iTalk Magazine » iPhone OS

What Version Of iPhone OS Am I Running?

jeshyr — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:14:11 +0000

Every iPhone and iTouch runs a version of iPhone OS. It’s the software that runs “behind the scenes” to show you the home screen with the list of your applications, to let you install and delete apps, and to do all the other bits of housekeeping that you don’t see. iPhone OS is the iPhone/iPod Touch equivalent to Windows on your PC (or OS X, if you use a Mac).

Sometimes you need to know what version of iPhone OS you are running. Usually this is to make sure your version is new enough for a piece of software.

So, how do you know what iPhone OS you’re running? Luckily, there’s no special skill needed here, and there’s even two equally simple ways to do it!

Find Your iPhone OS Version With iTunes

Plug your iPod Touch or iPhone into your computer by whatever means you usually use to synchronise your device – the cable or a dock.

Now go to the iTunes program on your computer. If the screen isn’t showing your device’s information, click on the name of your device. You can see mine in the is called Touchy – it’s in the red circle I’ve drawn on the left of this picture:

Here's the device page for my iPod Touch, with the version number in the red circle.

In the red circle on the right you’ll see the heading “Software Version” and mine says “3.1.3″ – that’s my software version. Unless you have a very old iPod Touch or iPhone, yours is probably the same version.

Find Your iPhone OS Version With Your iPhone/iTouch

This takes a few more button presses but you can do it without having a computer handy. First, turn on your iPhone or iPod Touch and unlocking it so you can use it. You’ll see the screen with all your application icons, one of them will have the name “Settings” and an icon that looks like this:

This is the icon for the Settings app, it will be on the first page apps on your iTouch or iPhone.

Now select “General” settings:

Now you're in the Settings app, you need to go to the "General" section.

And now the “About” section:

This is the general settings page, now you need the "About" item.

And now you need to scroll down to the bottom of the list and you’ll see “Version”:

And now you just read off the version number - ignore the bit in brackets.

You can safely ignore the bit in brackets, so the version here is “3.1.3″.

Understanding The iPhone OS Version

So now you know your version number, how do you understand it?

Firstly, if you read it out you pronounce the “.” parts as “point”. So “3.1.3″ reads as “Three point one point three”.

Version numbers read from left to right like regular numbers, but the leftmost number is always the most important. So “3.1.3″ is a bigger version number than “2.2.4″ the way “313″ would be higher number than “224″. The only reason we need dots at all is that sometimes a single part gets higher than 9, so “2.10.1″ is a valid version number and is higher than “2.9.8″ but lower than “3.0.0″. And “2.10.1″ would be a different version to “21.0.1″ and to “2.1.01″.

Since the leftmost number in the version is the most important, you have to imagine inserting any “missing” zeroes – for example “2.1.0″ is the same as “2.1″ and “3″ is the same as “3.0.0.0.0.0.0″

And if that all sounds horribly confusing, mostly it’s just the first one or two numbers that matter. So if your version number begins with a “3″ then it’s higher than any version number beginning with “1″ or “2″. So I can look at this requirements list:

Now you can compare your own version to the required version.

It says that it requires iPhone OS “2.1 or later” and I know my version number is “3.1.3″ which starts with a “3″ so that’s higher than anything starting with a 2, including “2.1″ so it must be a later version so I know I can run this app on my device!

Practice: Look up your version number by both of these methods and leave a comment telling me how you went.

Cheers,
Jeshyr

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iPhone 3.0 walk through videos

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:42:21 +0000

It’s the day after the announcement of the new Apple iPhone 3.0 OS and today video sneak peeks are starting to pop up from developers who are already testing the OS.

As usual we wanted to bring them all here in one place, alas we can’t as they don’t all allow embedding … so here’s a list for ya to check out:

Engadget iPhone 3.0 walk through
Gizmodo iPhone 3.0 walk through (Note music contains bad words)
ZDnet collection of videos

This update is the update that keeps giving, including

ability to multiselect images for emailing and deleting
usb tethering (carrier dependent)
and more…

What are your favourite features announced so far?

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iPhone 3.0 Roundup updated

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:27:25 +0000

Wow, the internet is ablaze with the fantastic news of what’s coming in iPhone 3.0 – of course Copy & Paste is high on everyone’s list of new features, but I’m more excited by full Bluetooth support for apps, hardware control and Google Maps.

