This past weekend my wife’s iPhone was stolen from a store in Secaucus, NJ. While in store, she placed it down to try on a pair of shoes and then moved an isle down to take a look at another item which was long enough for the phone to “disappear”. Once she realized that she was missing her phone it was too late. The phone was gone, it was nowhere in sight. We traced our steps back and looked everywhere, I called it several times, but it was nowhere to be heard either. Then I remembered that I installed Find My iPhone on both phones and have tried tracking it from my phone. After a couple of failed attempts to locate the lost (stolen?) iPhone it finally displayed on a map, it was somewhere in the parking lot. We ran out to try and get a better location when all of a sudden it started moving. Its next stop was a Walmart parking lot in and this time we were able to narrow it down to within a few parking spots. Unfortunately, several cars were leaving that area as we arrived and the phone was on the move once again. Here’s where the fun really begins.

After a brief detour to fill my car’s gas tank and to drop my wife off to enjoy a sunny day by the pool (no sense in both of us spending time on this potentially useless chase) I was back on the trail of the stolen iPhone. Now, the app was showing it to be at a church’s parking lot in Fairview where it actually stayed for quite a while (at least it felt that way considering I was refreshing the screen every 30 seconds). This was good news as it gave me time to catch up, but as I was within a few blocks of that location, it started moving again – this time, heading back down towards Route 3. If you are familiar with that area (Fairview and North Bergen) you know that quite a few streets are one way which made my tracking a bit more difficult, but I finally caught up to my “blinking dot” in Union City, NJ.

License plate is obscured to protect the not-so-innocent

At a particular intersection, the app was showing the phone right in front of me (and as I remembered seeing this Volvo leaving Walmart’s parking lot) it all made perfect sense – I found him. The driver (who I also recognized from Secaucus) fed a parking meter and walked into a bar. So did I…

Bar where we had our chat

After a brief conversation (where he tried to come off as a good Samaritan) he was very apologetic and accommodating in returning the phone to me. It was in the trunk of his car under a bunch of towels and blankets – luckily none of them could interfere with the GPS signal.

iPhone recovered!

While the search lasted a bit longer, the actual conversation was very quick. Within a couple of minutes of arriving at the GPS location I had my wife’s phone back. All in all, a very happy ending to this escapade (for me at least).

In short: If you own an iPhone (or any other iOS device) make sure you install this app now. As you can see, it can be very useful in getting your stuff back.

Approximate path traveled by the iPhone - Secaucus to Fairview to Union City (NJ)

Find My iPhone app (along with Google Maps app) was instrumental in recovering the stolen iPhone, but I would like to see it further developed to include the following:

• Real-time updates as the phone moves
• Show both devices on the map, my current location and the location of the device being tracked, then provide directions – similar to their (Google) Maps app

Post from: Milos Topic

How I tracked and recovered a stolen iPhone

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Geotagging and location based services are all the rage these days. While they are very useful at times, these features should not be taken for granted nor should they be enabled on all of your devices and applications. Certain parts of your life are meant to be private and they should remain that way. Geotagging every move online for all to see could pose serious security and safety concerns.

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Geotagging your life online? Be careful.

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Flash is dead and here’s why. Last week, Adobe released Wallaby, a tool which converts Flash files into HTML5 to reach more (mobile) devices. When the creators of Flash are providing free tools to convert their proprietary format into an open, standards friendly alternative (HTML5) it’s safe to say that Adobe Flash is on its way out.

It all started with Apple refusing to allow them onto their iOS (used by iPhone and iPad) and this banishing of Flash is slowly propagating onto other platforms as well. HTML5 is taking over and if it was a movie character with a theme song I think that “Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you” would be a perfect fit. HTML5 is flexible, capable and reduces necessary “double development” for primary and mobile versions of websites since technically (for the most part) you can use the same code.

The web is meant to be open, collaborative and innovative which makes Flash past its useful life, while HTML5 along with several other languages continue to propagate across internet at incredible speed.

By the way, if you know who made the clever photo above please let me know so that I can properly credit them.

Post from: Milos Topic

Flash is dead, HTML5 considered prime suspect

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Attacking the market leader

There’s a new cell phone TV ad where Apple iPhone’s disadvantages are clearly outlined by a new, soon to be released device powered by Android. At the end of the ad they flash a URL, droiddoes.com which redirects to this page and makes it clear that it will be a Motorola phone, running Google’s Android on Verizon’s network. You can also see its features and benefits over iPhone and other popular smartphones.

This better be good, very good

Will this device be able to weaken the iPhone following and take away some of Apple’s/AT&T’s market share? Can Google, Motorola and Verizon produce a device which will outshine all others and become the most sought after phone? The number of questions is endless and answers to them will soon be available once the phone hits the market in November.

