Just a week and a half ago WordPress for the iPhone was announced with a pretty killer screencast detailing what you could do with it. Tuesday morning it finally showed up on the app store, and I’ve had ample time to play with it. The good news is that it’s very enjoyable to use and quite capable for creating posts on the go.

The key benefit to using this app is writing and publishing quick posts on the go. What I found after using it, though, is that it offers up far more to the discerning user who wants to use it as a very powerful publishing tool. You can upload photos either from your existing library or snap a quick shot with your phone’s camera. I can see this leading to many food-related photo blogs. Also nice is that whatever you write can be saved on your phone, so you can work on dozens of posts at once and only publish when you want. There’s also a great preview function that will show you what your post will look like without kicking you off to Safari.

I successfully connected two Wordpress.com hosted blogs to the app in just a minute or two, although I ran into problems connecting my personal hosted blog that uses the software install from WordPress.org. It’s worth noting you’ll need version 2.5.1 or higher to hook it up to a hosted blog, although updating to the recently released 2.6 is definitely worth it for all those extra publishing goodies.

Unfortunately there are some serious shortcomings to the iPhone that bring the app down a notch. If you’re used to adding links to your posts there’s not a lot you can do without copy and paste. HTML code is fully supported, so as long as you’re good with your href tagging (which is brutal on the iPhone’s built-in keyboard) you’ll be able to add links from memory just fine.
Another quibble of mine is that drafts created on your computer won’t show up in your post queue on the iPhone app, meaning you won’t be able to start a post on your computer and finish it on the road. Ideally, future revisions will include better shortcuts for adding links and some support for fetching drafts from the cloud.

Hardcore users with a lot of readers will also be pining for some sort of comment management feature in future revisions. As it stands, you’ll have to log in to your WordPress dashboard from Safari and administrate them from there, which isn’t terrible, but it would be far more enjoyable to write and manage in one place.

All in all, it’s off to a great start, and compared to competitor TypePad, which had its app available at the launch of the app store, WordPress is just as full featured and opens up mobile blogging to the millions of WordPress.com and WordPress.org users. I’ve embedded screenshots and the screencast below.

(by Josh Lowensohn, Cross-posted from WebWare)

Several users have reported in an issue in which the iPhone 3G’s A-GPS unit fails to properly discover physical location. As described by Apple Discussions poster “Zlog”:

“GPS in particular was a problem i had with my wife’s 8GB, as it located us in texas. We’re in Oregon.”

The same user subsequently tested a variety of configurations for his iPhone 3G’s networking, with the following results:

• 3G: Off
• BT: Off
• Wifi: On
• Does GPS work?: Yes

——

• 3G: Off
• BT: On (and paired w/ headset)
• Wifi: On
• Does GPS work?: Yes

——

• 3G: On
• BT: Off
• Wifi: Off
• Does GPS work?: NO

——

• 3G: On
• BT: On (and paired w/ headset)
• Wifi: off
• Does GPS work?: NO

——

• 3G: On
• BT: On (and paired w/ headset)
• Wifi: ON
• Does GPS work?: NO

As such, it appears that, as in the case of several other iPhone 3G problems (e.g. Bluetooth echoing), turning 3G network off can result in elimination of GPS accuracy issues.

Readers have reported, however, that turning 3G networking off, pegging a location, then turning 3G back on results in persistence of the accurate results.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

Several iPhone 3G owners are reporting an issue in which severe echoes are generated through car audio systems with which the phones are paired. Generally, the driver hears echoes while the call recipient does not. The issue affects iPhone 3G models running iPhone OS 2.0, but not first-generation iPhones running the same. An Apple Discussions thread chronicling the issue includes the following laments, among others:

• “Yesterday I bought an iPhone 3G. I can still pair it with my car, but now all of my conversations have a terrible echo. It’s impossible to talk to anyone - we both hear a delayed echo of my voice.”
• “I’m also having this problem with my 3G iPhone. As a BMW Center Employee I can tell the problem seems to be widespread as I’ve paired my phone with both a new 3 series and a 6 series. “
• “I have a 2008 Nissan Altima with built-in Bluetooth. I have the same echo issue. My 3G iPhone has a very bad echo only when I talk. “

The following cars are among the models affected by this issue:

• Various BMWs
• Infiniti G35
• Infiniti G37S
• 2008 Nissan Rogue
• 2008 Nissan Altima
• 2008 Toyota Tundra
• 2007 Prius
• Ford Focus with Microsoft Sync

Some users have found that they can eliminate the echo by transferring the call to the phone, then back to the car.

Other users have found that turning off 3G networking resolves the issue. To do this, navigate to Settings > General > Network and slide “Enable 3G” to “Off.”

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

iPhone OS 2.0 has a few undocumented, useful features, including:

Screen Snapshots - Zoom and Snapshot

We previously noted a method for taking screenshots under iPhone OS 20. James1292, a user on Apple’s discussion boards, subsequently found that the screenshot function can be manipulated using the zoom feature. Simply zoom to the desired depth then trigger a screenshot by pressing the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously.

Mobile Safari Speaks Your Lingo

Mobile Safari can speak in many languages. Launch Settings then go to: General, Keyboard > International Keyboards and toggle the desire keyboards. Using the small “globe” icon on the left side of the spacebar, you can rotate through configured languages.

Once you have the keyboard of your choice displayed you can take advantage of a hidden feature in iPhone OS 2.0: simply press and hold the “.com” key. The iPhone will display the most common top level domains for your country. In the US/English: .net, .edu, .org, .com. In Germany: .edu, .org, .de, .com. In Spanish: .edu, .org, .es, .com.

