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Download Photo Stream Photos to a Folder in Mac OS X

Feb 11, 2012 - 2 Comments

Save Photo Stream Images to a folder in Mac OS X

Photo Stream is a nice feature of iCloud that pushes all of your pictures automatically to your other iOS devices and your Mac with iPhoto or Aperture. If you haven’t used it before, this means if you take a picture on your iPhone, it will automatically show up in the Photo Stream on your iPad, and also in iPhoto on your Mac. Oddly, there isn’t an option to choose a destination other than iPhoto or Aperture in Mac OS X though, but this cool trick allows you to specify a folder and then download all the images from iCloud to your Mac, without using iPhoto or Aperture.

In order to use the following script, you will need iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 or later, as well as iCloud set up and configured and the Photo Stream option enabled in Mac OS X’s iCloud System Preferences.

Save Photo Stream Images to a Folder in Mac OS X

  • Open AppleScript Editor, found at /Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor.app
  • In a new blank AppleScript window, paste in the following code, replacing “USERNAME” with the short user name of your Mac OS X home directory:
  • tell application "Finder"
    set this_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:USERNAME:Library:Application Support:iLifeAssetManagement:assets" as alias
    set target_folder to "Macintosh HD:Users:USERNAME:Pictures:MyStream" as alias
    try
    duplicate (every file of the entire contents of this_folder whose name contains "IMG") to the target_folder with replacing
    end try
    end tell

  • This will look something like this in the AppleScript editor:

Download Photo Stream Images to a Folder in Mac OS X with an AppleScript

  • Adjust the target_folder variables as appropriate – Change “Macintosh HD” if your hard drive is named something else, and change “MyStream” if you want the final directory to be something other than that name located in the user Pictures directory – remember with AppleScript, rather than slashes the colon is used instead to type and show file and folder paths
  • Run the script to verify that it works and then save the script with an appropriate name like “PhotoStreamDownloader”, and select “Application” as the file format for easy access and launching later

Now anytime you want to download your Photo Stream to your Mac, just launch that saved script app and you will grab your latest Photo Stream images to the configure directory in Mac OS X. For best results, place the application into your /Applications directory and add it to Launchpad for easy future use.

AppleScript Editor is fairly intuitive, and if you entered a directory or path wrong when you attempt to run the script it will let you know with an “AppleScript Error” message. If you get a “iLifeAssetManagement:assets wasn’t found” message, then you haven’t enabled Photo Stream in iCloud’s System Preference panel.

Hopefully a future update to iCloud and Photo Stream will allow us to choose an image download destination directly, but until then this great trick from iDownloadblog works just fine.

Like this? Check out some more iCloud tips.

Make an Active Console Log the Background Wallpaper of iPad or iPhone

Feb 11, 2012 - 3 Comments

WallpaperLog for iOS

A new free app will soon be available on the Cydia store that puts an active Console log as the background wallpaper of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, giving you an overview of all low level events going on with iOS on the device.

WallpaperLog will be a free download on Cydia. Of course, to use and access the Cydia store you will need to have a jailbroken iOS device. Nowadays that isn’t too hard to do and it’s easy to reverse, so if you don’t have jailbroken hardware and are interested in trying this out, backup your iOS device and then use either Absinthe for iOS 5.01. on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S or redsn0w for iOS 5.0.1 on all other iDevices.

It’s not known for certain yet, but it looks like this scrolls through /private/var/log/system.log, as you can see up top on an iPhone (left) and iPad (right), and larger full size screenshots below. Is this useful? Not necessarily for everyone. Is this cool? Yes, absolutely, and the geekier amongst us should get a kick out of it, much like a GeekTool script running atop the background of a Mac OS X desktop,

Read more »

New iPhone 4S Commercials Focus on Siri: “Road Trip” and “Rock God”

Feb 9, 2012 - 1 Comment

Apple has started to air two new iPhone 4S commercials that focus on Siri. The first ad is titled “Road Trip” and features a young couple winging a road trip with the help of Siri. The second ad is titled “Rock God” and features a teenagers journey with music, aided by none other than Siri. Both follow the same recurring theme as past iPhone 4S commercials and have the same background tune. You can watch both of them below.

As usual with Apples commercials, the objective is to show how people interact with the iPhone and Siri in real life situations. Although they aren’t as fun as the classic Santa Siri ad, they both do a good job of conveying how useful Siri is for getting directions, finding food and events, retrieving information, sending text messages, and many other daily tasks.

These ads started to air earlier in the week, but weren’t posted online until this evening.

How to Restore an iPhone or iPad Using iTunes

Feb 9, 2012 - 1 Comment

Restore an iPhone or iPad

Restoring an iPhone or iPad to it’s default factory settings is easy whether you are restoring as a troubleshooting step or just preparing to transfer ownership of the hardware. You can reset the iPhone on the the device itself, but if the device is unresponsive, stuck on a boot loop, or otherwise needs to be restored directly, the next choice is to connect the iOS hardware to a computer and use iTunes.

