Cannot Sync Notes to iCloud in iOS5

Among the few issues I had while upgrading to iOS 5, one of them was pretty annoying - my iPhone couldn't sync Notes to my iPad.

I'll start at the beginning. My iPhone 4 kept failing to install iOS 5, so I installed my iPad 2 first. When I set up my iCloud sync for Notes, I was prompted to create a .me email account to be used for syncing. I did so, and it looked like it was working. When I opened Notes, I had an Accounts button, and there I could choose iCloud. Also, in Settings -> Notes, I could choose iCloud as the Default Account.

Later I successfully upgraded my iPhone, and set it to sync notes, but when I went into Notes, I noticed that there was no iCloud option. Furthermore, on my iPad, if I'd go to Settings -> iCloud -> Account, I would see an Advanced section at the bottom, with my .me account, but it was missing from the iPhone.

What I did to solve this was on the iPhone, go to Settings -> iCloud, and click Delete Account (make sure you have everything backed up!!!), reboot the iPhone, and set iCloud again. This time everything worked great, and I got the .me account added to my iCloud settings.

Air Display for iOS / Mac Review

Air Display allows you to extend your desktop to an iPad / iPhone. As simple as that. You only have to be on the same network for it to work.

You can either mirror what you see on your main display (but you would have to lower your resolution to that of the iPad), or have your iDevice act as a secondary screen.

Some useful examples. If you want to show a web page or document to someone outside your office, you can simply drag the window to your iDevice, and take the window with you (make sure to disable the screen saver first!).
If you want to see Flash enabled sites on your iPad, this is also possible, through this screen sharing.

You cannot type in the secondary screen, unless you have an on screen keyboard there as well. However, you can click, right-click, and scroll.

One important thing, which I was not aware of. As it is an extension of your desktop, when you switch desktops on your Mac, you also switch the desktop on the secondary screen (iDevice). This means that if you want to use Air Display to constantly show the same thing while you continue to work on your Mac and switch desktops, it won't work.

Anyway, I highly recommend this to anyone needing a second screen, and that already has an iPad. It works pretty fast (at least on my setup)!

iTunes link

The official Blogger app for iOS is here!

Well, this does come out after I needed a good Blogger app, but at least it is out!

Blogger on iTunes

Overall it looks great and syncs with the web version. As I'm writing this post I see this post as a draft on my Blogger app.

The post interface itself has all that you need. Location services, inserting images from your Camera Roll, or new pictures just taken.

I don't see an option to format your text though.

Anyway, it's about time!

Cannot sync photos to iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch

I ran into this problem which drove me crazy these last couple of days.

When I tried to sync photos to my iPhone or iPad, I would get this message:

Some of your photos, including the photo Photo.JPG were not copied to the iPhone because they cannot be displayed on your iPhone

At first I thought the problem was with specific photos, but then I saw that event photos that synced once do not sync now.

I have searched the web a while before I found the answer, which seems specific to Vista and Windows 7.

The main solution is to run iTunes as Administrator, and then the sync would work! You may need to delete the "iPod Photo Cache" folder which is in your photos sync folder before it would work, but in my case simply deleting it didn't help, and I needed to run as Administrator as well.

Hope this post saves you some time.

Apple TV 2 – Philips and Sony TV Owners - Colors Change to Green and Pink

I recently got an Apple TV 2 (ATV2). Overall, a product with great potential, and I promise to review all the positive aspects, once the following huge bug will be resolved.

It appears that if you own certain Sony or Philips (mine is Philips 9664) TVs, you may get a very frustrating experience. After 20 or 30 minutes of watching, the colors get warped, and change into green and pink. This is regardless of what you are watching (e.g. SD or HD content, pictures, or just the menu of the ATV2). The only way to fix it is to switch to another input (e.g. switch to your DVD), and then switch back to the ATV2.

There is a huge topic about it in the official Apple support forum (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2600405&tstart=0), with over 600 replies and over 100,000 views! Unfortunately there is no official Apple response so far, and the latest software update hasn't solved it. According to people on this thread, Apple either claims that they are working on the problem, or that this is a problem with the TV manufacturer. As I don't see either Sony or Philips doing anything about it, if Apple doesn't solve this, these are $99 that were thrown down the drain.

Apparently the problem is with how the HDMI handshake between ATV2 and the TV is performed, so you can see why each manufacturer would say that the problem is with the other manufacturer, but I assume that it would be easier for Apple to solve this, or at least put a disclaimer that this product doesn't work correctly with the following TVs.

There is another problem, which I'm sure is connected to the first one. From time to time, when I try to play HD content, I get this message:

This content requires HDCP for playback. HDCP isn't supported by your HDMI connection.

Now, the same content can play without a problem some times, and other times it would display this message, so I assume it has to do with the HDMI implementation.

Overall, this is a big disappointment. I was looking at several streamers, and chose Apple TV 2 despite its shortcoming compared to other streamers. I did so because of the very good experience I have with iPhone 4 and iPad, and I wanted something that would be as painless to operate as these two. Obviously Apple has messed up on this, and I hope they have a solution soon.

Update long overdue: it is finally working correctly!

Nokia

What phone is this? How did I take this photo?

Blogger app for iOS

Anyone know of a good app for Blogger for the iOS devices?
A quick search didn't find anything significant.
I need something that can also include pictures.