In the mobile Mail.app, the same is true. If you press the “globe” for language selection, you can then press and hold the “.” (period) key to select the top level domain associated with you language settings at that time .

This feature is not consistent across all countries and in some cases some countries are not represented at all.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

UPDATE: PwnageTool 2.0.1 has now been released, introducing the following enhancements and bug fixes:

• It better auto-finds the bl39 and bl46 files (on your computer)
• It creates the ~/Library/iTunes/Device Support/ folder if not present, which should help with some 1600 errors people have been having.
• Many people have reported the PwnageTool not starting up at all (the icon never stops bouncing). This issue should be resolved now.
• The Sparkle AppCast URL is fixed in this version, so automatic updates should work for future releases.

The new download is available via these links:

• Mirror 1
• Mirror 2
• Mirror 3

The “iPhone Dev Team” has released PwnageTool 2.0, a utility for Mac OS X capable of jailbreaking (allowing full read/write filesystem access and the installation of unofficial third party applications) the iPhone 3G. The tool can also unlock first-generation iPhones that have been updated to iPhone OS 2.0.

The tool is available from the following links:

• Mirror 1
• Mirror 2

In order to use PwnageTool 2.0, use the following precautions:

• Launch the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities and type mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support”
• Delete all iPhone software updates from ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates
• Launch Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities) and quit the process “iTunes Helper”

When using the tool, which is relatively straightforward, take note of the following

• Use the 1,1 image for first-generation iPhones running OS 2.0.
• Make sure the iPhone is “off” when building the ipsw (as instructed inside the application)

For more information on jailbreak applications, see our resource.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

The decryption of the iPhone OS 2.0 software/firmware package has led to speculation that Apple may add support for wireless printing to the iPhone and iPod touch. An inspection of the iPhone OS 2.0 file structure reveals a directory named “Printers.” Currently the directory is empty, but it could be populated with drivers.

Analysis of the firmware also reveals a list of supported Bluetooth headset devices, which include:

• Parrot CK3100
• SouthWing SH310
• Samsung WEP170
• Motorola T305
• Motorola S705
• Motorola HS850
• Motorola H500
• Samsung WEP200
• Plantronics 320
• Plantronics 640
• Plantronics Voyager 510
• Jabra BT250v
• Jawbone

and many others.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

iPhone users seem to have a problem with the latest version 2.0 update in which MobileMe email accounts all send mail through the primary email name. This means that for accounts which are set up with email alias names, the iPhone software will not send email with a “reply to” address as the alias, but instead use the main account name as the reply email address. As described by one Apple Discussion member:

As described by Apple Discussions poster 24Golfer:

“If you use Alias email names and receive emails as you normally would - and reply to an email from your Alias - it still sends it out from the proper account instead.”

There currently are no direct fixes for this problem for iPhone users, as full support for email aliases will require an update from Apple. However there is a method for bypassing Apple’s MobileMe SMTP servers to get mail sent from alias account names. The fix for Apple’s Mail application is a more straightforward setup issue.

However, you can workaround the issue as follows:

Use Gmail as a pipe for handling aliased MobileMe names While the iPhone cannot fully handle MobileMe alias names, it can connect to Google Gmail accounts which can be used as a middleman for sending email via the alias names. The process to do this is as follows:

Set up a Gmail account Go to http://www.gmail.com and set up a free Gmail account. Then under the gmail settings go to the “Accounts” section and under “Send mail as:”, click the link to add another email address and enter the MobileMe email alias account (a confirmation email will need to be sent to the account).

Configure the iPhone to use the Gmail account SMTP server In the iPhone’s settings, go to the mail section, then to MobileMe, and get to the “Account Info” section. Select “SMTP” and add the following server “smtp.gmail.com”. Then use the new gmail name and password as the authentication information, and save the settings. Ensure the SMTP server for Me.com (smtp.me.com) is disabled.

NOTE: While this process has been outlined for Gmail, other free webmail accounts may also work if they support both sending mail as another account name and setup via alternative mail clients.

Many iPhones users are reporting that the backup portion of syncing in iTunes is taking a very long time to complete or results in a non-responsive iPhone. In some cases, the inordinately long backups may be the result of corruption issues that may be resolved via the following process:

• Allow a backup to complete
• Unplug your iPhone
• In iTunes, navigate to Preferences > Syncing (under “iTunes” on the Mac and under “Edit” in Windows) and delete all old backups
• Restart your system.
• Plug your iPhone back in, at which point you should be prompted to sync with the computer

If your iPhone is non-responsive, you will need to put the device in recovery mode before attempting the aforementioned process. To put the iPhone in recovery mode:

First-generation iPhones disconnect it from your Mac or Windows computer then press and hold the sleep/wake and home buttons simultaneously for about 20-30 seconds, until you see a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in the middle accompanied by the text “Please Connect to iTunes.” or a picture of the iTunes icon with a USB cable pointing toward it.

iPhone 3G Press and hold the sleep/wake button until the screen goes black (but before the Apple logo appears). Plug the iPhone into your computer and hold the Home button down.

Users are also receiving messages regarding corruption and an inability to restore backups to the iPhone.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

It’s so cute when the major labels do this digital thing–they’re sort of like your doddering old uncle who once got a patent for a new kind of horse-and-buggy harness and now sits in the basement tinkering with bridles all day.

One more time, just because it'…

I’ve never really gotten into Rock Band or Guitar Hero–I’d much rather play my guitar. But since I can’t sing anyway, and karaoke goes great with beer, Lips sounds like a great party game.

But we care about you.

(Credit: Microsoft Game Studios)

Announced yesterday during …