iPod: from 3rd to 4th generation under iOS 5.0.1

A while back, my 3rd generation iPod crashed so hard under iOS 4.3.5 that it "lost its mind". I used PC iTunes 10.5.0.142 to load iOS 5.0.1 onto its wiped-clean "mind", but its longstanding port hardware problem soon thereafter became so serious that I could no longer charge it without precariously holding the cable just right (for the entire charging period, something I wasn't about to do).

I got a 4th generation iPod which was initially at iOS 4.3.3, and got errors when trying to reload it with iOS 5.0.1. The Apple error message's first recommendation was to update PC iTunes, which I did, bringing it to 10.5.1. It seems logical enough that Apple might require the latest version of iTunes for such operations. I was then able to bring the iPod up to iOS 5.0.1.

In PC iTunes, I then attempted to Restore from Backup. There were two backups, one from my initial activation of the 4th generation device (and therefore not useful), and another of the 3rd generation one from 6 days earlier. Attempts to restore from the second (chronologically earlier) backup failed, reporting that the backup session failed.

More recently I had been doing backups to iCloud, and two of those backups were there. The first had virtually no data from my activation of the new iPod minutes earlier and was therefore not of interest. The earlier one was from 2 days earlier (from the 3rd generation iPod), and I began restoring from that. Ah, the beauty of the iOS 5 backup over WiFi, which takes place when you are charging at an outlet. You always have to charge; backup is a perfect thing to occur alongside.

The iPod reported that some items could not be downloaded, but that I could restore them if I had them on my (PC) iTunes by doing a sync operation. The following apps were not restored from the iCloud backup because they were no longer available in the App Store (Could there be any other reason why an app wouldn't have been restored?), but I still had them in my PC iTunes:

• CED
• Go To There
• InstaPaper Free

My outgoing 3rd generation iPod still had some battery charge (I had been conserving the remaining charge with Airplane Mode, turning it off, turning the brightness down all the way), so I could visually compare if any other apps were missing after the PC iTunes sync.

PC iTunes lists the device, presumably purely cosmetically, as a 3rd generation iPod.

I did a certain amount of work resetting app configurations and restoring data from servers associated with the apps.

Assorted impressions of the 4th generation iPod:

• Great to have cameras. I had recently been at the scene of an accident with my camera-less 3rd generation iPod, and stayed as one of the witnesses for the police who eventually came. If I had had this back then, I would have snapped pictures which would clearly have shown the policeman that the errant driver was in the wrong lane at the time of the accident. Fortunately I believe enough witnesses corroborated that anyway. You can also use the front-facing camera to use the iPod as a pseudo-mirror.
• The addition of a microphone changed (downgraded) what Apple included as earphones (my blog entry).
• The power button was moved to a more awkward position away from the top edge, making turning it on/off and taking screenshots (press power button + home button) clumsier. Maybe the new placement was needed because of the cameras or other hardware issues.
• Volume buttons were similarly moved to a more awkward position away from the side edge.
• The 3rd generation iPod's screen always looked great to me, but the Retina display of the 4th generation iPod is even sharper. My Opera Mini browser's saved Speed Dial images looked worse than they had on the old iPod, but simply recreating them fixed that. I had the initial impression that I needed the screen brightness to be slightly higher for the new iPod than for the old, but I'm no longer sure about that.

The following links from a Google search for "restore from icloud" were of the most use to me:

http://gigaom.com/apple/ios-101-set-up-and-restore-from-icloud-backup/
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4859
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766
http://heresthethingblog.com/2011/10/18/restore-iphone-ipad-icloud-backup/
http://heresthethingblog.com/2011/07/21/wipe-iphone-android-phone/

Chinese translation: tea; chess

These are a few examples I happened upon in casual conversations with native Chinese speakers.

On one occasion, Mr. A mentioned "red tea", which puzzled some other folks who were also present. He was referring to 紅茶 (hóng chá), whose two characters indeed represent "red" and "tea", respectively.  However, in English we call the same drink black tea.  I could see the color of the tea being considered red (it's typically not black, really), but context trumps piecemeal translational validity, so he would have done better to say either "black tea" or just "tea".

On a separate occasion, when referring to chess, Mr. B called it "international chess".  In China it's called 国际象棋 (guójì xiàngqí; 國際象棋 in traditional Chinese characters) where the first two characters represent "international" (probably in all other contexts) and the last two characters represent the game called "Chinese chess" in English.

