AT&T was great and everything, but it was just costing too much. As you can read here, I’ve used AT&T’s services for almost two years.

T-Mobile is $10-$15 cheaper than I was paying on AT&T. AT&T offered me a similar (after tax) price to T-Mobile’s, but that only included 300 minutes, 200 texts, and 2GB of data. Comparatively, T-Mobile is giving me 500 minutes (not that I’ll use anywhere near that much) and unlimited SMS/MMS & data. All that for about US$70/month (much better than the US$85 I was paying AT&T).

NB: I specifically asked T-Mobile if there data is unlimited (not ‘fake unlimited’; capped) and they told me I can “go nuts”. Sweeet!

The Switch

It was painless, but it did take up quite a bit of my time. Here are the steps I took to switch:

1. I looked on T-Mobile’s website for the plan that best suited me. For me, this happened to be the Even More Plus 500 Talk + Text + Web contract-free plan.
2. I called T-Mobile, setup an account, told them I had an iPhone, and had them send me a SIM card. (There was no obligation to make a payment until I activated the SIM card.)
3. I called AT&T told them I wanted to cancel. They immediately put me through to their cancellation department where they asked some expected questions and then offered me a lower-cost plan (which I haven’t seen available online or elsewhere) that included (as I said above) 300 minutes of talk, 200 SMS, and 2GB of data. I said “No thanks.” and proceeded with the cancellation. AT&T asked if I was going to port my number (something I hadn’t thought of) and if so the porting would cancel the account anyway.
4. When I received my SIM I called T-Mobile to activate it and port the number. Within minutes they had done so and my AT&T account was canceled.
5. It took almost a week to get data working. Each T-Mobile support representative I spoke to was helpful, but the first few didn’t realise that I wasn’t on the correct data plan. I had to be on a smartphone data plan. Once that was activated my data worked. (T-Mobile forum posts like this were helpful, but didn’t resolve my issue.)
6. Visual Voicemail is a feature on T-Mobile, but for some reason it doesn’t appear to work on the iPhone. I spoke to a nice T-Mobile girl about it. She told me everything was active on T-Mobile’s end, so it must be some kind of iPhone incompatibility. Perhaps it’s because of [Step 7].
7. I was originally told that there was great 3G coverage in my area, but according to T-Mobile’s website my area has the slowest data rating. Outside of my apartment I get good EDGE speeds; I’m not complaining here; I usually had 3G turned off when I was on AT&T anyway. You must note that T-Mobile’s 3G isn’t compatible with the 3G radio inside the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4. So, even if I had awesome 3G in a certain location my iPhone wouldn’t be able to see it. That doesn’t bother me though.

That’s about it. It was a longer process than I expected, but my bill is less and my iPhone is working fine on T-Mobile’s network. I haven’t used it outside of the Huntsville, Fort Worth, and Houston areas yet, but I’m sure it would be fine in places like New York City and San Francisco.

Oh, just in case you didn’t read my post on using my Australian iPhone 3GS on AT&T, then you need to know that I did not hack-unlock and/or jailbreak my iPhone to work on T-Mobile. My iPhone is carrier unlocked from my Australian carrier.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1272

I assume a post like the one you’re about to read has been written before, but I just wanted to document my experience with using an Australian iPhone in the USA.

The Quick and Dirty Answer

Call your Australian carrier and get them to unlock your Australian iPhone from its network. You’ll then be able to use it on any GSM network in the world. This is NOT a hack/jailbreak/unlocking tip. This is legit unlocking.

The Long and Clean Answer

When I traveled to the USA in 2008 I got a first-generation iPhone from a friend and put it on a plan with AT&T. This was not a contract, but a month-to-month plan that worked exactly the same as a regular AT&T iPhone contract plan, but didn’t have the early termination fee. This means I could cancel at any time. Why no contract? Because I had my own phone/hardware. (Note: I did have to pay a deposit because I had no credit score in America, but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

In 2009, Apple released the iPhone 3GS in Australia on the 26th of June. I went to the midnight launch an the Optus Store in Sydney’s CBD. It was a fun event, and I probably only waited in line for about 6 hours. It was a fun time in the dead of winter.

