I’ve been using the new version of Touchnote’s iPhone app – out later today – and I feel exactly the same. All the niggles that I complained about before have been worked out.

If you’re not aware of Touchnote, it allows you to send postcards – real, physical ones, not eCards – using photos from your iPhone. I loved the idea when the Touchnote app came out in 2009, and used it to send a few cards on holiday.

There now are other apps that offer the same sort of service, such as goPostal and Postagram, but these only work in the US, and in the case of Postagram, only work with Instagram photos.

Unfortunatey, using Touchnote’s app was always a bit of a hassle. Creating the postcards was fine, but paying for them was a complete faff. You were directed to a mobile Paypal gateway with a tiny font, so it required zooming and panning. I remember I tried to send a card while I was in France, and the just as I’d pained my way through Paypal to pay for a card, the wifi crapped out, and I had to start all over again. And if you wanted to send another card – same process. I gave up sending Touchnote postcards after that.

But the new version of the app? Superb.

There’s a very simple interface to add a photo, caption, text, address (more than one if required), and an optional Google map showing where the photo was taken. The interface has been simplified and expanded – so you can now crop, zoom and rotate your photos.

The Touchnote iPhone app interface

However it’s the payment that’s way easier. You can now log in with your Touchnote account, just as on touchnote.com. So if you’re in credit, there’s zero friction to sending cards. It just depletes one credit per card. You can also buy credits from within the app using Paypal or credit/debit card, both with native interfaces. This alone means I’ll be sending quite a few cards. At £1.49 a pop, it’s not much more than the cost of getting a photo printed out and posted, and certainly a lot less hassle.

I would love to see Touchnote continue to improve:

* You can send cards to multiple people, but sometimes it’s not just a case of adding another address – I’d like to be able to edit the text. So I want to be able to re-open a postcard that I’ve already sent.

* You also can’t save a card in draft to edit later, unless you hit Send then Cancel.

* The ability to move the caption around and resize it would be good

* There’s no in-app purchasing, which would make payment even easier, but Apple doesn’t allow physical goods to be purchased in-app.

* Maybe integration with Facebook or other sources to print and send photos from there? EDIT: I’ve just found out that Facebook integration is coming soon. Result.

It has been a long wait for a decent upgrade since the app was released, but the new version is great. The only real problem I have with Touchnote now is that I may never have to say “Deux timbres pour l’Angleterre” again!

Touchnote
Version reviewed: v2.0
Category: Photography
Developer: Touchnote Ltd.
Price (at time of review): Free to download, £1.49 per card
Platforms: iPhone (version reviewed), iPod Touch
UK App Store Link

• Landscape mode
• Twitter posting
• “A new football scores service with free goal alerts by team and match for the main UK leagues and European competitions” (yay!)

Not so good: it’s now subscription-based. £2.99 for 6 months or £3.99 for a year. But let’s face it, the old app’s model of a one-off £2.39 was never going to work, was it?

The original Guardian app will work for another 6 months, so you have a while to decide.

Unlocking iPhone 4 from O2

Xavier has previously tried to get his iPhone 4 unlocked from O2 in November, submitting the O2 unlock form. The response he received was:

Hi Xavier,

Thank you for unlatching request.

At present O2 is not supporting unlatching for iPhone 4 handset.

However, the O2 forums have been reporting that some people have tried on multiple occasions, and a few iPhone 4 unlocks have slipped through. But Xavier thought he’d try a different route. In Xavier’s words:

Today I went went to the o2 web page and a pop up web chat customer service window appeared… I started a chat with the customer service and told her (Amy) that wanted my iPhone unlocked – She asked me for IMEI and two letters from my security answer and after a few mins she said it was done… That was around 5pm, around 7.30 got an SMS saying “This is O2 customer service. Thanks for your email. We’re pleased to tell you that we’ve just sent you a reply”

The email he received said that his iPhone 4 had been unlocked. He hasn’t been able to confirm this in iTunes yet as he doesn’t have micro-SIM from another network. But I did a little digging on O2 Forums, and found that lots of people have been having success getting their iPhone 4s unlocked.

