iPhone questions for Mac users

luckat

Asking here because I know you Mac-savvy people will be able to answer the questions in a Macomprehensible way.

Just moved to iPhone. I'm getting a No Service message. Is this O2 being inefficient or the iPhone not working?

Has anyone used TruPhone with an Irish account?

What are the best apps, free and paid?

Why won't the effing thing join my wireless network?

ronoc75

Regarding WI-FI I have found that you have to enter all the settings manually for some routers, because the iPhone will not pick up all the settings via DHCP. I have found this problem with the Linksys WRT54GS router with Linksys firmware installed but it's not a problem with Tomato firmware installed, so updating your router firmware might help.

faceman

OP, is your iphone in unlocked/jailbroken? Or is it a iphone with a genuine iphone sim?

I use truphone its great. But best to reboot your iphone to clear your cache before using it.

Some Apps i recommend:
Fring: Log into multiple IM clients at once
Remote: Remotely access your itunes library and control it from your phone
Mocha VNC lite: Remotely access your PC/Mac and control it from your iphone!
Truphone: Free and cheap calls!
Shazam: Name that tune for when you hear a song you dont know, tis great!
TV Plus: Remote record stuff if you have SKy+ at home
Joost: watch Joost tv stuff

bluemachaveli

Did you port to O2 from another network? (Assuming its not an unlocked phone) They can be kinda slow wit the ports at busy times of the year!

Eirtext Pro and Shazam are excellent apps!

luckat

Bluemachavel - Yes, I ported to O2 from Vodafone. O2 were helpful and nice when I rang, and said the lad in the shop gave me the wrong SIM card. When I went back to the shop he said he'd actually given me two SIMs (??) and I'd put the wrong one in the phone; he put a different one in and it picked up the O2 system immediately.

Faceman, what's a genuine iPhone SIM, please?

Oh, that's great news that TruPhone works; I'm going to be calling Japan occasionally, and it would be good to be able to do so directly from the phone, rather than using Dialwise (1520-520-520), which is cheap (15c a minute) from a landline, but dear (59c a minute) from a mobile phone.

I'm going out later to buy iPhone for Dummies, but may still ask you experts questions, if that's ok with you.

ronoc75, I can't see anywhere to enter all the settings - the iPhone just asks me for the wifi password.

faceman

luckat wrote: »

Bluemachavel - Yes, I ported to O2 from Vodafone. O2 were helpful and nice when I rang, and said the lad in the shop gave me the wrong SIM card. When I went back to the shop he said he'd actually given me two SIMs (??) and I'd put the wrong one in the phone; he put a different one in and it picked up the O2 system immediately.

Faceman, what's a genuine iPhone SIM, please?

Sorry bad choice of words on my part. I should have said an iphone contract with o2!

ronoc75

To change your wi-fi settings goto Settings>Wi-Fi then touch the blue arrow to the right of your wireless network name. Now touch the Static button under IP address and enter the settings for your network here, being careful to avoid the address range assigned via DHCP by your router.

bluemachaveli

faceman wrote: »

TV Plus: Remote record stuff if you have SKy+ at home

Cheers Faceman never knew about this. Savage app.

luckat

I'm getting to know the phone and liking it, but haven't yet approached the horror of WiFi. (By the way, when you've set it up for your own network, can you use it with other networks if you get the password, or do you need to do the whole setup again?)

I'm having two strange, possibly related problems. One is that calls are dropped very fast - the phone appears to ring a couple of times at the other end and cut off. The other is that I miss a lot of calls and discover that I've missed them later, even though I've had the phone (in a leather case, but with the speakers facing out of the case, and with 'vibrate' turned on) in an ample thigh pocket.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

I'm getting to know the phone and liking it, but haven't yet approached the horror of WiFi. (By the way, when you've set it up for your own network, can you use it with other networks if you get the password, or do you need to do the whole setup again?)