I went on the $79 Cap which included the following:

• iPhone 3GS (32GB / white)
• 1-year contract.
• AUD$500 worth of calls.
• Unlimited SMS and MMS. (A first for any mobile phone plan in Australia; previously we only had the option to pay for each text at between $0.05-$0.25 depending on the carrier. We don’t pay to receive text messages (like USA carriers do it) though.)
• 700MB of mobile data
• And whatever fancy Optus things it came with, like ‘Yes Time’ etc.

On top of the $80 I had to pay around AUD$48/month just for the phone itself. I did not pay any upfront costs for the iPhone.

That’s about half the cost (~AUD$1100) to buy that phone outright at the time. Going on a 1-year contract is definitely one of the cheapest ways to obtain an unlocked iPhone. “Unlocked?!”, you squeal? Yes, as soon as you make the first month’s payment you can call Optus (and I assume there’s similar options at other Australian carriers) and ask for the phone to be unlocked from Optus’ network.

When I moved to the USA in February, 2010, I made sure my phone was unlocked and everything was dandy. I didn’t sign up with AT&T until about a month after I got there. I was using my iPhone on Wi-Fi in a lot of places… and I don’t get out much.

I called AT&T and got them to send me a SIM to put in my iPhone. At this point I didn’t tell them I had an iPhone because I figured I could just use the cheaper smartphone data plan and save a bunch of money.

When I received the SIM it didn’t seem to work. After a bunch of calls to AT&T and Apple’s technical department we couldn’t figure out the issue. I even went into an AT&T store to see if they could figure out anything. At that point I had to show them I had an iPhone and they noticed I didn’t have the iPhone data plan. Boo; now I have to pay extra money. That still didn’t fix the issue though.

I ended up calling Optus to see if there was some issue with the unlocking. It turned out that they never unlocked it like I requested. Not to worry though; they unlocked it then and there.

I called back AT&T and everything worked like a charm.

Remember what I said about a deposit? Well, if you don’t have enough of a credit score/rating/whatever (I didn’t the first time because I was traveling and I didn’t the second time (with the iPhone 3GS) because I only just moved to the USA), then you have to pay a deposit of US$500 to AT&T (I assume most companies do this. It seems AT&T might be the only one that does this: Read here.).

Don’t worry, it’s completely refundable after 1 year. I can vouch for AT&T on that because they returned the $500 — which I ended up giving back to them when I moved to the USA; haha.

I would like to note that both Optus and AT&T are great companies. Optus beats AT&T for sure, but they both have great customer service (phone/store), great reception (in the areas I frequent; I don’t live in SF or NYC), and have redeemed themselves numerous times when overcharging me then returning the money when I yell at them.

That’s it! Enjoy your unlocked iPhone goodness.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1268

I’ve been pondering this thought for a long time, but the iPhone 4 announcement finally confirmed it for me:

The only reason you wouldn’t record video in HD 720p from 2011 onwards is if you’re doing it for artistic purposes.

The iPhone 4 is the first iPhone to record HD video. It’s definitely NOT the first mobile phone to record HD video, but it is most likely one of the best (size of the lens, backside illumination sensor). By now all point-and-shoot cameras and DSLRs manufactured in 2010 record at least HD 720p (if not, 1080p) video. Now that phones live up to similar standards there’s no excuse to not record in 720p; yes, yes, you may use 4:3 SD video for services like Skype and FaceTime… for now.

We all shudder when we see an old home video recorded in SD (4:3) on a tape. Sure, that was fine to put online a few years ago, but now many (if not all) video hosting websites accept HD quality video to be uploaded. Therefore, there’s no excuse.

As I said, it’s not wrong to record video using a SD (standard definition) camera, but I will only accept that if you’re doing that for an arty movie or some effect like that. Good examples of this can be seen on hitRECord.

