I’m getting an iPhone 3GS on Friday. It’s the first Apple made thingie I’ve ever owned so I’m not sure what to expect.
I know a couple of things:
I’m gonna jailbreak it (it’s my phone. I don’t need some pinhead at AppleCorps deciding what’s ok for me to put on my phone.) but I don’t think I need to unlock it as I’m going with AT&T.
a) Anything special I should know about jailbreaking?
b) I don’t have to unlock, right? (And Yellowsn0w is a purely unlocking app?)
There are fifty gazillion apps. More if you include the ones that AppleCorps doesn’t want me to have access to. What are the essentials?
Don’t jailbreak it for a month or two. The 3GS will be shipping with the 3.0 OS, and any jailbreak won’t have had enough testing to be worth the risk. You’ll have plenty of time and features to play around with until then.
Wikipanion: I’ve used this countless times. “Who did that one song?” Wikipanion it. “Do you remember that…?” Wikipanion. It’s never failed. I have it on my front page.
Google Earth, and the plain Google app, for obvious reasons.
Urbanspoon is fun–that’s one of the ones from the commercials where you shake it and it comes up with restaurants in your area. I’ve already found one really good new pho place that I never would have known about were it not for that app.
Livestrong is my favorite diet/fitness app. It’s pay, though. Ditto for the C25K app, which allows you to play your iPod songs but still hear when to run and when to walk for the Couch to 5K program.
Pandora – free radio
My favorite games are Sol Free, Word Warp, wurdle, and Aurora Feint if I’m in the mood for it.
FML is always nice if you have a second to kill and want some schadenfreude–it’s free, which helps.
I adore my iPhone. I hated other cell phones, and never kept them charged. This one never leaves my side.
I’m sure there are plenty of options. But I haven’t heard of any them that will also be backing up your phone, syncing it with your calendar, and everything else that your iphone will be needing. I’d check the jailbreaking forums for something that is going to support that aspect of your needs.
Flight Control isn’t free, but it’s a great little game. Also, The Weather Channel has an awesome weather app out. It’s better than then weather app that comes standard on the iPhone.
Yellow snow is the unbranding software that you use to unlock the phone so it can accept t-mobile and cingular sim cards, I dont know if the software even unbrands OS 2.1 or if its been updated. Unless your going overseas , the only reason to unlock the phone would be if your selling it privately to some one off at&t.
Most of the reasons for JB’ing the iphone are gone, copy and paste, mms, and the like will be included in the 3.0 software. I’d wait about a month for the jail breaking software to come out, I expect there is quite a few people who are going to have to restore their phones after they auto download 3.0.
What about recharging it? Can I just recharge via USB?
Also, what’s all this about “tethering”? I can use my iPhone as a modem connected to my laptop when I’m not in range of a wifi signal? If so, that is SO cool!
USB/ipod cord only. Meritline.com has some iphone docks for extremely cheap right now if you think you might need something like that. I’d definitely get a few cords regardless - at least one per computer. Your phone should come packaged with a cord, as well as a wall adapter for charging.
Other peripherals you might want at some point:
Bluetooth headphones (3.0 should be supporting stereo, right?)
Any sort of protection you might want (case? invisishield? screen protector?)
Car charger
The applications I use the most are
Skype
Zentomino (Awesome puzzle game)
Photo cooker
I bought a cool solar USB charger than has been a lifesaver more than once.
And you can buy a magnifying glass to use when you want to take pictures in Macro mode, cheap and effective!
Yeah, you are going to want to wait a few months before jailbreaking the phone. Let the hackers go through everything and find out ways to jailbreak it without bricking it. Not only will you be dealing with a new OS, but the hardware will be new, too.
Getting a car charger is nice. You can find them pretty cheaply on amazon.
I don’t find that I need a different cable for each computer. Just the one is fine with me. And, I tested it last night even the PS3 can charge my phone. Fun!
tethering is exactly like that. But, if you do it before jailbreaking you are going to have to wait for AT+T to authorize it and decide how much to charge for it.
solar usb charger? Neat! I will have to check that out.
Should the iphone be able to charge from any usb, or does it need to be the usb on some sort of device? I already have a usb car charger, but it doesn’t charge my iphone. Is there something different about an iphone car charger?
What was it previously charging? Some cables work only with early ipods - the iphone plug has a few different connections that need to be made. Any iphone cables you get should specify that they are 3G-compatible.
I’ve only had my iPhone for a few weeks, but I installed the following:
Pac-Man Lite, Minesweeper Free, Pole Position Lite, Galaga Remix Lite, Lemonade Stand, iShoot Lite and Stratgery (all free games, and as you can see I have a bias for older games). Also, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal applets for news, TipStar (restaurant tip calculator app that was demoed in one of the commercials), iHandy Level (bubble level app, also demoed in the commercials) and the Yelp app.
As others pointed out, jailbreaking the phone early with the new OS could cause problems. If I were you, I’d only do so if there were a compelling reason for it. And I recommend biting the bullet and just living with iTunes as it works really well with the phone.
One question. Does anyone feel that the Applecare contract is a good idea for the iPhone? (It extends warranty support to two years instead of one, but costs $69.)