Some YouTube users, myself included, are having issues when they upload a video to YouTube. Once the video has been processed the first few seconds are just grey/pixelated. Fortunately there is a simple solution…just add audio! I only get this problem with videos I upload to YouTube with no audio so I tried just adding a single 1 second audio sample at the start and reuploaded the file to YouTube. That resolved the issue.

Original upload without audio and hence faulty at the start:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

To fix this I simply added a 1 second sound effect from iMovie’s collection to the start of the video and reuploaded, works fine now:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Don’t waste time like I did trying to export from iMovie in a different format, that didn’t work either, adding a tiny audio clip seemed to be my only resolution.

It was proving pretty tricky to photograph so I resorted to my trusty Veho USB Microscope
to get a video and some photos at the end of the post.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

You can press along the top and this gap flexes in and out but it’s resting position is with a gap probably just less than 1mm. This might not sound like much and you may not notice it initially, especially on the black iPad 2′s but on the white ones, once this gap starts to gather some dust and dirt it really starts to become noticeable.

I made an appointment at the local Genius Bar and showed them the problem, on the way through the store I stopped and checked all 16 or so iPad 2 they had on display and none of them had this issue. The genius at first wasn’t sure so he sought a second opinion and the 2nd Genius straight away said “that’s not right, I wouldn’t be happy with it if it was my iPad” so they agreed to swap it out for a new one. Even though they were out of stock for sale iPad 2′s, they have a separate stock for exchanges and repairs and luckily for me they had one white 64GB white one.

He brought the new one out, passed it to me in the cellophane wrap to double check the new one whilst he started doing the paper work. Unfortunately the replacement one he handed me to inspect had an even bigger gap just under neath the headphone socket but only about 1 inch long unlike the one I took back which had a 5-6 inch long gap.

The genius seemed a little surprised too and went out the back for quite a while, eventually he came back and said since I rejected that one and they had no others in he’d have to order me one, so I’m waiting for a call to let me know when they’ve got it in.

Some of you may think I’m being a little fussy here, but let’s just remember how proud Apple were of the tight fit and finish and tolerances of the iPhone 4 bezel and metal surround (even if it did have a few holding-it-wrong issues) and let’s also not forget this isn’t some £100 palm-pilot from the 90′s, this is a £700 tablet (including the smart cover which of all the iPad 2 accessories is the only thing I’ve bought so far) and if I’m parting with £700 for something it needs to be 100% right.

UPDATE 26th April 2011: I had a call from Apple to say that the replacement iPad 2 they had ordered was in store. I tried calling to ask them to inspect it before I drove for an hour to the store but their stupid phone system auto-hangs up every time so I had to make the drive. I checked the new unit and whilst there were no gaps around the bezel, the left hand side aluminium was badly scratched (where the smart cover connects). I asked if it was a refurb unit to which they said no, I pointed out the marks and said I’m rejecting this one too and he took it out the back for 5 minutes and came back out with a brand new sealed retail unit. They apologised for messing me around and gave me the brand new retail unit which upon inspection seems perfect. So as far as quality control and build quality go for the new iPad 2, it’s not looking good, I rejected 3 out of 4 units!

1 – REJECTED my original one as seen in the photos and videos with a long gap across the top

2 – REJECTED the first replacement offered to me with a smaller but wider gap under the headphone socket

3 – REJECTED the second replacement offered to me a week later with no gaps but badly damaged down the left hand side

4 – ACCEPTED the new retail unit they opened for me, no marks, scratches or gaps…since getting it home I’ve noticed some light bleed around the edges but can’t be bothered going back to the store again just yet.

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 bought my MacBook Air in Feb 2008 and for the last 11 months I’ve always been frustrated with the restrictive screen angle. It didn’t seem to go much past vertical (roughly 120°) so there were certain situations when I had it on my lap where I could not get the screen back far enough to view comfortably.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) my MacBook Air hinge broke/snapped the other day and this has resulted in the screen folding almost completely flat (roughly 160°).

There were no suspicious “circumstances” when the hinge broke, it had been sat on my desk from the previous day with the lid shut and I simply opened the lid whilst the MacBook Air was on my desk and when the screen reached the usual point of resistance (roughly 120°) there was a momentary feel of resistance followed by a snapping/popping sound and the screen then went completely flat.