I completely understand that this is a first-world topic and there are far more fundamental things in life than what format of video you record in.

A very good example of someone that’s switched to HD 720p home videos is my friend Clintus. He’s a father of two lovely kids and has been vlogging for many years. He began using a camcorder, then Flip video cameras, point-and-shoot cameras, and (up until recently) his Samsung HD point-and shoot camera and sometimes his iPhone 3GS. Now, he’s pretty solidly sticking with his iPhone 4 for any/all videos he records.

Check out one of his recent videos below:

If you’d like a suggestion for a good HD 720 video camera, then ask me in the comments below. My short answer is: If you can afford the monthly bill for an iPhone 4, then that would be the simplest and most convenient HD video camera on the market.

So, which HD video camera do you use?

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1180

While cleaning out my ginormous pile of tabs in Firefox today I stumbled on this Gizmodo article about the new Leica V-LUX 20. It has a GPS chip inside and geotags where photos are taken.

My dream!

I’ve been manually geotagging my photos on Flickr for quite a long time. (Not to mention titling, describing, and tagging my local images; it’s quite a process.) It’s something that the iPhone does to photos taken (if you have the setting turned on). Many other phone cameras and DSLR cameras also geotag photos and video.

Unless you’ve been living in a bunker (I.e., with no GPS signal), you’ll know that geolocation services have exploded over the past couple of years. Kaboom!

Services like Gowalla, Whrrl, and Foursquare have made it easier to connect with friends in real life. Or, ahem, stalk them. And all of the aforementioned services have partnerships with various businesses (such as Ben & Jerry’s, NJ Nets, and Murphy USA) to offer discounts/coupons on products to entice people to “check-in” to their business.

Back to cameras.

I bought my Panasonic Lumix TZ5 in September 2008. It’s a very good point-and-shoot camera. The wide-angle 10x zoom lens covers so much range that I don’t need any other camera. It is a bit on the bulky side, but that’s the price I pay for performance. Oh, and it records HD 720p video — which is very important to me.

The Leica V-LUX 20 is almost physically identical to my Panasonic camera, but it packs a higher zoom range, GPS, and hasn’t fallen into the trend of encoding the video in AVCHD; win!

Sony has had GPS in their flagship point-and-shoot cameras and camcorders for a while now. They have similar specs to the Leica and it’s hard to choose between these two brands as they both make very sharp glass.

When these cameras are used with applications like iPhoto (geotagged photos are automatically placed on a map) and Flickr, then combined with services like Gowalla and Whrrl, well, you’ll have a truly streamlined REAL life.

Oh, and the fact that the iPhone 4 geotags videos is huge. I guarantee your mind is going to be blown up (Exploded. Everywhere.) when you see the integration of video into real life locations. You’ll probably want to keep an eye on sites like Viddler.

Footnote: Stalking is bad. Don’t do it. So is lying. I guarantee it’s going to be near impossible to lie (about anything) in a few years due to technologies like GPS. You better get your honesty cap on!

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1172

When Lisa Bettany started tweeting (and blogging) about an iPhone camera application she had created I had very little interest.

I have several paid and free camera applications on my iPhone, but the app I use most (at this point in time) for taking photos is — funnily enough — Gowalla.

(Side note: If you want to add a photo to a location on Gowalla, then you must use Gowalla to take the image (you can’t choose a previously taken image from the iPhones ‘Camera Roll’). I like this feature because it means you HAVE to be at the location; no faking.

Other than that I use the default iPhone camera app.

As I saw reviews and videos of Camera+ in the wild I began to notice it’s potential and value. Plus, I discovered that the company tap tap tap actually created the app; they’ve made some great apps.

I decided to by the app at its “Introductory Price” of US$2.99, and test it out. In the App Store the description said “BUY NOW BEFORE THE PRICE INCREASE”. (That may not be word-for-word, but you get the idea.)

A week later it was available for US$0.99. I was infuriated. I was lied to. All of my peers — many of which also bought the app — were just as ticked off!

