We basically decided to say queries until something went badly wrong, and I almost ran out of queries. I did:
[behavioral economist]
[ed felten dmca]
[fox theater redwood city california]
[time in beijing]
[39 centimeters in inches]
[answer to life the universe and everything]
[safebrowsing api safari firefox]
[custom made pinata] < – this got recognized as [old custom made pinata], but the search results were still fine
[google quality guidelines]
[sheraton hotel boston massachusetts]

I can’t promise that the voice recognition work as well for you, but I have noticed that the voice recognition has improved considerably since the mobile app first launched. If the recognition doesn’t quite understand your accent, I hope it will in the future. Give it a try though, because you might like it.

I picked up the new iPhone 3G S this Friday and I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts:

The Good:
- The iPhone 3GS is considerably faster than the iPhone 3G. Especially in the browser, you’ll notice pages render faster. JavaScript-heavy pages (such as the mobile web version of Gmail) execute much more smoothly. The iPhone 3GS feels less like an underpowered mobile phone and more like a powerful pocket computer that can keep up with its owner.
- The built-in video camera is very cool. I expect a corresponding spike in home videos. For example, here’s my cat Ozzie playing with a toy:

More seriously, within about five years, for any group of 10 or more people, at least a few will have a video camera built into their phone. That’s a very powerful trend in a lot of ways.
- I tend to agree with Michael Arrington that no one with an iPhone 3GS needs a Flip video camera now. Cisco bought Pure Digital Technologies, the makers of the Flip, for almost $600 million dollars about three months ago. That might prove to be good timing on Pure Digital’s part.
- Lots of small changes in OS 3.0 are quite nice, such as showing outgoing vs. incoming calls in the “Recents” list.

The Bad:
- Apple’s iPhone philosophy has always seemed to me to be about simplicity. The single button forced a constrained elegance on the iPhone’s interface. In providing some newer features, the iPhone 3G S feels less like an iPhone and more like someone shoveled in a lot of features. I didn’t really need copy/paste, and it seems to pop up at random inconvenient times: double-tap a word if you’re not in the browser; in the browser, hold your finger on some text. Except the copy handles don’t seem to show up on the web pages I want, and sometimes unwanted copy handles appear when I’m just scrolling with my finger.
- The iPhone 3GS is not the huge leap that the iPhone or the iPhone->iPhone 3G was. I do think that leaves some opportunities for Android, Palm, and other competitors.
- Battery life has been worse so far for me. I’ve been using the phone more and it’s only been a few days, so I’m not going to jump to conclusions on this yet. Apple also recommends that you let the phone run down completely at least once a month, and I haven’t done that yet. I expect that battery life will be better for most people.
- Not a great name; the “GS” part makes me think of Ghostscript. A few days ago, I would have said that the “iPhone Video” is a much better name, but it’s true that the speed bump is more noticeable than the video. I still think Apple could have come up with a better name than “iPhone 3G S” though. I’m sure someone who knows about Mercedes Benz cars knows the difference between the E class, the SLK class, or the GL 420 CDI, but most normal people don’t know what a bunch of letters and numbers mean.

The Ugly:
- On my previous iPhone (the 3G), the metal band around the front matched smoothly with the black plastic back. On the new iPhone 3GS, I can feel the seam where the band meets the plastic. On the front of the phone, when I flick my finger off the glass, I can feel the seam of the metal band there too.
- In my personal opinion, someone miscalculated in charging iPhone 3G owners $200 extra to upgrade. New iPhone 3G S customers pay $199 (16GB) or $299 (32GB); many early adopters would have to pay $399 (16GB) or $499 (32GB) to upgrade. The CPU speed bump and video abilities aren’t enough to counteract what many early adopters will perceive as a bit of a slap in the face. Last year, the line for the iPhone 3G at Valley Fair stretched outside the building most of the day. When I went to get my iPhone 3G S on the release day at Valley Fair this year, there was no line at all.

And remember that early adopters often give their previous phones to family members. In my case, two other relatives are taking our older iPhone 3G phones and moving from a different carrier to AT&T. By charging early adopters more, AT&T ensures that more people will hang on to their old phones instead giving them to other people, many of whom would then become AT&T/iPhone customers. By limiting the “trickle down” effect as older iPhones go to family members, AT&T is missing a chance to gain more marketshare by acquiring additional new customers.