I’ve been talking to some developers and they are all very excited by what 2.0 holds for them. Finally we can get Proximity based sync for apps like Things!

So, instead of simply reposting what everyone else has, here is a list of great links to the iPhone 3.0 news coverage:

There probably are tons more links – but these give a good overview of all the main points

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VoiceOver coming to iPhone

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:58:25 +0000

I think it’s a pretty safe bet although I’m yet to see any concrete evidence that VoiceOver will find it’s way into the iPhone 3.0 release coming soon.

There is no way a sub-$100 iPod is having a feature that the flagship iPhone doesn’t carry. Given VoiceOver is generated by your iTunes software and NOT by the iPod itself it would make sense that a small software updated to the iPhone and iPod Touch will give this feature to these devices too – considering they already carry a inline button for headphones and support 4 point head phone jacks.

So what do you think? VoiceOver coming to the iPhone 3.0 or not?

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iPhone Update 2.2.1

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:07:54 +0000

This morning there is a new update for the iPhone sitting in iTunes for you.

iPhone update 2.2.1

The update includes the following:

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

* improved general stability of Safari
* fixed issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll

Products compatible with this software update:

* iPhone
* iPhone 3G

I’m downloading it now … no hassles so far

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iPhone 3.0 – faster?

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:55:26 +0000

Could it be true? Could the 3rd Generation iPhone be faster than the 2nd Gen? Well you’d kind of expect that but rumors coming from ZDNet & MacRumor are saying that the new iPhone will come packing a quad core chip?

That will make for one amazingly fast and incredibly powerful device – according to ZDNet the iPhone 3g currently has similar processing power to the Sony PSP, so a quad core device would “slaughter” everything else. I tend to agree!

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MacWorld – iTunes and the iPhone

Israel Torres — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:46:47 +0000

iTunes, the music store, was started in 2003. And now, in less than six years, they've sold 6 billion songs.
There's 10 million songs available, and there's 75 million accounts with credit cards.
Now, iTunes is the number one channel with music in the United States.
What's new? Three things.
First, the price. In the last six years, they've had one pricing model for the entire market. There's now three pricing tiers. $0.99 cents, $0.69 cents, and $1.29. Depending on how the music labels offer music, Apple will price accordingly. This comes in April.
Second, iTunes Plus. It's the way that Apple offers music DRM-free. You can play it on as many computers as you own, and has 256 kbps AAC encoding (better encoded). You can upgrade your entire purchased library to iTunes plus.
Starting today, 8 million (of 10 million) songs are now DRM free. By the end of Q1 2009, all 10 million songs in iTunes will be DRM free.
The third new thing is with the iPhone.
Now, the iTunes Wi-Fi music store is compatible with 3G, meaning it's just called the iTunes music store. It's the same price as on the Wi-Fi, the same selection, downloadable anywhere you are. (Same quality as well).
You can purchase or preview music anywhere, and sync the music back to your computer when you get home, same as you did before. This starts today.

Source[Gizmodo Live]

And people said the online music model would never work. I also say, about time for DRM-Free music. I wonder what this means for Napster and other DRM-Music stores.

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iPhone Camera Shoot Out

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:28:40 +0000

It’s that time of year, you know where you get in the car, head over to Aunty, or Grandma or someone’s place and meet up with all those long lost family members. You get lots of goodies and Grandma always wants to show you her garden, what’s flowering this year etc (okay by now you’ve guessed this author is in the southern hemisphere – actually in the tropics as I write this).

We’ve been snapping shots left right and center – having a 14 month old opening presents will make you trigger happy. Different family members have been using different devices to snap pics and I got to thinking – just how do all these photos stack up?

Read on below the jump to see us pit the iPhone 3G against some top notch rivals.

The Devices

Okay first up, while I like photography I’m no crack photographer. This is not a scientific test, rather it’s a real life test. All we did was take photos that you might take yourself. (Oh and when I say we, I mean my brother in law and me)

First up we have the iPhone 3G, which as we know has a 2 Mega Pixel fixed focus camera. Now to be fair I didn’t always use the standard Camera App, instead I was often using Steady Cam as this I find has a huge part to play in taking a good clear photo with the iPhone. This camera does not have a flash.