The screen was still working perfectly normally, no loss in general resistance of the hinge, the backlight was functioning ok, the picture was perfect and there were no nasty noises when opening and closing the screen.

The hinges appeared to be in tact when inspected just above the keyboard so I closed the lid and lifted it up to inspect the underside of the hinges. It was then that I noticed two tiny (and I mean tiny) specs of metal/plastic sitting on my desk roughly where the hinge was. On inspection they appear to be some kind of light weight alloy metal and look like they have sheared off at one end.

I kept hold of them both and tried to get some photos of them with my digital camera but they were too small too get a decent macro focus on, so instead I resorted to my Veho USB Microscope (handy Christmas present) to take some photos and have included a pencil tip, pin tip and ruler for scale purposes just so you can get an idea of just how small these pieces are. [see the gallery at the end of the post for all the photos]

I’m guessing that these two small parts were integrated into the hinge as “stops” to prevent the screen from opening too far. If that is the case then making them just over 1mm wide seems a little daft to me and I’m not surprised they have snapped.

I don’t really mind too much that the screen now opens to around 160° but I’m taking it in for repair this week just incase the excessive opening angle is causing any ribbon cables or similar connecting the screen to the motherboard to rub and wear through. There do appear to be numerous cases of this mentioned across the web, many seem to just have the screen open flat like me but a few others have cracked hinges and completely broken hinges.

I shall update once I’ve heard back from Apple Service.

UPDATE (4th Feb 2009): I’ve now picked my MBA back up from repair and I’ve got a brand new lcd screen, surround, lid and hinge, basically the upper half has been completely replaced and from what I’ve researched that always seems to be the case, replacing the whole screen assembly rather than just the hinges. I have noticed that the new screen seems to suffer from the dreaded horizontal grey lines syndrome I’ve been reading about, I guess it’s a screen from the new Rev-B models, it’s certainly not as crisp as my old screen but I’m going to spend some time with it first before I decide if I’ll complain about it. Also, because of a problem with the date and time being lost every time the battery ran low I’ve also got a brand new battery, which was nice.

The iPhone is in perfect condition otherwise, there’s no marking on the rest of the screen or casing. He’s hoping to get it replaced/repaired under warranty but as the nearest Apple store is nearly an hour away he’s sensibly waiting until he’s next in the area.

Some people have mentioned that Apple won’t repair cosmetic defects under warranty but since this is under the glass and there’s no way he could have caused it himself I think they should.

Has anybody else has similar problems?

48 hours later and it’s already broken, the little ringer/vibrate switch has snapped and fallen off. I did notice the switch was much stiffer than my original iPhone, which I thought was a good thing as it would prevent mistaken switching of modes but unfortunately when I flicked it across the button popped off and landed on the street somewhere, never to be seen again.

There seem to be plenty of reports of this across the web too:

MacRumors – Broken Ringer Switch (and here too)
AppleiPhoneApps – Broken Ringer Switch
Apple Support – here / here / here and many more

Perhaps a faulty batch, design flaw or simply the result of substituting the expensive build quality of the original iPhone with much cheaper and more fragile plastics?

If you look closely at the photos you’ll notice a large rectangular green/blue area on the remaining stump where the button once lived. I wander if this is some sort or air bubble or impurity in the plastic from the moulding process? Also, when looking at the macro photos, the cutting of the casing around the switch seems rather jagged and rough, or perhaps I’m getting a little too fussy now?

 Back to the O2 Store tomorrow for a swap!

Here’s the obligatory photos, click to get larger versions.

UPDATE (27th August 2008): The local O2 store had no problems in issuing a replacement handset, and after a slow and painful restore I’m back up and running. The new handset switch feels even more stiff and fragile than the last one so I’m not holding out much hope of it surviving too long.

UPDATE (29th August 2008): The replacement iPhone has failed already! Exactly the same fault, the ringer/silence switch has just fallen off. I’ve been back to O2 and they’ve offered to replace with a 3rd unit (NB I got my first one 6 days ago) but I kindly pointed out to them that I think they’ve got a faulty batch so same thing would just happen again. I’m currently on hold to the Apple Store in the Trafford Centre to see if I’m allowed to exchange a faulty iPhone bought at an O2 store in the Apple Store.

UPDATE – *FIXED* - It appears we’ve found a fix that will get all your contacts showing up on the iDrive again. You simply need to add 2000 fake contacts to your iPhone. There are detailed instructions, vCard/CSV files available to download and step by step screen shots in a new post here – Fix for Fix for iPhone and BMW iDrive address book not synchronising.

