Archive for March 2009

 
 

Samsung Debuts Papyrus E-Book Reader

Samsung Papyrus

Samsung will be releasing a brand new e-book reader named Papyrus, it will be coming to Korea this June and is planned to be released in the UK and US at a later date.

The Papyrus is A5 paper sized and will come in a range of colors, including white, black, and seafoam green. It will have a touchscreen, stylus, and 512MB of memory for storing books or other documents.

Pricing hasn’t been confirmed but rumors are ball parking it around the $299 mark.

The Papyrus will not have Wi-Fi or EVDO and in my book that means it is worthless to me. Although I would probably read books if I owned an e-book my primary use for such a device would be to read articles on the internet. Reading it on a display without a backlight would aleviate a lot of eye strain. Obviously I could copy and paste articles into text documents to be transfered to the device but that would be terribly tedius compared to the Amazon Kindle’s web browser, and the Kindle only costs and extra $60.

Samsung Papyrus: touchscreen ebook debuts.

iPhone Recovery Mode

iPhone Recovery Mode

Let’s face it, the iPhone crashes sometimes, usually you can just hold down the lock button until “slide to power off” shows up and then hold down the home button, the app will force quit and everything will be fine. In rare circumstances you may need to hold down the home button and the lock button at the same time until the phone shuts itself down. But in incredibly rare occasions the phone will need a full restore, but sometimes the iPhone won’t even boot up, in this case you will need to put the phone into recovery mode.
To put your phone in recovery mode follow these steps:

  • Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed.
  • Disconnect the USB cable from the iPhone or iPod touch dock connector but leave the other end connected to your computer.
  • Power the device off, either how you normally would, or forcing it to power off by holding the lock and home buttons.
  • Press and hold the home button while connecting the USB cable to your device’s dock connector.
  • If you see the low battery screen wait about 10 minutes for the device to charge and then restart this process.
  • If you don’t see the above image continue holding the home button until you see the connect to iTunes screen. You may now release the home button.
  • iTunes should now display the following recovery message, if not quit and reopen iTunes. If you still don’t see the recovery message repeat these steps again.
    iTunes Recovery Message
  • iTunes will give you the option to restore from a backup, if you do a restore it is possible that the device will still experience the problems that got you into this recovery mode, but you can always redo this process and choose not to restore from a backup.

If you continue to receive errors after recovering your iPhone I would suggest deleting the most recent firmware file which can be found in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates (C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates\ in Windows) and repeating the process.

If you’re worried that using iPhone recovery mode will erase all of your data — never to be seen again — I suggest visiting iPhone and iPod touch: About backups. It’s a knowledge base article that lists everything that iTunes backs up from your iPhone or iPod touch.

DFU Mode

If you’re still having issues with your iPhone it might be wise to try reinstalling the firmware from DFU mode. DFU mode is a special mode in which the device doesn’t load “iBoot.” The screen will stay totally black in DFU mode and because iBoot is not loaded it is often used to downgrade firmware or load custom firmware created by various tools.

Because of the potential for bricking your device, I wouldn’t suggest installing anything but Apple-made firmware files.

To put your iPhone or iPod touch in DFU mode follow these steps:

  • Open iTunes
  • Connect the device to your computer.
  • Hold down the lock and home buttons for exactly ten seconds.
  • Release the lock button but continue holding the home button until your computer recognizes it.

Your device should be in DFU mode, If the connect to iTunes screen is present than you are in recovery mode, not DFU mode. From here you can recover the device and hopefully fix any problems that may exist.

The Boy Genius Gets More Information on the Next Generation iPhone

AT&T LogoThe Boy Genius Report is usually pretty reliable and has this to say regarding the upcoming iPhone (along with some other hardware).

We can’t tell you where or who, but pretty high up in AT&T’s food chain, the following was reported to be said:

  • New iPhone announcement around mid-June (duh)
  • New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience unmatched by any device (could be just talking about 3.0, but we think it’s also a new iPhone)
  • U-Verse iPhone application; will allow control of your home DVR (play, pause, rewind, etc.)
  • The annual iPhone launch is “becoming a tradition.”

The boy Genius also says “The $99 3G netbook will start selling this summer, and the first one won’t be a Windows OS.” A 3G netbook would blows my mind, but what OS is it going to run? Many would probably be lead to believe that it is going to be an Apple made netbook (based on the context of the post linked below) but it is much more likely to be a Linux or Android based netbook. I want an Apple netbook just as much as the next guy but I just don’t see it happening this soon.

AT&T: New iPhone will be hot, son : Boy Genius Report.

Update 6/2/09: The Green Room has posted a single image with a rundown of every 2009 iPhone rumor. A great reference for what to expect on Monday

Update 6/10/09: The new iPhone is officially announced, it is called the “iPhone 3GS.” It is faster and does have a more seamless experience. WWDC Keynote 2009.