Sony Ericsson w910i – we selected this phone because it has a similar type of camera which we hoped would give us comparable photos with the iPhone 3G. This mobile phone has a 2 Mega Pixel camera in it. This camera does not have a flash.

Sony Ericson G900 – this was selected not because of it’s camera but rather for the fact that it is a similar price touch screen smart phone, closer to the iPhone in specification than the w910i. We hoped this would give us a comparison of photo based on price of the phone. (That is if you are spending over $1000 on a phone, what sort of camera can you expect?) This mobile phone has a 5 Mega Pixel camera in it. This camera does have a flash.

Sony CyberShot DSC-W110 – this was our control, a 7.2 Mega Pixel digital camera bought in NZ on sale for $299, it’s cheap, it’s a camera and it’s getting a hammering over this silly season. This camera does have a flash.

The Rules

To level the playing field we had to have some ground rules:

As the iPhone & w910i have no flash we decided to not use any flash
No Zoom, No Macro – things the iPhone is lacking, so we decided the others couldn’t use them either (yeah I know, we’re biased)
We could use what ever the phone allowed for taking a steady (clear) shot. On the iPhone we used Steady Cam on the G900 it allows you to set the focus point
There was to be NO Photoshop – not even open and resize – we’d let Flickr do all the work
All pictures would be taken as close to identical as we could – that is we had a line to place the camera on to take the picture
There could be no winner, this is not about finding the best, it’s simply a comparison of pictures from similar devices based either on price or camera size

Note: you can click the photos to see the full size image on flickr.com

The Pictures

The duck shoot

We started out indoors with a simple test. 3 little rubber ducks against a green background. We used only indoor lighting which happens to be energy saver light bulbs.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110 - Control Shot

SonyEricsson G900 - good clarity, nice focus, good lighting

SonyEricsson w910i - good focus, poor lighting & bad noise

iPhone 3G, good lighting, ok focus, little bit of noise, exceeded expectations

Summary

The iPhone actually performed better than expected in this low light test, the colours are a little washed out compared to the Cybershot, but compared to the w910i the iPhone walks all over it. I’m surprised for a 2 Mega Pixel camera the iPhone did very well here.

The playground

The next day we popped out side around midday to see what other shots we could test against. Behind us is a little park & playground – a common place for pictures. So in the midday sun we snapped off some shots.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110 - Control Shot

SonyEricsson G900 - as to be expected, a good shot

SonyEricsson w910i - blue is too purple & focus is way off in the middle of the shot

iPhone 3G - blue a bit too purple, focus is soft on the right side of the shot & bit washed out

Summary

Here the iPhone began to suffer. It’s almost as if it’s set to indoor shooting as the pictures seem to have an overall blue tinge. The focus was good, and the colour range not too bad & I probably could remove the blue tinge in photoshop but I was expecting more from the iPhone.

The flower

Reds are often a good test for cameras – unfortunately we picked a bit of a hard subject to photograph in that it was moving. As you’ll see the digital camera did a fine job but all the phones struggled to focus clearly on the flower.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110 - Control Shot

SonyEricsson G900 - good red range although a little soft

SonyEricsson w910i - vibrant red range

iPhone 3G - red is orange and overall the picture is too blue

Summary

Again the iPhone suffered with a blue effect to the photos resulting in an orange flower rather than a red one. The Sony w910i surprised me here with the brilliance of it’s red and green, the closest to the real flower. The iPhone was the only one that came close to focusing at this distance.

Into the Sun

A challenge for any camera made harder without a fill flash to balance out the brightness of the sun, this shot saw all cameras lining up to photograph a rose against the blue sky with the sun just cracking the frame.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W110 - Control Shot

SonyEricsson G900 - affected badly by the sun, this camera really suffered here

iPhone 3G - good focus, colours washed out this camera struggled

Summary

I was surprised that the two Sony Ericssons suffered so much, especially the G900. The iPhone while turning the pink roses red actually focused well, and handled the excess light pretty well too. They sky is a little gray at the top, but that doesn’t affect the rest of the photo that much.