Chess is known by a different name in Taiwan:  西洋棋 (xīyángqí).  The first two characters represent "Western", while the last character represents any "chess-like" game (Go, incidentally, is 圍棋 wéiqí in Chinese; the first character represents "to surround", which I gather is what you seek to do to your opponent's stones in the game).  I tried to clarify for Mr. B that in the English language context it doesn't make sense to call the game "international chess" and that he should just refer to it as "chess".  When I subsequently contrasted Chinese chess vs chess, I called the latter "Western chess" to further distinguish it.  Although I was perhaps influenced by the Taiwan name for chess, I was thinking along the common idea of describing Chinese things as from the East and, e.g., American things as from the West, e.g., Eastern religions vs Western religions.

Wikipedia Mobile app

Well, if you were trying to access Wikipedia's "standard" (non-mobile) site from a web browser today, you were out of luck, as shown above and detailed here. If you used the (free) Wikipedia Mobile iOS app (or, it seems, accessed the Wikipedia mobile site), however, you could continue to get Wikipedia information:

Regardless of whether you agree with their decision to blackout their browser-accessed pages today, I encourage you to consider the value they provide, and if you are financially able, to contribute. Personally, I value the fact that they provide a great deal of useful text information adorned with a minimum of images, that they cover some topics (e.g., random items from pop culture -- Hot Wheels (TV Series), anyone?) that are not found in more conventional information repositories, and they do not run ads.

Chinese character triples having matching Pinyin endings including tones

Not sure if I'll stumble across any others like the following, but I heard this word used on a Taiwan show recently, and found its triple Pinyin "rhyme" interesting:

jìyìlì 記憶力 (faculty of) memory

The Pleco Chinese dictionary app, with its Wild search capability, could perhaps come up with more, but as with my earlier Chinese character pairings having matching Pinyin letters but different tones post, I find these things interesting when I come across them in daily life, rather than through calculated research.

Flashlight apps

Despite not having the blinding power of the iPhone's LED flash, a flashlight app on the iPod effectively illuminates the back panel of a PC CPU unit when I'm crawling on the floor, provides useful spot lighting at night in a car having relatively weak interior lighting, and illuminates enough of a dark room when I don't want to turn on a room light.

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I have long used John Haney SW's free Flashlight app, which is currently at version 5.1 (15) 5.2 (as of 2/1/12). When the app cold starts, there is a brief company splash screen, followed briefly by the % brightness indicator, after which you can have a pure white display at maximum brightness (at least the way I've configured mine):

I often set the iPod to sleep shortly after using this app, so until I saw some Apple App Store reviews mentioning it, I had not really noticed how my iPod's normal brightness didn't return after quitting the app. That is to say, Flashlight overrides what is set in Settings > Brightness (Version 5.2 has an option to prevent this override for iOS 5.0 or later; I personally prefer the override.). I normally keep the iPod at about the "B" level of brightness (right around the B in the Brightness heading), which, versus a higher level, lengthens battery charge life:

I often lower the Flashlight app's % brightness to a similar level before quitting the app. The app's instructions point out that you can lock and unlock the device to restore your normal brightness setting (or double-press the Home button, then single-press the Home button), which would be more precise than my manual brightness approximation technique.

I usually keep 3 screen possibilities configured, between pairs of which I can "swipe" sideways to switch:

• white
• red (which I believe is the color least disturbing for one's eyes in the dark)
• black (allowing rapid darkening of the display)

You can explore the additional entertainment-oriented screen options, but the app's utility to me is as a lighting tool. I will mention, however, that a strobe effect is available, which might be useful sometime(?).

Version 5.2 also added a way to show photos, but I had no success with it in a brief period of testing, and I reverted to 5.1, which I felt after a cold start had a slightly shorter delay before the flashlight effect comes on -- I want the app for light, as fast as possible!

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I recently also installed the iHandy Flashlight Mini app (currently at version 1.0.3), which has an S.O.S. option.  Unlike John Haney SW's app, this flashlight app does not commandeer the iPod's brightness setting.  If you weren't already using the highest brightness setting on the iPod, you might want to do so before starting this app.

Below is a screenshot of it running an ad for another one of their products, iHandy Flashlight Free, which I tried out months ago but deleted in favor of John Haney SW's app. A review in Apple's App Store correctly points out that the ads are not shown in the preview pictures provided by the company.