It seem that O2 changed their policy in relation to iPhone 4, and have been unlocking them since December 6th. They haven’t been quick to publicise this. As far as I can make out, it’s only for Pay Monthly customers. Right now O2’s unlock form doesn’t seem to work, and the key seems to be to go through their live chat on o2.co.uk.

It’s also interesting that O2 can unlock an iPhone within 24 hours; some people have reported getting it done within the hour! This is a change from before, as O2 claimed it always take 14 days. So if want a quick unlock of your iPhone 4, go through live chat, not the unlock form.

Unlocking iPhone 4 from Orange

It seems Orange have a 3 month waiting period in their Ts & Cs for Pay Monthly customers, after which you can contact customer services and give them the IMEI of your iPhone (to get this, go into the phone keypad, enter *#06# and press call). They will then authorise the unlock, although it’ll cost you £20.

However, check out the responses near the bottom of this post on Ken’s Tech Tips. Some people are having real problems getting the unlock approved, going round in circles with Orange support staff.

And there’s a further problem: if you bought your iPhone with an Orange SIM from Apple, Orange will refuse to unlock it. But so will Apple, as you’re an Orange customer. What’s the solution to that? The Sales of Goods Act states that your relationship is with the company you bought it from – which would indicate it’s Apple. But, if your contract is signed with Orange, and Apple insist your carrier needs to process the unlock, you’re stuck. Complain, and you may get your unlock.

Let me know how you get on.

—
To see how Xavier’s chat with O2 went, here the transcript:

Chat start time Jan 6, 2011 11:52:41 AM EST
Chat end time Jan 6, 2011 12:11:00 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:18:19
Operator Amy

Chat Transcript
info: Welcome to O2 live chat. Someone will start chatting with you soon.
info: You’re through to Amy.
Amy: Hi I’m Amy. How can I help?
Xavier: Hello Amy, I’ve got an iPhone and would like to have it unlocked could you please let me have a link to the relevant page?
Amy: I’ll check that for you. Please can you tell me the second and third character of the answer to your security question?
Xavier: x
Xavier: x
Xavier: security question? or o2.co.uk password?
Amy: Thank you
Amy: Security answer.
Xavier: oh, in that case it may be x and x
Amy: Okay thank you.
Amy: Please wait let me check for that.
Amy: Please give me the IMEI number
Xavier: ok
Xavier: *****
Amy: Thank you.
Amy: Please give me few more minutes.
Xavier: no problem, thanks a lot for your help
Amy: Its been unlocked.
Xavier: thank you
Amy: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Xavier: Thanks a lot
Amy: You’re welcome.
Amy: We’d really like your feedback. Click on ‘End chat’ in the top right of this screen to tell us what you think. Bye.
Xavier: that is all for now. Thanks a lot for your help
Xavier: bye
Xavier: and happy new year
Amy: Wish you the same.
info: We’ll email a copy of your chat transcript to {email address}.

It’s my first choice of satnav app, and I’m happy to promote it as I think it’s worth your cash. It has also just been updated with the latest NAVTEQ maps and safety camera data.

And lucky you, Santa has brought TEN copies of the app for me to give away!

CoPilot Live works on iPhone, and on iPod touch with an external GPS. You can also get CoPilot Live HD for iPad for Europe and North America. It’s one of the top grossing apps on the UK App Store, and normally costs £19.99 (or €19.99 on the Irish App Store).

Check out the main features:

• choice of mapping options: 2D, 3D and Driver Safety mode (this provides just a direction arrow and next turn instruction for the minimum amount of driver distraction, which is the option I use most)
• voice guided, turn by turn instructions (Optional Text To Speech upgrade)
• real sign information, Lane Assistance and ClearTurn instructions for complex junctions
• access to Live Local Search – search for a business or service by generic term or brand in your immediate vicinity (which requires a mobile internet connection)
• optional upgrade to Live Traffic services
• safety camera notification (except in the US and Switzerland)

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below, or retweet this tweet.

