Finally, one of the greatest features missing from Aplpe iOS devices ( iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) has now been made available as of iOS4.3…Home Share.

Home Share has been around in some guise for a fear or two now, allowing computers on the same network to see, browse and play music and videos from other iTunes Libraries on the network. What was lacking, however, was the ability for an Apple iOS device to see and stream this content whilst on the same network, it was restricted to OS X and Windows operating systems running the latest iTunes.

Let’s say I’d just purchased the latest XX Album in iTunes on my Mac Pro, if I wanted to listen to that on my iPhone 4 whilst in the garden (still connected to WiFi) I’d have to connect the iPhone up via USB and sync the new album to the iPhone. Not a big hassle but still inconvenient [hopefully one day soon Apple will pull their finger out and enable WiFi syncing of content to an iOS device, USB cables are so 2000].

The idea of Home Share is that now, any iOS device on my WiFi network can see, search and stream/play any content from another computer running iTunes on the same network, just what I’ve been after. Finally I can keep movies on my Mac Pro’s huge RAID hard drives and lie in the garden or in bed and stream a movie to my iPad.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get it working, no matter what I selected in the iTunes preferences pane the “Shared” option wouldn’t appear on my iPhone or iPad.

I double checked on the iOS devices that I had entered the correct Apple ID in the Home Share settings:

Settings–>iPod–>Home Sharing

I made sure the iOS devices were updated to iOS4.3 and iTunes was on the very latest 10.2.1 and rebooted everything.

It still wouldn’t work. I powered on my Macbook Air and enabled Home Sharing on that and that instantly showed up on the iOS devices….so the iOS devices are behaving correctly but for some reason iTunes on my Mac Pro wasn’t playing ball. I checked to see if it was a firewall issue but the firewall on my Mac Pro is off (Firewall is handled by the router and TimeCapsule). Eventually I found out what I had to do….and felt like a right idiot for not spotting it sooner!

In iTunes I’d been check in the Preferences to “Enable Sharing” but what I had failed to spot in the Advanced menu was “Turn Home Sharing On”!! Err that could be the reason it’s not working. By default this option is set to be ON but I do vaugely remember turning it off last year when trying to debug some network latency issues with my Apple TVs.

In iTunes click on Advanced in the tool-bar at the top:

Select the option to Turn On Home Sharing [if it says turn Off Home sharing then your Home Sharing is already on and you have another problem, sorry]

Once you’ve done this, you should see a new Home Share icon in the side bar:

Click on that and then in the right hand pane enter your Apple ID (email address) and password and hit Create Home Share:

You should then be greeted with a screen saying that Home Sharing is now on and confirming the email address used to create the home share.  [NOTE Make sure this matches the email address entered on the iPod settings screen on the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.]

Now on your iOS device, when you go into the iPod app and click on “more” in the bottom right corner on the iPhone/iPOd touch or Library at the top left of the iPad you should be able to see the new Shared section and select the library you just shared:

So if you’re having difficulty getting your Home Share visible on your iOS device:

1. Make sure your devices are on the same network, this is crucial! If you have multiple WiFi networks all devices that home share MUST BE ON THE SAME NETWORK. If, like me, you have an Apple Airport Extreme or TimeCapsule computers connect via ethernet cables are classed as being on the same network as the WiFi devices.
2. Make sure your iTunes is fully up to date, at the time of writing that is version 10.2.1
3. Make sure your iOS devices are fully up to date, at the time of writing that is version iOS4.3
4. Ensure you have entered the same Apple ID on both iTunes and iOS settings.
5. Finally, and most important, make sure Home Sharing is turned ON in the advanced settings of iTunes, see above screen shots.

This might be a strange way to start a case review but I hate iPhone cases. I’ve bought every single iPhone (2G, 3G and 3GS) released on launch day and used them all naked, without cases or screen protectors. I’m not a clumsy person, I take exceptionally good care of my iPhones, cameras and gadgets and as such I’ve never needed a case for “protection” reasons. Apple spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on designing some of the best looking hardware available today so it seems a shame to hide such beauty under a horrible, bulky case, if I wanted an ugly chunky phone I’d have bought a Nokia (sorry Nokia, I was a loyal 8-series fan until the iPhone).

