René Rebe

It only took 2 years for the contract to expire and endless calls to T-Mobile Germany. Unfortunately the IMEI exchange from the exclusive phone resellers to Apple is a little lazy, works by exchanging spreadsheets or even good old facsimile transmissions and does not appear to be directly database record exchange oriented.

So I had to dictate (wait what, should they not have that in their system to start with?) IMEI to a call center agent, and they pass it along to their Apple contact department, … And after the promised “unlocked in a week” had passed, nothing was unlocked and I called again: to find out that T-Mobile had not even passed it to Apple, yet. Sigh! That second person promissed “it will be activated by Friday night”, that was last Wednesday, … Of course nothing was unlocked by Friday, nor Saturday, or Sunday, … not even this morning, … but now it is!

Got some strange “session timed out” while taking the screenshot:

In case it helps someone the hyperlink pointed to:

https://albert.apple.com/WebObjects/ALUnbrick.woa/wa/default

…

Unfortunately calling T-Mobile is a rather annoying affair. They let you hanging in a to-be-payed-by-minute line and drop you out after some ten minutes, so I had to call them very often (like three or more times, which is over half an hour!) to actually get thru, …

Apple’s free (up to 50 per version) iTunes Connect App promotional codes unfortunately are currently for the US store, only. At first I thought this is no big deal, just switch to the US store (at the very bottom of every iTunes page: “Change Country”). However, it is not that easy, as iTunes requires to sign in with an US store count, as soon as you sign in with your non-US (read international) account it would not let you redeem the code.

Some web guides (mostly even from 2009) explain to simply setup an US account, however, iTunes wants an valid US credit card, or PayPal account. The “None” choose for payment method usually does not appear too easily (anymore).

However, the trick is: you have to be in the “App” store part of the US iTunes store, and best click to load a Free App. Only then the new account creation will show to you the “None” payment option.

Apple even has a knowledge base article about this :-) – I just found it by accident after I already had given up on this!

I for myself find this hilarious, why could they not just let anyone redeem their code in their country’s store? Especially as this way they get zillions of ghost US account, just used to redeem free iOS Apps for review, …. Maybe some database access problem with sloppy code, unless they want to artificially increase their US market share numbers – until they have more US accounts than citizens :-)

I already teased it the other day, but given Apple’s careful review I had no idea how long it would take to get accepted into iTunes.

While we are waiting for the extern review of the one more big thing, we continued to work on our remaining schedules and are proud to announce the release of a new version of OCRKit for Mac.

Again we addressed the #1 request from our users: saving to other, directly editable text files. We even added all the top 3 most wanted file formats: HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Rich Text Format (RTF), as well as UTF-8 encoded plain text files.

Along the way we also made various improvements all over the application, including improved recognition, improved stability, updated user-interface translations, and miscellaneous other changes.

Just try out the no-stirng-attached 14-days trial of OCRKit. If you find anything we could do better just let us know! We listen to our user.

Did not even imagine to find the CPU spec of Apple’s hobby on their website, but they indeed list it: Apple A4!

So I wanted to see the Ping (:-) and update to iTunes 10 (though that will probably not bring back syncing to my [secondary] Palm Pré, sigh). The iTunes built-in software update tells me “This version of iTunes (9.2.1) is the current version.” – hm, really? I really have to go to Apple’s website to pull it manually? How easy and streamlined is that? Ok, let’s check the system software update, and indeed “New software is available for your computer.”:

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.

• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.

• Play your favorites on the all new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.

• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.

• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.

• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.

• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

At least, unlike Safari, it does not require a reboot, just to quit Xcode, and iTunes itself (do I really have to be notified of the later, and quit it myself?), …

Update: Oh my god! What have they done to the window controls! This traffic lights look ugly! And so does the new icon, oh my, oh my, …

Update 2: In the meantime the iTunes App feed directly get’s the 10 update, too, … and it looks like I hit a nerve with the icon and window decoration criticism, … Personally I do not like the icon, because it simply does not match with any other icon in my dock, neither the Finder, Mail, Safari, Cal, Preview, Xcode, et al. Mostly because the others are not as round. Whatever. The window decoration, however, is really annoying. The fragmentation of Mac UI elements, where every App brings it’s own variants, really contradicts usability and users getting to a look and feel. This really is not what the Mac user experience once meant to be and reminds me on the Unix world, where each X11 environment brings it’s own toolkits, usability, and look’n feel, …

I am constantly working on bringing up interesting topics and telling stories. August 2010 was the best month for this site, yet!

Thank you all for visiting!