Yes, I finally used the latest Pwnage Tool, made the custom firmware, and upgraded my iPhone’s firmware to 2.0. On the last post I made about this, I wasn’t too sure about upgrading since the lack of applications I need that are compatible with the new firmware. Well, the iPhone/iPod Touch community is apparently swift as a fox when it gets to this point, it’s only a week after I wrote the last post, and everything I mainly need is covered. Right now the only thing that I’m missing is probably the iSMS, which in functionality, works better than iPhone’s own SMS application.

So the upgrade actually went very well and smooth for my iPhone. It takes no more than 15-20 minutes for the initial custom firmware creation and restoration, and it takes another one hour or two to get all the settings back to my iPhone as I see fit, and testing the whole thing to make sure that it works as it should. Disabling the keyboard’s auto-correction was also easy enough and quite non-destructive.

One of the most interesting appeal that made me eager to do the upgrade is the now-native applications available in AppStore. And those are really really great. Most of the essential things that I need, such as Twitterrific, WordPress, NetNewsWire, Palringo, or Facebook, come as free applications. And the only thing I actually bought so far is Things, which hopefully in the future, connects and syncs with the desktop version that I use daily. I also found BookReader (in Cydia), which is a barebone version of Books.app, and completely supports HTML files that I used for the Alkitab. Although it is extremely bare bone, I think it would do justice for now, and I will have the instructions updated on that one.

So, bottom line, if there are still applications that you really do need and irreplaceable, I suggest that you keep refraining yourself from upgrading to 2.0. But as for me and a day with the iPhone 2.0, I must admit that I’m excited on what lies ahead.

I was probably overly excited this morning as my RSS news reader pointed out a new feed from the iPhone Dev Team’s blog. The next generation Pwnage Tool is out, and we can both jailbreak and unlock the first generation iPhone running on the 2.0 firmware. I then immediately download the tool and left it to church.

Earlier tonight, I decided to give a try to upgrade my iPhone to 2.0. After downloading all the necessary firmware and bootloader files, there’s a catch. First of all, Installer support is not there yet, so we can only install apps outside Apple’s AppStore from the Cydia Installer. It’s basically the same thing, but there’s a second catch: Not all of the third party apps work with the new 2.0 firmware. While we could probably live off for the next few weeks with the barebone 2.0 firmware and several apps from the AppStore, one thing I probably can’t live without is the keyboard tweak that disables the annoying auto-correct feature. Apparently, the old patch does not work with 2.0. Oh well, that means, a few weeks of wait is probably worth it, at least until all of the old apps are updated for 2.0, and until most of the bugs are ironed out.

It’s been three weeks since Yero came home and brought my iPhone order along with him, so I figured that it might be good to do a simple review of the device. Unlike people who bought this thing only to show that “they have the latest gadgets” or to show that “they’re (so-they-say) cool”, I bought it for the simplicity of use, because it is an Apple device, and that it syncs perfectly with my Mac (unlike some other crappy mobile devices with a stupid mobile OS, a device that some think could beat the iPhone hands down, or the other one that’s used to be smart, until they split the company, merge it, split it, merge it, and split it again, and decided to use that stupid mobile OS in the end. And did they merge it back again? I lost track).

My first experience with PDAs or Smartphones went back several years ago when my Dad bought himself a HP iPag 1910. I think I remember that he complained about how it hangs almost all the time, almost everyday. That is until he migrated to the Palm Treo 650, which I consider as a good smartphone of its time.

My first actual PDA is the Palm Zire 72, which blue paint scraps off by itself, and it’s a good jack-of-all-trades device, provided that you sync with Windows. At that point in my life, I don’t really care about calendar and address book workflow simplicity.

When I moved over to the Mac, the Palm was “technically” dead. It doesn’t sync to Mac’s Address Book and Calendar. And in fact, Mac OS X’s version of Palm Desktop sucked right down to the bone.

Compared to the previous experiences I had with PDAs, at the time Apple announced that they’re launching iPhone, I figured that this is it. This is the device I’ve been looking for. And today, I have no regrets for shelling out $400. The iPhone is worth every penny.

Hardware-wise, almost everything is spectacular. The screen is large, bright, and astonishing. The touchscreen response is second to none. And yes, hang with an iPhone for a day or two, and go on try that HTC Touch. It’s like comparing Rolls Royce with Becak, but here, the Becak costs more than a Rolls. Heck, the Touch is not even friggin’ responsive, and I don’t know how they can name it “Touch”. I think it should be named “Smack”.

The QWERTY keyboard, in contrary to what others believed, is highly responsive. Even without tactile feedback, I seldom get typos. I can tell you that being not able to text message while driving is not a drawback. That is called SAFETY.