Using iTunes is also typically faster than resetting through the iPhone or iPad itself, so keep this in mind if you tried the on-device method but it took forever.

How to Restore an iPhone or iPad with iTunes

If you want to restore to factory settings, do not restore from a backup during this process:

  1. Launch iTunes
  2. Connect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to the computer and select it within iTunes, if it’s not visible check the “Show” button
  3. Click on the “Summary” tab and click on the “Restore” button
  4. Restore iPhone or iPad to factory settings

  5. iTunes will prompt you to back up the device, this is recommended but if you want factory settings only click “Don’t Back Up”
  6. At the confirmation screen, click on “Restore” to begin restoring the device to factory settings

When finished, iTunes will alert you the device has been restored, but restoring may take a while. When the device is done, the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch will boot up and be reset completely to factory settings. This means that pre-iOS 5 will require the device to be connected to iTunes to finish, or after iOS 5 you will be presented with the familiar set up screens.

As mentioned before, to maintain the factory settings do not select to restore from a backup when this process is finished, otherwise you’ll simply be left with a device that has a freshly installed iOS but with the same data as when you started.

If you encounter error 3194 during this process, you probably jailbroke your device at some point and need to change the the hosts file.

iPhone Not in iTunes? Fixing It Is Probably Easier Than You Think

Feb 7, 2012 - 3 Comments

iPhone not in iTunes

The iPhone is connected to a computer with it’s USB cable, you launch iTunes and… the iPhone isn’t shown in iTunes. What gives? Fixing this problem is probably a lot easier than you think, and after fielding a call about this I found the simplest explanation was the solution as to why someones iPhone wasn’t appearing in iTunes:

  • Ensure the iPhone is connected to the computer with a functioning USB cable
  • Launch iTunes
  • Hover over the “DEVICES” item in the sidebar until the “Show” button appears and click on it

iPhone not in iTunes and now showing in iTunes

The iPhone will now be visible, as technically it was always in iTunes it was just hidden. It seems like the “Hide” button can be clicked accidentally, which can lead users to believe they have a more serious problem than there is. Save yourself some work and try this first the next time the iPhone isn’t in iTunes devices list.

If you attempted this and the iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) still isn’t showing up in iTunes, you may need to reinstall iTunes itself.

Theme the iPhone to Look Like Android, Windows, Kindle, WebOS, and More

Feb 3, 2012 - 12 Comments

iPhone Themes

Bored with how your iPhone looks? If you have it jailbroken, you can install iPhone themes and make the device look a lot different than iOS by using an app called Dreamboard.

If you haven’t jailbroken yet, backup the iPhone and then proceed with Absinthe for iPhone 4S on iOS 5.0.1 or Redsn0w for iOS 5.0.1 on other iPhones and iPods. Dreamboard is then found as a free download in Cydia, so search for it and install.

Many Dreamboard themes are available via Cydia, here’s a handful:

  • Endroid - Android HTC lookalike with updating weather widget and clock, this is the default Android theme
  • OS7 – Makes iPhone look like Windows Phone 7, complete with tile animations
  • WebOS – If you want your iPhone to look like a now extinct Palm device
  • Kindle Fire for iPhone – Gives the iPhone an interface like the Kindle Fire
  • OS X Lion Ultimatum – one of the fancier themes, makes iOS look like Mac OS X Lion
  • Apple Desk – looks like an actual desk, complete with iMac and keyboard

There are plenty more, and while a lot of the themes are free, others cost a buck of two. Some paid themes have to be downloaded manually and then moved to the iPhone with SSH and SFTP from a Mac or PC, others can be installed directly on the phone.

Heads up to Lifehacker for the basic theme ideas, but if you’re serious about theming the iPhone don’t miss iDownloadBlogs theme page for tons of videos on the process.

Absinthe Jailbreak Updated to 0.4 with Bug Fixes & PPC Mac Support

Feb 1, 2012 - 17 Comments

Absinthe Greenpoison Jailbreak Tool for iOS 5.0.1 The Absinthe Greenpoison jailbreak utility for A5 based iOS hardware has been updated to version 0.4, fixing several bugs and adding support for PPC Mac users and those running Mac OS X 10.5 on either Intel or PPC platforms.

This version is aimed at new users, and if you already have the jailbreak installed on the iPad 2 or iPhone 4S there is no reason to re-do it with this version. However, a new version of the Corona tool was released as “corona 1.0-8″ and can be found on Cydia to resolve some of the the bugs that have persisted for some iOS 5 jailbreakers. Older Mac users should be pleased the new Abinsthe version supports them, and instructions to jailbreak the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 remain the same regardless of device or host operating system.