The competition closes on Xmas Eve at midnight. Good luck!

Any H.264 content from the web can be broadcast over Airplay to your HDTV.

Except that now iOS 4.2 has been released, it doesn’t work that way. Only audio can be streamed from non-Apple apps, which is frankly rubbish.

But there may be a solution.

Erica Sadun of TUAW managed to get a custom video app to send video to an Apple TV, and later Steven Troughton-Smith came up with a one-line solution.

All of which means, although for jailbreakers only, there is very likely to be a solution. Very soon, I would expect to see an app available on Cydia that will allow any video to be sent to an Apple TV.

The only remaining problem, which I didn’t think about in my earlier article, is the resolution. The BBC’s H.264 iPhone and iPad streams were not intended to be scaled up to 32′ TV screens. I’ve played BBC iPlayer content through my TV using a component cable; it looked OK, but not great. A far better solution would be for Apple to allow iPlayer streaming direct on the Apple TV – which would require the Beeb to have another, higher-bitrate H.264 stream that will scale to TV sizes. Or perhaps an iPlayer app, if Apple allows Apple TV apps, and the BBC delivers one.

iOS 4.2 for iPad has been out for 3 days. One small gripe is that Apple – in their wisdom and wish for unity across their range of devices – has decided to change the orientation lock on the iPad into a mute switch. I know this makes it operate in the same way as the iPhone, but I don’t use my iPad in the same way as my iPhone. The orientation lock makes sense – and if you want to mute an iPad quickly, you can just hold the volume decrease button, and volume will drop to zero immediately.

But 3 days later, we have a solution. There’s a jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1, and Nicolas Haunold has today released a simple tweak through Cydia called NoMute, which changes the function of the mute switch under iOS 4.2 back to being an orientation switch.

A small, simple thing that demonstrates why people need to be legally allowed to hack their gadgets – to make them work in the way that they want.

http://modmyi.com/forums/file-mods/237321-how-iphone-data-recovery.html

It works because data on the iPhone’s disk (as with any other computer) is still present until it gets overwritten. When you “delete” a photo, only the reference to that photo file is actually removed. You can then use a photo recovery tool, as with any other disk. Personally, I’ve always found PhotoRescue to be superb at recovering photos.

This method does require an iPhone that has been jailbroken prior to you deleting the data you want to recover. But because you get a disk image of your entire phone, you could recover any data from it, as long as it hasn’t already been overwritten, and you know where to look.

Enter DataMan. It uses location services to determine where and when you use wifi and mobile data; you don’t have to keep it running in the background, by the way.

The app gives you local notifications when you hit daily, weekly and monthly limits, based on percentage of allowance thresholds you set. A really good idea if you’re not on an unlimited data plan.

In keeping with my policy of not writing about things when they’ve been perfectly well covered elsewhere, take a look at Craig Thornton’s review of DataMan if you’d like to know more.

Improvements

There are two additional things I’d like to see, or rather remove:

• Daily and Weekly notifications
• Two of the four percentage usage notifications

I don’t need to be notified that much about my data. Saying that, you can work around those by setting daily and weekly allowances to the same as the monthly allowance, and percentage usage alerts to above 100%. But the developer has also told me that options to turn some things off is en route. Actually, I’ve just noticed that DataMan Lite only has the monthly usage, so if that’s all you need, give that a go.

I’ve also come across an app called Download Meter that does the same sort of thing – I haven’t tried it, but here’s the iTunes link.

If you’re trying to unofficially unlock your iPhone, there are lots of guides around. I’d recommend the unlocking tutorials at iClarified, in particular. But it can be confusing.

I like sites that cut through the cruft, and I’ve just found out about Can I Unlock My iPhone?

It’s up-to-date with current jailbreak and unlock developments, and gives you a simple answer, based on your iOS device and firmware.

If you’re looking for an official unlock from your UK mobile phone network, then I’ve previously written about that (but it needs to updated for iPhone 4).