly.

Some even went to the extent of calling iPhone Devs ‘publicity mongers’ while they have no commercial interests as most of the hackers in iPhone Dev team have solid jobs to support themselves unlike Zibri who constantly boasts about the number of hits on his site. With 3G and 2.0 release, he is not making much noise yet, probably waiting for Dev team’s tool to capitalize on their efforts!

Meanwhile, cool boy Geohot apart from interning at Google found some time to release a total prank with his yiPhone with the counter traversing backwards!

Some folks from UK had success using normal legal SIMs (non-iPhone O2 sim) although my US counterparts didn’t have much success yet! Best part being iPhone Dev’s website splashing new and updated information about the whole unlock adventure in a remarkably accelerated manner! You must watch them if you have not already! Meanwhile, TUAW’s Erica put forth a great effort interviewing Pytey from the iPhone Dev team.

As always, will try my best in providing you the latest information on the hacking scene! Watch this space!

Links to whet your iPhone 2.0 appetite :

http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

http://hackint0sh.org/

http://www.tuaw.com/

http://yiphone.org/

http://appleinsider.com/

written by kiran \\ tags: iPhone 2.0, pwnage 2.0

This is an effort to provide a quick and easy access to free stuff offered from iTunes Store. All you have to do is click here to launch the free selections offered every week. The URL launches iTunes with the selection.

The best part being access to free downloads right on your iPhone / iPod Touch. Just click the link and you can access the free downloads on your device! You don’t have to pay to experience OTA downloads from iTunes store. Some songs offered for free may be featured on the home page of iTunes Store but this link unearths all the downloads Apple has to offer you, for FREE!

What are you waiting for, search for iLikeMyiPhone and click on Free Stuff in the menu bar and enjoy the free songs! Free songs are released every Tuesday and are available for free only for a week! So Tuesday should be the buzz word!

written by kiran \\ tags: free, iTunes Free Downloads, iTunes Free Tuesdays

So, you are the curious type and upgraded to 2.0 though you had no intentions of signing an official contract? That has some serious outcomes wherein you have 3 options after the upgrade to 2.0 :

1) Sign a contract with the updated iPhone 2.0, you don’t want to do that do you?!

2) Jump ahead to Sleepers.net, the best one out there! Pay close attention to DFU mode! Error 20 can be frustrating at times!

3) Wait for iPhone Devs to release an offcial tool (pwnage) real soon!

This post is an attempt to guide people trying to find the right solution. Got so many users complaining about the lack of a straight forward guide. Sleepers.net did a great job, lemme know if I you need any further assistance…

written by kiran \\ tags: downgrade, iphone 1.1.4, iPhone Plan

iFixit has done what they are so good in - cracking open to find the traces of hardware used! They travelled all the way to Auckland to lay their hands on the 3G iPhone which was released first in NZ for a change (time zone game!). Hardware is so much more sophisticated if not for way too many changes. Just that you don’t need to be an electronics major now to use the solder iron the iPhone 3G.

Join the iPhone 3G ride with iFixit now!

The screws are there on purpose to make the life of a DIY guy easy! You can now replace the battery easily! Given that iPhone 2.0 is unlocked, the unlocking scene is completely under control!

Have fun guys and come back for more of my iPhone 3G adventures!

written by kiran \\ tags: iPhone 3G, replaceable battery iphone