Mobile Safari is probably the best browser on a mobile device ever created, despite the lack of Adobe Flash in it. It provides you the closest, if not the same, browsing experience to a real deal browser. By real deal, I mean any browser but Internet Explorer, whatever version that is.

For a device this big and powerful, I’d say the battery life is fair. Mine’s probably a bit more of a resource-hog as I need the bluetooth to be on every time, just for the simplicity that I don’t have to turn it on when using a headset while driving. But other than that, provided that you turn off the Wi-Fi when it’s not used, it’s perfectly fine, and on my average use, it can stay for two days without recharging.

Syncing contacts and calendar with my Mac is just brilliant. Enough said. No more of those dark hours trying to sync Address Book to Palm Desktop to PDA. It syncs perfectly, and as snappy as you can get. On a Mac, of course.

Being fair, of course, nothing’s perfect, and the iPhone also suffers from that as well. I’ve compiled a list that I think Apple should’ve include in the iPhone by default:

• The ability to install 3rd party softwares (done with Jailbreak, and almost done with Apple’s new SDK).
• The ability to turn off the keyboard’s auto-correct feature (Oh yes, it’s annoying).
• File transfer over Bluetooth.
• Sending and receiving business cards are still a messy messy job.
• Sync over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
• Adobe Flash (I’m a web-designer, at some point I might think that having Flash on mobile Safari could be useful).
• A better camera with flash (Not that I need it the most, but I think we can appreciate a better one).

So, it ain’t that bad for a phone that Steve Ballmer (The Monkey Boy) considered as a joke. I consider him as a joke, actually. It’s not everyday you can get a company to hire a dancing primate as their CEO.

I survived three weeks with iPhone, and I grow on loving it, where I didn’t even survive half an hour with Christo’s HTC Touch. Bottom line, iPhone rocks!

Yes! I finally have my own iPhone which I bought for purely $400 (plus tax), thanks to Yero. He also bought along Andira’s and Pak Iwan’s iPhones, but I haven’t unlocked them both since Andira insisted to have the process documented.

We opted not to buy those locally unlocked ones, so these three iPhones came sealed in box.

As for the activation, unlocking, and jailbreaking process, I used iLiberty+, and who knows, after about 5 minutes, my iPhone’s active and loaded with Telkomsel.

Voila! Here’s the final look of my iPhone, along with its Power Support Anti-Glare film, and the Incase Slider Case.

And here it is compared to my iPod Touch, which I will delegate to Ninay after having it restored.

Supposedly, Andira will be coming in the afternoon to unlock the remaining two iPhones. So, until then, let’s see how I do on my first day with the iPhone.

Back in the days, where I started this design business, I was not a design student and compared to now, my designs were way suck. I was doing freelance web-design jobs during my days in senior high. During that time, I was a Windows user, until I was enlightened, bought the iMac and never look back to my dreadful past.

The photo above was my first real upgrade, from a Pentium 120MHz PC, to a Pentium III 600MHz PC which I call “Synchro”, and at that time, it was running on Windows 2000. As far as I remember, it had a 256MB RAM, a RIVA TNT2 video card, the “popular” Tornado speakers, and an AOpen AX63Pro motherboard. I think the hard drive was either 10GB or 20GB. It even still have its own external Zip Drive (Note that I still have that drive in my possession, selling it would be pointless as probably no sane person would buy it). As far as I remember, this was one of the early days when cable internet was not as common as it is now, and when LinkNet did not suck. But that is the same website that they have ages ago, until they are now merged with First Media. So in a sense, yes, they do suck.

Here’s another photo of the full rig:

A few days back ago, my trusty Apple Pro Mouse was broken. Not that broken, but it constantly double clicks itself, so yes, I am annoyed. I switched to my iBook’s Logitech mouse for the time being, while I claimed the faulty mouse for a replacement (Apparently it is covered by AppleCare) and while I decide whether to upgrade it or not.

Today, I went to eStore and snatch a wired Mighty Mouse. I figured that a mouse is an investment anyway, and I’ll be using it all the time. I have no complaints with not having a secondary button or scroll on my previous mouse, but I could appreciate the scroll and the pressure-sensitive side buttons on this one as bonuses.

I just finished a personal project which I decided to do in my free time during the holidays. Think of it as my dedication to pro-bono church works. My personal project is the Indonesian version of the Bible. Why? Because I found no Indonesian iPhone/iPod Touch versions of it over the internet, so I decided to make it on my own.

I’ve been using electronic Bibles to reduce my load when going to the church since I used my old Palm Zire 72, and when I moved to the Sony Ericsson K610i afterwards. After I bought the iPod Touch two weeks ago, and got it jailbroken, I figured that with its superb text-rendering capabilities which is far better from my previous gadgets (Thanks to OS X), it can be a good eBook reader with a nice legibility. So why not have a Bible in it?