In a time when transparency equates to trust I just don’t understand why they would have blatantly lied to make more money. I care less about the extra money I paid than I do being lied too. Rah!

Back to the app.

When I first downloaded it I used it once, then never again. It just didn’t fit into my workflow.

There was an update or two since its launch, but the extra filters and support for iOS4 didn’t really matter to me.

That is, until the latest update (version 1.2) when they added the double touch feature (tap tap tap refers to it as ‘Touch Exposure’). Watch this video to see how amazing this feature is:

Should you buy this app? Only if you regularly use your iPhone as a camera — rather than a point-and-shoot or SLR.

If you do decide to purchase it, then you may want to wait until Thanksgiving/Black Friday or Christmas; when many apps go on sale. It currently sells for US$1.99 (AUD$2.49) on the App Store — this is apparently “60% OFF FOR A LIMITED TIME”.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1166

Over the past day I have had the opportunity to unbox an iPad and load it with applications.

As you’ve seen me mention many times, Australia gets technology later than many other countries. And the iPad is no different; Americans got it first at the beginning of April and Australians don’t get to see it in the flesh until May 28th — most Australians won’t have it in their hands until June.

I know a few people that work at an Apple Authorised Reseller/Service Centre in Australia. They have many regular customers and are super-nice to them. Customers have been asking about the iPad non-stop since the Australian release date was announced. So, they couldn’t wait to get one in the store. Hence, I shipped one to them. I’m not mentioning any names because I don’t want Apple to lock down their products more than they already do.

Anywho, that’s beside the point.

I connected the iPad to my MacBook Pro and synced some iPad and iPhone apps which I already had downloaded. The iPhone-only apps looks pretty lame/crappy on the iPad — especially when increase to 2x size.

The biggest issue I found with apps is when there isn’t a universal app (one app that can be used on an iPhone or iPad rather than separate apps for each device). Having an app for the iPhone and a different one for the iPad creates confusion when adding apps to the iPad. The iPad accepts iPhone apps (because of the ability to scale them up), but the iPhone does not accept iPad apps.

I have no knowledge or experience with app development, so I’m not sure if creating a universal app is more difficult than making separate apps, but if you create apps for the Apple mobile platform, then please try your best to make them universal.

I noticed that some apps are separate for a limited time (while the iPad is still new/fresh) because they’re offering the iPad app for free and then only keeping the universal (paid) app after the time period is over. I think this is still a little silly. Such app providers should just offer the universal app for free for a limited time. If some iPhone users score the app for free, then ‘oh well’; if those users like the app, then they’ll refer their friends to pay for it.

One such app is GoSkyWatch Planetarium (iTunes link). It’s an app that didn’t exist when I got my first iPhone and I was looking for astronomy applications. I only discovered it yesterday when putting rad apps on the iPad — because it was free; that is, they have a $6 universal app, but for a limited time they have a separate iPad app which is free. Here’s an example of what that looks like on the iTunes Store.

I really wanted to put this app on my iPhone (I love astronomy and this app is the best I’ve seen), but I’m not really sure it’s fair that it’s free for the iPad and not for iPhone users. If I do end up buying it, then I’ll write a review on it later.

There’s stuff like this happening all over the iTunes Store. AIM, Gowalla, Shazam, TweetDeck, Twitterrific, Urbanspoon, The Weather Channel, Wikipanion, and WordPress are just a few apps I have that aren’t universal apps. Again, it’s unorganised and uses unnecessary space on my computer.

I know the iPad App Store is very young, and I hope most apps become universal over the coming months. Right now, it’s just a mess.

That’s my experience with the iPad.

Below is my unboxing of the iPad along with some short usage of it.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/1035

This afternoon I saw this tweet from @MaggieConv:

I see statements similar to this all the time from my peers. Personally, I tried out Google Reader a few years ago, but I was never able to routinely check it, and just left the feed count to surpass “(1000+)”. Over the past few years I’ve tried out services like Netvibes, Pageflakes, and iGoogle to see if they fit my feed reader needs.

