Tag Archives: iOS

Apple Support

Apple, Essay, Internet, News, Opinion, Rant, Reblog, Technology, Welcome to the Future, , , ,

Apple Support Rocks

Saturday March 27 approximately 1:00 PM … sanity is restored

It may be a while before this posts, that is, between now and when I finish it.

In my previous post I commented: Arthur C. Clark once said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” except when it f*ck$ up, then it is like a curse from Marie Laveau. (I added the Marie Laveau bit)

Note: My friend also updated his iPhone 6s Plus and thought it went without a hitch. HOWEVER he just discovered that his App Store app is gone. He just called Apple Support and was told that he needed wipe his iPhone and and restore from scratch. Based on my experience there may be another approach but after three days of this I told him I would help him another day. That will be another blog post. UPDATE – my friend had set up Settings > General > Restrictions to turn off access to the App Store and that is why the App Store app disappeared. Sadly he only discovered this after resetting his phone to factory default … TWICE.

Based on personal evidence I conclude that the iOS 10.3.2 upgrade is flawed. I now extremely reticent to upgrade my other devices. 

Additionally I still don’t have all of my ringtones back. I now have most of them but not all. It may be less frustrating to just buy them again if I really want them. You see ringtones are entirely different from music or apps (or iBooks?) purchased from iTunes. Perhaps they are a throwback to the early days of cellphones. Ringtones cannot re-downloaded after purchase. It is a onetime thing. Backing them up requires syncing your iPhone to iTunes on a PC or Mac. I only got back the ones I did through the effort of upper level Apple iTunes Support.

My problem with this entire debacle is that I am so spoiled when it comes to Apple. I expect these kinds of issues with Windows and Linux. With Apple I expect it to “just work”. It always has for me. This time – for me – it failed to “just work.”

Anyway … back to Apple Support … throughout this entire ordeal every Apple Support person I have dealt with from Tier One to Upper Levels has been gracious, calm, and absolutely committed to resolving my issues. I don’t expect technology to function flawlessly at all times (Apple excluded – as I said I’m spoiled), but what do appreciate are companies dedicated to having happy customers. Apple certainly qualifies in this regard. Attention Tim Cook – you should be very proud of your support team.

Hell week continues

Apple, Essay, Internet, News, Opinion, Rant, Technology, Welcome to the Future, , ,

Oh for the good olde days 

 
Maybe Jim Stafford had it right …

     Well, I think of that girl from time to time

     I call her up when I got a dime

Or maybe a cocoanut telegraph?

Arthur C. Clark once said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” except when it f*ck$ up, then it is like a curse from Marie Laveau.

 •  •  •  •  • 

Re-configuration continues slowly and methodically. Now I need to call Apple to figure out how to get all of my ring tones back. Mañana. I’m going to bed early tonight.

iPhone Hell Continues

Apple, Internet, News, Rant, Stuff, Technology, Welcome to the Future, , , ,

And so it goes 

In order for my iPhone to see my Apple Watch I had to reset it to factory settings and now begin the task of reconfiguring it back to the way I liked it. I was on phone with Apple until 2 AM last night.

Now I begin the task of remembering, downloading, and reconfiguring every <expletive deleted> app on my iPhone and Apple Watch. Setting up email and remembering or changing passwords. Not how I had planned my day.

One thing is certain … my iPhone and watch will be leaner and meaner.

 UPDATE – I am installing the latest Apple Watch version now (might as well there is no reason not too)

iOS 10.3.2 Trashed My iPhone

Apple, News, Rant, Stuff, Technology, Welcome to the Future, ,

WARNING – RANT ALERT

The latest iOS 10.3.2 update has completely trashed my iPhone 6s Plus and by “trashed” I mean blasted it back to factory settings. I spent over five hours in online chat and phone calls with Apple support working between my iPad, MacBook, and iPhone. Only now do I have a semi working iPhone.

Here’s what happened – I set my iPhone up to upgrade to iOS 10.3.2 at about 6 PM before walking next door to have a beer (or two) with the neighbors as we often do. When I got back expecting all to be OK, my iPhone was in continuous reboot mode. It would briefly display the logon screen then immediately flash to the spinning wheel icon before re-displaying the logon screen, over and over and over again. The only way to break the cycle was to connect it to my MacBook and follow the instructions in the links below (provided by support).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203899   and   https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201412

I finally got it to the point of restoring from a backup and after going through all of the steps and waiting for everything to restore, it eventually went back into continuous reboot mode again. I ended up starting over from scratch several times and even attempting a restore from a backup made two days ago. I eventually got all the way to the end and … continuous reboot mode … again.

Arrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh

So start over again, but this time set it up as new iPhone without doing a restore. Luckily all of my contacts, photos, iTunes, and notes are safely in iCloud and available on my other Apple devices. They also appear to be mostly available on my iPhone, but I still need to reconfigure my email settings, selectively download and reconfigure apps (most of which require logon ID and password configuration), reset and reconfigure my alarms, and set my icons back to where I like them. I had also saved many web pages as icons so I will need to reconstruct these as well.

I also need to reconnect my Apple Watch, Fitbit Scale, and on and on and on.

UPDATE – can not get my Apple Watch to connect

iTextEditors

Apple, Edits and Updates, Review, Technology, , ,

What do you use your iPad (or iPhone) for? 

