Like many people with the iPhone 3GS. I have problems with the battery. Connectivity at work is very bad, so my phone is spending most of the day scanning the EM bands, searching for it’s beloved AT&T. It’s nigh impossible to get through the day on one charge. Consequently, I have chargers everywhere I can predictably be found; by my bed, in the car, at the office, and even on my sofa in the evening. But if I find myself somewhere where I can’t charge it, and I know I’m going to be there using the iPhone for any significant time (Indonesian hen parties come to mind), I know that even if it has a full charge when I leave my car, it will be mostly dead (or slightly alive, no loose change here) when I get back to the car.

It was after one such affair that I decided to do something about it. Mophie makes a couple battery packs that double as extra batteries (to be fair, they only make one now; the other being discontinued): the Juicepack and the Juicepack Air.

Mophie Juicepack

Mophie Juicepack Air

Both have an external battery that can charge your iPhone. The Air has a switch (I didn’t know the Juicepack didn’t) so you don’t have to leave the phone plugged in all the time (the phone draws less power if it’s not plugged in, so this saves power). Both have battery capacity LEDs on the back. The Juicepack’s battery is 1800 mAh, while the Air’s battery is 1200 mAh.

The Juicepack can be thought of like a backpack; it’s big and bulky and makes you think you really have something extra back there. It has a bigger battery, and uses the standard dock connector, but looks bulky (to be fair, I’ve never seen one in person; only pictures on the web). The Juicepack Air looks like you just have a fatter case but it actually looks like a case. It has a standard micro-USB connector (more on that later), and a smaller battery.

The connector was actually my biggest concern. As I said I’ve practically cornered the market on iPhone chargers. I have, at present:

Apple supplied USB cable & charger by my bed.
Apple cable by my home computer.
Apple charger in the living room (have to bring the cable from the computer if I need to use it).
A standalone charger in the living room (usually used for my wife’s iPhone).
A car charger.
A car charger with a remote control and audio output.
A standalone charger at work.
(Another standalone charger at work but that only works with my iPod).

So getting something that works with all those would be nice. Not only that, but something that easily plays audio in the car would be extra nice. So my question was: which one do I get?

Juicepack

Pro:

My biggest reason for considering the Juicepack was the car. I use the iPhone in the car constantly, and being able to plug the Juicepack into the car directly, especially with the audio working, would be great.

I also like the extra battery life.

Con:

Biggest con is the form factor. I don’t like how it looks. There’s also real concern it might not fit well in my pocket. And it’s more expensive.

Juicepack Air

Pro:

In addition to the form factor and size (which is important), the Air uses a standard micro-USB charger. One nice thing about that is that if I need to charge the pack without the phone (for example, if I don’t want to plug the phone into some strange computer, but want that computer’s power), I can connect the pack to any computer and charge it by itself. This is important at work, as I am unable to plug my phone into my work computer.

Con:

The inability to plug it into my car audio adapter is probably the biggest pain with the Air. I have three options, typically:

1. Remove the iPhone from the pack and plug it directly into the car audio adapter.
2. Use an audio cable, plugged into the headphone jack.
3. Just forego the iPhone’s audio and use my iPod (or enjoy the silence).

I also found that the micro-USB is much more difficult to attach than the iPhone’s standard dock connector (especially in the dark if my wife is already asleep).

I ended up buying the Juicepack Air. One unexpected feature (especially outside in the New England winter) is that when it’s charging, the battery pack gets quite warm, so doubles as a hand warmer. I suspect that won’t be as welcome in a few months.

Finally, as I said above, I didn’t know the Juicepack didn’t have a switch. That in itself might mean the effective capacity of both is comparable (assuming both stay on your phone all the time). I still charge the phone (and the pack) whenever possible, but now I rarely have to worry about both dying.

And if I didn’t make it clear, I really like and heartily recommend the Mophie Juicepack Air. It’s great!

Recently, I jailbroke my iPhone.

There, I said it.

I fully expect black shirted, blue jeaned goons with an Apple logo on their lapel to break down my door. If you don’t hear from me after this, send lawyers, guns, and money to Cupertino. Or at the very least, my Apple ID to be revoked or something nasty like that.

That’s probably the worst thing about jailbreaking, the paranoia. That and the resistance to asking for support for apps. I’m afraid they’ll say, “you jailbroke your phone? Well of course our app won’t work then!”

For the record, I didn’t jailbreak my phone to unlock it. I’m perfectly happy with AT&T. I also didn’t jailbreak my phone so I could pirate software. Everything on my phone I got from the official App store, or one of the JB app stores (Rock, Cedia). I jailbroke it so I could have better access to it. I’m a UNIX geek, going back almost to the 70s, and while I knew the iPhone is running OSX (a variant of BSD UNIX), I don’t REALLY know that until I see a command prompt.

But the fact is, it’s been a wonderful experience. I like having far more control over my (yes, Apple, I said, “MY”) iPhone than Apple thinks I should. Before, I would have to go into preferences, then Wifi, to toggle wifi mode. Here, I just swipe the status bar, tap, tap, done.

