In my original “Useful Tips for the Unlocked iPhone” post I linked to a page on the Carphone Warehouse website which has listings for mobile internet settings for all the UK carriers. Unfortunately we couldn’t get his iPhone to play using these settings. I did a quick search and found some alternate settings for various flavours of Vodafone internet service. The settings that worked for us were the ones for the Vodafone “Web service” rather than GPRS. They are:

• APN: internet
• Username: web
• Password: web

Simple as that. Happy iPhone surfing Vodafone users….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1QO3nNs25E

Here’s a great Maynard video, posted in tribute on what would have been his 80th Birthday.

Happy Birthday Boss; wherever you may be.

Then, quite by accident, I hit on another solution. I’d made an iPhone-compatible ringtone which I’d transferred to my phone sometime before and left the file on my desktop. When tidying up later, I didn’t recognise the file by title so I dragged it onto iTunes to play it. Lo and behold, iTunes imported the file and added it to my Ringtones list. I connected my iPhone and, sure enough, was able to sync the file to my phone - adding it to my custom ringtones list. I set about trying this with some other files and, along with some help from the internet, worked out what does and doesn’t work.

Free Ringtone requirements

• AAC file, saved with a .m4r extension
• Max 3MB filesize
• Maximum length: 40 seconds
• Must be DRM-free - i.e. not a track from the iTunes Store

For the sake of this article, let’s go through the steps required to take a self-edited mp3 ringtone from your old mobile phone and convert it for, and transfer it to, the iPhone. If you haven’t edited a ringtone for a phone before you can use a free audio-editor like Audacity (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) to create a .wav file that will also work. All you will need is:

• an appropriate .mp3/.wav file
• A means of transferring the file from your old phone to your computer (data cable, bluetooth etc)
• iTunes (I’m using version 7.6.2 on a Mac)

The Process

1. Transfer the .mp3 from your old mobile, or create a new file (.mp3, .wav or any other iTunes-compatible file type will do) and save it on your Desktop (or other location you can easily find)
2. Using Finder (Mac) or Windows Explorer (PC) browse to your iTunes Music folder - on Mac the default is “Music->iTunes->iTunes Music”. Create a folder called “Ringtones” (if you don’t already have one there)
3. Add your Ringtone file to iTunes - either by dragging the file from the Desktop on to the iTunes icon or by opening iTunes and using “Add To Library”
4. Check your iTunes preferences; you need to set it to import files as AAC. Go to “Preferences->Advanced->Importing” and set “Import Using: AAC Encoder”. The default setting is 128kbps - personally I set this to a custom setting of 64kbps for ringtones which sounds fine on your iPhone speakers and saves file space.
5. Find your ringtone file in the iTunes list. Right-click it (Ctrl+click on Mac) and choose “Convert Selection to AAC” from the menu that appears. This will create a new copy of your ringtone file in AAC format, using the settings you’ve chosen in Step#4.
6. Select the file you’ve just created and Right-Click it (Ctrl+Click - Mac). Choose “Delete”. Click “Remove” in the first dialog that pops up and “Move To Trash” in the second.
7. Open your Trash/Recycle Bin either by clicking it in the Dock (Mac) or double-clicking the icon on your Desktop (PC). Find the file you’ve just deleted and drag it back on to your Desktop.
8. You now have a ringtone file with a .m4a extension on your Desktop. Right Click it and choose “Get Info” (Mac) or “Properties” (Win). Change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r and close the “Get Info/Properties” dialog.
9. Add the newly created ringtone.m4r file back into iTunes, either by dragging it onto the program icon or by using “File->Import” in iTunes. It should go into the “Ringtones” section of your iTunes Library.
10. Connect your iPhone and Sync the ringtone to your phone - either by dragging it from the Ringtones list or setting the iPhone to auto-sync ringtones. You can now set the Ringtone as usual from the Settings-Sounds menu on your iPhone.

Those are the steps that worked for me. Even though this is among my “Tips for the Unlocked iPhone” articles, I see no reason why this shouldn’t work for any iPhone given that it’s actually getting round the way iTunes deals with ringtones. Please leave a comment and let me know whether that’s true or not.

There is a code you can dial to set this, as with the SMS Centre number discussed last time: *5005*86*xxx# - xxx is the number you dial to access your Voicemail. For example; on UK Vodafone you dial 121 to reach your Voicemail so the code would be *5005*86*121#.

Hope that helps….

I enjoyed his Trumpet playing but my favourite of his many roles was as Chairman of the long-running Radio 4 show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”. With his passing, the world is now a somewhat less amusing place!

RIP Humph.

To all jazz musicians, especially jazz trumpet players: can you list your five favourite improvised jazz trumpet solos of all time? Can you list what you think are the five most important jazz trumpet solos of all time as well…?

I gave it a little thought and came up with a couple of lists. I’m sure I’ll read this back later and disagree with myself, but I thought it worth posting; if only to add some info about the albums the solos are from which I didn’t have space for on the Facebook answer.