I’ve set up a dedicated page for it here (which became a reason that I have to spend more time taking care of my personal site) with all of the needed instructions provided. So if you’re an Indonesian, and happened to own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, and needed the bible, feel free to download a copy.

So what’s going on here? I finally broke my own promise to myself not to buy an iPod just yet. As impulsive as it may be, this is because I found out that yesterday, when I was chatting with Andira, there’s a midnight sale at Senayan City’s iBox (I found this out from a friend that’s living in Melbourne. Where the hell was I?), and that the lowest price I could get is Rp. 1,699,000. I thought, hey, why not give it a try? It’s an iPod Touch, and any iPod Touch with that kind of price tag is most likely a good deal, don’t you think?

Then there was I jumped out of my chair and cruising down to Senayan City, in hope that I could snatch the thing with a very good deal. After I arrived, it turns out that there’s a set of terms and conditions applied. Just as I suspected, there’s always a catch. Apparently not all of the purchasable iPods are tagged with a Rp. 1,699,000 price tag. There are several tiers of pricing discounts that you would have to pick (by luck) from a bowl. At this point, I thought why don’t I just try my luck. When the queue reaches to mine, I pulled the tag, rolled inside a cut straw, from the bowl, and I got the Rp. 2,299,000 price tag. I decided to take the iPod anyway. It’s an iPod Touch, 8GB, from a listed price of Rp. 3,199,000. That’s a Rp. 900,000 discount of the shelf price, and chances like this doesn’t exactly come everyday.

Now comes the review. First of all, if any of you bought the iPod Touch and expected that you would get a similar iPod like the Nano or the Classic, then you’ll be disappointed. When you relate the price to capacity ratio and compared the Touch and the Classic, you’ll get what I mean. So, for you who wants to buy the iPod Touch with that kind of perspective, I suggest you skip the idea and buy the Classic without any question. But if you want something more sophisticated than the Nano, and have some extra cash, then go for the iPod Touch. Price-wise, without a discount, it’s rather expensive.

When it comes to playing music, it really does what it’s designed for, and yes, it does worked as advertised. The sound quality is adequate, if not good, it’s responsive, the animations are slick and responds brilliantly to your expectations, or at least, in this case, mine. The YouTube player also performs well, provided that you have a good internet connection. The video player and photo browser also performs nicely. So no complains there. I read that this is actually the iPhone without the phone. Well, it’s true.

As for the other features beside music playing, I would have to say that I’m a bit disappointed with the factory defaults. First of all, by default, although the Contacts allow us to edit the entries, the Calendar does not. Second, while I was testing Meebo with the built-in Safari, the keyboard’s predictive text input is so annoying, and there’s no way to turn it off. Third, as it is a closed-platform, there’s no way for us to install additional applications that might help us to turn the iPod Touch into a PDA replacement. Therefore I decided to jailbreak it.

After the jailbreak, which is an easy procedure from jailbreakme.com, everything was opened before my very eyes. I then downloaded the Calendar patch, and now I can edit my schedules as I go. I also downloaded the patch so that I can disable the predictive text input. So there we go, two of my disappointments cured. I’ve also added the Apollo IM application, but although it can’t completely replace my Adium when I’m not home, that might probably come in handy someday. Let’s just hope one day, Wi-Fi is free on every single mall in Jakarta.

I am a true Apple fan, right from the moment I switched to my beloved iMac a couple years ago, I would never, whenever possible, to go back to any Microsoft shits. But I would have to say that I’m a bit disappointed with the whole closed-platform thing for the iPod Touch/iPhone. From the way I see it, having additional applications could be useful, not to mention to keep the iPod Touch/iPhone above the average smartphone, which are mostly crappy. But nevertheless, turning the iPod Touch into something useful is not something that’s impossible. I’d give it 8.5 out of 10 anyday.

Compared to the Zune? Well, just like Craig Ferguson said, the Zune zucked.

It seems that Erica Sadun of TUAW posted the whole reason for me not to upgrade to Leopard… Yet. I simply can’t risk my productivity over an OS upgrade. Well, patience is a virtue.

No, that isn’t mine. It’s Bibin’s, and he’s going to pay for making me want one :D. Just as a comparison on how big it is, next to it is Yero’s Motorola V3. I tried most of the features as well, the iPod, the Photos, and the Camera, they all work as advertised and as slick as you can get, although I might need a bit practice typing on the QWERTY on-screen keyboard.

And as a mandatory test, I loaded up both this site and Neuro-Designs on its Safari. And they both look fantastic! I can’t wait to see the actual Asian version next year, and I’m sure as hell going to buy one.