I’ll be interested to see how Apple and AT&T react. AT&T has already allowed some (but not all) iPhone 3G owners to upgrade without paying an “early adopter penalty.” And Apple can move quickly and decisively when needed–remember the $200 iPhone price drop in 2007 just a short time after the iPhone was released? Of course, it’s possible that penalizing early adopters is all part of some four-dimensional chess game that Apple is playing. If Apple decides to terminate its exclusive U.S. deal with AT&T in a year or so, maybe it didn’t want a bunch of people signing up for two-year contracts this time around? Right now I’m puzzled by what appears to me to be a misstep, but the folks at Apple are smart, so I’d be willing to believe that Apple has good reasons for what they’re doing.

Should you upgrade? That’s something only you can answer. If you still have a non-smartphone or an original iPhone, it’s probably worth it. If you have an iPhone 3G (especially if you’re not eligible for the discounted upgrade yet), you might try OS 3.0 and see if that’s enough. I decided to get the 3G S and I’m glad that I did. I fill all sorts of idle moments with surfing, tweeting, and checking my mail. The iPhone 3G S makes all those activities much faster and more pleasurable. Overall I’m quite happy with my iPhone 3G S.

1. To get Google Mobile App on your iPhone, go to the App Store and search for “Google Mobile App,” or click on this link to install from a computer. If you have an older version of Google Mobile App installed, you might want to uninstall the older version before installing the newer version.
2. Voice recognition is turned off by default for non-U.S. users. To enable voice recognition, click on the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the screen and slide “Voice Search” to ON.
3. If you hold the iPhone up to your ear and don’t hear the “baBUM” sound to start talking, swing the iPhone down and back up to your ear. Sometimes a little wrist flick helps to tell the iPhone you want to search.
4. You can search things besides Google’s main web index. Do a regular query such as [daffodil pictures]:
   

   then press on the magnifying glass near the top left corner to bring up other options to search. By default you’re searching iPhone and Web, but you can also search Maps, Images, News, Shopping, or Wikipedia:

   

   Press an option like Images and the application will immediately redo the query:

   
5. If you want to go straight to the onscreen keyboard, you can tap the “Search” tab at the bottom of the screen twice.
6. Searching with the keyboard can be very handy. As you type, the application will suggest contacts, websites, previous searches, and related query suggestions:
   

   and do you see those query suggestions in the middle of the screen? You can slide/flick them to get more suggestions:

   
7. The “Apps” tab at the bottom of the screen is a one-stop shop to get to all your Google services easily, including Google Apps versions of services:
   
8. You can use Google Mobile App with multiple Google Apps accounts. In the Settings tab, click on Domain. Then you can add multiple domains, separated by commas.
9. Google has posted HTML documentation for Google Mobile App and also provides a Google Mobile Help discussion group.

Bonus tip #1: If the voice recognition is close, you can press on the green query in the search box to see other possible queries. For example, if you said [background gradients in css] and got this search query:

Notice that the query was recognized as “gradient” instead of “gradients” with an ’s’. So I pressed the green query and saw other possible queries:

My desired query was the second choice.

Bonus tip #2: If you want to understand what your cat is trying to say to you, start the voice recognition and just hold it up to their mouth as they meow. Then Google will try to convert the meow into regular English text. Thanks to Sean Harding for this tip.

Ready for another idea? This one is simple. Make an Android or iPhone app for people who need a taxi. Imagine: you’re in another city, and you just learned that from your hotel to dinner is not walkable. You’re standing on a street corner. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO!?

Answer: you fire up “Call me a Cab” on your app-enabled phone. Your phone automatically senses your location and (anywhere in the world) gives you 3-4 suggestions for local cab companies, with phone numbers. That’s the base functionality, but that’s still a huge step forward. When you’re standing on a street corner you don’t often have a page like this in front of you:

Now how would you make the app even better? In some places (like, say, these cities) the app would show you where the closest cab is, call it, and get an “estimated time of arrival” as you watch the cab get closer on a map. Something like this page, but on your phone:

How would you make money? Maybe you sell a premium version of the app that does more (more features, or checks for buses or other public transit nearby). Or maybe taxi/cab companies would be willing to advertise in the app just like they advertise in the yellow pages. Maybe you’re a taxi company and you offer this app for free to make your cabs more efficient or to build a brand (most people think of taxis as a commodity right now). And it doesn’t always have to be about the money, you know. Maybe you do it to build awareness about your software startup and unlock future opportunities down the line.