So when I picked up my iPhone 4 on launch day I loved how slim it felt compared to the 3GS it was replacing and thought the black glass back with stainless steel sides looked superb. Unfortunately after a few days use I (along with many others) realised just how bad the signal issue (nicknamed antenna-gate) really was. I was gutted, I’m not ashamed to say I’m an Apple fanboy but I couldn’t deny they’d got things wrong with the iPhone 4 antenna design. I patiently waiting for Apple’s press release announcing free bumpers or third party cases for everybody to resolve the issue and at the earliest opportunity I ordered the Apple iPhone bumper. I was loathed  to have to use a case but I was hopeful that the minimal, backless Apple bumper wouldn’t be too intrusive. How wrong I was, the bumper makes the phone feel bulkier than the iPhone 3GS and I had to take it off every time I wanted to cradle it in my B&W Zeppelin Mini speakers, so after a week I couldn’t stand it any longer and went back to using the iPhone 4 without a case. Long story short, my I took my first iPhone 4 back to Apple as the signal issue was so bad without a case on, they gave me another brand new iPhone 4 in case I just had a faulty one but the replacement had the same problem.

There was one benefit of getting a new iPhone 4 though, I could order another free case as they log IMEI numbers to determine if you’ve already have a free case. So this time I opted for the Speck Pixel Skin HD case and when that arrived it was much better than the Apple bumper. It didn’t feel as bulky as the bumper and made the iPhone feel around the same size as an iPhone 3GS without a case but again I had to remove it from the case every night to cradle it on my Zepplin Mini speakers on the bedside table. This was getting ridiculous now, I knew I needed some kind of case in order to keep a strong signal and I’d even tried cutting some scotch magic tape to exactly fit the stainless steel sides and that worked for a while until it stared peeling off.

There had to be a better solution, I spent hours, and I mean hours(!) trawling the internet for a stylish, thin and unobtrusive case for the iPhone 4. Amongst my friends it’s a well know fact that I am completely “anal” when it comes to researching and finding the right product to suit my needs and searching for my 3rd iPhone 4 case was no exception. I went into The Carphone Warehouse and made them open up all the iPhone 4 cases they sold for me to try on the phone, ease of taking off and putting on, whether it would fit on my Zepplin Mini speakers, how it felt in the hand, whether it would damage the iPhone in the long run. After annoying all the Carphone Warehouse staff I still hadn’t found the right case and then by chance I stumbled upon a company called Elago who had just brought out their new case for the iPhone 4, the Elago S4 Breathe. On screen and on paper this seemed to be exactly what I was after in a case, extremely thin, completely open at the bottom to allow it to cradle on my Zepplin’s without having to remove it and most importantly it looked good.

Bad news….I couldn’t find a UK stockist as it was so new, but luckily for me I had a friend living in America who was coming over to visit so I asked him to order me one direct from Elago and it (along with my friend) arrived 3 days later and WOW is all I can say, I really can’t put into words how perfect this case is for the iPhone 4. I thought about how I could show everybody just how thin this case is and how good it feels in the hand but it’s tricky to portray this without you actually getting your hands on the thing.

In the end I tracked down a digital micrometer and took some photos of the iPhone 4 naked, with an Apple bumper, Speck Pixel Skin HD and with the super slim Elago S4 Breathe. I know we’re only talking mm here but in the palm of you hand just a few mm make a HUGE difference. The Elago S4 also retains the square edge feel of the iPhone 4 rather than the smooth rounded feel you get from the bumper and Pixel Skin HD.

