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The Nike + iPod on iPhone 3GS is pretty slick.  Since it is an official Apple App, it gets the benefit of backgrounding.  This means you can respond to SMS, take a quick picture or video and even Twitter without interrupting your workout progress.  However, taking calls while in a Nike + iPod workout does indeed pause the workout according to Apple.

One of the more interesting things about Nike+ on the iPhone is that you can control the music with the Apple headphone remote.  You can pause, skip, rewind, adjust volume and even run Voice Control to find out what song is playing!  The only unfortunate thing about the Voice Control is that when it finishes, the song remains paused even though the workout is still running.  To fix, just pause the workout with the remote and resume with one more tap.  You’ll hear both the music and a confirmation that the workout has resumed.

I couldn’t help thinking how cool it would be if this product added GPS tracking similar to iMapMyRun.  The Nike site already supports routes, but they must be entered manually.  The accuracy of GPS plus stride tracking would be killler!  Here’s to version 2.0-

The notoriously slow, but heavily used, bulk email service MyEmma took a rather bland nosedive this afternoon.

The service is temporarily unavailable.
We're sorry, our service is temporarily inaccessible.
We are working hard to remedy the situation and hope to have access restored soon.

37 Signals takes a low-key approach to their error screen when search files in Basecamp.  My interpretation- “Eh, it’s down- try again later.  Please don’t bug us.”

Search is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again in 5 minutes.
If this continues for an extended period of time please let us know. Thank you.

Apple has posted a handy support note: “Tips and Tricks when using Voice Control”-

Using the microphone

- Use the built-in microphone or the microphone on the headset. Bluetooth headsets are not supported for Voice Control

- For best results when you’re using headphones with a built-in microphone, let the cord with the built-in microphone hang freely. Avoid holding the cord with the microphone or bringing it closer to your mouth. When the headphones are in your ear and the cord dangles freely, the microphone is in the optimum position.

- For best results when you’re using the built-in microphone on iPhone 3G S, hold iPhone like you were on a telephone call. If holding it in front of yourself, you can hold it up to 12 inches with the built-in microphone facing you.

- If you are using a carrying case and experiencing some issues with Voice Control, the microphone may be blocked. Try removing the carrying case.

When to speak

- After you press and hold the Home button, you will be prompted by an audible tone to speak a command.

- Always wait until the prompt is complete before you start speaking. Any words you speak while iPhone is giving the prompt will be ignored.

- Be ready to speak when the beep has completed.  Long pauses may cause unexpected results.

For voice dialing

- Some short names may be too similar and may be hard to distinguish by themselves. For best results with these kinds of names, try saying both the first and last name.

- If you’re having difficulties getting iPhone to recognize a particular name, try editing the contact, tap Add Field, and add a unique nick name.

- Avoid possessive names. Instead of saying “call Frank’s mobile” try “call Frank on his mobile.”

For music playback

- You can play all songs in an album, playlist, or by an artist. iPhone 3G S will not recognize commands to play a particular song.

- If you can’t get iPhone to recognize the album or artist name, try telling it to play a particular playlist.

- If an artist has “The” in the name, make sure you say it.

Erica Sadun has posted a simple, nerdy method for checking the availability of the iPhone 3.0 firmware.  The idea is to grab the XML returned from the iTunes iPhone software check. 


curl -s -L http://phobos.apple.com/version |\
grep -i restore |\
grep ‘_3.’ | open -f


To understand the output, you need to know which model you’re looking for.

iPhone- 1,1
iPhone 3G- 1,2
iPhone 3G S- 2,1

iPod Touch- 1,1
iPod Touch 2G- 2,1

When I see this- I know I’m golden:

iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

[via TUAW]

I captured this festive photo at the Wollman Rink on Monday night.  Looks a lot more like summer than an ice skating rink.

These photos were taken on bike trip to the George Washington Bridge.  What a beautiful Sunday!

I got this great error page over at bit.ly today.  Perhaps it is possible to shorten URLs too much?

Sorry to interrupt your show, but there seems to be a problem.

If you’ve been wondering how to disable the Exchange serve PIN requirement, here’s how to remove it. (at least partially)

1. Jailbreak

2. Use PhoneView to download /var/Managed Preferences/mobile/com.apple.springboard.plist

3. Edit the plist file and adjust settings as needed:


<key>PolicyInformation</key>
<dict>
<key>maxFailedAttempts</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>maxInactivity</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>minLength</key>
<integer>7</integer>
</dict>


4. Use PhoneView upload and overwrite com.apple.springboard.plist

5. Reboot your phone

6. Go into Settings.app and turn autolock and pin off

Note: The KillExchangeLocks application from Cydia does not appear to work.  Some people have pointed to a tightening of Apple’s security policies as the reason.  The app hasn’t been updated since the fall of 2008.

The plist is automatically updated approximately once per day, so I’ll be looking into a cron-based solution soon.

On my system, only the “passcode required” value seems to reset.  I don’t mind a 4-hour lockdown.  It seems like a reasonable amount of security.  This is much better than the 1 minute interval I was stuck with and now I can actually keep my screen from auto-locking when I use SlingPlayer.

Some fun WolframAlpha searches:

When were you born?

Are you self-aware?

Are you Skynet?

Easter eggs?