If you’ve smashed your iPhone and you need a quick reliable place to repair it,  I recommend fixpod. They have the simplest system I’ve seen, you just select your phone model, click on the problem, it gives you a price. You book in your  phone for repair,  and they guarantee to repair it within 24 hours!  You can either drop it in in person, or post it in.  If you want some more views on fixpod check out this forum where there are lots of happy users! Here’s where to find them.

Apple has introduced a ‘print’ button onto iPads, iPhones and iPods to allow you to print directly to a printer from your iOS device. Unfortunately  you need a special AirPrint enabled printer. Thankfully there is a free application called ‘AirPrint Activator’ that allows you to print to any printer, here’s where to get it and how to use it.

AIRPRINT

On your iPhone at the bottom of some apps is a ‘share’ button. If you click this button you get a menu of different ways to share the content, one of these options is ‘print’ as shown below.

Share Button

Print Button

If you don't have an AirPrint printer there will be no printer here to select

Click on the 'Show Downloads' button to find it.

To find printer sharing click on 'Print & Scan'

 

In printer sharing preferences you need to select your printer on the left and then click the ‘Share this Printer’ box.

The final step - turn on Printer Sharing

 

The Printer should now appear in your iPad or iPhone printing menu!

When you have more than one computer and more than one iPhone or iPod there are various ways to sync your iTunes songs across all your devices.  This article outlines them all.

Option 1: iTunes Library sharing

+ Simple, Free.

- Both Computers must be on. Songs can’t be copied.  iPhone syncing  can only be done manually to one computer.

ITUNES SHARING LETS YOU PLAY SONGS FROM ONE COMPUTER TO ANOTHER.

If you go to the preferences menu of iTunes and click on the sharing tab you can turn on ‘Sharing’  of your iTunes library.  This means that any other computer with iTunes on the same network as your Macintosh  can see and play the songs from your iTunes library. You can’t copy the songs from one computer to the other,  so for this to work both computers must be turned on AND HAVE ITUNES RUNNING.

The simplest way to share files to other computers on your network: share your iTunes library from the iTunes preferences.

After you share your library a  new entry will appear in your iTunes window on all other computers on your network under ‘SHARED’  and  will see  the entire iTunes library from your other computer. You can click on and play any song -  they will stream from your other computer. Streaming simply  means the song is played over the network but it is not copied to the 2nd computer,  so after you have finished listening to the song it is gone from your 2nd computer.  If the 1st computer is turned off you do not have access to the song any more.

 Option 2: Apple home sharing

+ Simple, Free, You can copy songs between computers.

- iPhone syncing is still manually to one computer.

The next step up is Apple Home Sharing.  It requires you to enter your iTunes ID and password,  and is limited to 5 computers, but it will then allow you to copy songs between computers that are on your  ’Apple Home Sharing’  account.

1. To turn on Apple Home Sharing go to the advanced menu on your iTunes application and click on ‘ Turn on Home Sharing’. It  will ask you for your Apple ID which is the ID that you registered up with the iTunes store.  You can register up to 5 computers on the same Apple ID. You need to manually sync your iPhone or iPad to one of your computers.

2. If you want a song to permanently copy across to your 2nd computer select the song and click on ‘ import’. This will copy the song across to your 2nd computer so that you can play it when the 1st computer is off.

Option 3: iTunes Match.

+ All songs automatically available to all computers and iOS devices.

- Songs are now limited to 256kbps in iOS devices, you can no longer manually sync, you need to be in internet range to play a song the first time, not all songs sync.

It would be nice to have a solution where you can listen to any songs from any computer at any time without having to manually copy them to your computer or iPhone. Apple have solved this problem in the most remarkable way with ‘iTunes Match’. iTunes have 20 million songs ‘in the cloud’. That means out there on Apple servers. Rather than upload all your songs from your computer it simply looks at what songs you have, then let’s you access those songs (from the Apple server) from any of your iOS devices, anytime!

For example, I have the U2 song ‘One’ on my computer  which I imported into iTunes from a CD. When I sync to iTunes match,  Apple registers that I own this song. I can then listen to this song on my iPhone for free,  without my computer  even being on –  it streams the song from the Apple server.

Of course this uses Apple’s servers and Apple’s computing power so Apple charge a fee for this of  approximately $30  per year depending on where you live.

Here is how to register and setup iTunes match:

1. Click on iTunes match in your iTunes sidebar

2. Subscribe!

3. Wait while iTunes match syncs your files

In the setup process iTunes match takes 3 steps. First, iTunes will scan your entire iTunes library.  My library has approximately 3500 songs and this step took 6 minutes.