UPDATE (18th August 2008): There’s a FIX!

Looks like we’ve found a fix for this that involves creating a large number of fake contacts on your iPhone. Mine started working when I sync’d with my Exchange server and 2500 new contacts appeared on my iPhone and at the time of writing this 3 out of 3 people who tried the fix have reported back with success. Click below to jump to the relevant place in the comments and read a few above it from Vants and Rajesh too for more info:

iPhone and BMW iDrive address book sync fix

You’ll need to download this file to automatically add 2000 empty contacts to your address book:
DOWNLOAD 2000 fake contacts vCard [2000 unique names, 2000 identical numbers]

UPDATE (18th August 2008): ****FIXED***** ****NOT FIXED*****
Apple have just released iPhone 2.02 update and I’m currently downloading it. Hopeful that this update will finally fix all the iDrive address book issues, watch this space…..I’ve just got back from testing 2.02 with my iDrive and finally, it’s working again! (iPhone 2.02 fixes BMW iDrive contact syncing)Sorry guys and girls, it looks like a was a little premature on this one. My contacts DID all show up on the iDrive screen and I scrolled through, jumped from A-N-W-etc and I came in to get the camera for a few shots for this article. When I went back out, my iPhone paired but after a long wait screen there were NO contacts shown! I removed both pairings, powered off the car and the iPhone and tried again but still nothing. I then updated my friends brand new 3G to 2.02 and tried syncing that (which has never been seen by the car before) and it paired but still no contact sync.

UPDATE (6th August 2008):
If you are affected by issues relating to the iPhone pairing with your BMW bluetooth please spare 2 minutes to complete 13 questions about car year, model, iphone version, etc.:
Online Survey – BMW / iPhone pairing issues 

UPDATE (5th August 2008):
Apple have just released iPhone 2.01 update but don’t get too excited, it doesn’t seem to resolve any of the BMW iDrive issues.

I downloaded the 240MB update, waited patiently for the iPhone to backup, update and then restore and then nipped out to my car (at 1:30am) excited to see if it worked…NOPE….seems Apple thought better of it than to help us BMW drivers out. It still doesn’t sync the address book with my M5’s iDrive.

I deleted both pairings and then repaired, gave it plenty of time to search for and sync contacts and it still shows no contacts available.

Thanks Apple!

UPDATE (18th July 2008):
I’ve had an email from Apple about this issue but unfortunately:
********************************************
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS
MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE
********************************************
so I’m going to play things safe and not simply cut and paste their email on my blog but let’s just say if I owned a software company I would most likely only send out an email in response to a bug report if I was aware of the reported issue and getting engineers to look into it.
Summary:
OK some bad news for all iPhone owners (original and 3G version) if you drive a BMW that has an iDrive; in summary the iPhone 2.0 software stops your BMW iDrive from seeing your iPhone’s contacts list.

IMPORTANT – If you are affected by this issue, which many seem to be, please submit a quick feedback/bug report via Apple’s iPhone feedback form. The best thing to do is to post your iPhone version, car make, model and year as a comment to this thread then copy and paste the same to the Apple Feedback form. The more feedback Apple get the more likely they are to bring out 2.01 fixing the issue.

In Detail:

The original iPhone running all versions up to and including the latest 1.1.4 would connect to BMW’s bluetooth perfectly and then all your contacts would appear on the iDrive display for you to scroll through or better yet voice-dial if you had that as a factory option.

I have just downloaded and installed iPhone 2.0 onto my original iPhone (yes 1 day early so it might not be the official version i know – it’s showing as version 2.0 5A347) and went out to the car (2006 BMW E60 M5) to check the compatibility with my iDrive via bluetooth.

I really wasn’t expecting there to be a problem, since BMW actively advertise they are working in partnership with Apple to make the iPhone integrate with iDrive and since there’s not been any hardware change as it is my original iPhone that has always worked with iDrive from v1.1.2 to v1.1.4.

BMW also sell the iPhone snap-on adapter for the iPhone (see this earlier post: Official BMW iPhone snap-in adapter / cradle [PICS]) so it’s in their interest to ensure the iPhone remains compatible with iDrive.

