Discover Buenos Aires random header image
You are here: Home > iphone
Tag Archives | iphone

Save Bandwidth On Your iPhone

By on in Tech

Have an iPhone? Have data limits? Or are you traveling to Argentina and need to use your home data plan while here? All these things can be incredibly expensive, but there is a cool new app for the iPhone called Onavo that can save you a lot of data usage and extra charges.

Onavo is free and after you install it on your iPhone, it immediately goes to work in the background compressing all the data coming into and out of your iPhone. I’ve been using it for a few days now and have seen no noticeably slowdown in speed, but have seen a significant decrease in data usage. Pretty cool and definitely one of the apps you should be running.

You can check out their video for more details:

Comments { 0 }

iPhone 4 Released in Argentina

By on in Tech

The iPhone 4 on Movistar was just released in Buenos Aires today!

Currently, it is only available from certain Carrefour locations and Falabella at Unicenter. In fact, both stores took out full page ads in today’s paper to publicize it’s release. It’s so new, even Movistar’s web site does not yet make any mention of its availability.

The cost at both stores is AR $2399 for the 16GB version and AR $3299 for the 32GB version, which also requires a new 12 month Movistar contract. The lowest iPhone plan from Movistar is AR $189 per month and includes 300 free minutes to Movistar and fixed lines, 300 minutes to other mobile numbers, 4 free Movistar numbers with up to 3000 minutes of calling, 200 SMS and unlimited Internet.

The Carrefour ad listed that they only had ten units total, while the Falabella ad listed that they had twenty 32GB iPhone 4s and seventy 16GB iPhone 4s.  Fearing I would already be too late to get one, we rushed over to the Carrefour on Libertador and General Paz around 2pm and were, surprisingly, the first people to buy one (this location had two 16GB and one 32GB model in stock). Laura thought I was a bit crazy and reminded me that this was not New York, but still I had expected some lines. (The release of the iPad in Argentina a couple of weeks ago generated a lot of attention and lines.)

Unfortunately, the iPhone 4 is only sold with a 12 month contract, so getting one is out for most expats as a DNI and permanent residency are required for these contracts.  As I only have temporary residency, I had to have Laura sign up for a plan in her name. It’s nice to finally be done with the costly pre-pago Movistar service and be on a regular monthly plan.

The other good news is that since older electronics tend to hold their value well here, we can now sell our jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 3GS. We should be able to get almost the same price as we paid for the new iPhone 4.

UPDATE (26.9.10) – It appears that Claro and Personal also have the iPhone 4 now and are advertising it on the home page of their web sites. Movistar has this page for the iPhone 4 which is not linked from their site yet.

UPDATE (27.9.10) - FaceTime is not currently working with Movistar in Argentina either. This is really disappointing as this was one of the main reasons for getting the iPhone 4. If you go to Settings -> Phone and turn FaceTime on, you’ll get the message “Waiting for activation…”  This appears to be a problem with Movistar needing to issue a carrier update which apparently has not been done yet.

I sent a tweet to @movistararg and am waiting for a response. Send one too if you have this problem.

Comments { 6 }

Expat Tech: New iPhone Jailbreak Released For All iPhones

By on in Tech

A new, incredibly simple iPhone jailbreak has just been released for all iPhones, including the new iPhone 4.  Whereas previous jailbreaks required some technical knowledge and figuring out what software package to download, this new jailbreak is as simple as visiting the jailbreakme.com web site from your iPhone’s Safari browser.

Now, while this new tool will easily jailbreak your iPhone, it will not activate or unlock it.  Activation is required whenever you update the iOS of the phone.  If you’re not upgrading and already syncing with iTunes, you’re good to jailbreak.  If you need to upgrade your iOS, then you also need to re-activate using a SIM card from your approved carrier (AT&T in the US) or via the hacktivation method.

Unlocking your iPhone requires that you install the Ultrasn0w app from Cydia once you have jailbroken your phone.  Ultrasn0w does not currently work for the iPhone 4, but an update is expected soon. (If you first want to confirm that your iPhone can be jailbroken and unlocked, there is a great guide at jailbreakmatrix.com.)

My iPhone 3GS was still running iOS 3.1.3 since that was the only version that could be jailbroken and unlocked until tonight. Following are the steps I took to back up my iPhone, upgrade to iOS 4.0.1, activate it, jailbreak and then unlock it.

  1. If your iPhone is already jailbroken, open Cydia and make sure that the SHSH files are backed up.  You should see a notice at the top of the Cydia main screen.  You may need these SHSH files if you ever need to downgrade to an earlier version of iOS.
  2. Connect your iPhone to your computer. In iTunes, right-click on the iPhone icon and select “Backup.”
  3. Once backed up, click on the “Update” button in iTunes to download and install the latest update from Apple. This will take awhile.
  4. When this finishes downloading, choose to upgrade your device and wait for that process to finish.
  5. When finished, your device will reboot into iTunes. You will need to have a valid SIM card installed in the iPhone or use the hacktivation method mentioned above to activate it now.
  6. Once activated, make sure your iPhone is connected to the Internet via WiFi. Open up Safari and go to www.jailbreakme.com.  Follow the instructions on the screen there.
  7. This process should complete in a few minutes and once it does, your iPhone is jailbroken.
  8. Now, open up the Cydia app on you iPhone. When it opens, install any updates it asks you too.
  9. In Cydia, search for and install the Ultrasn0w app.  Reboot when prompted.
  10. Install your carrier’s SIM card.

That’s it.  After this step, you now have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone and can use any mobile carrier you want. I now have my iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.0.1 on Movistar pre-paid and it’s working great.

The iPhone Hacks web site has some more detailed instructions if you’re interested. Oh yeah, the US Library of Congress has now made jailbreaking legal as well, though it will void your warranty.

Comments { 10 }

Expat Tech: Skype Now Supports Multi-Tasking

By on in Tech

We previously reported at the end of May on Skype adding support for 3G calling to their iPhone app and are now happy to report that as of yesterday, Skype now also supports multi-tasking on Apple’s new iOS 4 for the iPhone 4 and 3GS.

What this means is that you can now run Skype in the background on your iPhone, and receive calls as well as place them.  Before iOS 4, the only way to receive calls would have been to have the Skype application running in the foreground which was not very practical.  Now, just run Skype in the background and people in the States can ring your Argentine cell phone just by placing a local call. And all you need is a cheap 3G connection (Movistar charges $9 pesos for 2GB to use over 2 days).

You’ll still need to pay for a SkypeIn number if you want people on non-Skype phone lines to reach you, but luckily this service is only $18 for three months or $60 for a year. Plus, they have local numbers available in 25 different countries.

In other good news, Skype also dropped plans to charge extra for 3G calling.  Both Wifi and 3G calls are free to Skype numbers, though you’ll need Skype credit to make outbound calls to non-Skype numbers, but that is relatively inexpensive as well.

Now all we need is the jailbreak for iOS 4 on the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, which is supposed to be coming in the next few days! (I installed iOS 4.0 on my iPhone 3G and it slowed to a crawl.  I had to downgrade to 3.1.3 to make my phone usable again, so I’d advise against doing that.)

So, with a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone 3GS, iOS 4.0.1, Movistar 3G service and Skype, I should have a cheap calling solution anywhere in Buenos Aires.

Comments { 0 }