Results

Overall the iPhone surprised me – and not in a good way. Where I expected it to fail it shone, where I expected good things from it, it failed. The Sony Ericsson w910i and iPhone should have been taking near identical pictures, but at times the iPhone performed closer to the better 5 Mega Pixel equipped Sony Ericsson G900.

What can you take from this? Well the iPhone is a mobile phone with a 2 Mega Pixel camera – don’t expect to be taking award winning photos with it. However take your time with it and it can take some surprising shots.

Reality kicks in though and I have to say, if you want to take photos – buy a camera. They are cheaper, take better shots, have heaps of features for focusing, macros, and of course they have a solid flash on them. You can, of course, see a huge range of digital cameras at Amazon.com.

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Get MMS on your iPhone

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:36:02 +0000

So we we all know the iPhone doesn’t support MMS – which to be honest, even on the phones I’ve had that supported it, I never really used it. I for one don’t miss it (don’t flame me for that, you might miss it and good for you)

The only way to get MMS on your iPhone of course was to jailbreak it and install SwirlyMMS. Now however Scandinavian Network Telia will be releasing it’s own MMS solution for iPhone’s on their network. How long before the rest of the world follows suit?

Talking of messaging apps, have you seen Telegram from The Polar Bear Farm? It’s a great application for sending voice messages from phone to phone – there is now a free version too.

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Apple sued over iPhone technology

Israel Torres — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:48:57 +0000

Elliot Gottfurcht has filed a lawsuit against the Californian technology company with a Texan court. He claims that his company, EMG Technology, owns US Patent Number 7,441,196, which covers the way in which web pages will re-size themselves to fit the screen of a phone.

“The patent claims to cover the display of Internet content reformatted from HTML to XML on mobile devices – the industry standard currently displayed by the iPhone,” said EMG Technology in a statement.

EMG Technology filed its patent application in March 2006, and the patent was granted in October of this year. The company is seeking unspecified damages against Apple, which launched its first iPhone in June 2007.

“Web sites are just beginning to develop their mobile sister sites for fast and easy navigation,” said Stanley Gibson, EMG Technology’s legal adviser. “For example, to access NBC on a computer the URL is NBC.com. For the mobile site on the iPhone, the URL would be m.NBC.com. The ’196 patent covers the simplified interface of reformatted mobile content to provide optimum viewing and navigation with single touches on a small screen.”

Apple said it didn’t comment on pending litigation.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Edit: What do you think about this? I have a feeling this is a big song and dance about nothing because the US Patent is no longer allowing these sorts of patents. For Example, Amazon.com could no longer patent their One Click process. You can’t patent a process – so this case could be a complete and utter waste of time and money. Any patent attorneys or IP lawyers reading this? Your comments?

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iTalk Magazine » iPhone OS

What Version Of iPhone OS Am I Running?

Find Your iPhone OS Version With iTunes

Find Your iPhone OS Version With Your iPhone/iTouch

Understanding The iPhone OS Version

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iPhone 3.0 walk through videos

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iPhone 3.0 Roundup updated

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VoiceOver coming to iPhone

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iPhone Update 2.2.1

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iPhone 3.0 – faster?

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MacWorld – iTunes and the iPhone

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iPhone Camera Shoot Out

The Devices

The Rules

The Pictures

The duck shoot

Summary

The playground

Summary

The flower

Summary

Into the Sun

Summary

Results

Share this

Get MMS on your iPhone

Share this

Apple sued over iPhone technology

Share this

iTalk Magazine » iPhone OS

What Version Of iPhone OS Am I Running?

Find Your iPhone OS Version With iTunes

Find Your iPhone OS Version With Your iPhone/iTouch

Understanding The iPhone OS Version

Share this

iPhone 3.0 walk through videos

Share this

iPhone 3.0 Roundup *updated*

Share this

VoiceOver coming to iPhone

Share this

iPhone Update 2.2.1

Share this

iPhone 3.0 – faster?

Share this

MacWorld – iTunes and the iPhone

Share this

iPhone Camera Shoot Out

The Devices

The Rules

The Pictures

The duck shoot

Summary

The playground

Summary

The flower

Summary

Into the Sun

Summary

Results

Share this

Get MMS on your iPhone

Share this

Apple sued over iPhone technology

Share this

iPhone 3.0 Roundup updated