The ad at the bottom is still displayed when you are using the flashlight functionality.  That detracts from the feel of the app, even if it has very limited effect on the illumination.  John Haney SW's app runs ads, but not smack-dab in the flashlight functionality.

This app also has a strobe function which functions somewhat differently from that in John Haney SW's app.

The compass function does not seem to be available on the iPod.  That may only operate on an iPhone.

If you have more than one iHandy app (up-to-date versions, that is), e.g., the iHandy level app, the upper right corner's icon allows you to switch directly between them without launching them from the Home Screen.

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I continue to prefer John Haney SW's flashlight app, but you never know when you'll need to signal S.O.S....


Interestingly, on 1/4/12, Adam C. Engst commented that "Apple is rejecting flashlight apps because there are too many in the App Store already", which seems both plausible and a good thing for consumers.

Gender of spoken pronouns in Chinese

In English there is a clear spoken difference between he and she (and also between him and her), but the sound for both (tā) is the same in Chinese. In Chinese, pronouns also don't change if they are used as subjects or objects, so he=him and she=her.


On one occasion I was talking with a native Chinese speaker, Ms. A (甲小姐; jiǎ xiǎojiě). My understanding was that all of the persons she mentioned were also native Chinese speakers.

Ms. A was telling me about Ms. B (乙小姐; yǐ xiǎojiě), who had been entertaining her friend Ms. C (丙小姐; bǐng xiǎojiě) at home when Mr. D (丁先生; dīng xiānsheng) called. It seemed that Ms. B might have been interested in the possibility of exploring a relationship with Mr. D. However, he seemed to have become less enthusiastic about such a possibility after he learned that Ms. B's friend was there -- someone whose gender could not be determined from what Ms. B said over the phone, because 他 (tā) sounds the same both for a male and for a female (even when the female-only 她 (tā) is used for women -- which is only some of the time, in my experience).


On another occasion I was speaking with a native Chinese speaker with whom I periodically use a mixture of Chinese and English. This person was mentioning a transgendered person, and started with something like, "我不知道應該用 he 還是 she."
("Wǒ bù zhīdào yīnggāi yòng he háishi she."; "I don't know if I should use he or she.")

I said with a smile, "用 tā 吧!"
("Yòng tā ba!"; "Use the-Chinese-pronoun-with-the-sound-tā-from-which-gender-cannot-be-determined!")

Opera Mini vs iOS 5 Safari

This entry is originally being written to compare Opera Mini 6.5.1 (1/16/12: I upgraded to 6.5.2 and have noticed no problems with it.) with iOS 5.0.1 Safari, primarily on an iPod, although some non-iPod comments may be included.  This entry will likely get updates, either unadvertised or advertised-with-dates, over time.  I mostly read text while browsing the web on my iPod, which is probably one reason why Opera Mini works so well for me.  I have little to say about images and videos in Opera Mini.

My earlier blog entry about Opera Mini 6/6.0.1 vs iOS 4 Safari.

The free Opera Mini web browser is an alternative to Apple's Safari browser, with various pluses and minuses. Wikipedia has a decent article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_mini, which also links to the interesting http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mini-web-content-authoring-guidelines/. A list of technical specifications can be found at: www.opera.com/mobile/specs/.  Version 6.5.1 was released on 11/14/11, with some fixes for 6.5, which was released a little while earlier.  Version 6.5.2 was released 1/11/12.

Opera Mini has long been my primary browser for my iPod (and later, iPad, too).  An iPod is typically connected to the Internet less often than an iPhone, so some of the following items (e.g., Saved Pages) are more significant for iPod users like myself.

PROS:

