Welp, looks like I just set a record for title length. The previous post sparked some discussion. Specifically, for example, the fact that I rather scold the iPhone there than praise it. This one will be a bit of the opposite – overall, I am happy with the device, if that doesn't become obvious to you from the text below.
Reading books is more or less fine. With apps like textReader/ruBooks/BookReader you can normally read books/articles in fb2 and html formats – the main thing I need from a reader. All these readers are not from the official AppStore, where I couldn't find anything that suited me, although some people like iMobilco and Stanza. I upload books via ssh over wi-fi – the speed is crummy, but for books it's not a big deal. You can get books at litres.ru – it's cheap and legal, the authors definitely get a decent cut. If you couldn't care less about writers' hard work, or if you're simply a cheapskate, you can download them from Librusec. I haven't used the old-school lib.ru for a long time, because it looks atrocious, the books there are increasingly not the ones you need, plus the fixed formatting of 80 characters per line – that just kills me.
Things are also pretty good with dictionaries on the Applephone – the WeDict shell allows you to hook up converted Lingvo dictionaries. There are also explanatory dictionaries, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, and so on. You can download all of this here. The Turkish dictionary (available in both directions) came in very handy, as I've mentioned more than once. There's also the SlovoEd dictionary, it's paid, cracked versions are available on torrents.ru, where there is generally a ton of iPhone software. Nobody is stopping you from using bourgeois search engines like btjunkie.com или isohunt.com either.
Encyclopedia. You can buy a paid one called Encyclopedia – it's just a convenient shell for Wikipedia. I haven't used it because it wasn't on torrents.ru or on trackers in general. Had to install a free alternative called Wiki2Touch. It is quite a hassle to install, and right now there is absolutely nothing on its website and you can't download it, so there won't be any details. The pictures never worked for me anyway – maybe it's for the best. I will probably eventually buy the paid Encyclopedia after all – it's a useful thing, and the free one is a bit too much of a chore, especially if the currently installed one crashes and stops working.
Next comes a sore subject – GPS. The native Apple software only works with unlimited internet, and is overall pretty wretched. It's totally useless for a cyclist – it can't remember traveled routes, you can't mark places with waypoints either, and I don't think there are any topographic (with elevation) maps either (not sure about this one). Its route planning is very poor, and it doesn't even smell of turn-by-turn navigation, let alone voice navigation.
The software that more or less suits me is called MotionX GPS – one of the best for bikers on the iPhone, especially the latest version. Unfortunately, it gets its maps from openstreetmap.org – it's something like Wikipedia for maps. It is kind of a good thing that they involve people in such a good cause as map making. But for Latvia the maps there leave much to be desired, so using all this is inconvenient. In addition, the app once again requires a constant internet connection, even though it caches what's already downloaded.
Fortunately, there is a tricky scheme that still allows me to somewhat put up with GPS on the iPhone. Kind hackers made the xGPS app to replace the native software. Well, its desktop counterpart xGPS Manager lets you download maps in advance from Google Maps. In their turn, Russian coders wrote software for converting the xGPS format into the format of my favorite MotionX GPS. It sounds complicated, but it's not hard to use. There are some nuances, but you stumble upon them yourself. I will, however, tell you in advance so you don't suffer.
First, xGPS downloads maps very slowly and tediously, because it thrashes the hard drive for a wildly long time. If possible, download to a fast drive, or even a RAM disk, if you know how to make one. I use the SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus software – it works pretty well, including for other purposes. Although I very, very much doubt that anyone will bother as much as I do – it's easier to just wait.
Second, MotionX GPS stores maps as a bunch of pictures, resulting in a ton of files. Therefore, the map you download should be small – 100 megabytes tops. To achieve this, it's enough not to download the bottom 2 or 3 detail levels. For a bike they are usually unnecessary anyway, especially the last 2 – because house numbers are already there at level 3.
By the way, in theory, you can toss maps downloaded from very different services onto the iPhone using a terrifying piece of software called Global Map Download Tool. But it is so user-unfriendly, unstable and incomprehensible that this exercise is only for the truly strong of spirit. I ultimately never managed to get anywhere with it – maybe you'll have better luck. In general, this program currently leads my personal ranking of the most horrifying software abominations I have ever witnessed. I use a calque from English here because I don't even know a word of such power in Russian to describe it.
Generally speaking, the third-generation iPhone 3G S was recently announced. There are few differences from the second one, but they do make sense. The device has become faster, the camera has improved slightly, a magnetic compass has appeared in addition to GPS, plus rumor has it they built in a decent video accelerator.
All this wouldn't be as relevant if a fresh version of the operating system and built-in programs hadn't appeared along with it – known on the internet mostly as "firmware 3.0". There will be a mountain of features there – copy-paste, portrait mode in all native apps (which was also lacking in places), and most importantly – the lifting of the clever AppStore restrictions on storing cartographic data by apps. It might have happened earlier, but the final chord struck only now – the famous TomTom company promised to release a full-fledged navigation app right alongside the release of firmware 3.0.
We'll see, of course, how good it will be, but it's at least something. Despite the fact that on other platforms there are simply mountains of navigation software, from different companies – for every taste.
I don't know if I'll be able to install firmware 3.0 on my jailbroken iPhone (TomTom won't work without it). But I want to hope, as well as hope that kind hackers will crack TomTom – otherwise it'll end up being way too expensive for me. Especially since right now for $100 you can buy a perfectly working standalone navigator with a 5” screen, albeit a Chinese one.
What else is there to say? I haven't played games – only recently installed on a colleague's advice iDracula, Knights Onrush. The first one is okay, the second one is completely dumb. Flight Control is also fun, but gets boring fast. In general, all iPhone games must be optimized for touch controls – otherwise it's awkward. Like, there are GBA and NES emulators, and even a port of one of my favorite games of all time – Flashback. But all this is practically unplayable. Rumor has it various iPhone accessories will appear soon – there will surely be an external keyboard/joystick, so there is hope for hardcore gamers. I personally don't care. The only thing that makes me happy is that new games are being created for the iPhone, tailored specifically for touch controls, but at the same time using innovations in gameplay too. I mean something like Flight Control, obviously. It's just that everyone is always complaining about the stagnation of ideas in the gaming industry, and here external factors are defining new ideas, as often happens in creative endeavors.
Overall, I'm half-satisfied with the iPhone. I left the most unpleasant fact personally for me for last, and it has to do with GPS. The fact that the battery isn't enough for a full day of using GPS is not surprising, but it's not a big deal either – there are solutions for this in the form of external batteries. However, the fact that the GPS receiver in the iPhone itself is far from ideal is very significant. It doesn't take that long to find satellites, if there is a cellular connection (AGPS technology). But it loses them with gusto – as soon as some clouds roll in, or you ride into a forest or a city with buildings higher than a few floors. This makes it impossible to record continuous route tracks, and, for example, use them to improve OpenStreetMap.org. Maybe it's just me who got so unlucky, but an external SiRFstarIII is still an order of magnitude better. Turns out, I should have followed the advice of experienced folks and bought a device without GPS and with such an external sensor.