Tag: hardware

Categories
Rant

Rant: Apple Broke My AV Cable

My AV Cable
My AV Cable

A few weeks ago I bought an unofficial AV cable for my iPod Touch (2g) on Ebay.  I used the cable several times and it worked out just fine.

Now I find that – since the update to os3.0 (WHICH I PAID FOR – don’t get me started) – the cable doesn’t work any more.  The video cuts out after a few seconds (the audio continues) but a warning pops up on my iPod saying that it’s not supported.

Very annoying.  I’ve found several mentions of this online but nobody seems to be making a fuss.

I suppose there are 2 options

  1. This was broken accidentally, in which case there might be a fix in the upcoming 3.1 release
  2. This was broken accidentally, in which case it’s another step on Apple’s campaign to shut out third party accessory manufacturers, as seen with the recent iPod Nano headphone debacle

As a reluctant iPod convert I’m trying to love the big Apple, but incidents like this make it much harder.  I’ve considered buying an “official cable” but at over 4 times the price I feel that i’m being forced to buy something I don’t need.

And I’ll be clear that I blame Apple for this, not the guys who sold it to me on ebay.

Categories
General iPod

Ipod Update: I Jailbroke my iPod

Freedom (Image by Dazzie D)
Freedom (Image by Dazzie D)

I love my gadgets but I always want that extra bit of freedom with them.  I unlocked my Wii so that I could play games not supplied by Nintendo and I’ve had a hankering to do the same for my iPod touch.  I don’t like having restrictions on what i can install on something which I own so I took the opportunity of my )S3.0 upgrade to execute the Jailbreak.

It was relatively painless.  I used the software supplied by the DEV team and it was straightforward.  The part that took me the longest was finding the downloaded formware which i’d bought from Apple.  Once that was located it was plain sialing, apart from the complicated set of keypresses to reset the iPod (there’s a walkthrough in the software).

So what can i do now that I couldn’t before?  Not a whole lot, as of yet.  I have a new “app store” called Cydia and I have a nice bookshelf background to my home screen.  Few of the applications I’ve found so far are that exciting apart from MxTube, a YouTube video downloader which is coming in handy.

I’ll be investigating the possibilities and will keep you all (I’m talking to you Google-bot, my one and only reader) up to date.

Categories
Review

Something New is Coming

G1
G1

Well technically it arrived last week.  My phone contract came to an end and I called up to see what my options are.  I’ve had a qwerty keyboard on my past 2 phones and really like it so I’ve plumped for a T-Mobile G1.  I’m not sure what I think of it so far.  I’m enjoying geting used to it but I feel that it’s still in “beta” – not quite finished. Anyway, we’ll see what happens