AppCraver » Troubleshooting

How to Create Ringtones on the iPhone

Fred Krueger — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:21:05 +0000

A number of people have written to AppCraver asking how to create a custom ringtone on the iPhone. It’s easy, but not very well documented. Here are the steps:

1. Go to iTunes and open your Music library. In the second column, some of the tracks will have a little bell next to them, indicating a ringtone is available for that track. To see all available ringtones, sort by those with a bell by clicking on the top of the second column.

2. Now move the 15 second ringtone selection by moving the blue selection area to the right.

3. Finally click “Buy”. Yes — even if you own the song, you will still need to buy the ringtone sequence as well.

4. Now connect the iPhone to your Mac or PC. When the iPhone shows up as a device in iTunes drag the ringtone on top of the “iPhone icon”.

5. Now sync your iPhone. The new ringtone will appear in your settings folder, at the very top.

Disappearing iPhone: What to do when iPhone doesn’t show up in iTunes

Barbara Holbrook — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:19:00 +0000

I upgraded my Mac over the weekend and finally installed Leopard. The whole process was simple and went off without a hitch — I thought.

This morning I downloaded a few new programs from the App Store, plugged in my iPhone to sync. And… nothing! A little beep let me know the phone was plugged in and the battery was charging, but as far as iTunes was concerned, no phone.

A quick trip to the Internet showed that this is a relatively common problem for folks that upgrade. Here’s the link to the Apple discussion forum that solved my iPhone issue. The solution is to reinstall iTunes — even if you’re already using the current iTunes version.

So, now my iPhone is happily syncing again and I’m completely up-to-date with software. The bright side is now I get to test out the new features of iTunes 8 such as Genius and the new Visualizer.

Apple Screen of Death

Clark Landry — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:50:47 +0000

I was getting the Apple Screen of Death repeatedly on my phone last night, so I had to do a complete restore. This morning I was confronted with this:

Nice way to start a Saturday.

Steve Jobs Promises Fix for App Crashes

Fred Krueger — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:15:55 +0000

According to AppleInsider, the problem with third party apps crashing the iPhone is “a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September”.

Let’s hope thats true. Although I have no intention of giving back my iPhone, i recently had to do a complete restore from scratch for the second time. The good news: once you have done it once, its about a two hour, autopilot procedure to reboot everything from scratch (assuming you have mobileme).

Too many apps causes “Apple Screen of Death”

Fred Krueger — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:57:03 +0000

My iPhone died 12 hours ago, resulting in a frozen Apple logo that is now termed the “Apple Screen of Death”. Doing a hard reboot (holding down both the home and sleep keys) didn’t work — and iTunes failed to recognize it, making a complete restore impossible. I was about to give up and schedule a visit at the local Apple Store, when i found this advice on iPhonehacks:

1.Press and hold Sleep/Wake and Home buttons until the iPhone resets.

2. When the Apple Logo appears release Sleep/Wake, but do not release the Home button until you see the prompt to “Connect to iTunes”.

3. Restore your iPhone

The advice worked, and I am now back in possession of a working iPhone.

Problems with iPhone blamed on Infineon Chip, Software fix rumored

Fred Krueger — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:38:06 +0000

According to Business Week, there is a single cause for all the problems that have plagued the initial launch of iPhone 2.0: the german Infineon Chip Set.

“Faulty software on the chip causes problems when the iPhone needs to switch from wireless networks that allow for faster Web downloads to slower ones”, the magazine said.

Even more interesting, Apple is rumored to have plans to fix the problem with a software upgrade. That’s a good thing: if the fix required a hardware recall it might have been one of the biggest disasters in the history of product launches.

No official word from Apple — yet.

Problems with iPhone applications closing abruptly

Clark Landry — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:59:56 +0000

Since picking up my iPhone three days ago, I’ve been blown away by the UI and all the applications available for the phone. I’ve never had a phone that was so easy to use and so powerful at the same time.

My one gripe (and it’s a major one) is that applications frequently close up on me at random times for no reason. Texas Hold’Em is unplayable for me due to this glitch – it happens every time I play within minutes of getting started. Ditto with Super Monkey Ball. I was trying to review the latter just now and haven’t been able to since the game shuts down within minutes of opening the game. Is this a widespread issue? Are other iPhone 3G users seeing this?