• Opera Mini does not automatically reload a page when you tap the back arrow to return to it, at least if you return within "some" period of time (about whose duration I cannot be more specific).  Thus, if you are reading a page which has multiple links to other pages, e.g., Google News, then tap to read an article, returning to the original page will often not invoke (frequently pointless and time-wasting) reloading, unlike in Safari. Also, if you load pages into different tabs while you have Internet access, but later lose that access, you can sometimes still read those pages, even without having stored them as Saved Pages. If you switch back to or restart Opera Mini, it does not attempt to reload pages fresh from the Internet; if it still "remembers" them (which apparently is not always), it gives you back what it last had for their content. Interestingly, Google News now seems to reload on rare occasions, which I do not remember happening previously; that could be because of changes in Opera Mini and/or at Google News.  Available RAM issues mentioned below may still be applicable.
• Unlike in Safari, you don't have to switch away from the current tab to open new pages, because you can open links in background tabs (tap-hold, then tap on "Open in New Tab"). This is helpful while, e.g., reading through all headlines in Google News, allowing you to open all stories you'd like to read in background tabs. Available RAM issues mentioned below may still be applicable.
• Unlike Safari, Opera Mini allows saving of static copies of web pages on the iPod, letting you read or reread them later even without wireless Internet access. That can be useful to save pages for recipes, technical reference, humorous articles, or for any other reason, e.g., because you don't have time to read them right away.  Safari's Reading List saves URLs (across all iOS devices sharing the same Apple ID), but still requires an Internet connection to view those pages.
• At least 15 (someone else can test for the maximum number...) tabs are possible in Opera Mini, exceeding Safari's limit of 8. RAM constrains the total number of tabs effectively usable. "The page has been cleared to save memory." message is what you are left with content-wise on a tab when you run low on available RAM.
• Using Single Column View ensures that, because of its size, text will be pleasantly readable in portrait mode, at least for me. http://www.thechessmind.net/ is a chess blog which I often read. In Safari, I normally need to "spread" or switch to landscape mode to make the text more legible, but the text has always been fine to read right away in portrait mode in Opera Mini.
• If you make an account on Opera's servers, you can use Opera Link to determine at what frequency to save both your (up to 9) Speed Dial targets and your bookmarks there, for future restore (e.g., in case of a serious crash) or for sharing on another device(s), including on a pc.  Automatic syncing is possible, but I prefer to sync bookmarks manually, which avoids attempts to connect to Opera's servers when you know (or perhaps, even when you don't know) that you lack wireless Internet access.  Opera Link can also be used at any time on any Opera Mini instance device, so it is not linked inextricably to an Apple ID like iOS 5 Safari's Reading List. Although I didn't test this, it appears that if you use desktop Opera, there is supposedly an Opera Mini folder for bookmarks, which is the extent of the bookmarks that get synced with Opera Link.
• The location box now has a star which is a shortcut to bookmark a URL; this portion of the star's functionality is actually only achieving parity with Safari.  You can also still bookmark a URL the older, slower, but more functional way as well.  The star's bonus is that if you are viewing a previously-bookmarked page, the star is yellow, indicating its already-bookmarked status.  This can help you avoid unintentional duplicate bookmarks, though maybe you'd want to bookmark a URL in more than one bookmark folder. A drawback of using the star shortcut to bookmark a URL is that you do not have the option of using something other than the web page's HTML title as the bookmark's title.  One news site that I frequently use often doesn't include useful page titles, so I would want to edit in something useful if I were to bookmark such a page.  Since bookmark names are limited to less than the width of the iPod screen, I also might want to edit out words with no real identifying value from some page titles when creating a Bookmarks -- I need to be able to identify each by the short text.
• After being forcibly ejected from RAM (by the user), Opera Mini starts up with the page data it previously had.  This does mean, however, that you cannot close multiple tabs at once, which I consider a favorable trade in functionality.
• Opera Mini's x cancel button is bigger than Safari's, and is spaced farther away from other things you wouldn't want to hit. Better for those times when you've inadvertently tapped on a link which is still loading, but in whose content you actually have no interest.

CONS:

• Opera Mini does not provide end-to-end encryption. If you want to avoid putting your sensitive data in their company's hands, don't use Opera Mini for anything requiring credentials or anything to which you're concerned about them having potential access. (I blogged this using Safari on my iPad, and made subsequent small edits using Safari on my iPod.)
• There is a short startup delay as it makes the connection to the Opera proxy servers ("calls home"), and apparently also retrieves your local settings.
• Presumably because of the Opera proxy server, has extreme difficulties using maps.google.com effectively; I strongly advise using Safari for that. Even Safari cannot yield copyable text, though.
• On rare occasions, my initial attempt to bring up a page doesn't succeed, which I imagine is an Opera proxy server issue.
• Opera's proxy servers may lead to this side effect:
  Going to, e.g.:
  http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/26/dumb.doctors.office.ep/
  prompts you with:
  It looks like you are from outside the U.S. Would you like to make International your default edition? Yes | No Close
  which I chose to simply ignore.
• Records of chess games using figurine notation in ChessBase website articles like http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7882 are not, for all practical purposes, readable in Opera Mini, which does not render figurine notation properly.  For this particular game, Alejandro Ramirez the annotator apparently used (non-figurine) algebraic notation for his handwritten notes, but copied and pasted in figurine notation from complementary analysis generated by a computer chess program.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS:

