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One feature missing from the iPhone and iPod Touch is Flash support for MobileSafari. Go to a page with an embeded YouTube video on it and all you get is a broken plugin icon. iTransmogrify! is a browser bookmarklet that allows embedded YouTube videos to play in the native YouTube player on the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can see it in action in the video above. Until Flash is officially supported, this is the best way to view embedded YouTube videos.

I never posted here when I got my iPhone for some reason. But now I’m on my 2nd iPhone and guess I should take the opportunity to talk about it.

After Apple’s last major announcement, I was sold on the iPod Touch. I’ve written here before about my decision to not go with the iPhone but the Touch was perfect for me. Everything I wanted in the iPhone without changing cell phone providers. A few weeks later, the iPod Touch’s were released and I was one of the first ones out of my local Apple store with one. The iPod Touch was the sexiest piece of hardware I have ever owned. After a few days of using it, I wanted more. WiFi access wasn’t enough, I need always on access. All of a sudden the newly price dropped $399 iPhone was attractive. After a day of getting up the courage to switch carriers, I went to the Apple Store and returned my 16GB iPod Touch for a new 8GB iPhone.

Within a few hours, I had hacked the iPhone and enjoying 3rd party software along with my now always on access, Mail and other goodies like hacked ringtones that the iPod Touch didn’t support. A week later, Apple release iPhone firmware version 1.1.1 and knowing it would kill my 3rd party apps, I installed it ASAP. For me, the 3rd party apps were a work in progress at best. There were a few apps I liked but none I couldn’t live without. Even today I don’t feel I’m missing out especially with Apple announcing official 3rd party support in February. Hopefully native apps for IM and Twitter will finally be a reality.

Enter my 2nd iPhone. A friend of mine who bought an iPhone at the same time I did, was having issues with “negative blacks”. He pointed me to a website that tested for this and sure enough, I was affected too. Most stuff was OK, but movies like 300 really showed the problem. I wasn’t in too much of a rush to get my iPhone replaced so I waited a few weeks until I was going to be at the Apple Store again, for the release of Leopard.

Before the Apple store closed to prepare for Leopard, I made a Genius Bar appointment and had them look at my iPhone. I showed him appleservedup.com on my phone, he checked his and I had a new phone within a few minutes. I checked the site for blacks and dead pixels before I left and everything was perfect. Now I can finally apply my Invisible Shield thats been waiting patiently for me.

Using iPhone and your Gmail account? Then you have certainly noticed the annoying phenomenon of your send messages showing up in your iPhone Inbox. Luckily, I have seen this problem before with my Blackberry and was able to fix it. Unlucky for you, there is no fix for this on the iPhone. I repeat, THERE IS NO FIX.

Apple has a support document which outlines this problem and how to fix it here. This only fixes part of a bigger problem. First we need to understand what Recent mode is. This is right from Google’s Help page:

If you’re accessing your Gmail using POP from multiple clients, Gmail’s recent mode makes sure that all messages are made available to each client, rather than only to the first client to access new mail.

Recent mode fetches the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether it’s been sent to another POP client already.

If you use multiple Email clients, then Recent Mode is a must and you will want to keep it on. For argument sake, lets say you only access Gmail POP from your iPhone. Turning off Recent Mode will fix one problem, and only one. Sent Email from your iPhone ONLY will not show up. Emails sent from other POP clients and the Web interface still show up in your iPhone’s Inbox.

This happens due to the way threaded conversations work in Gmail. With a Blackberry, you can set up a BIS Filter for all emails with your address in the from field to not forward to the Blackberry. We have no such luxury with the iPhone since it doesn’t support filters. And don’t listen to the people who say to create a filter in Gmail to delete your send messages. It will prevent the emails from showing up but the messages will get emptied from the Trash after 30 days and threaded conversations will no longer be useful.

As of now we have a few half-assed workarounds that degrade Gmail functionality. So unless Apple updates the iPhone with an internal filter when using Gmail or Google releases full IMAP support, us Gmail/iPhone users are stuck with this.

Decisions, decisions. Apple revamped their entire line of iPods yesterday and introduced a new model, the iPod Touch. The iTouch, as I call it, is the iPhone, without the phone. To me that translates to “everything I wanted in the iPhone without losing my Blackberry and switching carriers”. And speaking of the iPhone, they officially discontinued the 4GB model in favor of the 8GB model, then lowered the price by $200. iPhone now costs $399 which is very attractive but also at the $399 price point is the new 16GB iPod Touch.

iPod Touch:
I haven’t been this excited for a product in awhile. In a previous post I stated I would pass on the iPhone. My dependance on my Blackberry and switching to AT&T were really my only reasons not to purchase one. Otherwise I thought the iPhone was amazing. Now Apple has all the amazing without any of my worries. Without a doubt, I’ll be picking up the iPod Touch the day its released. I went as far as to pre-order it from Apple.com last night but when I seen they charged me sales tax, I said screw it and I’ll just pick one up at an Apple store when they are available. I’m all about instant gratification. Its just my luck that the only product that wasn’t in stores already was the iPod Touch. Apple’s site says it ships by Sept. 28th. That’s along time to wait when you want something today. That’s around the same time the T-Mobile Blackberry Curve is rumored to be released so I should have some new toys to play with at the end of this month.

iPod Nano:
The Nano’s got a major overhaul with a new design, interface and video support. Unfortunately it seems the Nano is the sleeper product of the day being overshadowed by the Touch and the iPhone price drop. If the Touch wasn’t released, I would have ran to the store to pick up a new Nano without a second thought. $199 gets you a 8GB Nano that plays video. That’s epic.