Yes, once set up with your network, it can be set up with a number of others, without any issues. Mine "remembers" the settings for my home network, one at work, another one in college, etc. I think there's a limit to how many networks it will "remember", but not sure what that limit may be... And why would WiFi be a "horror"? If you have your user credentials, it's pretty straightforward in most cases.

luckat wrote: »

One is that calls are dropped very fast

I've heard of something like this with hacked iPhones - but not ones legitimately on the approved network, in this case, O2. FWIW, mine is actually hacked to work with Vodafone and I still don't have any such issues. Could be something to get on to O2 about...

luckat

J-blk wrote: »

Yes, once set up with your network, it can be set up with a number of others, without any issues. Mine "remembers" the settings for my home network, one at work, another one in college, etc. I think there's a limit to how many networks it will "remember", but not sure what that limit may be... And why would WiFi be a "horror"? If you have your user credentials, it's pretty straightforward in most cases.

I find it difficult. The Airport Express has a bunch of different passwords, and uses *different names for the same password in different contexts*! So you're asked for your Zigglyzog Password (not an actual example!), and you look at your User Settings Password and wonder is it this or your Network Password, or your WPA-PSK Password.

I've heard of something like this with hacked iPhones - but not ones legitimately on the approved network, in this case, O2. FWIW, mine is actually hacked to work with Vodafone and I still don't have any such issues. Could be something to get on to O2 about...

If the problem persists I'll get back on to O2 (using Skype if necessary...)

One more question - how do you find new ringtones and load them onto your iPhone? I find iTunes horribly counter-intuitive for anything except playing music (and even for that it's not that great, to be honest - not one of Apple's finer efforts).

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

I find it difficult. The Airport Express has a bunch of different passwords, and uses *different names for the same password in different contexts*! So you're asked for your Zigglyzog Password (not an actual example!), and you look at your User Settings Password and wonder is it this or your Network Password, or your WPA-PSK Password.

I have an AirPort Extreme and an Express - there are two passwords in general: the Airport password itself (in order to access all settings) and the WiFi network password/key (WEP or WPA as set). I simply keep the Airport and WiFi network passwords the same for consistency and have had no problems. I'm assuming you're connecting your Mac to this network anyway so what's the problem when you try to use the same password for the network on the iPhone? It should be using the very same settings.

Yoda

I'm a Blueface.ie customer and am hoping for a decent VoIP app to be made available for the iPhone. Truphone doesn't interest me because I already have a VoIP provider.

luckat

J-blk wrote: »

I have an AirPort Extreme and an Express - there are two passwords in general: the Airport password itself (in order to access all settings) and the WiFi network password/key (WEP or WPA as set). I simply keep the Airport and WiFi network passwords the same for consistency and have had no problems. I'm assuming you're connecting your Mac to this network anyway so what's the problem when you try to use the same password for the network on the iPhone? It should be using the very same settings.

Now, this is odd. When I originally set up the AirPort network I gave it an access password, which *as far as I know* has worked ever since for anyone trying to join it.

After a recent crash I was asked to give it a WEP-PSK password, and it refused to accept the AirPort password for this, and said it needed to be longer. So I made a new password for this.

The third password is for the AirPort settings.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

Now, this is odd. When I originally set up the AirPort network I gave it an access password, which *as far as I know* has worked ever since for anyone trying to join it.

After a recent crash I was asked to give it a WEP-PSK password, and it refused to accept the AirPort password for this, and said it needed to be longer. So I made a new password for this.

This is what I don't get then - the password that everyone uses to join your network would be the WPA-PSK key/password as well (if that's the encryption you're using). It couldn't be two separate passwords at the same time, since the device can only be creating one wireless network at any given time.

The settings password can indeed be something completely different, but like I said, I just keep that and the WPA the same, to make things easier...

In any case, the iPhone would be looking for the WPA-PSK key anyway...

luckat

J-blk wrote: »

In any case, the iPhone would be looking for the WPA-PSK key anyway...

But not accepting it.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

But not accepting it.

I checked now to be sure... My Express (and the Extreme) have settings for two passwords: "Base Station" which contains the password for the Express/Extreme itself and "Wireless" which is the WiFi network password and the one needed for all your client devices to join the network...

Can your iPhone join the network when there is no security applied? If yes, there is a chance you could be getting your WPA password wrong when typing it on the iPhone (damn lack of copy & paste!)... If it's fairly complicated, you could always change it to something simple (e.g. characters only) temporarily and see if it joins... It's easy to get things wrong initially on the iPhone keyboard, especially as it capitalizes everything after the full stop. You get the hang of it over time though .

