I took suggestions from an iPhone support post at apple.com (which I cannot find.) I was able to make my 10+GB of music reappear and all my apps working. Here is what I did to get my apps and music stable without totally wiping (this time):

1) Transfer Apps from iPhone to iTunes
You can right-mouse on your iPhone in iTunes to do only this.

2) Resync Selected Apps
Make sure to uncheck all your apps. This seems to force iTunes to deinstall the app from the iPhone. At this point I noticed several apps which were not deleted from my iPhone and some which never were syncd with my iTunes. I deleted those from my iPhone manually.

3) Update all apps on iTunes
For a long while iTunes was reporting that I had several updates pending for apps. However updating them never made it go away. iTunes always told me that all my apps are up to date. What to do?

3a) Clear app update notification
I created a folder on my desktop and dragged all my apps there. Then I deleted them in iTunes. I dragged the apps back into iTunes one by one. Eventually I found a few which would make the update notification reappear. Delete those apps and redownload them via iTunes Store.

4) Resync apps
Only select the apps you really want and resync.

I hope this is the last time I need to do this. Let me know if it worked for you too.

A sync did not seem to solve anything.

This morning my fully charged and syncd iPhone 3G was experiencing random crashing of my new favorite game Quordy and the iPod app.

WTF.

A restart on the subway left me with no apps and no music. A reset of my settings did not help this time.

I don’t care what they say about the iPhone running OSX. Installing apps and removing them feels like System 6 all over again. Rearranging extensions, installing cDevs until you get just the right mix. I have yet to find that mix and I now have a phone in my hand that is no better than an entry level handset.

I had put my iPhone to sleep by pressing the top button when the train arrived. Upon returning to the game I found that it was slow and non-responsive. I figured restarting my iPhone would solve my problems.

Not exactly.

Restarting my iPhone managed to make all apps quit and make it appear as if my phone did not have the 13GB of music I transferred the other night. [insert expletives]

A reset (holding down the top button and the home button for 10+ seconds) did not seem to have any meaningful affect either. I followed the advice of the Apple support site and reset my settings (Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings). This made my songs come back. However I am still stuck with 4 pages of apps which crash.

Is this progress?

UPDATE: Syncing apps seems to have fixed the app crashing…. for now.

My music and apps are working.

I’m jabbering away on my Jawbone when another friend calls. Time to test out 3-way calling…

Guess what? Merge calls does not work.

I found this article.

I let the kind rep know about the issues people were having and how they indicated that it was an ATT issue. Athough conference calling was already added to my account, it wasn’t working. The link above indicates that in some cases the conference calling feature was not activated on all accounts. The rep also indicated to me that to correct some early voicemail issues they needed to remove and re-add the voicemail service to the account. She did the same for my conference calling feature.

All is now well… sort of.

If you are having trouble merging or adding calls on your iPhone call ATT and ask them to remove and re-add the conference calling feature.

Why “sort of”?

If I am talking to someone and I choose to “add call” I am able to call another number. Once the connection is established I can now choose “merge calls”. This failed prior to talking to ATT. Now my iPhone shows a merged call! The problem now is that I can’t hear either party!

wtf.

UPDATE: It works now! Don’t know if it was a “just wait” thing, a result of my overnight sync/backup, or an ATT network problem

I started a restore and much to my delight… there is a new version of the iphone software- 2.0.2!

Lets hope that this helps my Jesus Judas device.

UPDATE 1: The upgrade of the software did not help my application crash problem.

UPDATE 2: IPhone crashes/freezes in the middle of overnight sync. Got to letter M of my 30 ir so applications. Power cycle needed. (apps work!, music didn’t sync :( ). Reinitiating sync… now iTunes wants to do a full backup of my empty iPhone.

UPDATE 3: I’m running late for work now as I wait for the apps to sync. It is 9:09, my previous update was about an hour ago. Looks like I won’t have time to add music.

UPDATE 4: Everything was working fine until I restarted my iPhone b/c it was having trouble at the app store. Once again my iPhone reports no music and apps don’t work. (Functionality didn’t even last 12 hours. :( Looks like I’ll be playing my DS on the subway.)

iTunes decided to run a full backup of my iPhone.

i figure i’ll let it run and see if any of my apps come back to life. i have nearly 13GB of free space and it has been over 30 minutes.

UPDATE: I cancelled the middle of the backup b/c i had to go. My apps are working again.

The following day, iPod in hand, listening to Radiohead, waiting at the subway platfrom I thought it was time for a little Trism. A fun game app that is playable with my thumb; relatively easy to do while straphanging.

I thought wrong.

Seems that Trism and every other non-core app would not load. A restart usually cures that; although not this time. I tried to install an app via the app store. I figured maybe that will “flip a bit” somewhere and magically enable all my apps.

It definitely flipped a bit somewhere.

My iTunes username and password were rejected indicating that my account was only good in the US. I relaunched the iTunes store only to discover that it has gone all Euro on me. And in the worst way.