Secondly,  iTunes compares your songs to the songs in the iTunes library.  This step took about an hour  on my computer. All the songs that were on the Apple server are now available:

In the last step iTunes uploads all the songs from your computer to the iTunes cloud server that it cannot find on its cloud server. This last step took hours and hours.  There was approx 7 Gig of data in total uploaded!

Now you need to go to your iOS device and turn on iTunes Match. Go into ‘Settings’, ‘Music’ and turn on ‘iTunes Match’ to make the songs available to your iPod or iPhone.

Turning on iTunes match on an iPod

Now your songs are available on your iPhone - the cloud means they are on the cloud.

Now, there are a few limitations of iTunes match.

1. Songs are no longer lossless, even if they were lossless on your home computer. This is probably not a huge drawback as iOS devices don’t have the highest quality sound as it is.

2. The first time you play a song there is a 10-20 second delay while the song starts streaming, and if you skip forward on the song with the playback slider there is a delay while it starts streaming again.  Once you listen to a song it seems to stay on your iOS device and it plays straight away next time.

3. For some songs it says I need to be in wifi range and won’t play then over the phone network.

4. Not all songs are eligible for iCloud.  Of my 4912 items in iTunes, 1676 were not eligible for iCloud sync – a whole heap of talks I’ve collected plus my audio Bible.  The apple website says “You can match or upload music formats that can be played with iTunes. That includes AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and more.” But the 1/3 of my iTunes that wouldn’t sync to iCloud were plain old  mp3 files that I can play in iTunes and on my iPhone. They sync with a manual sync, but not over iCloud.

In summary, iTunes match is a handy way to have most of your songs with you anywhere, but at the point of listening it’s not as convenient as having all the songs on your iOS device as you would from a manual sync.

This song for some reason needs wifi.

Quite often I want to SMS 10 or 20 people at once to let them know something, but it’s painful on the iPhone – you need to select each contact one by one each time. This great little app called ‘Peepo‘ lets you create a group (it calls them ‘peepo circles’) and then easily email OR  SMS everyone in the group.

Better still, it shows a little red alert to let you know who the SMS won’t be delivered to if your group has contacts without a Mobile Phone number.

This is worth getting. Free for a day. It uses the gyroscope so it’s very accurate and doesn’t need calibrating. Only works on iPhone 4.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/gyroscope-ship-meter-pro/id417607812?mt=8

This is clever – timed video recording:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/bluecam-pro-for-iphone-ipod/id335423589?mt=8

This is useful – magnifier:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/over-40-magnifier-flashlight/id381663967?mt=8

BBC news highlights:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/bbc-news/id364147881?mt=8

For me the number one criteria for buying an iPod is audio quality. Some people will go for looks, size, or battery life, but for me it’s simply a matter of which iPod sounds the best – not just through the headphones but also into my stereo.

This article discusses the reasons for the difference in quality of the sound output of the various models of iPods and iPhones, which iPod sounds the best, and why.

Firstly, The Results:

First place goes to the 5.5th Gen iPod.

(Be careful not to confuse this with the 6th generation ipod called Apple iPod ‘Classic’ which looks almost identical. The 6th Gen has the aluminium front.)

First place: the 5th Gen ipod family including ipod 5th gen and 5th gen enhanced with plastic front case. A1136

Second place goes to the good old 4th Generation iPod family including iPod photo, iPod colour and U2 edition iPod.

Second place: The 4th Gen ipod family including ipod photo, ipod color and ipod U2 edition. A1059 and A1099.

Third place for best audio quality – the first generation Nano!

Third place: the 1st generation nano! A1137

Which iPod sounds the best?

Last holidays I was driving along listening to U2 on my iPhone 3GS. I wanted to change to a different song that was on my nano and instantly I noticed the sound quality was much better than on the iPhone. I have since done some side-by-side tests using the same song on the iPhone 3GS and the iPod nano and the iPod Nano definitely has better quality audio. It clearly has a better bass response and is not so harsh in the high-end. So not all iPods are same, this got me wondering why.

There are two main things that contribute to the sound quality of an ipod. One is the audio chip that is used, the  other are the components along the audio path from the audio chip to the headphone jack – a mixture of op-amps, capacitors, resistors and inductors.