Afterthoughts:
The 2-3 week wait for the iPod Touch is actually good for me. It will give me time to sell off my G1 Nano and my AppleTV to make room for the new iPod. My decision to sell my AppleTV stems more from my currently living situation than the new iPods. My HDTV has died and only have access to an SDTV so the AppleTV will do nothing more than collect dust for the next few months. With the Xbox 360’s support for SDTV, h264 and the help of Connect360 for my Mac, I don’t lose much from not having my AppleTV. Don’t worry little AppleTV, we may one day meet again.apple

Beta 2 of Opera Mini 2 was released yesterday with a nice list of enhancements:

• Added encryption
• Added multi search, with shortcut #+9
• Added create search from form field
• Added landscape mode, shortcut #+*
• Added support for small anti-aliased bitmap fonts
• Added content folding
• Simplified setup process
• Improved image quality
• Improved fit to width mode rendering
• Simplified settings page
• Added native BlackBerry menu
• Allow BlackBerry to accept the EULA via the menu.
• Fixed decoding of images that were skipped when partially above the window
• Added clock adjustment setting
• Changing the font size via settings now clears the document cache
• Now saves full screen mode between sessions
• Dialogs are now displayed with round corners and alpha channel overlay windows
• Delayed randomess gathering for secure connections until first real page request

What caught my eye the most was the improvements made to its Blackberry support. I had tried beta 1 and was pretty unimpressed. It was clumsy, slow and hard to use so I deleted. With specific support for Blackberry devices, I decided to load up beta 2 on my BB Pearl and give it another chance.

Blackberry Changes
Right off the bat I was loving the changes. It now behaves like any Blackberry app should. The Menu button actually brings up the menu!! Previously you had to use the QW and OP buttons to access the menus. It was frustrating at best. They did a great job of making use of the Menu, Back and Trackball in the new version.

Landscape mode
As I segway from the changes for Blackberry devices, the 2nd change I was most excited about was the landscape mode. As soon as I loaded up the8thsign.com in Opera, I was hitting #+* every way I could. Nothing I did would get landscape mode to work. I must have spend 15mins using every possible key combination and still nothing. Looked under settings and no Landscape mode listed there either. So it looks like it its not enabled on Blackberry’s for some reason. Disappointing.

Other Features
Some of the nicer new features include using the 2-3-6-8 buttons to navigate around the webpage. This may have been in beta 1 but I don’t remember it being this easy or fun to navigate. When moving side to side, its even smart enough to stop at edges of text and pictures even if its only a few pixels away. Another feature I’ve noticed is that text will be reformatted to fit your screen, even when viewing the full page and zoomed in.

Most transitions are now made with a iPhone like slide effect. In most places its very smooth but gets choppy when zooming out of a page.

Also new to this version is a OS X like hud for shortcuts and info. To see what I’m talking about, hold down the * or # buttons for a few seconds. They also use this new interface for displaying link information.

Conclusion
Beta 2 is a HUGE improvement for Opera Mini 4, especially on Blackberry Devices. Why they didn’t include landscape mode on Blackberries puzzles me but hopefully it will show up in beta 3. Getting around webpages is fast and fun. I just wish there was some way you could set it as your default browser but RIM doesn’t allow that. Hopefully in BB OS 4.3. My only complaint is the full screen view looks very distorted. It maybe due to the small screen size but the iPhones full screen mode looks amazing. If you have a Blackberry, download the beta and check it out. You can get it for free by going to http://mini.opera.com/beta from your phone.

Apple’s long awaited iPhone was released yesterday after much hype. From most of the reviews I’ve been reading, it lives up to the hype too. Even with all the glowing reviews, I’m going to pass on the iPhone, for now atleast. My dependance on my Blackberry is enough to keep me away. I currently have a Blackberry Pearl and I’m still In love with my phone after 9 months. Its coming up on having the phone for a year so I’m itching for a new phone but the iPhone’s lack of Exchange or OWA support makes it a deal breaker to me. I’m definitely jealous of anyone who has an iPhone but I can’t justify paying $600 to lose a feature I depend on so much.

On a side note, its been confirmed that a 2nd gen Blackberry Curve will be coming to T-Mobile in September. I will be getting this phone once its released for sure. New features in the updated Curve include:

• Wi-Fi
• 3.2MP camera
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Improved build quality

As long as I’m at my current job, I’m going to be sticking with a Blackberry but damn do I want a iPhone.

One of features I can’t wait for with the Apple iPhone is the visual voicemail feature. I’m a notorious caller dodger and add the fact that I do not get cell service in my house, voicemails add up fast. I’ll usually check my messages and see i have 15 VM’s and have to listen to all of them if I just want to hear a few.

Callwave has a free product that replaces your cell phone provides voicemail with there own. This allows you access to each voicemail individually. You can still access it like your regular VM from your phone but you can also access voicemail’s through their webpage or have them delivered right to your inbox. My personal favorite? The OS X Dashboard Widget. I can see who called and when; listen and delete emails all directly from the widget.

Its a free service and its easy to setup on your phone. Took me all of 5 minutes to setup on my phone and everything is seemless. Even pressing the voicemail button on my phone brings me directly there.