Ever had a need to edit text files or code?

Brett Terpsta maintains a list of iOS text editors and features that is nothing short of phenomenal. Titled iTextEditors, this webpage lists each text editing app in a dynamically filterable matrix of features.

 

Touching (or clicking on) the app name opens a pop-up window with additional information not captured by the feature matrix. Touching the More info … link takes you to a review of the app.

  
  
I am currently using his page to decide which text editor(s) might be worth adding to my stable of apps. 🙂

http://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors/

Machines at War 3

Essay, Opinion, Technology, , , , , , , ,

MaW3

Do I look like a gamer? Look here. (Don’t answer that)

Ok, so I suck at First Person Shooters. Number 2 son calls me “the turret”.

But I do like head-to-head Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games. My friend and I used to enjoy playing each other on Command and Conquer Red Alert for iPad. That is, until we discovered MaW3. Without a doubt the best military RTS game, bar none, is Machines at War 3 by ISOTOPE 244.

20140803-212933-77373554.jpg

Available for iOS, Mac, and Windows on the iPhone and iPad App Store, Mac App Store, Steam, and directly from ISOTOPE 244.

I can’t say enough positive about this game. Don’t take my word for it. Read the review links at ISOTOPE 244. This is one amazing and phenomenal game. James Bryant has accomplished a tour de force. It is elegant, masterful, and flawless. It even plays well on a iPhone 5s.

If you like the RTS genre, please – please, check out MaW3.

And now back to skirmish mode … (Roger that Sir! Reinforcements, we need reinforcements. A ha ha ha ha, taste my laser! Oh the humanity.)

Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!

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UPDATE

Fixed by WordPress for iOS 4.0.2

Released 15 Apr 2015

I’m playing whack-a-mole

I’m playing whack-a-mole

WordPress for iOS

Is just like whack-a-mole

• • •

First: Dates saved based on Time Zone offset, so when ever I edited a post the time regressed. Eventually the date changed and all my links broke.

Then: I learned about scheduling. This was a workaround because I could change the date.

Next: WP released an update that fixed the time offset problem. I got used to future scheduling.

Then: The Preview functionality stopped working. It coincidentally stopped working about the time we all started getting Invalid Certificate warnings.

So: I found a workaround
https://contrafactual.com/2014/04/07/iphone-app-previewcert-error/

Now: I can no longer schedule posts for the future. All my posts are Immediate. The scheduling feature is what I use to space out my posts. The option is still there … It just doesn’t work. 😦

Scheduling

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Every cloud has a sliver lining

I’m not talking about the cloud, I’m talking about real clouds … metaphorically. Bad things can have positive aspects.

Someone stole all my wife’s credit cards. But I haven’t reported it because he’s spending less than she did.

OK, it’s an old joke. No one stole my wife’s credit cards.

The cloud in question is the problems I documented in previous blogs concerning the 3.9 release of Automattic’s iPhone App.

In learning to compensate for the timestamp issue, I discovered scheduling.

Now that 3.9.1 is out, I am using it heavily. I have already scheduled through TNW – Day 45 every Sunday into the future.

I can also schedule in the future, save, and preview seeing it exactly how it will be … without your ever seeing it until I have discovered every last typo (well in theory at least).

I am writing this at 10:30 PM CST (UTC -6) on February 12, but it will post as shown below.

20140212-223040.jpg

20140212-223058.jpg

20140212-223425.jpg

The Nudist War, iOS app 3.9.1, …

Blogging, Day 42, Edits and Updates, Fiction, Horror, HZV, News, Technology, The Nudist War, Zombies, , , ,

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
This issue has been fixed in 3.9.1

http://ios.wordpress.org/2014/02/12/wordpress-for-ios-3-9-1-released/
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

News

The WordPress iOS app 3.9.1 should fix the timestamp problem with updates, which appears to be an issue with local time vs UTC.

I won’t do any more updates to older posts until 3.9.1 comes out. Until then, if you are a new reader, you will need search on ‘Day 42’, ‘Day 43’, etc. to compensate for the broken links.

Once the 3.9.1 app release is out, I plan to repost Day 42, 43, 44 etc. with revisions starting at some current future date. I will leave the original posts in place for historical reference.

I have chosen The Nudist War as the title of the novel with Day 42 still the first chapter. I think that I will title the first post The Nudist War with subsequent posts titled TNW Day 43, TNW Day 43, TNW Day 44, etc.

I am also eagerly awaiting the March(?) release of iOS 7.1, which is anticipated to have better memory management and bug fixes for iPads and iPhone.

Other than troubleshooting the timestamp/date/URL issue on iOS app 3.9 and loosing my sanity, I have been work aggressively on TNW Day 54. As they say … the plot thickens. 🙂

cb

The Nudist War, TNW, Day42, HZV Copyright © 2013 by Christian Bergman, All rights reserved.

Posted Timestamp Issue to WordPress for iOS

Blogging, Edits and Updates, Technology, , , , ,

This issue has been fixed in 3.9.1

http://ios.wordpress.org/2014/02/12/wordpress-for-ios-3-9-1-released/

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

If interested you may follow at:

http://ios.forums.wordpress.org/topic/timestamp-regression-on-update?replies=1#post-11606