Once you get GPS + cool sensors + the ability to run an application on a phone, there’s a ton of exciting apps you could write. Sure you could find nearby friends, but why not write a GPS-enabled celebrity spotter? Or an “Am I Speeding Right Now?” app that you can use in your car.

If you need other good ideas, I recommend reading through Paul Graham’s list of suggested start-up ideas. I’m a big fan of #3 (finding “New News”), #13 (online learning), and #28 (fixing email overload). Or for that matter, just think about things around your house or business that are messy or annoying and solve that problem.

What applications do you like on the iPhone 3G?

The iPhone 3G still doesn’t work great for close-ups on very small stuff, but it seems to work well in the four to six foot range.

Buck up, fellow iPhone hacker. I’ll tell you how to upgrade from your hacked Apple phone and keep all the settings you love from your original iPhone. The good news is that it’s not hard and there’s a set of five steps that will combine the comfort of your old settings with the joy of the new 3G iPhone. I’ll lead you through the steps.

1. Upgrade iTunes and sync your old hacked iPhone

Upgrade to iTunes 7.7 (or whatever the latest version is). Plug your hacked iPhone into your computer and make sure that you sync. When you sync, a backup of your iPhone’s settings data is stored in iTunes. Recharge the power in your old hacked iPhone and turn it off. If you want to be ultra-safe, see my post about how to backup iPhone data.

2. Buy an iPhone 3G

This step is time-consuming, but not hard. Apple has a page for its stores and after 9 p.m. you can check the Apple iPhone availability to find a store that has the new iPhone 3G. Hint: if there are multiple stores in your area, call each to see which has the shortest wait. When you buy the iPhone 3G, you don’t need to mention to the salespeople that your previous phone was hacked. Just buy the iPhone 3G and let them activate the phone in the store.

3. Restore the backup of your hacked iPhone to your iPhone 3G

(If you decide to “start fresh” with your new iPhone 3G and don’t want to restore contacts, bookmarks, music, etc. from your old phone, skip this step.)

Resist the temptation to start immediately customizing your iPhone 3G. You’re just going to override any changes when you restore your old iPhone’s settings anyway. In particular, make sure you keep the passlock (where you have to type a PIN to unlock your iPhone) off for the time being. Go home and plug your new iPhone 3G into the same computer with iTunes 7.7 where you did a sync on your old iPhone. iTunes will ask if you want to register your iPhone. I registered my iPhone, but I don’t think it was necessary — looking back, I think iTunes asked me to register to get permission to send me email offers. Next, iTunes will ask if you want to try 60 days free of MobileMe. I didn’t want that, so I declined. Only after those two offers did iTunes ask if I wanted to set up the new iPhone 3G as a new phone or restore from a backup. The choice looks like:

Choose to restore from a backup and the last sync of your old hacked iPhone should be offered as a choice. Let iTunes restore the backup data and settings from your hacked iPhone to your new iPhone 3G. Once it’s done, pretty much everything should be like it was on your hacked iPhone. The iPhone 2.0 firmware adds some new options, so make sure you explore the settings menu and set any new options the way that you want. Also, if your iPhone is configured to fetch email, your email passwords on the new iPhone 3G will be empty. You will need to re-enter your email passwords.

Finally, if you want to use the Apple App Store, you may need to add a credit card or authorize your computer to purchase things, even if you only want to download free applications. I have a personal policy not to put my data where I can’t get it back out, so I tend to buy MP3s instead of buying music with proprietary Digital Rights Management (DRM) from the Apple Store. As a result, my computer had never been authorized to buy things from the Apple Store. To authorize your computer, in the iTunes program click Store->Authorize Computer… and enter your Apple ID. Once your computer is authorized, you might need to click Store->Check for Purchases… if you tried to download an application from the App Store before your computer was authorized.