I really like Netvibes, but it just hasn’t stuck in my workflow. One of the reasons for this is probably TweetDeck. I was using Netvibes to stay logged in to multiple Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail accounts. TweetDeck solved multiple Twitter accounts, and MailPlane (which I love so much that I bought a family pack) solved multiple Gmail accounts; I use Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail (which has become one of the poorest e-mail experiences on the web) less and less these days.

So, where do I add my blog feeds, news feeds, and podcast feeds? Well, I don’t subscribe to blogs or news, and podcasts go into iTunes — or I subscribe on Viddler.

That said, I do read blogs. If you have a blog, then I’ve probably read it from time to time. I also read the news; though, mostly technology and environmental news; I don’t care about politics, war, and the economy — well, that’s a slight lie; watch the Zeitgeist Movies.

I use Twitter as my “feed reader”. I do a lot of things in my life and if I wanted to read everyone’s blogs everyday, then I’d never get time to do anything else. If a blog post or news article is important enough, then someone will tweet about it. I may not see every tweet from the people that I follow, but I see a good majority of them, and I’ll take the time to click and read any links that my peers find interesting.

Also, my various e-mail addresses have enough unread counts; I don’t need a feed reader telling me how behind I am.

How do you absorb the feeds you subscribe to?

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/952

With all the commotion around the next-generation iPhone (4th Gen — if you’re keeping track) today, I started to think about the flash mechanisms used in mobile phones and small point-and-shoot cameras.

As you may have seen, the next-gen iPhone has a small flash next to the camera’s lens (photo below).

This is the way most camera phones position their small LED flash. Point-and-shoot cameras also position their flash off to the side. I suppose this is an age-old method which works.

In the professional world of photography there’s a type of flash called a ring flash. It it literally a ring of light which is positioned around the lens for a very even lighting effect. Read: Very few harsh shadows — offset flashes (like those in mobile phones and point-and-shoot cameras) produce harsh shadows. Ring flashes are generally quite expensive, but that’s because they’re large and very versatile.

I think that devices with small lenses and built-in flashes should implement ring flashes because it would produce much brighter and even lighting compared to current offset technologies used. Also, there would be less chance for users of these devices to accidentally cover the flash when taking a photo because covering the flash would mean covering the lens; you’d be able to clearly see that you’re covering the lens on the camera’s display.

I believe a ring flash would even on be a great idea on prosumer point-and-shoot cameras like Panasonic’s Lumix range or Canon’s G9/G10/G11 cameras. Imagine the flash being on the end of the zoom lens. Yeah, epic!

Removing the flash from an offset location on the aforementioned devices would mean more room for features like stereo microphones, reverse displays, and larger lenses or more compact cameras/devices.

Lastly, if you’ve ever seen photographs created using a ring flash, then you’ll know that reflections of the ring flash look mighty radical.

Should basic consumer cameras implement ring flashes into their design? Would the basic (non-geek) consumer even are about this feature before seeing the difference in photos?

Share your thoughts below.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/920

This issue has been solved.
See how to resolve at bottom of post.

I first got an iPhone 2G in 2008. It was a magical device that advanced me into the 21st century. I’d like to thank Chris for making that possible.

I used the phone on AT&T (I got a no-contract, month-by-month plan with data and all the bells & whistles) and it worked smoothly. In June 2009 I traveled back to Australia and left the iPhone here (in the USA) with Rachel because I knew the iPhone 3GS was going to be released in Australia at the end of June.

I signed a 12 month contract with Optus (and Australian phone/internet/tv carrier) and got an iPhone 3GS. I made sure the phone could be unlocked (NOT unlocked using ‘hacking’ software like QuickPWN) from the Optus network so that I could bring it to America and use it here.

I flew to America and kept the phone in Airplane mode, and have used it to access the Internet using Wi-Fi connections. That’s worked fine, but I have always planned to get an AT&T SIM card for it so that I can use it as a phone over here.

