Sep 20
more iphone fun
the iphone and i have so much fun together. last week, in a bold attempt to upgrade to iOS 4.1, i discovered that my phone is no longer able to back up data. it takes about 2 hours before the progress bar on itunes gets stuck 3/4 of the way. both PC and Mac yield the same results. took a trip to the apple store where the lady informs me that the OS is corrupted and i need to wipe out my phone and start over. since i cannot back up data, that means everything will be gone. after the initial shock, i desperately try to find a way to export my contacts so i at least have something left. after trying out several methods through itunes and failing, finally found an app that exports my contacts. the plan was to do the wipeout after the weekend.
side story: friday night, due to a bit too much alcohol consumption, my phone dropped out of my pocket at some point without me noticing. sat morning, a frantic YT was without a phone. i tried to recall the times during the night when i still had the phone. since i have no landline, i used gmail to call my phone but no one picked up. a few hours later, my dad emails me to tell me i lost my phone. of all the ways, i never would've guessed this is the way i'd find out where my phone was. someone found my phone and called "home" and reached my parents. wow. took a bit of coordination through my parents for the phone finder to get in touch with me but eventually, the phone was returned to me. the good thing is i got my phone back. the bad thing is i'm still stuck with this lovely phone.
continuation of first story: went to the apple store, wiped out the phone. now i must manually enter all my contacts into my phone. let's see how 3g + iOS 4.1 pans out.
fun fact of the day: there is no reception at the SF apple store (and the lady even acknowledged the problem)
Jul 13
the iphone saga
because i didn't get the memo that 3g + iOS4 = suck, i foolishly upgraded my iphone to the newest OS. let this be a lesson to 3g owners, do not do it. after a few weeks of using this slow device, where things like launching the camera takes 5 seconds, i went into the apple store for advice. the lady told me to wipe out my phone and restore as new. unfortunately, the backup i created did not seem to capture any data on my phone. thus, after the wipe out, i was left with no data on my phone. and it was still slow. luckily, there was a backup saved from a month ago when i upgraded to iOS4, thus my phone was able to restore to one month ago.
oh it does not stop there. next plan of attack was to downgrade the phone. found some instructions online and attempted the downgrade. after a few tries, it always restored my phone to iOS4, no matter what. it was quite baffling. luckily, my neighbor also attempted the same thing and instructed me on the one step that never seemed to work for me.
just when i thought i had successfully downgraded the phone (i was on the last step!), i see this warning screen:
i install this so-called LibUSB. alright, last step: launch RecBoot, click "Exit Recovery Mode". nothing happens! i click on it some more, nothing happens. there i am, my phone is dead. i try to restore again. it seems to be unresponsive. my neighbor had warned me that his computer had become unusable at one point as well. then i did what anyone does when encountering a dead device: restart
the computer boots up. LAN adapter is dead. i launch iTunes, it tells me something is wrong with the audio port. yes, all ports are dead. there i am, sitting with no phone, no computer, no connection to the outside world. heck, i can't even play music on my computer. thus i sat in silence and wallow in my iphone sorrows.
i didn't have anyone's phone number, i don't have a landline either. i was down to my last device, the BlackBerry i play around with for work. using gTalk, i figure out what i must do.
last step: system restore on PC. yes in order to downgrade the iPhone, you will at one point have to restore both the phone AND PC. WTF apple
after all that restoring, launch iTunes again, i see this:
HELL NO
buy an android