I personally hope that we will see the best smartphone ever! Better than iPhone, or Palm Pre or any of the Blackberries, I hope to see a phone I would really want to have. I currently use an iPhone 3G and while there are features I wish it had and things I wish it did better, overall I’m satisfied with it. Other phones are out there now, from 3GS to MyTouch to Palm Pre, but none of them appear to be much better from my current phone to actually make the switch.

Will it deliver?

Looking at features alone it seems like a promising device with a lot of great technologies all combined into one device. If implemented properly, there is no doubt that it will become another good smartphone and will attract tons of new customers or those who have waited for something new to come out (those who have refused to purchase an iPhone so far), but will current iPhone users make the change? What will this device need to do in order to get hardcore mac-heads away from their beloved iPhone? Then, there are people who might switch at the next contract renewal cycle (like me) if they find anything better. I’m not attached to any particular device and will use whatever addresses my needs best, but it has to be better (much better) then what I already have. Considering the number of recently over-hyped devices which looked great on paper, but failed to deliver I’m a bit skeptical in its success. I honestly hope they prove me wrong and produce an amazing device as with great competition we all win.

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How well will “Droid Does” do?

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How do App Store apps get approved and by whom? Is there a formalized process or are they left to someone’s discretion? Will FCC help us get a better understanding of how this somewhat “mysterious” and confusing process works?

These are just some of the questions I would like to have answered as I would like to use some of the apps they (Apple and/or AT&T) rejected or limited so far like Google Voice and SlingBox.

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App Store approval process, is there one?

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On my way to work this morning I have noticed that none of my iPhone apps would update so I went through the standard troubleshooting of checking settings, reboot and the like, but nothing worked. I have even tried a different device (this one on Verizon’s network) which worked fine.

Considering that I turned 3G off this morning this points to their EDGE network being completely down. By the way, this happened along Rt. 23 South and Rt. 46 East, from Wayne to Montclair, NJ.

Can anyone confirm or deny that AT&T’s data network went down today?

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Did AT&T’s data network fail?

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Ever since I got an iPhone as a birthday present (thank you Courtney!) in July of this year I have been using Twitterrific as the Twitter app of choice. At that time, it was one of the first apps to market and it worked fairly well. Plus, it’s FREE!

However, over the past several weeks the application started crashing, being slow and at times fairly annoying to use so I started my Google search quest for a better alternative. Last night, I came across a post among my RSS feeds (a bit behind on those as you can tell) from Yoast.com (btw, a great resource for WordPress plugins and tweaks) that suggested TwitterFon as an alternative.

I gave it a try and absolutely love it! Great app, responsive, allows fast scrolling and it doesn’t freeze (unlike the above mentioned app), it allows you to see your “Friends” (time line), @ replies and direct messages. You can even search from the app as well as look up the people you are following (no need to remember their @cRaZyunIquEnaMe nomenclature). Also, FREE!

Now, if I could only find a good Plurk app…any suggestions?

Post from: Milos Topic

Twitter from an iPhone

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While driving around over past week or so I have noticed a free (unlocked/unsecured) Wi-Fi network called “optimumwifi” pop up along Rt. 23, Rt. 46 and Rt. 3. I have noticed this in towns of Riverdale, Pompton Lakes, Wayne, Totowa, Little Falls, Clifton and Paterson in northern New Jersey. I know that someone will ask “why are you on your phone while driving,” well I’m not really as that drives me crazy, I was simply checking the whether (as seen above) or one of the “brief info” apps (i.e. Currency) I use on an iPhone.

I don’t remember hearing about this getting announced or marketed anywhere so I’m wondering if this is a test of some sorts or Optimum’s plan to deploy their network throughout the area before announcing it and possibly securing it in order to charge for usage.

What do you think, have any of you (NJ people) notice this as well?

Post from: Milos Topic

Optimum Wi-Fi

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Several people I “follow” on Twitter have recommended Intersquash as a website that can make your site iPhone friendly. The process is simple and at the end of it your site (when viewed on an iPhone) will look something like this:

As you can see, your site will get the “famous” iPhone gray look. You can even add an iPhone icon (size: 57 x 57 pixels; format: .png, .jpg) during this process.

All you have to do is provide your website’s/blog’s RSS feed, name the site, add an icon, and then add the generated JavaScript code inside the “head” tags of your site. Here’s the code generated for this blog:

I tested it, looks good, but have decided to take the code out and here’s why:

Overall it is a cool service and I’m sure will be quite useful to many people. Try it and let me know what you think. So far, I’m back to my “as is” look.

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iPhoneize your website

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