Type 17

luckat wrote: »

After a recent crash I was asked to give it a WEP-PSK password...

If this was an Airport crash, I'd set up the Wi-Fi security on it again. PS: WEP is really easy to crack, you should use WPA.

If it was a Mac crash, I'd delete the Wi-Fi entries in the Keychain, and log in again as if it was the first time.

luckat

I'm now trying to fill in a whole series of bloody addresses. I've given the dratted gadget the IP address of the AirPort, but it's looking for subnet mask, router, DNS and search domains. What???

It offers a choice of DHCP, BootIP and Static. I chose Static. This is all too effing complicated.

I don't want to start fecking around with the AirPort network, which in itself works perfectly well. It's only the iPhone that's the problem.

Incidentally, how do I change whether the password is WPA or WEP? I just filled in a password when the accursed thing asked me to give it one to use. (One of my three - which doesn't work for the iPhone) is listed in my notes as WPA-PSK.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

It offers a choice of DHCP, BootIP and Static. I chose Static. This is all too effing complicated.

You want to use DHCP... then it'll take all those settings automatically from the AirPort. Setting it to "Static" would require you to set everything manually (kind of the whole point of using it). In a DHCP configuration, you only need the WPA/WEP key nothing else...

But to step back here, what are you doing on the iPhone to join the network? In most cases, you shouldn't even be seeing the above options...

On the iPhone, you would go to Settings => WiFi and wait for it to scan for networks - they'll come up under "Choose a Network..." - tap yours to select it. It should prompt for the password - if you enter it correctly, it'll join, no other options required.

Alternatively, if you want to test the phone with an open network but don't want to change anything on your AirPort, then try the phone on an open public network, like in a coffee shop or library, school, etc... At least then you could rule out any problems with the phone. Though my best guess about it not accepting the WiFi password is that it is being mistyped on the iPhone.

Type 17

Change that setting to DHCP, and all those settings will be provided to the iPhone automatically by the Airport.

If you want to change the Wi-Fi security protocol to WPA, you'll have to alter the settings on the Airport Express (which you've said that you don't want to do at this stage), so maybe leave it for now.

If you do live in a high-density dwelling (terraced house, apartment, etc) you should consider changing it though, as you neighbours may be able to use your connection.

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

Incidentally, how do I change whether the password is WPA or WEP?

It's in the AirPort Extreme settings of AirPort Utility, under the wireless tab - there's a select box for "Wireless Security" and you can disable it there or drop it back to the various flavors of WEP (note when you change those settings, it'll disconnect your Mac/PCs and you would have to reconnect with the new settings).

luckat

The password is set as WPA/WPA2 Personal.

J-blk

That should work fine with the iPhone, as long as the password is entered correctly (it's case sensitive).

Type 17

True, my iPhone is working fine with Apple AP's on WPA2-PSK

luckat

Went into the AirPort Utility and set it to Manual, found Wireless, retyped the password in both fields, let it restart itself.

Everything online stopped working - no web pages loading, etc.

Turned off the computer. Turned off the AirPort. Unplugged the AirPort from the Irish Broadband connection; turned everything involved off and unplugged it all.

Went away somewhere quiet for 60 seconds or so and screamed under my breath.

Turned everything on and plugged everything in again. The computer asked if I would like to join the apposite network and I said yes and entered the same password; it joined me up.

Tried the iPhone, entered the same password (which appears to be entering in lower case, if you can believe the letters that show up briefly beside the dots as the password is encoded).

Once again got the message: "Unable to join network Fuqued" (not network's actual name).

I'll give it a try somewhere with public wifi - any suggestions around Rathmines, Rathgar, Ranelagh?

It does actually *see* the network. It just won't join it.

J-blk

Well that is unusual then - WPA/WPA2 should be fine, password entered correctly should work and there should be no need for any other manual setup in your current configuration. I'm in the city center so no suggestions I'm afraid on open WiFi networks in your area - any libraries close by? I can connect to the one in the Ilac centre in town with no issues, completely open - so I'm guessing most Dublin libraries are using a similar setup.

luckat

Didn't know the libraries had wifi! I'll try tomorrow. Thanks for all your help. I suspect that I may have got a dud iPhone as far as wifi is concerned.