• Naked iPhone = 59.21mm
• Elago S4 Breathe = 60.39mm (i.e. just 1.18mm thick)
• Speck Pixel Skin HD = 32.80mm (i.e. 3.59mm thick, 304% thicker than the Elago S4 Breathe)
• Apple Bumper = 63.69mm (i.e. 4.58mm thick, 388% thicker than the  Elago S4 Breathe)

You can easily get to the volume and silence switch with the generous cutout in the side and the top and bottom of the iPhone are completely open so there’s no issues accessing the multi-port connector on the bottom or the headphone, noise cancelling mic and power button on the top.

The sides of the case also protrude around a one mm from the glass to prevent the screen scratching if you place it face down on a table.

The case is available in three colours, silver, white and black. I wasn’t too sure what the silver one would look like and thought white on a black iPhone may look a little too funky so I played it safe with a black one. The tolerances of this case are second to none! It snaps on so snuggly the iPhone has no wiggle room at all, once the case is on the phone cannot slide around inside the case one little bit. I found my bumper wasn’t a snug fit and there was marginal play with the phone sliding around inside the bumper, even after a week of use a small amount of grit got between the case and the stainless steel surround and scratch it as the phone slid around inside the bumper. There is no opportunity for this to happen with the Elago S4 Breathe, I’ve had it on my iPhone for over a month now and there’s no marking to the stainless band on the iPhone at all.

The S4 Breathe has a strange (but good) feel to the touch. It’s like a hard ABS plastic but coated in a scratch proof soft touch paint (or at least I think it’s a paint). It’s similar to the back of the Google Android phones and I’ve also noticed it’s the same as the coating on the centre of my BMW steering wheel and door handles.

If you’ve not got the gist of this yet, I love this case! I’m not being paid to say this, I’m not getting anything free from Elago, I have bought this case with my own hard earned money but that was also one of the best bits, the case retails for $19.99 but Elago were selling it for $9.99 at the time which makes it about £8 here in the UK. I just hope Elago find a decent UK stockist soon! I’ve got a little list on my iPhone PaperLess App (great list making app if you need one btw) of friends that have fallen in love with my case and asked me to get them one and so far I’ve got 8 friends on that list so I’m going to be putting a call into my friend State Side pretty soon to ask him to buy and ship them to me.

There’s a whole gallery of images of the Elago S4 Breathe on and off the phone below.

IMPORTANT :iOS5 users click here to jump to this section first

After updating my girlfriend’s iPhone 3Gto iOS4.1 she noticed that the camera roll had a bug and was showing a large black box in place of some thumbnails. You could still tap on the blank black area and it would load the correct photo full screen, so the photos are still there, it just seems the thumbnails have become corrupted.

Fix #1 – You can connect your iPhone to your Mac or PC and download all the images off the iPhone and then erase all the images so your camera roll is empty and the thumbnails should work for all future photos you take. This isn’t ideal though and if you want to keep the images to hand on the phone you’ll need to create a new photos folder and resync the photos to the iPhone for future viewing.

Fix #2 – This is a little more complicated but will restore the thumbnails whilst leaving them in the camera roll. The solution is courtesy of CharismaG4toMBP on the Apple support forums.

1. Go to MacroPlant website and download iPhone Explorer, it’s FREE and there’s a Mac and Windows version.
2. Navigate to the Media->PhotoData folder, highlight and then delete the following three files:► com.apple.photos.caches_metadata.plist► Photos.sqlite► PhotosAux.sqlite
   

   ** Note for Windows Users **

   [thanks to @shane for highlighting this in the comments section]

   The screen shots of iPhone Explorer above are from the Mac version. If you are using the Windows version  there is no “Delete” button. You must RIGHT CLICK & choose “Delete Selected” to delete the files.

   Select OK at each prompt:

   

3. Turn your iPhone OFF.
4. Turn your iPhone back ON.
5. Click on Photos app and it should start rebuilding the library. Don’t panic if it says no photos found initially, give it a few minutes depending how many photos are in your camera roll.
6. FIXED!

