It has always worked great, even back when I was rocking a Discman and oodles of mp3 CDs.  When I moved to the iPod, it continued to work perfectly.  However, since I started using my iPhone as both my phone and main source of music, I have run into a problem.

Every time something is plugged into the headphone jack, my iPod music starts to play.  It doesn’t matter if anything else might be supplying audio to the stereo, such as Pandora or last.fm.  It happens only with things that are non-Apple–I don’t experience it with the stock Apple earbuds at all.

Sometimes it helps if I start the other application (like Pandora), get the music playing, THEN plug in the tape adapter.  Other times nothing seems to help and I give up in frustration.  All I really want is to be able to listen to my awesome Pandora stations on my 30+ minute commute, is that so wrong?

Research I’ve done on the Internet has netted me plenty of gripes from other people with the same problem, but no actual solution.  According to what I’ve read, even Apple doesn’t really have a fix for it.  I don’t know if I should take my iPhone in and complain, or if I will have the same problem with another iPhone.  I suppose I should do it before the end of August, when my 1-year warranty runs out.

Is anyone else having the same problem?  Have you been able to fix it?  Inquiring tech divas want to know.

IM+ 3.1 is live and it is awesome! IM+ is my instant messenger app of choice on the iPhone, at least so far.  Beejive IM is very buggy and unstable (I get TONS of crashes on it) and I use multiple chat protocols, so AIM is out simply on the basis that it only connects to one service.  IM+ has been the best app for me since it was released.  I had been using the free version, but when the price dropped in anticipation of the 3.1 update, I purchased the full version.

Push notification works FLAWLESSLY with IM+.  I have been signed in all night, and the IM push messages are pretty much instantaneous.  There is no lag at all in chat notifications.  I noticed that there is a slight delay between when I receive a Twitter DM to my email and when I get the notification through IM+, but I have myself signed in to Twitter through IM+ anyway.  I mean, how awesome is it to get @ replies and DMs pushed to your phone without wasting text messages?  I’ve been waiting for that.

Finally, a chat program gets a coveted spot on my front app page.  I am very picky about what goes on that page–it’s where most of the stock iPhone apps go (YouTube, Calculator, Maps, Clock, Settings, Camera, Photos, Messages) and my top used apps (The Weather Channel, Stanza, Tweetie, and Byline).  Before, chatting was sort of inelegant and I rarely used it unless  I was stuck somewhere and totally bored, or at home and away from the laptop.  Now IM+ lives next to Byline so that I can access my chats at the touch of a fingertip.

Thanks for building a great product, Shape Services!  I look forward to enjoying push messaging at last.

1) Copying multiple photos from the Camera Roll to email. This is so freaking handy, especially when I use my iPhone to take snaps of something I am reviewing, or a series of photos of a single subject. It is super easy to just throw them into an email now!

2) Shake to shuffle the iPod. This is just intuitive and should have been part of the OS all along, given the accelerometer.

3) Spotlight search. It is so handy to be able to search instead of flip through pages of apps or cycle through tons of contacts.

4) Snappier performance in the Camera. One thing I hated about the camera was the extreme lag I often experienced when opening it, or trying to go from the Camera to the Camera Roll. The increased performance makes it a lot more usable.

5) Push notifications. Not a lot of apps have this enabled yet, but I can’t wait. IM+ is probably my most anticipated push notification app…it will be awesome to be logged in to IM whenever, wherever.

Now, with iPhone 3.0, there is an application called iScrobbler that allows you to scrobble directly from your phone.  You add your music (as much or as little as you want) and listen to it from inside the app.  As long as the app is open, your played tracks will be scrobbled.  Not as elegant as a small application running in the background…but it’s a start. According to a post in the last.fm forums about the app, you can also start playing tracks on your iPod, and as long as you start the app before the first song ends, it will scrobble that track and all tracks played until the app is closed.

I have downloaded it, but not used it yet.  My biggest complaints so far are that I really hate the color scheme–it is an inelegant mix of orange and yellow that quite frankly hurts my eyes–and the track information (artist, album, title) is in a very small font.  But, like I said, it’s a start.  I look forward to seeing this app grow and possibly seeing something cooked up that will allow background scrobbling in iPhone 3.0.

Simply go into Settings > Sync > Google Calendar and do a Reset Sync. I chose Erase Local Data since I had nothing that wasn’t already on the GCal side and it synced up like a charm! No more errors.

A side note–I am loving the shake to sync feature! It’s a cute and quick way to update the calendar. Because it is so handy I turned off Sync at startup on both GCal and Toodledo…that way I can get to my calendars that much faster. Every second counts, after all!

