Mike Puchol

iPhone 3G MMS and tethering with Movistar working!

There news have made several rounds already, but there wasn’t any specific guide on how to get MMS and network tethering working on the new 3.0 iPhone 3G firmware, released to developers a few days ago.

Several guides have been posted, but they all more or less copy & paste what is found in the original instructions, for example, CrunchGear posts this but doesn’t credit the original source. It’s not their fault, as these kinds of stories get posted and reposted so much it is hard to know where they originated. Anyway, here is a guide to make your iPhone 3G send MMS and tether on Movistar Spain. All images are thumbnails, click on them to see a larger version.

Warning: Before you start, remove any Bluetooth pairing between your Mac and iPhone – the pairing needs to be done after this procedure in order for the Blueetoth PAN network adapter to be recognized. Make sure you remove the pairing on both your Mac and iPhone.

1. Update your iPhone 3G to firmware version 3.0

Unless you are a registered iPhone developer with Apple, you don’t have access to this firmware. Don’t even ask – if you are a developer, you already know where to get it. Simply extract the firmware image to your desktop or other folder, and Option-click the ‘Restore’ button in iTunes’ ‘Summary’ tab. The rest is self-explanatory. As I’ve reported before, it’s better if you setup your iPhone from a previous backup after the firmware upgrade completes, rather than as a fresh new device.

2. Download the updated carrier settings file for Movistar

For your convenience, download this file, Telefonica_es.ipcc, which contains updated settings which enable MMS sending (not tested receive yet), and tethering on your iPhone. Save the file to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Carrier Support.

The file adds the MMS APN configuration, the tethering mask (-2) to the Internet APN, and various settings that enable MMS and the editing of the APN on the iPhone’s Network Settings.

3. Update the carrier settings

With your iPhone connected over USB, Option-click the ‘Check for Update’ button in iTunes’ ‘Summary’ tab. Browse to ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Carrier Support and select the file Telefonica_es.ipcc. The update takes only a couple of seconds.

4. Reboot your phone

5. Enable MMS and send a test message

Go to Settings -> Messages on your iPhone, and turn on the MMS Messaging option:

On your Messages application, you will see a new icon when you write a message:

Tap the icon to bring up a menu which lets you take a new picture, or select an existing one. Results for taking a new picture are flaky, and for me they didn’t work, so I just took a picture using Camera and chose it later:

Type any text you want to add and hit Send. This is the result:

6. Tether your iPhone to your Mac over Bluetooth

First, you need to pair your iPhone. From the Bluetooth menu on your Mac, select ‘Set up Bluetooth Device…’. Choose ‘Any device’ from the options, and follow the normal process, entering the PIN code when requested. After your device is paired, leave the ‘Use this device for networking’ option checked. You will get a message telling you a new network device has been added, ‘Bluetooth PAN’. Go to Network Preferences to see the new adapter:

7. Connect to the Internet

Simply click the Bluetooth menu, and the Connect to Network option in your device name’s submenu:

The iPhone’s screen will shortly show a blue bar at the top indicating you tethering is active:

That’s it! I ran a DSL speed test on the connection, and this is the result:

Quite impressive!

iPhone 3.0 more stable if you restore from backup

After I wrote about how unstable iPhone OS v3.0 is, I’ve been testing it with a fresh restore, but this time setting up the iPhone from one of my previous v2.2.1 backups, and I have to say that for whatever reason, it is much more stable. There are still some silly bugs, but also some upsides – the graphics are notably faster, particularly in games. So, if you see your 3.0 iPhone too unstable, try to restore it from a backup, it may make things work better.

iPhone 3.0 first impressions

So I went ahead, ignored all good sense, and updated my iPhone 3G to the new iPhone 3.0 Beta, released by Apple to developers a few days ago (I’m a registered developer, so I have access to the firmware).

