Documents to Go for iPhone (Good news!)

On my old Windows Mobile phone, Documents to Go was one of my killer apps. In truth I didn't use it all that often, but when I did it was often life-saving. I've been hagning out for it on the iPhone, and although the developers, DataViz, have promised it was under development for some time, they have been strangely quiet, even non-responsive, until just recently.

This morning's email, however, promised new hope, and as soon as 2nd Qtr 09. It's one of killer apps for iPhone, and you can read the email release and see some screens here: http://www.dataviz.com/ecampaigns/DXTGIP_UPDATE_FEB09.html?rgfull=

Weird shifting iPhone keys--This is not a feature!

There are plenty of weird iPhone behaviours documented on the web, but I'm having one that I've only read about once before, and that was in a very old posting about a 1st Gen iPhone.

Suddenly, and inexplicably, my screen seems to have recalibrated itself, so that you have to press the keys in a slightly different place from before. One minute it was as I had bought it, the next minute I am having to press just above the keys to type. There had been no operating system or software changes in between. It's an effective shift of roughly 3 millimetres, so whereas before I could hit the middle of the keys (which actually meant my finger was making contact at the bottom) and see where I was typing, I now have to hit at the very top of the key or just above so that my finger pad makes contact with the very middle and thus the entire key is obliterated as I hit it and I am constantly hitting the wrong keys, such as return when I want backspace or shift when I want A. It is extremely annoying and has greatly reduced my typing speed. And yes, it occurs in landscape or portrait keyboards, so it's probably not caused by the phone being bumped or dropped.

It's been like this for a week, and I have tried every software related solution I can think of. It doesn't seem to be to do with Winterboard or anything to do with any Jailbreaking app at all. I've uninstalled every manner of keyboard related thing and rebooted numerous times to no avail. I haven't unjaillbroken the phone and taken it back to scratch yet, but it looks like I might have to, though I'd rather wait till a 2.x release of the operating system.

You'd think it was possible to recalibrate the screen but Apple, in their infinite wisdom, seem to think the screen doesn't need calibration. Capacitive touchscreens don't need calibration, they tell me. Nonsense, of course they do, if only to address the fact that users have different typing styles and hit keys in different ways. Even if problems like mine didn't exist, it would simply be respectful to users to give them the ability to calibrate the screen, but Apple is not big on respecting users in that sort of way, just in assuming they know what's best for users.

Has anyone else seen this problem, or better yet, solved it?

Dear Apple, Jailbreaking illegal? Give me a break

Jailbreaking the iPhone has always been a thing people speak about in hushed whispers, with furtive glances to check if anyone else is listening. But interestingly, Apple have never actually alleged that it's illegal. Until now that is.

Every three years the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US is open to applications for review and exemptions. This year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has applied to have the jailbreaking of iPhones exempted from the Act, and in their response Apple has, for the first time, actually come out and said it believes jailbreaking to be illegal. You can read about it at the EFF's website here.

Personally, I find Apple's arguments ridiculous and support the EFF all the way. But I'm no lawyer (hurrah!) and I expect that one of Apple's arguments, that jailbroken iPhones depend on modified versions of Apple's bootloader and operating system software, may be persuasive. That'll be a pity, because not only will a righteous cause be sent back underground, but the real issues will not actually be debated. They'll instead be drowned in the legal technicalities.

Dear Apple, here's what I don't get. I think Jailbreaking is a fantastic thing for Apple itself! It allows them to support two very different user bases--the majority of casual users who don't want to look under the hood AND the hackers who want to tweak and tune. And Apple can tacitly support that latter group without taking any responsibilty for things going wrong. At the same time, by playing smoke and mirrors implying that jailbreaking is risky (which it really isn't) and might be illegal (which is arguable and untested) they can dissuade too many people from going down that path, but also build up expectation about future iPhone functionality. Meanwhile, even jailbreakers use the AppStore. Wow, what a coup on Apple's part.

And what would happen if Jailbreaking 'broke' tomorrow? Hundreds of thousands of the iPhone's most sophisticated and most demanding users would suddenly be very annoyed. And many of them would walk. Windows Mobile, Blackberry and most likely Google Android would get an influx of hundreds of thousands of power users. These are the movers and shakers of the smartphone world, the people who push forward features and functionality.

The bottom line, Steve, is that you need the jailbreaking community, probably more than it needs you or the iPhone. And we can read between the lines and see that all this pontificating to the DMCA about illegality is not in fact an attempt to get rid of jailbreaking, but just to maintain the status quo which is serving Apple so well.