Entries Tagged 'iPhone' ↓

Since I updated my iPhone 3G to 2.1, I’ve had the following issues:

- Occasionally: The phone goes into “Call Ending…” mode after a call is finished or “End Call” is pressed and doesn’t come out of that for some time.

- Rarely: Call is made but the screen is blank. As if you’ve held your hand in front of the proximity sensors.

- Often: GMail IMAP “Push” (15 minute pulls) doesn’t work. A manual kick (starting the mail app) is needed.

All and all, it’s made my iPhone less stable.

UPDATE: Gmail push/fetch has stopped completely after a couple of restarts. Here is a thread at Apple support forum on the iPhone 2.1 problems with email fetch/push.

I’ve been looking for a good push solution from Gmail/Google Apps to iPhone. Not necessarily the email push since I’m not really bothered with the 15/30 minute delay caused by pulling it (except its effects on the battery life), but having push for contacts and calendar events. Quite often I get someone’s mobile number and add it to my phone’s address book. Then I need to have that on another computer. At the moment, I have to sync my iPhone (iTunes) with Google contacts. Sync is always problematic. There are duplicates, and also if you have more than one sync client (like another PC or Mac) then you’re just asking for trouble. I quite like the MobileMe solution but don’t want to move all my contacts, emails since 1997 and calendar events to MobileMe just for this purpose. Plus, MobileMe does 15 minute syncs on PC and Mac instead of instant push (which it does on iPhone) and also it does not support custom domains (at least yet). I am quite happy with my Google Apps hosting for email, contacts and calendar and would like to see a real over-the-air sync solution from Google. Something like Exchange ActiveSync would be ideal, so you can see Google Apps like an Exchange server.

I know there are services like NuevaSync, but firstly they are in beta, secondly you will be exposed to the risk of their business going down (which is much more likely to happen compared to Google’s), thirdly they are still syncing with Google.

For now, lets just sign this petition: Push Email for Gmail

After using the new iPhone 3G for a week, I can say it definitely is the best gadget I’ve had so far. I’m not going to praise the user interface and functionally of the device, but I can think of two suggestions to make it even better:

1. Notification light: An indicator light on the device can be very useful. This can show if there are any emails, SMS or voice messages waiting on the phone. The best place for it? The white rectangle on the Home button can flash an Apple white.

2. GPS Quick Fix: Living in London, I’ve noticed that it take a long time for the iPhone to fix it’s position (find where it is) when I come out of the Underground (Tube, Subway, Metro,…). TomTom provides a software for its devices called QuickFix which downloads the predicted position of GPS satellites so the device can fix it’s position much quicker. For TomTom it means you have to connect it to a computer or use Bluetooth and a mobile to do the weekly download. With iPhone a small weekly download can happen on the background.