The first two restores, which I did not choosing to configure from a 2.2.1 backup, caused the phone to become almost unusable. There were bugs everywhere, such as:

• Headphones not recognized, needing a reset.
• Failed connections to Exchange email accounts, and a few times, the complete loss of contacts and emails on the phone. Connectivity with Exchange is clunky.
• Safari text input freezing.
• Phone not allowing dialing, the keypad frozen.
• Ringtones playing back broken and with awful noises and sparks.
• Slowing down of the whole UI, needing a hard reset.
• Connection to a dock resulted in ‘Accessory not recognized’ messages (yes, I use the latest dock model).
• Screen stuck in the Search page, needing a hard reset to fix.
• All icons on the home screen disappearing, including the dock ones, needing a hard reset to fix.
• The Network options menu gets highlighted in blue for a few seconds until the options screen loads, as if the UI was frozen.
• Sometimes the headphones are not recognized when plugged in, or the phone thinks they are still connected after unplugging them, it seems the plug/unplug interrupt is getting lost somewhere, or not processed.

This afternoon I decided to restore once again, and this time setup the phone from a previous backup. Things are more or less normal so far, some of the bugs above are not happening, although I’ve not extensively tested them. This being a first beta, it leaves out some of the features announced in the keynote, mainly:

• No MMS for now. There isn’t anything special about the SMS menu other than the new icon, and copy/paste (which is awesome, with one caveat). The MMS enable/disable option is present in Settings though.
• There is no paste into Safari. For example, if you get a UPS tracking number through email, try to copy it, then paste into UPS’s tracking site loaded in Safari…nothing happens. Safari seems to just pick a block of content to copy, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to paste into form fields.
• No Notes sync that I can see in this release.
• There is zero information in the documentation about the WiFi auto-login feature. Is it WISPr? Is it some custom thing for AT&T and other partner networks? Time will tell.
• Copying a single photo by holding your finger on it doesn’t work. The popup comes up, you tap ‘Copy’, and it remains highlighted for a few seconds. There is no paste available in, for example, an email after that. You can copy/paste into an email by clicking the action button and selecting the image, then the Copy button.
• Bluetooth tether – while the iAP profile is present, and you can set it up on OS X, the connection to the phone fails. I assume there will be an OS X update to include the iPhone in the DUN devices list.

iPhone 3.0 is very promising, adding features long missed, and long present in other phones, but for now it’s not even a stable platform to develop on. Unless it’s my particular phone that is screwy of course.

Ninja bastard Mac Pro, yours for $18.917

These are the specs of a maxed-out Mac Pro in the Apple Store, after the desktop line of Macs has been revamped:

• Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• 32GB (8x4GB)
• Mac Pro RAID Card
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• 4x NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
• Two 18x SuperDrives
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
• Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User’s Guide
• AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n
• Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

The price of all this? Just shy of $19.000 – a bargain!

The App Store badly needs a trial mode

I read TUAW’s review of Vocalia with great interest, went to the App Store, only to find an average 2.5 stars, with the bad ratings being really bad. Before sinking $3.99 into an app like this, I would like to be able to test it, particularly based on the bad reviews. Since apps are wrapped in store DRM, it would be simple for Apple to add a trial mode which gives you say 5 days to test and review an app. They could even make the charge automatic after the trial has expired, unless you have uninstalled the app.

The adventure with DataKits UK has begun

A company-owned Nokia N82 happened to have a failed LCD display module when it was returned, and since replacing it yourself is an easy task (pop the screen cover off, unstick the LCD, disconnect the cable, replace with the new LCD, and close the cover), I went looking for spare parts. Nobody seemed to have the display in stock, other than DataKits UK. I placed an order for the LCD and a set of new covers, as the ones on the phone were quite damaged from use. First sign of trouble was when I checked the order, and the site detected either the language setting of the browser I was using, my IP address, or both – and it tried to load the site in a language that was not configured. There were tons of not found PHP includes, and when HTML was loaded it was full of default text strings.

