Kostadin Luchansky

Apple iOS 5 Caller ID issues on iPhone 4S, 4, 3GS (updated)

Dear Readers,

I have been experiencing this annoying & stressful bug for a couple of weeks now, since the late betas of iOS 5. I'm writing this post in order to find more people Worldwide, who are experiencing the same and exchange some ideas and thoughts in order to, eventually, find a solution. Please leave your comment below.

Summary: Incoming calls show up only as phone numbers, not with the caller's name. 

Steps to Reproduce: 

1) On your iPhone, save a person's phone number in contacts with the country's dialing code in front (+ZZZ-XX-YYYYYYY, where +ZZZ is the country code, XX is the carrier, YYYYYYY is the person's phone number); 

2) Make a call from that person's device/number to your iPhone; 

3) On your iPhone, while ringing, shows the above number without +ZZZ and without the person's name. 

Expected Results: No matter how the number is saved (as +ZZZ-XX-YYYYYYY or simply as XX-YYYYYYY) the caller ID should always show up, as in previous iOS editions. 

Actual Results: Caller ID does not work as expected and as in previous iOS versions. 

Notes: When I receive voice calls, the number comes in without the country dialing code in front, simply appears as XX-YYYYYYY (where the XX is the carrier code and YYYYYYY is the phone number) and the caller's name does not appear. In my address book all my contact's telephone numbers are preceded with the corresponding country dialing code, because i travel a lot. If I delete the country code from a contact's phone number, and that number calls me, then the person's name appears.

On the other hand, SMS's are OK, i.e. the Caller ID is linked to the phone number and shows up (because SMS's are receiver with the country dialing code in front of the phone number, p.ex. +244-XX-YYYYYYY)

I'm am in Angola (country code +244) using iPhone 4S, iOS 5, carrier: UNITEL (92). 

It has something to do with the Carrier Settings Update as in iTunes i get the error message 1630 which states that: "iTunes could not check for un update to the carrier for your iPhone. An unknown error occurred (1630)."

For some reason, iOS 5 is trying to match the number "as it is" instead of considering ONLY the last 9 digits.

UPDATE: Well, let's see - I have been reporting this in Dev Forum as well as over at Bug Reporter since Beta 4 of iOS 5 and yet this wasn't fixed when released to public. Now I'm updating to iOS 5.0.1 Beta today! Let's see if it is still a problem. Hope not! Will keep you posted. 

Thanks!

Good surprises in Lion Mail for Mac - Lion OS X has borrowed even more from iOS

Just discovered, occasionally, some more iPad & iPhone (iOS) functionality in Lion Mac Mail.

If you type in Portuguese but have no PT keyboard, you can correctly write the word "coração" just by pressing down the keys of letters "c" and "a" and consequently stroke on the keyboard the corresponding digit or select the correct character from the pop-up dialogue, just like in iOS.

Example: see the image below...

Click on Ã with the mouse or strike key 6

Great, hein?

 

How to install Mac OS X Lion on your other authorized Macs without downloading the 4GB App over and over again.

Do you have more than one Mac at home? Do you want to update all your Snow Leopards to Lions

Unfortunately, after you upgrade to Lion, the installer is deleted automatically and you have to re-download 4GB of data over the Internet again. Here in Angola with the low bandwidth speeds this is a huge pain in the a**.

But in less than 24hrs a guy figured out how to retrieve the Lion Installer App using Time Machine to create a bootable DVD. 

Here is how:  

Enter time machine and go to your .../Applications folder. Go back to a place in time & space between the time you finished downloading Lion from the Apple App Store and before you upgraded to Lion. There you will find a 3.6GB application called “Install Mac OS X Lion.app”. Select it and click on restore.

This will copy the file to the current point in time, a.k.a. today, inside the …/Applications folder.

Now follow these steps to burn the image:

1. right-click the Lion file and select “Show Package Contents” from the drop-down menu;
2. drill down, find and open the “SharedSupport” folder and locate a disc image file called “InstallESD.dmg”;
3. copy “InstallESD.dmg” to your Desktop. This is the Lion disk image and from it you’re going to create the bootable DVD; 
4. launch Disk Utility, pop in a blank DVD, select the “InstallESD.DMG” file, and click on “Burn”. Once completed, your bootable DVD should launch as a new volume on your desktop.

That’s it! You should now have a bootable install disk of OS X Lion to use on all of your authorized Macs! This is not illegal as Apple by default lets you buy Lion once for $29 and then download and install it on all your Macs.

Do make sure all the machines are trully yours!

 

Skype for iPhone gets video chat/calling, works over Wi-Fi + 3G and with computers.

Talk face to face with video on Skype

Share that spectacular sight... show off those new shoes... include others in the big event... speak to clients face-to-face... Now Skype for iPhone lets you get more out of the moment with friends, family and even colleagues.

With other Skype users you can:

• Make free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls over 3G and WiFi.
• Share video calls on Skype with people on iPhone, PC or Mac.
• Talk face-to-face or show what you're seeing with front- and rear-facing cameras.

Below is the official Skype video commercial...a bit too gay, but anyway:

 

 

"Find my iPhone" guides policemen to carjackers, successfully!

Via 9to5mac

A Wichita Falls, Texas Find my iPhone user shares his Christmas miracle:

Pretty amazing Christmas Story! Early this morning my 2005 Land Rover was stolen from the Marriott in Wichita Falls TX. The local police put me on hold, transferred me around and did nothing. My iPhone was in the car in between the seats and turned on. I tracked it using MobileMe Find My Phone to HWY 287 on the way to Decatur. When they exited the highway and headed on a Farm road for Justin TX a few miles away, I contacted the Justin Police and with the help of a very savvy operator we pinpointed the car at a Sonic. While I was on the phone with her, she said the officer sees your car and is going to make the arrest. A few minutes later she frantically calls me to start tracking the car again. The officer had handcuffed the suspects, sat one down on the curb while putting the other in the back seat. When he got back, the guy had Houdini’d the cuffs from behind his back to the front, fought with the officer and jumped in my car, dragged him and ran over him. I followed the car on the iPhone and directed the Highway Patrol to where he was – high speed chase ending with him flipping the Land Rover several times. The policeman is going to be fine – he is at the hospital with multiple bruises etc. The screenshot is where the car thieves ran over the policeman and escaped. I am just so thankful the policeman was not seriously hurt – I could care less about the car or the crook.

His story not only shows how helpful Find my iPhone is for finding your lost iOS device but also shows how helpful it can be for retrieving items like cars. If you read the account you will notice that a helping police officer was badly injured in the ordeal but he is now in stable condition. A double miracle. Here’s a video of the accompanying news report.

(Clarification: The news report incorrectly cites OnStar as the tracking service although it was really MobileMe according the user.)

Via 9to5mac