The official changelog for 0.4 is short:

- Mac: added support for OSX 10.5, PPC and Intel CPU
- added consistency check on startup to make sure required files are in place
- Windows: fixed bug in payload generator that might cause a crash

Download Absinthe 0.4

Again, this is for iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1, or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1. Other hardware requires the redsn0w jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1. All 5.0.1 jailbreaks are untethered at this point.

Use an iPhone Without a Data Plan

Feb 1, 2012 - 6 Comments

Use an iPhone without a data plan To get the most out of an iPhone you’ll obviously want to have internet access, but for those who live in regions where wi-fi access is ubiquitous, you can potentially save some money on a monthly cell phone bill by not having a data plan.

No, I don’t mean only turning off data on the phone, I mean having a simple voice and SMS plan without any data plan at all. These voice and text plans are quickly disappearing, but they can result in a low bill of around $25 per month with plenty of talk time and text messages. To accomplish this, you’ll need a few things.

Requirements:

  • Unlocked iPhone – the iPhone must be GSM unlocked, either from a software unlock or an original hardware unlocked device. Apple sells the iPhone 4S unlocked for $649 and up
  • A simple cell phone plan and it’s SIM card without data – usually from an older “dumbphone” or a cheap pay-go phone

Depending on how old the data-free plan is, you may need to trim down the SIM card so that it fits into the iPhone 4 and 4S micro-SIM slot. This wouldn’t be necessary for iPhone 2G, 3G, or 3GS though.

Setting Up iPhone With No Data Plan

If you have those two things, setting up the data-free iPhone is easy:

  1. First turn off data by launching Settings, tap “General”, tap “Network”, flip the “Cellular Data” switch to OFF
  2. Now insert the old data free SIM card into the iPhone and wait a minute or so to get service

The first step is important because it prevents the iPhone from attempting to use data, which can inadvertently sign you up for a data plan with some carriers. AT&T has been known to detect and automatically add data plans to smartphones, whereas T-Mobile is reportedly less likely to do so. After the old SIM card is inserted you should quickly get service and be able to make and receive phone calls and text messages.

For using an iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S with T-Mobile, you may want to follow our T-Mobile iPhone 4S set up guide to configure MMS, but skip the ‘Cellular Data Network’ section.

Of course, the unlocked iPhone aspect is fairly expensive and can quickly make this whole idea cost prohibitive. If you’re looking for more ideas to lower the monthly iPhone bill though, the next cheapest option – and it includes data – is to set up a prepaid iPhone, which the iPhone is unofficially capable of supporting on a pay-go basis with AT&T, or if you have an unlocked device this can work with T-Mobile too.

Thanks to Anthony F for the tip and information about AT&T.

Send Contacts from iPhone to Another iPhone

Feb 1, 2012 - 5 Comments

iPhone Contact as vCard (VCF) Sending contacts from an iPhone is very easy, all data about the contact; from name, phone number, picture, email, URL, etc, can be exported as an inclusive vCard bundle and sent to someone else by email or text message. While we’ll focus on sending contacts between iPhones, these vCards are also usable by other iOS devices, Macs, Windows, and even Android phones.

Send Contacts from an iPhone to Someone Else

  • Launch “Phone” and tap on “Contacts”
  • Navigate to the contact you want to share and tap on their name
  • Send Contacts from iPhone

  • Tap on “Share Contact”
  • Select how to send the contact to another iPhone, choose “Email” to send it as an attachment to an email, or choose “Message” to send the contact through iMessage or SMS text

Send Contact from iPhone to iPhone via Email or Message

Depending on the choice of sharing method, either the Mail or Messages app will open and contain the selected contact in a preformatted message. If you choose Messages, the recipient will either need SMS service or iMessages enabled. From here you choose the recipient of the contact as if you were sending a standard email or text message and click send as usual.

On the receiving end, if someone sends you a contact all you need to do is tap on the contact name vCard (.vcf) to see a preview of the information, and then tap either “Create New Contact” or “Add to Existing Contact”.

If you were curious, the vCard format is not proprietary to Apple and the iPhone, these documents are widely considered the standard for virtual business cards, and should work on virtually any modern communication device, be it a smartphone, tablet, or PC. Obviously the standardization makes it much easier than manually typing out name, phone numbers, emails, and whatever else, so get in the habit of using the iPhones vCard sharing system and you’ll thank yourself later.

Animated Glowing iPhone & iPad Charger is the Coolest USB Cable Ever

Jan 31, 2012 - 7 Comments

Glowing iPhone charger

It’s pretty hard to get excited about a USB cable, but the Dexim Visible Smart chargers are ridiculously cool in a super geeky way.

You need to watch the video below to see the effect, but basically the cable glows while it is charging or syncing to “visibly show the electrical current flowing through the cable.” The lights actually change speed based on the battery capacity of the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, with the animated lights moving quicker the lower the battery charge is, and finally stopping motion once the battery is charged.

You can buy the glowing Dexim charger on Amazon for about $30.

Coolest USB cable ever? Yea, I think so. Heads up to Gizmodo for the find.