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How I fixed my 1604 iTunes error

1604error

I had an iPhone that was stuck on a recovery loop. That means it would be in restore/recovery mode, where it would refuse to boot into a usable state, but instead frustratingly display a prompt to connect to iTunes every time it was turned on.

Every blog and forum post recommended a myriad of different fixes: iREB, iRecovery, iPwnage came up most frequently.

None of them worked. Oddly, the simplest fix was to download the latest firmware IPSW file from Apple. It's safe, it's from Apple and it does not jailbreak your phone. (It's what iTunes would have downloaded in the background, but you're getting the file directly now because your copy is probably corrupted, leading to the 1604 error.)

  1. Download the right IPSW for your phone. Here's a site which lists a bunch of them.
  2. Connect your phone to iTunes and say yes to all the prompts which say you need to restore your phone.
  3. When you get to press "restore", hold down alt+restore for Macs (Windows users: hold down shift).
  4. Select the IPSW you've downloaded.
  5. Pray!

Good luck!

Crap + crap ≠ art

The recent spate of crapcam-inspired iPhone filters has been great for creative photography in general, and just showing people how colour tone can make all the difference in a photo.

Like every photographic tool and style, there is a place for the murky blurriness of Lomo expression.

But the deluge of Instagram pictures on Twitter is such a plague. An iPhone app (or crapcam, in whichever software or hardware flavour) should not be a substitute for good composition and thought put into a picture.

This iPhone photography blog by Eugene Hsu is one of my favourites, and the better ones out there showing how iPhone apps can be used in combination with a good eye, to great effect.

He doesn't just use software filters; I remember one post where he used his forehead oil to create some nice lens flare—but I digress.

Here's a chat I had last week with Angel on the topic:

Angel
ok i don't really understand this instagram thing

Victoria Ho
why? oh okay basically it's an app
and it will "lomofy" your pictures with filters and image processing nonsense
and post it up onto a website that is like twitpic and tweet on your behalf

Angel
yes but like

Victoria Ho
why are people making their photos so blurry?

Angel
yes! it works for some photos, but when you do it for every single photo everything just becomes hard to see
and i get frustrated like, COME ON I WANNA SEE A PROPER CLEAR PHOTO OF THE SKY
because the sky colours can be really pretty

Victoria Ho
because that is the whole problem with this lomo effing nonsense
that somehow it got fashionable to take crap pictures
and now there are pictures made to look crap on purpose which defeats the initial purpose of arty lomo pictures

Angel
yeah isn't it? i mean i GET it. but for every single thing?
in the end every photo just looks crap
GET OVER THE INSTAGRAM THING PEOPLE
i hate having to squint at that lump of beige thing with the random grey stuff that you're eating
looks really yummy. beige things with grey topping.

The guilt cycle of games

Image from Flickr member plance need watering


The addictive and almost compulsive nature of social games, it seems, plays a lot more on guilt-tripping you than being truly enjoyable.

I was talking to two developers from Breakdesign recently, and they brought up the concept of games which nag you—the ones which tell you that you have friends waiting for your next move, or virtual pets/crops which will die from you ignoring them.

This explains the explosive growth of social games such as Farmville. And remember those Tamagotchis? I had a Neopet too, I confess. And every time I logged in, he'd be parched or starving or dying from neglect.

One particularly insidious game I've found has been Words With Friends. It doesn't nag you with dying crops, but you do have real-life people waiting on the wings for your next move.

My initial excitement at playing started to turn into dread whenever my phone went off with each new request. And I eventually found myself dutifully responding to my list of Words With Friends requests whenever I had a spare moment, as if it were an e-mail inbox.

So this morning I deleted the game. With 6 requests in a big red bubble over my games folder on my phone, what used to be yet another obligation is now cleared. My phone is mine once again.

If only we could do that to e-mail.

Need You Now, Voice Band edition

(download)

Okay after a bunch of tries recording this, I've concluded that I'm not made to voice the "bom pah" as accurately as the Voice Band app requires. The app developers make it look way too easy on YouTube.

All the same, here's Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. I used an acoustic guitar for the backing, with everything else you hear (drums, bass, distorted electric guitar in the chorus) powered by my voice.

BAH BAH BAH.

$2.99 of fun

(download)

Yay! My first attempt at making a song with the Voice Band iPhone app.

I realise this sounds a total offbeat church choir version of When You Say Nothing At All (especially during the chorus), but I swear the tempo seemed so much faster when that metronome was ticking away during recording.

I promise the next one will suck less. This was made in half an hour from downloading the app to figuring it out, so I guess with that out of the way, future recordings should be less speed-bumpy.

(Here's the rather unmusical 'score' I typed out as a cue for the bass recording, which was the first layer I started with.)

Whenyousaynothing

No dreams, just talking

Sleepgraph

Third night with Sleep Cycle and I switched it to airplane mode and stuck it at the central spot of my bed between my two pillows, since it wasn't registering effectively at the corner of my bed.

I think this looks like a more accurate reading. And as you can see, it's dreamless, just me passing out interwoven with two spikes of near- awake activity. I'm a mad sleep-talker so I can only assume I was spending those spikes orating.