• Only Safari can Add to Home Screen, using apple-touch-icon.png  when available (not favicon.ico, as it turns out; according to http://www.webmasterworld.com/html/3560399.htm).  Opera Mini's Speed Dial is a substitute, which I actually find more helpful because all 9 are in the same place.  If you were to bookmark multiple pages in Safari, that would create additional icons on your Home Screen which are less likely to all be in the same location.
• When using Single Column View, some items which might typically (as viewed, e.g., while not using Single Column View, or in Safari) be unobstrusive on the side of a web page may appear, sometimes as a large clump, at the top or bottom. I have gotten used to that, and simply swipe to get past the clump, if it's at the top, to get to the real content, e.g., on http://www.thechessmind.net/. This conveniently means that I typically don't even have to see any advertising which ends up in a bottom clump.
• Find in Page: The Done button means done with searching; search happens as you type. Can search repeatedly in a page. Safari can find in page also, although it's probably somewhat less intuitive; see, e.g.: http://www.tipb.com/2010/09/16/ios-42-features-find-text-safari-web-page/
• If a tab's pages started from the Start Page, you can return directly to the Start Page (the first page viewed in that tab) by tapping the O ("Opera") button, then tapping Start Page. If a tab's pages never included the Start Page (because the tab was created with "Open in New Tab"), there is no access to it within that tab.
• 9/4/11: Power-User settings are available by going to config: in the location bar, as described further on http://www.guruslodge.com/bmobile-phones-tutorial-and-solution-centerb/operamini-secret-codes/, which I just discovered. Changes likely survive Opera Mini crashes. For my own usage, I turned off the Phonenumber detection, which I suspect is probably only of use if (a) you have an iPhone (which I don't), and want to call such a number immediately, or (b) you normally use iOS assistance to add new contacts (which I don't, for reasons mentioned here).
• On an iPad under iOS 5.0.1, I updated Opera Mini 6.0.1 to 6.5.1 on two separate occasions (I reverted to 6.0.1 after the first time), but could no longer save pages.  In between those two attempts, I was surprised to see 6.5.1 successfully save pages on an iPod running iOS 5.0.1.  I decided to sacrifice my iPad's Opera Mini saved pages, delete the 6.0.1 entirely, and download a fresh Opera Mini 6.5.1 (3rd installation), which allowed me to save pages.
• Opera Mini's Single Column View trumps Safari's Reader, in my opinion.  Particularly on the iPod, why wait to have something drawn (or partially drawn) before you can activate Reader, when all the while you can see that the text will be too small to read (without the Reader enhancement)?  Just go directly to the readable version, all the time, with Opera Mini's Single Column View.  I once saw a page with ads in the middle of the article and the Reader rendition ended at the ad.  I can't reproduce that now with the same page, but regardless, I prefer to maximize my chances of getting all the text the first time, legibly, as fast as possible.  Safari's Reader remains helpful any time you are in Safari and are confronted with too-small-to-read text, e.g., when clicking on a link in e-mail, which will open in Safari (unless you have jail broken your iPod to configure a different default browser, which I think is possible).
• When using tap-hold ("Long-click" in the Opera Mini help) to select text, Opera Mini selects the word closest to your position and displays a beginning and end marker, each of which you can drag to change the text selected.  When done, you tap Select and choose from Copy/Search/Search With...(and Go to Address... if the selection is a single word).  As far as I have been able to tell, Safari does the same kind of initial selection in mobile sites, but the choice (no need to tap an additional Select) is Copy (and Define if the selection is a single word).  For non-mobile sites, Safari selects the paragraph closest to your position and displays 4 markers (top, bottom, left, right) which you can drag to change the text selected.  I'm not sure if I've ever needed to do anything but Copy after selecting text; if I do, I'll try to add that detail.  Opera Mini may also behave differently when not using Single Column View, but that is left as an exercise for the reader; I always use Single Column View.
• The Single Column View option no longer exists under Settings on the iPad, if it was actually there in earlier versions, which I can no longer remember.