UPDATE November 2011 – Having looked at my site analytics it seems this page is being read a lot , especially since the launch of iOS5 which seems to have broken camera roll thumbnails all over the place. Hundreds of people are finding it useful and leaving comments below, thank you very much for all the praises in the comments. Every single comment comes through to my iPhone and I read each and every one.

A few people have contacted me directly asking if they could make a small contribution for saving all their holiday photos or saving them hours on the phone to Apple Care. You may have noticed some adverts scattered around my site, I put these on to try and make enough money to cover the hosting cost for my blog but very few people ever click on them, I could probably get a better click rate if I smothered my site in annoying pop-up ads but I’ll never do that, however, if you have found this post helpful and would like to make a small donation every pound/dollar/euro/cent/pence would be greatly appreciated. You can click the PayPal button below to go straight to PayPal site and  make a contribution from £0.01 upwards. Many thanks

IMPORTANT iOS5 USERS several readers have commented saying the 3 files to delete are no longer present since upgrading to iOS5 and were unsure which files to delete. I shall be updating this post properly soon to reflect this but in the mean time (if you’re feeling brave) you can try deleting all the files in the subfolder mentioned in the original:

• changes-shm
• changes-wal
• Photos.sqlite
• Photos.sqlite-shm
• Photos.sqlite-wal
• Photos.sqlite.aside

Which some people have reported worked after a restart of the phone.

OR you could try a safer route that I’ve just experimented with and delete the contents of the Thumbnails folder only. The thumbnails folder is new in iOS5 and not present at all in iOS4 and earlier. I just tried deleting all the files in the Media/PhotoData/Thumnbails folder, namely:

• 120×120.ithmb
• 158×158.ithmb
• blacklist
• thumbnailConfiguration

Looking at the camera roll straight away showed all black boxes except for a few recent ones, after a phone restart all thumbnails had been rebuilt and no photos were lost. As I said, I need to do more testing on this but having just deleted the Thumbnail folder contents myself just now it does seem to do the trick with corrupt thumbnails. If you have another issue, like photos actually missing from the camera completely, then try the above method of deleting the sqlite files.

Now go back to the top

I might be alone on this one, but I really don’t want anything distracting behind all my iPhone app icons and Apple haven’t given you a way to revert back to a black wallpaper. You could simply cover your camera lens and take a dark photo and set that or instead, just click and hold on the image below to save it to your camera roll and set that as your homescreen wallpaper, problem solved.

As many of you may know, historically Apple updates have had a tendency to break BMW iDrive communicating with iPhones to sync contacts and make/receive calls.

Apple’s latest update, iPhone 3.0, is launched today (17th June 2009) and I thought I’d let you all know that I’ve had iPhone 3.0 up and running on my iPhone a little early. I’m happy to report that over the last 7 days the iPhone has been working flawlessly with my BMW iDrive, all contacts have been syncing and calls received and made without any issues.

So rest assured you can update your iPhone software to iPhone 3.0 and continue to drive safely with your iPhone fully connected to your iDrive.

]]> http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/06/16/iphone-3-0-and-bmw-idrive-its-all-still-working/feed/ 47 http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/05/12/iphone-game-scramble-suggests-rude-words/ http://blog.scoopz.com/2009/05/12/iphone-game-scramble-suggests-rude-words/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 00:35:35 +0000 Scoopz http://blog.scoopz.com/?p=818 I recently downloaded a free iPhone game called Scramble in which players try and locate as many words as possible in a 4×4 matrix of seemingly random letters. At the end of the 2 minute round you are presented with your final score along with a list of all possible words that you could have [...]]]>

I recently downloaded a free iPhone game called Scramble in which players try and locate as many words as possible in a 4×4 matrix of seemingly random letters. At the end of the 2 minute round you are presented with your final score along with a list of all possible words that you could have selected.

I no longer check through all the words that I could or should have found but for my first few plays I went through the list of all possibilities and it came up with some surprising suggestions!