The iPods I like the best seem to be those that use the Audio chips from the Scottish company Wolfson.  When I detected this difference I didn’t not know what a Wolfson chip was, but I could hear a difference and so I did some research. It turns out my Nano and 4G iPod (which I like) both have a Wolfson – the iPhone 3Gs does not.  All listening tests are personal – some people like huge bass, some like a warmth. I like clarity. I like to feel like I am there. I am also sensitive to any slight increase in the midrange or treble that will make the music sound  harsh – especially over long periods, and I like to hear the very low bass, I’m not a bass head who want’s it loud, but I want it to be there.

the best iPods are those with a Wolfson audio chip

Which iPods have a wolfson audio chip?

iPod 1G & 2G (WM8721), 3G (WM8731),  4G(WM8975),  5G  (WM87588G) and 5.5G (WM87588G)

iPod nano 1G (WM8975G), 2G (WM8975), 3G (WM1870)

iPod Touch 1G (WM8758BG) 

iPod mini (Wolfson 8731?)

iPhone (WM8758BG) and the iPhone 3G (WM6180).

In summary, all the early iPods up to 5G Classic used Wolfson chips.

Which iPods have a Cirrus Audio Chip?

ipod ‘Classic’ 1G , 2G & 3G  (CS42L55) (These are also known as 6th 7th and 8th gen iPod)

ipod nano 4G (CS42L58), 5G (CLI1480A), 6G (CLI1544C0)

iPod Touch 2G (possibly CS42L58)

iPhone 3GS (CS41L61) and 4(338S0589), 4S (338S0987)

iPod Shuffle 4th Gen (CLI1544C0)

Cirrus iPod vs Wolfson

Some people claim the Cirrus Audio Chips are better, but that’s not what I hear. Here is a great article by  Marc Heijligers who also noticed a decrease in sound quality with the 6th Gen iPod, and he explains why.  He writes “I noticed that the 6G sounds precise, crisp, but lacks 3D image and has an electronic haze to the sound. At first, this might sound like an improvement (crisp, detailed), but when listening more carefully and for longer times, it becomes fatiguing after a while. The 5G sounds less precise, but its timbre contains more harmonic information and sounds less electronic. For me, the 5G is closer to how I experience acoustic music in real life, and for me is the better sounding device overall.” He then goes on to do some measurements to back up his findings.

Of all the iPods that use the wolfson chips, the 5th generation iPods appear to be the best, followed by the 4th Generation iPods. Check out these comments by Vinne from Red Wine Audio. Red Wine Audio offer mods of the 4th gen and 5th gen iPods where they will replace the output section of the iPod with high quality Black Gate NX-Hi-Q capacitors. According to onheadphones.com the output audio quality rivals that of $1500 CD-players, with improved bass response and clear high end.  (There is an excellent forum here on how to do the mod yourself!)

The sound quality of course depends on more than just the chip that is used, so it’s not just about which chip is in the iPod. My Shuffle model A1204 (non-wolfson) sounds great, as does the iPhone 4S.  It’s rumoured  that with the iPhone 5 Apple will be returning to the Wolfson chips, but we’ll see!

If you want the best possible audio quality, try and get hold of one of the fifth generation iPods – model number A1136.  This includes the iPod 5G, iPod U2 5G, iPod 5th Gen enhanced and iPod 5th Gen with video. They sound great!

The Best

iPod 5G (wolfson WM8758)
iPod 4G (wolfson WM8975)
iPod nano 1G and 2G (wolfson 8975), iPhone 4S, (wolfson WM8758).

UPDATE: This article was first written in 2010, Apple keeps improving with every iPod released, but I think these results still stand.   Check out this thread for some other raves about the 5.5G iPod.  There will always be new models coming out – keep an eye on head-fi forums and so on for reviews.  Here some people prefer 7th gen (thin 160G) Classic  to 5.5th Gen.

I have an phone 4S and even though it doesn’t have a Wolfson chip it sounds incredible.  This test shows iPhone 4S has better specs the  iPod Classic 6G and better than iPad 2, but I can’t’ find any direct comparison with the 5.5G iPod.

Some Measurements:

Conclusion:

If you want good audio in an iPhone the current iPhones (4, 4S) are the best.

If you are after good audio in an iPod the older ones are the best. (especially the 4th and 5.5th Gen classic era)

Wolfson chip in an iPhone

RECORDING ON AN IPHONE

On a final note, here’s some frequency response graphs (note these are of a complete loop – recording AND playback so they include the frequency rolloff of the microphone.)  Look at how bad the low frequency roll-off is on the iPhone 3Gs. It’s -3dB (half the output power) at 200Hz – no wonder it sounds so thin. The iPhone 4 response is a slight improvement over the 3GS. Flat is good – so the original iPhone wins! 3G bad at high frequencies, 3GS bad at low. So for listening the original iPhone and the 4S  are the best, but the original iPhone is much better for recording. The 3GS is terrible.

iPhone frequency response from faber acoustical 1st: iPhone Last:iPhone3GS

Now don’t get me wrong – the iPods and iPhones are still great music players.  Comparing the iPhone with other phones is like comparing apples with oranges. Even the 3GS – the worst iPhone –  leaves most other phones for dead in terms of music quality. But comparing apples with apples, first prize goes to the 5th Generation iPod, with the 4G iPod a close second.