I emailed the sales address telling them about this, and got an auto-reply a few minutes later: “Sorry for any delay in receiving your order. we will check the status and follow up the delivery company straight away. Thanks DataKits.co.uk” Second sign of trouble, an automated reply regarding possible delays in shipping. This can mean only one thing: they receive a ton of questions and complaints about shipping schedules.

On the order comments, I had specified that they should send me the Royal Mail tracking number once shipped, but last night I saw they had updated the online order status to: “19/02/2009 Dispatched rm”. Not very useful. After some googling, I came across this forum thread on PriceRunner, which details the many problems people have had with this company. I honestly hope they send me the LCD and covers, and have left them a message on their answerphone plus another email (which was auto-replied again with the same text), and have heard nothing back.

Barcelona Mobile World Congress first impressions

Today the 2009 Mobile World Congress got started in Barcelona. I was planning a couple of visits, but they got postponed at the last minute, so I went on a tour. Most impressive was the new iMate 810-F. This has to be the most rugged smartphone I have ever seen – with impressive specs, such as GPS, full QWERTY keyboard, QVGA display, a 624MHz CPU, 2Mpx camera, Bluetooth, and WiFi. And it also stands ketchup, salt, orange juice, and an array of crud and produce that was thrown at it live. Then, the demonstrator dropped the phone into a water bucket and washed it. He “rinsed” it by throwing it onto the stage, and he later faked tripping up and stepping on the phone. Finally, he picked it up and dropped it into a fish bowl while playing a video clip. In all, very impressive indeed. Yours for around $699, available in 3-4 weeks (got this straight from an iMate rep).

There wasn’t really anything else that caught my eye, other than the bigger stands being considerably more modest than years past, such as Motorola, Nokia, SonyEricsson, and other big players. They were also notably barren of any sort of freebie, not even leaflets! Congress tip for freebie hunters: go to Hall 2, the exhibitors there have tons of stuff.

If you are in Barcelona and want to grab a coffee, drop me a line in the comments.

iPhoto 09 Facebook exporter bug

I like iPhoto 09, it brings many cool features to the table. However, the Facebook exporter leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from not being able to push photos to pre-existing albums, as it creates albums with the event name for every photo set you upload, it seems to completely ignore the login credentials you supply.

Case example, I have my own Facebook account, and we have an account for our fire department. Since I was logged into my own account in Safari, entering the department’s login credentials in the plugin was futile – iPhoto wanted to publish photos to my personal account no matter what. When I logged out in Safari and logged back in with the department’s ID, iPhoto took the credentials and allowed posting to the department’s profile. I think this is a rather big bug for anyone using more than one ID in Facebook.

Deutsche Bank part 2: blame the branch manager

I got a call today from my account manager at Deutsche Bank, who was really worried about a ‘negative mark’ he had received from above. Turns out that DB is on the lookout for any kind of negative publicity, such as my recent blog post about their crappy online banking system, and they managed to dig out my account, then the branch that handles it, and the actual manager assigned to my account. And they transferred the hot potato to him, as if he was the cause of my complaint.

Nothing further from the truth. To those at DB reading this: the staff at my branch have actually been the only effective, corteous and professional elements during this whole process – they have nothing to do with my complaint, and I have nothing but praise for them. They actually activated my login within 30 minutes of sending the initial signed receipt, and have always been very helpful.

To further illustrate how badly put together this thing is, take a look at the date picker popup that is used when selecting from -> to dates in two different areas of the online banking site, one being account movements, and the other transfers and payments:

This one loads in an IE window popup, while the other is a Javascript popup:

So, instead of sending black flags to your branch staff, why don’t you start talking to the people who designed, cobbled together, and launched this heap? They are the ones who should be receiving your wrath. It’s impossible anyone at Deutsche Bank has done any usability testing of this, or they would be pulling our their hair (and the developer’s too) – another example, try to click the ‘Accept’ button when requesting account movements between two dates, without having selected the account number from the dropdown provided. You will get an error message informing you that you need to pick an account…and the ‘Accept’ button will be left in a disabled state, no matter what you do. You need to reload the page, select the date range again, make sure you select the account from the dropdown – even if you only have one account, you could pre-select it for crying out loud!

