For every new fool-proof invention there is a new and improved fool.
Hackers find way to make free custom ringtones… Apple releases update to plug hole… Hackers find another way to make free custom ringtones.
Another great release for ApolloIM, more stable and some nice tweaks
- Loads of stability fixes!
- Removed options button in favor of using the ringer button.
- Ringer button dictates vibrate or playing sounds
- New Sounds, only send/recv, but much more pleasant
- Fixed Conversation window sometimes not responding after resume from suspend
- Fixed “Disconnect not disconnecting”
- Added Wifi Keep Alive If you are using SummerBoard, the latest version now works with ApolloIM to not turn off Wifi. There is no reconnect support yet, but this is a solid feature. Note: This will drain your battery much faster because Wifi is kept on while in lock while ApolloIM is running. But it works pretty great and the drain seems to be manageable
- Does not vibrate on send.
I did notice one missing/broken feature in this release, the notification bubble on Springboard no longer shows the message count for new received messages. Neither does the buddy list.
If the horribly scary idea of using a closed source package installer wasn’t enough to make you steer clear of Installer.app before, maybe their stupid policies will now. I woke up this morning to find a flurry of political BS surrounding their decision to remove some app, then others followed suit in retaliation by removing their packages.
All I have to say is HAHAHHAHAHHA
I love it, just don’t use those installers people, you don’t really need them, they don’t really save you that much time, and if you don’t feel comfortable or don’t think you know enough about linux to do the modding/installing of apps on your own. Well, what better a situation to learn from? Don’t take the easy road all the time, you won’t learn as much 
UPDATE: Looks like they shook hands and came to an agreement. Will I use the new AppTapp? NO, haha
Check out these instructions for getting your free custom ringtones synced through iTunes to your iPhone! Great news!
UPDATE: iTunes 7.4.1 breaks this easy method, but someone might have another simple solution for you to try.
I bit my tongue blogging about this mess because I knew Apple would have to respond at some point. With all the bad publicity that their $200 price reduction in 2 months (33%) and canceling of the 4GB model of the iPhone has created, they couldn’t just sweep it under the carpet.
Well today they did respond with a peace offering of $100 credit at Apple stores. Of course there will be fine print, but basically if you are > 14 days since your purchase date and haven’t been given a rebate from Apple or AT&T yet, you should be entitled to this credit. Stay tuned to Apple.com next week for details to be posted.
What are my thoughts and feelings on this situation? After the jump…
I had almost forgotten about Trillian’s new Astra product. I had signed up for their alpha/beta testing program a long time ago and just got the invite tonight. The desktop app (trillian 4) loads faster and has a pretty skin, but I’ve yet to see a feature that I couldn’t live without. When you get down to nuts and bolts what are you opening a chat client to do? Chat. Everything else is dressing. If a client makes my chatting experience better/quicker/more reliable I will be more liable to use that client. I’ve been using Trillian for a long time. I am glad to see Astra load a ton faster than v3, and they have an iPhone interface.
Hold the presses, where did this come from? twenty08 has released a beta AIM client for the iPhone. The interface is very snazzy, looking a lot more like iChat than ApolloIM. I’ll have to give it a try tonight and see how it compares. Doesn’t look like it has suspend support like Apollo, wouldn’t it be nice if they combined the best of both worlds here? Use the back-end of Apollo with the pretty face of twenty08’s ‘mobile chat’.
ApolloIM has made some great progress, I can now login, see my buddy list and have a conversation. It stills bombs when I disconnect though. Keep your eyes on this project, with almost 9500 downloads of their previous release, and 4700 in 24hrs for the last release this has to be one of the most popular applications for the iPhone.
The answer to having more than 16 applications has come from the hands of natetrue. A truly easy to use fancy solution. It shows a little yellow spot in the lower right corner of the screen, swiping from the corner towards the center of the screen displays a big dial with all your apps. Slide to the one you want to launch and release.
Now it isn’t perfect, in fact I would take a screenshot for you but it broke the screenshot bin, it just errors out with
screenshot[125:d03] Couldn’t register with bootstrap server unknown error code (0×44f); failing…
125: ABORT: Unable to register “UnknownPurpleApp” port, 1103 unknown error code
Abort trap
Another gripe of mine is all these application installer packaging. I have no problem if one wants to support using their schemes, but don’t only support them. I have no intention of ever using those installer applications. Call me crazy, but if you aren’t comfortable enough with doing a wget …;tar -xvzf …; mv ….; then you shouldn’t be modding your iPhone! And don’t give me the excuse that you are saving time by using their installers. Unless you are a really slow typer you should be able to ssh in and do the dirty work in less than 30 seconds to get an app installed. It isn’t rocket science, but then again if you aren’t that comfortable with linux then maybe those installer apps are just what the doctor ordered for you (just don’t complain when something goes wrong and you have to restore your iPhone to fix the mess). I just don’t see myself ever using them, so please when you release your iPhone app, don’t just make it a pxl package and not give us manual instructions also, pretty please?!
Which brings me to Dock 2.0 pxl. After the jump I’ll show you how to install manually without those pxl installers.
I guess since I’m blogging about iPhone I better get up to speed and get this site ‘iPhone Optimized’. Using the plugin/theme duo from iwphone.contentrobot.com the optimization was a snap. If you point your iPhone at this site you’ll see a slimmed down optimized version.
