waffle

I just used ZiPhone [warning: background music] to upgrade to iPhone firmware 1.1.4.

Before, the level of illicit steps one had to go through to convince the iPhone to break free of its shackles approached infinity and the time in which to perform them — including radically insane up-and-downgrades — took at best a night of intrepid and driven arduous determination and stupidity. If the end product (an unlocked iPhone) wasn’t something to strive after, this would have been the very definition of wasting one’s time with a million different tools, approaches, guides and command line incantations — you know, the kind of thing even software installation under Desktop Linux moved past several years ago.

Now it’s a matter of doing a Restore and clicking the one “Unlock, jailbreak, activate” button in ZiPhone. Restoring the backup iTunes created didn’t work — but never mind; I did a manual backup too and I can always spend one hour restoring everything manually and still come out ahead in the time plan.

Someone finally thought of the big picture, helped iPhone upgrading for the majority of the customers (the ones that don’t want to use the carrier Apple selects) escape the zone of ridicule and saved hundreds of thousands of weekends the world over. Well done, Zibri. I donated, and I salute you.

Erik describes Apple’s wireless lineup as “retarded”, and I don’t particularly disagree.

The solution is simple: Upgrade the AirPort Express to 802.11n and allow AirTunes broadcast from more products. While you’re at it, also allow AirTunes remote control from iPhone and iPod touch. These things were made for it!

Rick Falkvinge, founder and leader of the Pirate Party movement and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, posts a stunning critique of a European Commission petition, which at last makes it the first English post I can link to. Rick has an amazing ability to precisely state, in plain language, the problems of DRM and draconian laws trying to protect today’s distributors and show that there’s more at stake than “kids getting free music”.

Normally I’d quote part of it, but it’s so good — and I suppose if you’re not already into it, also so mind-opening — that I’m having trouble doing so. If you’re at all interested in your personal rights and freedom of speech, read it. Even if you think you’re not and that this is boring, read it anyway.

(Even though the post consists mostly of his letter to the European Commission as a reply to their “Creative Content Online” consultation, there are three lines of Swedish at the top, and the title is Swedish. For completeness, the title translates to “The people in power at least pretend to listen”, and the first paragraph describes what the rest of his post is.)

• When I scroll that long song or genre or composer list and notice how, yes, I in fact have four covers of Stardust, please also show the disambiguating factor directly following the song’s name, in grey. Like: “Stardust [Frank Sinatra]”, “Stardust [Nat King Cole, 3:17]”, “Stardust [Nat King Cole, 3:13]”, etc. (Or at least allow me to tap and hold to bring up some overlay with slightly more information, à la links in Safari.)

• CoverFlow is kickass, but in horizontal mode, the biggest tap area by far is given to the album cover. A single tap brings up or hides the shuffle/repeat/scrubber controls and a double tap flips around to the album songs/rating side. I don’t believe this to be optimal usage of your space.

  I posit that the middle area can easily be used instead for gestures. Tapping — or double tapping — plays/pauses. Swiping left and right changes the track. Pinching in and out raises and lowers the volume. I’m even open to orientation-independent considerations, for when you’ve just thrown your iPhone on the desk and reach out once in a while to fiddle with the controls — swiping to change the track is the only real problem, and it could easily be transformed to ‘twisting’ clockwise or counter-clockwise with two fingers, as if tracing short opposite segments of a circle.

• While a playlist’s current sorting order carries over wonderfully from iTunes, please let me also re-sort it.