Deutsche Bank, possibly the worst online banking system ever

Today, after almost a month waiting, I picked up the access details for our company account at Deutsche Bank, which would enable me to manage it through DB’s online banking. After one day of using this thing, I can conclude it’s the biggest [expletive deleted] -ever- in the history of online banking. One would be hard-pressed to think up a more unusable system. Let’s go through the chain of events:

1. Pick up the credentials from the branch, sign a few pages of contracts, receipts and whatnot. I am given a numbered code card, a piece of paper with instructions on accessing and using the system, two papers inside blacked-out ‘secure’ envelopes, and a normal envelope with more papers inside. They tell me I’m good to go.

2. Arrive home, and try the instructions. Load DB’s online banking site in Firefox. Actually, the page doesn’t even load. Try Safari – seems to load a login page. In theory, I must enter my username & password, which is given in one of the ‘secure’ envelopes, and change the password to a new one right away (the system will ask you to do this, it’s mandatory).

3. Safari doesn’t load past the login screen. It seems the system only works with IE7 in Windows XP, thanks to a convoluted set of Java and Javascript, which totally doesn’t work on any other browser (not even IE on the Mac). This means I have to use an XP VM to use this crap.

4. Load IE inside the VM, and point it to the login screen. This time, after entering my username, which instead of being something easy to remember such as name and surname, or my eight-digit national ID number, it happens to be something like a.bbbbbb@cccccccccccc.dddddddd.eu, I shit you not. After entering the new password, I am greeted with a red error message: “This user is not authorized”. WTF! Did I not sign all there was to sign at the bank? What else do they want to make this work??

5. Call the online banking hotline, where they tell me I have to fill in a small receipt I should have been given in an envelope, and take it to my branch, so they will then activate my login. I am almost shouting at this guy by now. He tells me this is how DB does things, and they are not going to change, because their system is oh soooo secure.

6. I scan and email the receipt to my branch, and they finally activate my login. I can now login and check transactions, the status of the account, and so on. But I cannot do any operations, such as a transfer.

7. The instructions tell me to insert a 1.44″ floppy disk (in what ***** century do these people live!?!) or a USB memory stick, and follow a convoluted process to generate a public key certificate that will be used to sign all operations. It’s not enough to have a login, password and PIN code card, apparently, I also have to carry around a USB stick and an XP machine if I happen to need to operate with the account.

8. The Java code fails miserably to detect the USB drive the first two tries. And yes, each try means closing IE totally, loading it again, logging in…you get the drift. Finally it manages to detect the drive, and a popup window that looks like it was designed in Windows 3.11 asks me to type randomly on the keyboard, which I do. Eventually, a progress bar reaches 100%, and a key file is written to the USB stick.

9. This should have been the end of it right? I now have a login, password, PIN code card, public key certificate, and a bucket full of hate towards DB’s engineering department. Wrong! There is one more step – I now need to print out the resulting screen, which shows my login, domain (?), the hex digits of the public key, and the hex digits of the hash, plus a signature field. Not a digital signature field, but a “physically sign below” field. The instructions below tell me I need to print this – yes, on actual paper – and fax it, or send it via snail mail to DB’s Corporate Clients Department. Here it is in all its glory (click for a full-size view):

This is as far as I’ve gone, I will update the post once I get past this latest barrier of entry. In comparison, La Caixa offers a very complete, fast and efficient online banking system, with an easy to remember login, and a PIN code card to sign any operations you have to do. They even have an minisite designed specifically for the iPhone, with Safari’s buttons and UI specs! It’s a joy to use on the iPhone. I think my first and only operation once I get this thing working will be to transfer every penny to our account in La Caixa, and kiss DB goodbye. I hope they grow out of 1995 soon…

Edit: cleaned up some of the language, it’s not my usual style, but I was so incensed I could not help it.