After last week’s announcement at WWDC that AT&T would not support MMS at the release of 3.0 and that tethering would be coming down the line (at a price, to boot), I was honestly pretty miffed.  MMS was one of the things I was really looking forward to having on the iPhone, considering I have had it on every other dumbphone I’ve ever owned.  Tethering is something else that comes in really handy when I’m out and about, and considering how much I pay for data on my iPhone plan already, AT&T is asking at lot to expect me to pay even MORE to tether.  I could deal with $5 or $10 extra on top of my data plan, but the rumor is that AT&T will want somewhere in the vicinity of $60-70 for tethering privileges.

However, like a good Apple fangirl I am waiting impatiently for the update to hit.  I am eager to see how it will change how I use my phone in some ways, and I am really excited to see how the app developers will be using the new features in their programs.  I think the thing that I’m most excited for is Push Notifications at long last!  I am hoping that I’ll be able to see instant messages, @ replies on Twitter, and other info as easily as I can see popups for new text messages.

What are you excited for in the iPhone 3.0 release?

http://www.geardiary.com/2009/04/06/stanza-ebook-reader-for-iphone-updated/

You see, Pocket Cocktails is an absolutely gorgeous drink recipe app for the iPhone.  The interface is fun and retro, which is a big plus for me…but the real beauty lies in the recipes themselves.  Each one features a painstakingly photographed drink to go along with the recipe, presumably so you know how the drink is supposed to turn out.  When we were planning my birthday party, I thumbed through all the yummy-looking drinks and landed on a pretty pinkish one that looked delicious–the French Martini.  I sent my husband out for party supplies and he came back loaded down with raspberry vodka, Chambord, and pineapple juice…the very instruments of my demise.

Despite the hangover, the drink–and the party–were both raging successes, and Pocket Cocktails became a must-have app on my iPhone.  I’m forever hemming and hawing about what drink to order at a bar, especially if I’m in the mood for something fruity.  I’ve never been a beer girl, and sometimes I’m just not feeling like having a glass of wine.  Most of the time if I’m drinking liquor, the fruitier and girlier the drink is, the happier I will be!  Pocket Cocktails is not just a reference for mixing my own drinks, it’s a great primer for ordering something a little more exotic than your typical Cape Cod or Long Island Iced Tea.  And if the bartender doesn’t know how to make it?  Just hand him your iPhone!

What really impressed me was that Pocket Cocktails was developed by Robert Maran and his fiancée out of their apartment in Toronto.  They set up their bedroom as a temporary studio to shoot the gorgeous drink photos and put the app together.  One thing I love about Apple app development is that it allows anyone who can make an application to do so, without requiring significant resource needs or overhead.   I really enjoy supporting small developers like Robert because I can tell that a lot of hard work and attention to detail went into the development.

I highly recommend Pocket Cocktails if you’re in the market for a drink recipe app for the iPhone.  For more information or to purchase the app, please visit http://www.pocketcocktails.com.

Thank you, three hour nap! I am so happy that I was awake.  I have been waiting for this app since I got my iPhone 3G at the end of August. Needless to say, I promptly purchased it using the App Store on my iPhone and got it all set up with my Google Calendar information (for calendar sync) and my Toodledo account (for to-do sync).

I had already set up my GCal to sync with my Outlook and gotten Toodledo populated with my tasks earlier this week so that I would be prepared for Pocket Informant once it was released. I’m so glad I did, and I’m glad that PI chose the services it did to use with sync out of the box.

Syncing both my tasks and calendars went flawlessly and I am really impressed so far. A full review is forthcoming, but I just had to express my joy. I have missed having a good calendar application at my fingertips! I suppose now I have absolutely no excuse for being disorganized…

Gameplay is intuitive and uses the iPhone’s tilt sensor to great advantage.  The goal is to match at least three of the same colored pieces in a grouping, with combinations possible that create chain reactions for super high scores, special pieces that fill in all the empty spaces on the board, and pieces that let you move around on the board exactly where you want, which allows for easier diffusion of bomb pieces and matching of locked pieces.  Once you get to a certain level from matching the pieces, the bombs and locked pieces show up to throw a wrench in the works!

I was intrigued to see that Demiforce included unlockable achievements in the game, similar to the system on the XBox 360.  My husband is addicted to the achievements, and I am starting to come around to them myself.  Demiforce has even developed an achievement system called Onyx Online that will allow any iPhone game to have achievements, leaderboards, and more.  With iPhone gaming becoming so popular, I think it would be really cool to have more online gameplay and community features.

I cannot recommend Trism enough.  It’s a solid, fun game that is sure to please any puzzle game lover.  It’s on sale right now for 2.99, which is a bargain.  Go to the iTunes App Store to pick it up here.  To learn more about Trism, visit http://www.demiforce.com/games.html.