4. Upgrade your old iPhone to firmware version 2.0

The iPhone running software version 2.0 has been hacked, so there’s no need to keep running old firmware on your old hacked iPhone. Plug your old hacked iPhone into the computer running iTunes 7.7 and make sure that iTunes is running. Under the “Devices” entry on the left hand side of iTunes, when you click on the iPhone device, you should see a screen with a “Check for Update” button. Click that button. I was running firmware version 1.1.1 and at first it offered me firmware version 1.1.4. So I exited iTunes, restarted iTunes, and clicked “Check for Update” again. Then it offered me firmware version 2.0. Click to install firmware version 2.0 on the old hacked iPhone.

5. Erase the settings and data on your old iPhone

One nice thing about the iPhone’s firmware version 2.0 is that it adds a “secure wipe” that attempts to erase all data completely from your iPhone. That means you can sell the old iPhone or give it to a friend without worrying about all those crazy pictures you took, the 1-900 numbers in your contacts, the SMS messages that reveal things you want to keep private, etc. Here’s how to erase everything on your old iPhone. Eject the phone in iTunes, disconnect the phone from the computer, then press Settings, then General, then Reset, then Erase All Content and Settings, then Erase iPhone. You may have to confirm a couple times that yes, you really want to wipe your iPhone. The process takes about an hour, so I connected my iPhone to a cable that was plugged into a power outlet to ensure that the iPhone wouldn’t run out of power in the middle of wiping it.

When the iPhone is finished erasing itself, it’s suitable for giving to a family member or selling on eBay or whatever.

By afternoon I noticed that Twitter complaints about the activation and 2.0 firmware were dying off, so my wife and I decided to do a “date night” to wait in line for an iPhone at Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara. We showed up at 3 p.m., waited in line for two hours and 45 minutes, and had our iPhones ready and activated by 6 p.m. The line moved slower than last year because this year Apple required that you activate the phones in the store. If you don’t want to wait in long lines, a good strategy for Apple products is just to show up later in the day after the initial surge subsides. Last year we waited until evening to buy our first iPhone and the line was only five people long.

Here’s what you need to know: the activation issues were resolved by Friday afternoon, and most of the lines at Apple stores should be pretty manageable now. Apple provides a page to check local iPhone availability. The page looks like this:

All three Apple stores in Silicon Valley have iPhones in stock, for example. If there are multiple stores in your area (check this page for Apple store locations and phone numbers), call each one to see who has the shortest line.

I like my iPhone 3G a lot, and plan to do several iPhone-related posts. The main thing you need to know right now is that any snafus on Friday were temporary, and it should be pretty doable to get an iPhone 3G now if you want one.

So lots of people want to write independent/third-party native apps that run on the iPhone. The problem is that while Apple hasn’t squashed the development of native apps, they haven’t helped, either. For example, Apple hasn’t provided a toolchain to compile programs for the iPhone.

What is a toolchain?

Yeah, I know, it’s been I while since I had my compiler class too. Here’s a rough diagram of what happens when you compile source code into a program:

Here’s the process as I recall it. You write code in high-level computer languages such as C, C++, or Objective-C. That gets piped through a compiler (”gcc” in this diagram), which creates assembly code targeted for a certain type of machine architecture such as Intel x86, PowerPC (PPC), or ARM. Most desktop machines, including newer Apple computers, use Intel or Intel-compatible chips. Older Apple computers use PowerPC chips. ARM chips are embedded in lots of popular consumer electronics devices (e.g. the iPod and iPhone).

Now you’ve got assembly code for a particular type of computer chip. That code is processed through an assembler (”as” in this diagram), which spits out actual machine code (also called “object code”) of zeros and ones. In some cases that code can be executed directly. However, usually you have multiple files of object code to combine, or you need to link in built-in functions from system libraries. A linker (”ld” in this diagram) pulls all the object code into one executable program that a user can run.

So what is a toolchain? Roughly, a toolchain is a set of programs that allow you to compile source code into a program. It can include the programs that I just mentioned, plus a host of other programs such as “make” or a debugger that make compiling programs easier.

What is a cross-compiler?

Look back at the diagram above. Typically someone on (say) a newer Apple computer would have an Intel chip inside. So gcc would output assembly code for an Intel chip, and that assembly code would eventually be transformed into an executable program that runs on a Intel chip. That lets you compile and run programs on your own computer.

But nothing in the diagram above says that you have to output assembly code for the same type of computer chip as the machine that you’re running. For example, an Intel-based Apple computer could translate source code into assembly code for an ARM-based machine architecture. That’s called “cross-compiling,” because you’re compiling your code across for a different type of chip.