Of course if you want better than ipod quality you might try  5G or 4G with the red wine mod.

Other notes: Cambridge Audio and Harman Kardon use Wolfson DAC chips in their CD players. Pioneer, NAD and Onkyo use wolfson in some of their CD players. Marantz use Cirrus Range. It’s not just about the chip – the other audio components will make a difference too.

http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/Cambridge%20Azur/Cambridge%20Audio%20Azur%20640C%20ALmpizator.html

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-100139.html

http://www.vasiltech.nm.ru/files/cd-players/CD-Player-DAC-Transport.htm

So you have two computers, one at work and one at home, and an iPhone and iPad  and you want the same contacts to be available to all of them.  The easiest way  to synchronise all your Address Book contacts is to use MobilMe. If you make a contact or edit a contact in one of your computers, is available to all your other computers. It’s not free though, will need to fork out and get a MobileMe account. Out of the box, your iPhone or iPad can synchronise to one computer for free –  but you physically have to plug it into the USB port and synchronise through iTunes.  You can synchronise  as many iPads or iPhones as you want to one computer  using this method.

It doesn’t take long to get tired of manually syncing your iPhone to your computer!  This is where you will need MobileMe. It’s Apple’s solution to the problem.

Simply sign up to MobileMe, and then in address book on your computer, go to preferences,  click on the accounts tab,  and click on synchronise with MobileMe.

Click on the MobileMe Button  and it will take you to a page where you need to put in your MobileMe username and password.

That’s it! Set up all your computers like this, and they will automatically synchronise to each other. If you put a new contact into one computer it will be on the other computer in a matter of minutes.

To set up your iPhone or iPad to synchronise as well simply go to Settings  from the home screen, and then select  ”Mail,Contacts,Calendars”.

Click on  ”Add new Account”

Click on  ”Mobile Me”

Click on  ”Add new Account” and enter your mobile me details.

Note – you can sync lots of things over Mobile Me – mail accounts, safari bookmarks, iCal calendars etc.  I don’t sync anything else over MobileMe  - just the address book. I found the MobileMe Calendar syncing to be problematic.

Here’s a post on how to sync your Calendars.

Yesterday Telstra turned on internet tethering for the iphone! (I think they are the only carrier in Australia to do this.)

Tethering is where you use your iPhone as a wireless modem to connect your computer to the web. It’s useful if you are out with your laptop and you don’t have access to the web. Just plug your iPhone into your laptop via USB and it acts as a wireless modem! Here’s how to get it going. NOTE: Apple have now changed this to be called ‘Personal Hotspot’ instead of ‘Internet Tethering’. It works the same though.

1. On your iphone go to Settings General Network and if tethering is available with your mobile carrier there will be a pane called internet tethering (or ‘Personal Hotspot’  that looks like this:

Turn it on. Tethering is now enabled on your iphone.

If you don’t see this – go to iTunes when your iPhone is connected and click on the ‘Check for update’ Button to download the new Carrier settings from Telstra.

2. Plug your iPhone into your computer via the USB cable. When tethering is on  you’ll get a message like this:

Click on network preferences and iphone will become your modem like this:

You should now be able to surf the web on your laptop. Your iphone will light up like this to show you are tethering.

Speed is great, ping a bit slow… (Make sure you are on a big data plan!)

NOTE: For other carriers (Optus, Vodaphone etc) you can do this too, click here to get the configuration file. (THis is not yet working for iPhone software 3.1 though.)

Aa good storage system for IDEAS is essential.

Today the iPhone companion app for my fav desktop notes app – SOHO notes was released.

First, the good…

It has a very nice,  easy-to-use interface, including a nice search feature.

Then the not so good…

It doesn’t  have automatic synchronisation like almost every other iphone app. You have to manually go into the preference window and click on the synchronise button!

If you have a note in Soho notes that has pictures or different fonts in it, the moment you edit it in notelife your pictures disappear and so do the fonts. It doesn’t even make a copy of the original notes – you have just lost all that information forever. So it’s only really useful for editing notes that are plain text notes.

SUMMARY:

A great way to access your SOHO notes on the iPhone if you have SOHO notes.

But not the one-solution answer to everything – no auto sync!

I talked with Apple, they couldn’t help. I spend over and hour with the mobileme chat line, and subsequent e-mails and in the end I gave up.

This week I came across this great article which fixed everything! If you’re having issues with Apple address book definitely give this a try.