Last week I put that plan in motion and received a new AT&T SIM card in the mail yesterday. I ended up having to call AT&T to activate the SIM card. They were able to activate it, but were unable to get a connection to it; it only shows one bar of reception on the phone and it can’t make calls or transfer any data. AT&T phone customer service suggested I take it in to an AT&T store.

Today I visited an AT&T store. I explained the entire situation to a cool guy named Dustin and he tried putting in a new SIM card just in case the one I received in the mail was faulty. The new SIM card didn’t work either. He tested the new SIM card in another phone and it worked fine. Thus, it’s an issue with the phone. Dustin tried a hard reset (holding the ON/OFF button and the home button). Doing so resulted in the phone not booting up correctly; it just held the white Apple symbol on a black screen. Also, iTunes on Dustin’s computer would not recognise my iPhone before and after the hard reset. Thus, there was no way to restore the phone

Dustin suggested I call an Apple Store to see what they could do. I walked out of the AT&T store a little frustrated, but I knew there was nothing else they could do.

After about 15 minutes I looked at the iPhone again and realised it was on the home screen (i.e., it did finally boot up). I went back over to the AT&T store and Dustin said he couldn’t do anything because the phone said ‘No Service’ in the top left of the screen.

I called an Apple Store, explained the entire situation (again), and they told me to call Apple Care. I called Apple Care, explained the situation again, and I was passed on to a senior technician. The first technician understood my situation completely, so the senior technician was up to speed by the time I got to speak to him. In short, he told me I’ll have to call Apple Care in Australia — which wasn’t open at the time (0700 hrs), so I have to wait.

As it stands right now, I’m currently waiting for Australia to wake up, so that I can call Apple Care there and see if they can remedy my situation at all.

If anyone reading this knows any solutions to my situation (besides hacking/unlocking/jailbreaking the iPhone), then please leave them in the comments, e-mail me, or @djsteen me on Twitter.

UPDATE: After many phone calls to AT&T, Apple, and Optus, I eventually figured out that Optus has never unlocked my phone. I had to restore my iPhone through iTunes with my Optus SIM inside.

At the end of the restore iTunes showed this screenshot:

I hope that helps anyone else in my situation.

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/877

See that ‘listen now’ button above this text? That’s new, hey! Oooooo!

While reading some posts on Brandice’s blog I noticed she had the same button. Curiously, I clicked. Apparently the one on Brandice’s blog is broken. Nevertheless, I investigated some more.

Odiogo (the name reminds me of Odeo; long-time podcasters will reminisce with that) is a FREE service that offers a text-to-speech tool for bloggers (and others with text-to-speech needs).

It took me less than five minutes to set up:

1. I enter my blog feed and e-mail address.
2. The next page shows me instructions on how to install the WordPress plugin and activate it with my unique six-digit code. (These instructions — and more — are also sent to my e-mail address).
3. I test it and notice it only reads the first couple paragraphs of each of my posts. I searched their simple FAQ and discovered that this was because my feed was only showing summaries of each post. Switched to full text: solved.

As expected, the speech isn’t perfect, and for some it actually might be quite annoying. That’s why I this is a blog and you can read it if you prefer.

Yes, like all modern audio files, there’s an RSS feed (read: podcast) available for the audio files. That’s right, you can subscribe to my blog in iTunes and listen to it on the way to wherever you may decide to commute to. Ooo laa laa!

Click one of the icons below to subscribe in that app:

For all other applications just put this link in your app:
http://podcasts.odiogo.com/giddy-blog-derek-steen/podcasts-xml.php

If you’re reading this far in the future and I no longer use the Odiogo service, then please disregard this post.

For now, enjoy it, and hopefully the speech will eventually sound more like I’m talking.

You may ask: Derek, why don’t you just read your own blog? Then it would be easier to listen to because you know what you’re reading and you have that sexy Australian accent.

Well, frankly, I’d love to. But that takes time, time, and more time. This is an easy plug-and-go option (for now).

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/767