All this and I haven’t even thought about jailbreaking it. So much for stability on this thing. I think I’ll start from scratch again. Apple, how about a software update?

to lessen my load i recently ditched my ipod in favor of my new all-in-one jesus device which i filled with 14gb of music. the first time i connected my iphone to my work pc i was sorely disappointed when i couldn’t move music to it. nonetheless i would keep my iphone connected as a way to charge my iphone.

today itunes bothered me about a new update for my iphone. a glance at my iphone showed syncing activity. the iphone had always showed in my itunes but was always unable to drag and drop media or change settings w/o it notifying me that it was already synced to another pc and my data would be erased. today i clicked on my iphone and i was able to back it up successfully… or so i thought. itunes made it seem as if i could update my iphone from my work pc. i figured this is how they would go about doing an update at an apple or att store. i figured… no problem. my phone is backed up here and at my home pc.

10 minutes later…

an error box on my itunes. an itunes logo and picture of USB cable on my iphone. soft power down and an itunes restart. when my phone came up it appeared to be fresh out the box. unknown. no problem i will restore… nope…. sheeet…no problem, i’m backed up at home… went back to my apartment to restore. corrupt/no can do/error/wrong version. whatever.

at least my contacts were backed up. i didnt have time to restore all my music or apps. it started in alphabetical order… i have Advent. i have no high scores. my usage stats are zeroed, as are my wifi, my crappy pics, mail and all app configurations.

this may be a blessing in disguise.

i had 5 pages of apps. all except 1 free (trism)

this does not excuse apple. it is highly annoying.

at a minimum, how about a way to back up my contact info to my sim. it would have saved me the mid afternoon grief of my failed backup. (it could have been early evening grief.) also, give me a way to verify that my phone is backed up properly and without corruption.

My gf has G1 iPhone so it wasn’t an entirely new experience. Friends with jailbroken phones had already seen an app store of sorts. One surmises that apple was behind that “beta test” since so many of the jailbreak apps were found day 1 on the real app store; like Tap Tap but now with less features.

I proceeded to install all the free apps I could find. (I now have 5 pages of apps.) imported a lengthy contact list of 150+ which has migrated, not so elegantly, from an LG6100 to a Moto e815 and then to an LG9800 back to Outlook then finally to my iPhizzy. Next was my huge gmail account. The iPhone took it all like a champ. I treat it like a new PC. Installing every app, turnin every knob, and flicking every switch. Amazed by the simplicity if it all I was not surprised when it treated me like a PC user. It didn’t take long for me to crash my iPhone. After loading opening and closing numerous v1.0 and earlier apps in rapid succession it didn’t take me long to get applications to quit unexpectedly and in some cases I had my PC, er phone even reboot! It took me about 15 emails and SMSes to get comfortable with the keyboard. Like T9, you have to be able to “trust” it to have proficiency.

Core apps work great. I need to keep reminding myself that this is a phone. Albeit a phone that redefines what a phone is. I’m not surprised about some of the instability that I have been experiencing; I know that my usage is excessive and not ideal.

Battery life is my new focus after dowloading nearly every free app.. Bluetooth while talking and playing with apps seems to he a huge battery suck.I am tweaking my settings for brightness, wifi, push, gps, etc in an effort to extend battery life. Luckily I am usually abhop skip and jump away from a iPod sync cable and 5mw of power to go along with it.

Do I love my iPhone? Many ask that question. My reply is usually a shrug. Do I think that the phone offers an unparalled experience? Absolutely. However, being technical in nature I have always made use of the lesser used features found on many non-smartphones. Creating shortcuts to Bluetooth menus and alarm clocks are surely missed. As is the ability to listen to voicemail over Bluetooth. Let’s also not forget the lack of voice dialing; a feature which most ppl don’t even use on their motos, lgs or samsungs. I think I would prefer a device that offered that level of customization. Hard to say. I think that is a gripe common amongst apple products. But hey, apple Isnt as interested in appealing to a techno snob like me as much as the masses who welcome the sheer simplicity and genius of the iPhone.

I hate to say it, but expect more iPhodder from mocoblog as I untap the many apps that will be born in the nwar future. Similarly expect to see a growing list of iGripes.

Of course this post was written hastily from the Wordpress app on my iPhone!

I’ve been a member of Combo for some time now. The service is still in beta. Not the Gmail kind of beta where they have millions of users who don’t quite know why it’s still beta. It’s a true beta - complete with cool, innovative features and bugs alike.

Combo provides a simple, AJAX, web interface which allows users to interact with their multiple web 2.0 social websites with a single login. You can update your facebook profile, check out your flickr, add delicious bookmarks and even IM all from Combo.

Indiciduals like me aside, it is a great tool for companies or institutions who need to manage social profiles across multiple networks. No more logging in to individual sites to see who is sending you email and who is requesting to be your friends.

They also have an iPhone version of the site. I don’t have an iPhone yet, but when I do (next 2 weeks), I’ll be able to login to Combo to access all my social websites. There is some real value here to consolidate all that info in a single interface on a mobile screen.

Beyond that, Combo is a great way to track (or stalk) your friends using their Watchbox feature.

Since joining, Combo has gotten better and less buggier every day. I think there will be many me-too sites like this; but for now, Combo has a big head start.

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