iPhone

With iTunes Match it got worse; I'd download an mp3 podcast and add it to iTunes. iTunes Match would immediately decide it was an unmatched song and upload it (very slowly) to iCloud. Then I wasn't allowed to change its type to Podcast or put it in a playlist with my other podcasts. I'd have to turn off networking until I could set its type to Podcast. Very annoying. I eventually turned off iTunes Match.

I don't think that RIMM can survive.

Well, somebody sold my cell phone number to the spammers. I'm starting to get two or three calls a day. I would really like the capabilities of iBlackList. This may finally be the issue that gets me to jailbreak my phone... at least after iOS 6 comes out. Apple could easily provide these capabilities, but my guess is that their carrier deals preclude this. I have to pay AT&T $5/month just to block 30 numbers, and they must be properly formatted ###-###-#### numbers, no VOIP fakes. I also cannot block or route straight to voice mail blocked or unknown callers. Very frustrating.

I need to find out if there is an untethered iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak out there that won't tax my brain. (Doing a lot of overtime at work these days; I don't need puzzles!)

google voice?

Wouldn't that mean that I'd have to change the number that I want everybody to call, and that anybody who has my true phone number already would still be able to direct call? Perhaps I misunderstood how Google Voice works.

[EDIT]

Looking at Google Voice, it seems to be a lot less than I remembered it as being. No filtering, no rules of any sort. Just a way to put another number in front of your own. I guess that would be good when somebody online insists on a phone number to order a product, but not in many other circumstances.

By the way, check out TrapCall.com. Since Caller ID blocking doesn't work on toll-free numbers, you can subscribe to their service and program your phone to forward rejected calls to their toll-free server. The server strips the blocking, and sends the call right back to you with caller's ID (and often street address) showing. The caller just hears a normal ringing phone while this is happening. For $5 a month I am going to try it and see some of the folks hassling me. Sadly, it won't work for callers who aren't part of the caller ID system. (VOIP, "Unknown", "Wireless Caller", etc.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2012 08:50AM by John Willoughby.

I don't know. I've heard good things about it, though.

It looks like I could get filtering in stuff, but only by transferring my cell phone number to Google for $20, cancelling my AT&T contract, getting a NEW AT&T contract with a new number, then setting up Google Voice to make my old number my "public" number and my new AT&T number the private number that it forwards to. Sounds tiresome, but at least it's possible.

Jailbreaking is simple. Or, at least, it used to be. What's the best method to jailbreak an iPhone these days?

those criteria et al seem different than when I previously looked into them. Sorry.

No, I think it does do all of the stuff I asked for, though they don't make it clear on the sign up page. I just don't want to transfer my cell phone number to Google to get this stuff. Or cancel my phone contract. Thanks for pointing it out.

Understood.
Now, I like to wonder why the USPS does not adopt similar services. I'd pay for things like a whitelist, blacklist, and a junk-mail filtering service as well. I would be up for $10-15 a month for such service. Perhaps have a website where I have one week to review senders thought to be junk, and approve them for the whitelist or such.

Well, I've jailbroken my iPhone, so presumably all of my personal data has been mailed to Brazil, and my bank accounts are being emptied as I type this. Nevertheless, I REALLY like iBlacklist. It's a one-time payment of $12, and it lets me do everything I want to. Shunt certain numbers to voice mail, blocked or unknown numbers to voice mail, hang up on some numbers, send any call with fewer than 7 digits to voice mail, all without an audible ring or vibrate. I LOVE this. Nuts to AT&T for charging $5/month to block up to 30 ten-digit-only numbers, and nuts to Apple for not providing these features from the start.

Pity about my bank accounts, though.

Everytime I see what phone tech does today, I harken back to PowertTalk by Apple.

Quote
El Jeffe
Now, I like to wonder why the USPS does not adopt similar services. I'd pay for things like a whitelist, blacklist, and a junk-mail filtering service as well. I would be up for $10-15 a month for such service. Perhaps have a website where I have one week to review senders thought to be junk, and approve them for the whitelist or such.

I think http://www.outboxmail.com/ is for you. It's only beta in Austin right now... hopefully that means I can try it soon.

Another secret tethering app on the App Store (for the moment).

Secret enabling instructions.

Anyone else having trouble with Siri or dictation recently? And by trouble I mean *lots* of trouble--as in, it hasn't worked for me at all in the last 24 hours, and for a few days before that it was very intermittent. It's not my internet connection, which is fine (or at least adequate) for other things. Getting very frustrated. I wouldn't mind the fact that dictation requires an internet connection if (1) the software did a better job of parsing what I said, and (2) the servers were more reliably available. (Siri just told me, "I'm really sorry about this, but I can't take any requests right now. Please try again in a little while." They'd better get this straightened out before the event next Wednesday.)

I wouldn't be surprised if back-end changes preparing for next Wednesday are part of the problem.

Could be. It's still frustrating, though, and indicative of the hazards of over-reliance on the cloud.

An addendum: Messages has been pretty wonky in general for the last couple of days. Yesterday half my messages didn't get delivered at all (again, my internet connection was fine); today, they're being delivered as text messages (green) rather than iMessages (blue).

Messages has been problematic for me. The messages I send and receive generally get where they're going on my sending device, but when my other devices update they tend to show all of my messages in one long stream, and then all the responses in one long stream. No time or date stamp.

The Lightning adapter for old 30 pin peripherals is $30. I don't often say this, but: Outrageous.

i'd say that too IF the cheap knockoffs were as good or better. but all mine suck (obviously I'm talking about older cables, not lightning since it's not out yet, nor knockoffs)