Type 17

Well, if you can connect fine at the Library/open network, it may be worth restarting the Airport unit at your house - on the Mac, in Airport Utility, double-click on the Airport to open its window, and then in the menubar choose Basestation > Restart...

I've found that Airport units sometimes get their knickers in a twist, and benefit from a reboot every so often.

Sure try it before you go to a Library, it might save you a trip.

luckat

Type 17, I already restarted the AirPort - it was part of the deal when I typed in the password again in the AirPort Utility. So if its knickers are in a twist, that failed to untwist them.

J-blk

I'm just suggesting the library/other open network for you to be able to rule out the AirPort or its' setup for now - it can be a bit of a pain, but if it doesn't work on a random open network, then yes, you've got a dud phone and should get it replaced.

If it does work though, it's time to go back to your AirPort configuration and try things from scratch, like disabling all security, etc - frankly, a trip to the library or some other place may save you the trouble. Best of luck with it all and I hope you get it sorted soon - the iPhone can be an absolute joy to use when everything is working as you expect.

Type 17

Fair enough then, time for a trip to the Library (and then maybe the O2 shop... :rolleyes: )

luckat

Oh, and in relation to "what do you want wifi on the iPhone for anyway?" - for Truphone (to phone abroad cheaply), Eirtext (to send free web texts in Ireland) and a few other apps like that.

luckat

Woke up in the night and realised what it was - I had the MAC address of my computer entered as an allowed MAC address in the AirPort network settings. Took it out and it worked fine. I'm now all-singing, all-dancing, all-wifiing iPhoning. Thanks for your help.

Type 17

Good job!

BTW, MAC address filtering is easy to bypass (apparently, spoofing an allowed address on another machine is simple enough) and, considering the hassle of keeping a list of allowed addresses up to date, it's not worth it.

Having a WPA password of greater than 10 characters (preferably >20, and including digits and symbols) is the best security measure.

J-blk

Cool, good to hear you got it working. MAC filtering never occurred to me as for some reason I just assumed you were using mostly default settings on the Airport (MAC filtering is always off by default). You should be able to add both the computer's and iPhone's MAC addresses to the allowed clients, but as Type 17 says, a good long (and mixed: letters, numbers and symbols) WPA key should be all the security you need (unless of course you live next door to some uber-hackers ).

Hope you can now start enjoying your iPhone fully .

luckat

One further question. I'd like to use features like the maps, email, web access and so on, but there's only 1MB per month free on my O2 account. Someone's warned me that it can be expensive to use the maps, browser, email, etc.

What do you all do about this? What do you use, and what do you avoid?

It seems a bit pointless to use an iPhone, with all its extra abilities, simply as a telephone.

Apparently there's some way of seeing how much 'data' has been transferred, but since this includes wifi, it's not that clear.

Type 17

You can add 500Mb of data per month for around €7.50 on O2.

If you use Wi-Fi at home and in work (if possible), you won't use too much data - I've got four email accounts, checking every 15 mins and I'd do a little surfing on Safari and Maps on 3G as well, but I'd try to avoid looking at YouYube etc unless I'm on Wi-Fi.

Even so, I've only used 42 MB down and 8.5 MB in around 5 weeks.

PS: The usage counter at Settings > General > Usage is only for Mobile Data, and doesn't include Wi-Fi data.

J-blk

Email is not bad at all, unless you get a lot of large attachments but you can change that on your mail server settings in most cases anyway. Isn't the O2 package for iPhone, 1GB of data (not 1MB)? I've got a 1GB data add-on from Vodafone and even with a lot of surfing, maps, etc (though no YouTube), I'd be very hard pressed to break 15MB in any single day (and a 1GB cap would give you about 33MB for every single day of the month if you used it consistently).

luckat

D'oh, 1GB? I was so dazzled by the beauty of the iPhone that I would have said "Yes, yes, anything, anything".

Another question: is Eirtext (an app that sends texts for free) only for one network or for all networks?