Most Important

1. Louis Armstrong - “West End Blues”
2. Bobby Hackett - “String of Pearls”
3. Dizzy Gillespie - “Hot House”
4. Clifford Brown - “Cherokee”
5. Maynard Ferguson - “All The Things You Are” (w. Charlie Barnet as banned by Jerome Kern!!)

Favourites

1. Clifford Brown - “Cherokee” (from “Study In Brown” w. Max Roach Quintet - Emarcy)
2. Jon Faddis - “Here’s That Rainy Day” (from “Dizzy Gillespie Jam - Montreux ‘77″ - Pablo)
3. Wynton Marsalis - “After You’ve Gone” (from “Standard Time Vol. 5″ - Columbia)
4. Eddie Henderson - “Surrey With A Fringe on Top” (from “Inspiration”)
5. Brian Lynch - “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” (from “Keep Your Circle Small” - Sharp Nine)

SMS Settings

My main problem was that I couldn’t get SMS (text) messages to send from my iPhone on T-Mobile UK. I had figured out that this was down to an incorrect Message Service Centre number on the phone and I was basically correct. There are a series of codes you can dial on the phone keypad to query and change various settings on the phone. The SMS related settings are as follows:

1. Check Service Centre number (SMSC) - dial *#5005*7672# and press call. This will display the current Service centre number. If this doesn’t work you have a different problem; see below.
2. Delete Service Centre number (SMSC) - dial ##5005*7672# and press call.
3. Set new Service Center number (SMSC) - dial **5005*7672*+nnnnnnnnn# and press Call. N.B. +nnnnnnn is the number of the SMS service centre number that you need to find out from your cell phone provider. It’s in international format and therefore starts with a + sign before the country code.

If option 1 doesn’t work for you, as it didn’t for me, then you have an outdated SIM card. Mine was my original One2One SIM from the days before T-Mobile in the UK and was about 9 years old. I went to my local T-Mobile shop and they replaced it with a new one for a £10(GBP) fee - I then called T-Mobile and they agreed to credit that amount to my bill since I was replacing it for “wearing out” due to old age. Since I switched SIM cards, everything has been hunky-dory with the SMS service.

EDGE/GPRS Internet

The iPhone doesn’t (yet) support 3G internet service but does work over what used to be called WAP - this runs, these days, in some territories over the EDGE network (as in the US) and in others over GPRS (most parts of the UK). I believe that EDGE is currently only available on O2 in the UK. You may need to manually configure the settings for this to work and you will need a Data plan/bundle from your cell phone provider - otherwise it can be ludicrously expensive. Typical prices in the UK run to £7.50/MB transferred - thats about $15 (USD)!! I pay £7.50/month to T-Mobile for a Web’n'Walk plan that gives me unlimited data transfer.

I had some problems tracking down the correct settings to use. T-Mobile UK doesn’t officially support the iPhone and their settings are only available on their website via a service that downloads the settings directly to your phone - and if it’s not supported it doesn’t work! I called T-Mobile Customer Services and the chap who ‘helped’ me tried to put my phone details into the same web-service rather than having any actual information! I did a thorough search online and eventually came up with the correct settings (after many attempts with incorrect ones) at the Carphone Warehouse website. They are:

• APN: general.t-mobile.uk
• Username: user
• Password: wap

Please note the lack of “.co” in the APN - I didn’t spot that straight away and had more problems. If you are on a different UK mobile network, you can find the settings here. To find your way to the right iPhone menu for these settings click: “Settings->General->Network->EDGE”.

iPhone “Unlocking Services”

In the midst of my confusion over the SMS issue I tried a few different packages for unlocking my iPhone. The simplest and best seems to be ZiPhone. I foolishly bought into a package called UnlockiPhoneUK since they promised to unlock all features and provide future-proof support against new iPhone software released by Apple. I paid £29.99 (GBP) for what proved to be a rebranded version of the ZiPhone software (which is free!) and a mediocre help section on their website. I implore you to not repeat my mistake. I will be emailing their “Customer Service” and requesting a refund when I have a moment.

I hope that this information proves useful to anybody trying to get their unlocked iPhone up and running. I have been helped enormously by many sources all over the internet to collect the information above and I thank those who posted it. This is all regurgitated information and none of it is my own work. I just hope that having it in one spot makes it easier to find. I’ll post anything else useful I come across as I go along…

Since I’m still flitting between the US and UK all the time, I had no intention of signing up for a 2 year contract with AT&T so, instead, I set about hacking the thing and after a couple of hours of Googling, patch-downloading and other general geekiness I had an unlocked phone ready to use my T-Mobile SIM cards from the various countries in which I subscribe.

I’ll post more stuff about the iPhone in due course - prinicipally to help make up for the lack of instruction manual that comes with the thing! In the meantime, I’m wandering around feeling terribly smug!!

I was interested to read that it’s not actually St Patrick’s Day today at all! The reason is that the church can’t make up their minds when Easter really went down and so this year it’s very early and as St Paddy’s falls on Holy Week, the Holy Week takes precedence! People believe all this why?

Weird huh?