Firstly I’ll have to admit that I was bad enough to find and select the following examples, hence the words appear in the suggestion list in green:

But on one of my very first plays (hence the almost non-existent score) I was shocked at the suggestions:

and then there were words being suggested that aren’t even in the dictionary and only seem to appear in the online “urban” or “slang” dictionaries:

I remember not so long ago that Tweetie app was rejected from the App store as Apple deemed it to contain offensive language since looking at the trends on Twitter threw up a common swear word.

So have Apple now relaxed their policy or did Scramble just slip through the net?

Next time you play on Scramble just have a quick flick through the list of suggestions at the end of the game and if you come across any interesting ones post them in the comments below.

At first I thought I was going crazy and that it must have always been there, but then I thought the icons looked like they’d been squashed together a little, I compared it with another iPhone 3G which didn’t have it and I also put the question out on Twitter to see if anybody else had seen this.

A few on Twitter [1|2]said it happened to them too for no apparent reason, it’s not like I was roaming onto another network whilst abroad, i’ve not even hijacked/cracked my iPhone it’s 100% stock. The folks on Twitter suggested it will clear itself after a reboot of the iPhone but I wanted to see if it would clear itself and within a few hours that’s exactly what it did.

I’m at a complete loss as to what caused this to appear but if you no anything about it please leave a comment below.

This is what it looks like normally:

My iPhone 3G has started showing random “phantom” voicemails from “Unknown” dated 1st January 1970. There are three empty voicemails, 0 seconds long and they cannot be deleted.

Actually that’s a lie, they can be deleted and they go into the deleted messages folder, you can also clear the deleted messages, but as soon as you go back to the main voicemail screen they re-appear instantly.

Powering off and on doesn’t resolve the issue, I’ve not tried a force reset yet or last resort full restore.

A quick search of the web reveals many others have been having this problem over the last year, but as of yet I’ve not seen any explanations or resolutions.

Further to an early post whereby my iPhone 2G had issues connecting to wi-fi networks after a firmware update, a similar thing happened to my iPhone 3G last week for no apparent reason.

My iPhone 3G wouldn’t connect to my Time Capsule wi-fi. I rebooted the Time Capsule and the iPhone but it still gave an error. I then tried with my 2nd home wi-fi network (Netgear DG834GT) and the same “unable to join the network” error message popped up. In case it was an issue with channel interference or WEP password mistakes I switched channels and turned all security off temporarily. This still didn’t solve anything, my MBook Pro, Air, Apple TV, Xbox etc could still connect perfectly as did my old iPhone 2G. I backed up my iPhone and then carried out a full restore but even the virginal factory fresh restored software refused to connect. Once a friend with another 3G came round and connected without a problem I had little choice but to book an appointment at Apple’s Genius bar.

The Genius tried to connect to the stores wi-fi and it failed, he checked the phone had the latest version, did a force reboot (I’d already done several) and then simply said “I’ll go and get you a new one”.

After checking for liquid damage using an otoscope to view the liquid damage indicators in the headphone socket and bottom port he gave me a new iPhone 3G and I was on my way.

Since I use MobileMe & Exchange PUSH, when I set up the accounts quickly on store on the new iPhone my contacts were pulled down onto the iPhone in under a minute which is useful since my iPhone backup was on my home machine a few hours away.

I know there is no Street View information live for the UK yet so I headed over to New York on my iPhone Maps app to see how the Street View interface looked, only problem was I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to view Street View images.

I tried switching from Map->Satellite->Hybrid view, zooming completely, turning the iPhone into landscape mode, nothing. Then I accidentally clicked on the little orange man icon on the push pin I’d dropped and presto, street view!

Just thought I’d put this brief blog entry up for anybody trying to figure out how to access Street View, now I know where to click it’s easy, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of the most obvious places to look.

If you’ve just finger dragged to an area you want to see Street View for it looks like you’re going to have to Drop a Pin in order to get the little orange man to click on.

PS – I also like the new 3D buildings in normal map view, nice little touch.