J-blk

luckat wrote: »

D'oh, 1GB? I was so dazzled by the beauty of the iPhone that I would have said "Yes, yes, anything, anything".

I'm pretty sure it is 1GB, but like I said, I'm not an O2 customer so you might want to double check - should be somewhere for you to check (online profile?).

luckat wrote: »

Another question: is Eirtext (an app that sends texts for free) only for one network or for all networks?

O2, Vodafone and Meteor are all supported - 3 is the only exception I believe.

luckat

I must have taken the Stupid Pill today. I just spent ages changing all my Irish numbers in the Address Book on the Mac to start with 00353 so they can be rung from abroad, only to realise that the phone supports +353, which is more useful if you're in a country that has a different international access code than 00.

Is there any way to do a global search and replace in Address Book?

Type 17

luckat wrote: »

D'oh, 1GB? I was so dazzled by the beauty of the iPhone that I would have said "Yes, yes, anything, anything".

Another question: is Eirtext (an app that sends texts for free) only for one network or for all networks?

You can set it up for Vodafone, O2 & Meteor. Works fine on O2 for me.

luckat

Trying to set up email now - it took my settings from Mail, it appears, so digs its heels in when it tries to use wifi (out abroad, like, in Donnybrook or somewhere) for the Irish Broadband smtp.

Has anyone set it up to use email without wifi?

I tried putting in my o2 email and user password, but it spat at me.

J-blk

Mail works fine on 3G as well - and it should just sync any and all accounts from Mail.app on your Mac. I have 3 accounts set up on it. If you don't have IMAP accounts and you have a large number of mails sitting on the server, it might be best to first sync it over WiFi, as it'll pull everything (including read messages) and that could take awhile but shouldn't be a problem otherwise.

Type 17

Now that you are using two devices for one set of email accounts, it's best if you can use IMAP rather than POP3 for incoming mail.

For outgoing messages (SMTP) see if IBB will accept message through port 587 rather than port 25. Using port 587 means that that mails will be much more likely to be accepted on public networks.

luckat

It went looking for wifi and told me it couldn't connect - how do I tell it to use 3G? Or Edge, is it?

J-blk

Settings => General => Network => Cellular Data. You need to set up the APN, username and password here for the first use. But I would think that O2 would set that all up for you in store? Once set up, it automatically connects to 3G or EDGE, depending on availability. It always tries to connect WiFi first, then 3G, then EDGE last (unless if you disable something). Of course, you can find yourself in areas where none of the three are available...

Since I'm on Vodafone, I don't know what the O2 settings are, but I'm sure Type 17 can come to the rescue .

Type 17

O2 APN is the word internet and the username and password are iphone and password respectively.

You'll need to have your O2 phone account set up for 3G/EDGE/GPRS usage, but if you don't mention that you are using an iPhone, then you can pick the best plan for your usage.

luckat

Hmm, looked up the settings in General and they were as Type17 stated. Odd.

Eirtext is showing a Meteor symbol over its Eirtext symbol on the bottom left when I open it. I sent a text to my own number, but no sign of it so far. Looking it up online it looks as if I need to buy the Pro version for (gasp) $2.99 - is this so?

Oh, wait, I set up the o2 settings on Eirtext, so *that's* all right.

Oh, is my o2 account not automatically set up for 3G and Edge? When the lad in the Carphone Warehouse (sweet, but not *totally* au fait with the iPhone - he told me I couldn't transfer my Nokia contacts to it, and that I couldn't make my own ringtones, silly) set me up, he waved at me a piece of paper mentioning a download amount, which suggests that I was being set up for some form of 3G, yes?

Maybe I should call in to an actual o2 shop, hmm?

luckat

Type 17 wrote: »

Now that you are using two devices for one set of email accounts, it's best if you can use IMAP rather than POP3 for incoming mail.

For outgoing messages (SMTP) see if IBB will accept message through port 587 rather than port 25. Using port 587 means that that mails will be much more likely to be accepted on public networks.

I'll probably take the Eircom mail account off the phone and use the o2 mail account or get a .me account (mmmaybe - didn't find it reliable the last time I used it) for the iPhone.