I turned on the ignition and at first I thought I’d have to pair up the phone again having had to update the software and restore a previous backup. To my surprise when I checked in the Blueotooth menu on the iPhone, all my old paired devices were still there and sure enough it connect to the BMW bluetooth automatically. I waited until the signal meter appeared along the bottom of the iDrive screen showing the pairing was successful and then I opened up the iDrive communication page to list my A-Z of contacts and they all appeared…briefly!

After my initial relief that iPhone 2.0 didn’t “break” anything in the way of BMW iDrive to iPhone contact syncronising, I slowly realised that the initial list it shows is a cached version from the last time the phone was connected and then the little clock timer appeared indicating it was searching the phone for new/modified/deleted contacts to refresh it’s cached copy. After about 20 seconds it was done and I was presented with a BLANK A-Z, it had wiped them all off the iDrive.

I powered the car off, powered the phone off, powered them both back on, let them pair and sync and still nothing. The iDrive was reporting that there were NO contacts on the iPhone that it could see. I check the iPhone to verify I’d not been an idiot and told iTunes not to sync contacts but they were all there (600+), in the nice new Contacts icon on the home screen with the new search feature.

I decided to start from scratch and removed the pairing from the iDrive bluetooth menu and from the iPhone bluetooth menu. Then I began the setup new phone procedure on the iDrive to connect my iPhone as though it was a new one. iDrive went into bluetooth visible to all devices mode, iPhone found the BMW bluetooth, paired, asked for passcode, 0000 on iPhone, confirmed 0000 on iDrive and connected.

It showed a “Please wait…” message along with that damn annoying clock timer icon again as it browsed the iPhone to suck all the contacts out of it. It returned NOTHING. The A-Z was empty. I tried voice-dialing from the BMW voice dial button, feature not available.

When the phone rings for an incoming call it shows the you number on the iDrive display but doesn’t link it with the name in the contacts. If you have the iPhone in your pocket and want to call somebody, unless you’ve received a call from them recently so that they’re in the iDrive recent received list you’re going to have to get the iPhone out your pocket, unlock and find the contact the old fashioned way.

This is really bad news for those in the UK and other countries where not only talking on a mobile whilst driving is illegal, but where even touch your mobile whilst driving carries fines and penalty points. I’ve gone from being fully legal with hands-free voice dialing to illegal overnight, thanks Apple!

Please use the comments section below to post your findings stating your car model and year plus your iPhone version. If you have other cars that sync the contact list (Mercedes? Audi? etc) then post your results for them to for others to see.

UPDATE (14 July 2008) - The following is an extract taken from BMW’s official website, I’ve taken a time-stamped PDF copy (download here: PDF copy of BMW website stating iPhone address sync) just in case they ever try to deny they said address book sync’ing would work:

It’s the kind of innovative forethought you expect from BMW: the Apple is compatible with most BMW models from day one. The communication and music functionalities of the Apple iPhone can easily be operated with the in-vehicle control elements and displays.
All you need besides the Apple iPhone to make a call, listen to music or access your address book in a BMW is the USB/audio interface and a suitable mobile phone preparation with Bluetooth interface. Enjoy your Apple iPhone and your BMW in parallel, for the sheer pleasure of both worlds.

iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc.

After 9 days with my Macbook Air I’ve returned to the shop to ask for a replacement.

I noticed a few dark pencil thin marks appearing on the trackpad button and just wiped them away with my thumb. But they kept reappearing in the same place and getting more and more visible and also creeping onto the palm rest area too.

The marks are being caused by the top edge of the screen surround / bezel scratching the lower trackpad and palm rest areas when the case is closed and there appears to be a noticeable mark appearing on the edge of the bezel too.

I have also noticed that my trackpad button isn’t level in the case, the left edge sits lower than the right edge and consequently the right edge is getting more damage from the screen than the left.

My local Apple reseller have asked me to return the unit with box and all the bits on Monday when the area manager is around, I hope for a complete replacement considering the machine is 9 days old today.

I’ve had a quick search on the web and there doesn’t seem to be anybody else reporting this fault so hopefully its just a one off faulty unit and not a design fault across the Macbook Air range.

UPDATE (3rd March 2008):
I have just had my Macbook Air replaced without any questions. Becuase it was less than 2weeks old they were able to return it to Apple as DOA (Dead on Arrival) and issued me with a new MBA on the spot. I’ve not opened the new one yet but will be sure to report back here if the same thing happens with the replacement.