Why would you want to cross-compile anything? Well, iPods and iPhones are based on ARM chips. Can you imagine trying to compile source code on one of those little devices? It would be a real pain. Cross-compiling solves that problem: you can compile code on a desktop machine for (say) the iPhone, then figure out how to copy your executable program over to the iPhone, and figure out some way to run your program.

What does this have to do with the iPhone?

It’s possible (but currently difficult) to make a working toolchain for Apple computers that cross-compiles code so that the iPhone can run it. Once you have a cross-compiling toolchain, you can write code that runs on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t provided any documentation on the application programming interface (API) or system libraries that would allow people to write native applications for the iPhone. Luckily, dedicated people have helped to produce not only a toolchain but also to fill in documentation on the system APIs that the iPhone supports. In the same way that Apple desktop machines have a framework called AppKit, the iPhone has a user-interface (UI) framework called UIKit.

More reading about toolchains/cross-compiling

If you dig deeper into nearly anything I just said about toolchains or cross-compiling, you’ll discover that it’s more complicated than I just laid out. For example, libraries of built-in system functions don’t have to be statically combined into a program. It’s possible to wait until the program is being loaded to execute before linking in a library. And so-called “binutils” provide lots of functionality other than compilation. For an overview of the compilation process, see the book Running Linux for a good description. To learn about linking vs. loading, I enjoyed this Linux Journal article. You can read more about GCC or binutils on the official GNU site. And of course Wikipedia provides a variety of strong articles about the GNU tool chain, linkers, and crosscompiling.

I’m amazed at the pace of iPhone hacking. Even a week ago, you’d see multi-step guides to installing apps on an iPhone. Now there’s a program (Installer.app) with a front-end called AppTapp that does everything in a nice graphical user interface (GUI) for you. You don’t have to type a single command, but you will need an Apple computer (either Intel-based or PowerPC-based works).

Disable automatic sync in iTunes

First, plug your iPhone into your computer so that iTunes comes on. On the left-hand side of the screen under “Devices” click on your iPhone, and then on the page that comes up, click so that “Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected” is OFF. It looks like this:

(By the way, to grab a screenshot of a window on a Mac and save it to the desktop, you need to hit Command-Shift-4, then the space bar, then click a window. Sheesh.)

Download and run AppTapp

The combination of AppTapp and Installer.app lets you add applications to your iPhone with almost no effort:

- Make sure that iTunes isn’t running. Plug your iPhone into your Apple computer and make sure that iTunes didn’t start running.
- Download AppTapp to your Apple computer from http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/
- Run it.

That’s pretty much it. iPhone Atlas has the best walkthrough I’ve seen if you want more details about AppTapp/Installer.app or what to do after you’ve run AppTapp. The short version is to update Installer.app first (touch the “Update” tab). Next you want to install the Launcher program (you can only see 16 icons on your iPhone, so installing Launcher ensures that one of those first 16 icons can access other applications).

After that, you’ve got a lot of options. The “Community Sources” package will give you even more choices for applications to install. Installing “OpenSSH” and “BSD Subsystem” is also recommended. Finally, if you install the MobileTerminal application, you can experience the joy of typing “ls” on your iPhone. Walking around with UNIX in your pocket is very nice. See the iPhone Atlas guide for screenshots and more info.

If you want to impress your fellow geeks, Lights Off was the first native game for the iPhone and it also looks great. My brother and I had a similar “turn the lights out” game when we were growing up, but it was called Merlin. Now you can play this game on much prettier handheld appliance.

More Resources

If you’re a Windows person and can’t beg/borrow a Mac from anyone, you might check out iBrickr. It lets you manage ringtones and applications on your iPhone.

If you don’t want to go the AppTapp/Installer.app way on a Mac, you might also check out iFuntastic. iFuntastic lets you tinker with all kinds of things, from ring tones to applications to multiple “home screens.” Each home screen can have a different set of icons. Version 3 was released just a few days ago and the new version adds PowerPC support.

As always, back up your data first, and any of this could (in theory) break your iPhone. I don’t think anything I’ve mentioned would get you in trouble with lawyerfolk, but if you’re worried, you can always play it safe and stick with the built-in applications on the iPhone. If you see errors above or know of another interesting way to install native third-party applications on an iPhone, please mention it in the comments.