And multitasking. Don’t get me started there. I’ve been doing multitasking on BSD UNIX computers since the Carter administration. And I haven’t checked, but I’m fairly sure the iPhone is a more powerful computer than the ones I used back then (okay, okay, I just checked. DEC VAX 11/750: 3.125 MHz, iPhone 3GS: 600 MHz (and yes, don’t complain to me about comparing apples and onions)). The iPhone already supports multitasking, it just doesn’t support 3rd party apps doing it. And it lacks any indication in the Springboard (iPhone’s app launcher) that an app is already running.

And having been around UNIX machines for so long, I know the dangers of multitasking. So, in the words of Brian Tong from CNET, I “use it wisely”. And in a way, I’d rather I didn’t have to. I only have one brain, and can only use one app at a time (and what separation I support can already be handled by the multitasking already in the iPhone (right brain enjoying the music on the iPod, while the left brain is doing other stuff)). But until all apps preserve your state perfectly, and are quick to launch, I do it, so I can go back and forth between apps without having 10 extra steps.

So why doesn’t Apple allow it?

I don’t think it would be that hard. One of the multitask managers I played with shows you a graphical screen, with each window being a separate app. It’s analogous to Safari and websites. And just like how Safari limits websites opened to 8 (if you open another one, it closes one of the others), there’s no reason why the multitask manager can’t limit you to, say, 8 apps. It’s not quite that simple (there are many apps that I wouldn’t want 8, or even 4 or 2 copies of running on my phone). But from a user interface point of view, it’s certainly not impossible.

So this now brings me to the iPad. As many have noted, it also doesn’t support multitasking (insofar as it has the same limitation on 3rd party apps that the iPhone has). That’s a more glaring deficiency, what with iWork and the prospect of it being a more useful device.

So, will I get an iPad? As it is now, no. Assuming I can afford it, I’ll get one if and when (a) it supports 3rd party multitasking apps, or (b) it can be jailbroken to do so. And even then, it’s a stretch. It’s much bigger than the iPhone, and doesn’t do much more. It’d be a nice sofa laptop (something you can surf the web with while you’re watching TV), but I couldn’t see leaving my laptop at home and bringing that instead.

Of course, having said that, if someone were to give me one, I wouldn’t say no. :)

Anyway, after a while, I stopped playing. Why? Because I solved everything on it. I even solved the entire game without crashing once. Yes, I was that obsessed with it, and it was that much fun.

Why was it fun? Years ago I wanted to hang glide, but for various reasons, never did. I think this game does a wonderful job simulating hang gliding–only better. The controls are intuitive; there’s almost no touch controls, only motion control. If you tilt the phone forward, you fly down and faster. If you tilt back, you go up and slow down. Tilt the phone left or right and you turn.

And everything in Glyder hinges on your flying ability. Throughout the world there are gems floating in the air, and the object of the game is to collect all these gems. There are also different island regions, so you collect all the gems in one area then fly to another area.

And the islands are very different. One has many caves you have to fly through. Another one consists mostly of one big building and you have to fly through the building (can’t land in the building).

It also has challenges, where you land on a colored platform labeled A and must fly to a platform with the same color labeled B within a certain time.

And that’s just Glyder, not Glyder 2.

Glyder 2 is like Glyder (different islands of course), with extras.

The aforementioned challenges act like guided tours where you are shown a series of circles and fly through each one in turn. Arrows show you where each circle is, and going through one reveals the next one. If you make it to the B platform in time, you might get some reward (more on those later).

There are other challenges. These usually take the form of some device shooting things (snowflakes, etc) in the air and you have to capture as many of them as you can in a fixed time. Other times you have to pick things up and carry them somewhere. When you succeed you get a reward.

Glyder 2, like Glyder, requires you to gather gems. But you also have to collect rewards. These can either be different wings or outfits, or could be various artifacts that are needed to solve the game. In Glyder, all you have to do is gather all the gems. But in Glyder 2, solving the game is more complex. You need some things to power other things, and you need various artifacts to power portals, etc. The artifact descriptions are gems of technobabble in themselves. For example, the Quantum Shifter is described as, “The quantum Shifter can link the temporal arc flow to the warp field modulator to enable actuate phase control in the ethereal aura.”

Wings and outfits: in Glyder, there was just one set of wings and one outfit. You couldn’t change it. But in Glyder 2, there are different kinds of wings and different outfits. The wings have different properties. Some are better at soaring high, and others are better at turning. With some, you can collect the energy gems (those shimmering gems that make you go fast) or even updrafts, and release them when you want. I don’t know of any functional difference between the outfits, but you can dress up in many different ways, ranging from ninjas to zombies.

Upside / Downside:

Upsides of Glyder 2: more of the same as Glyder, with new, more complicated challenges. Different wings and outfits give you options.

Downsides: many of the same problems with Glyder. There’s one fixed puzzle. Once you solve it, you’re mostly done. I was able to solve Glyder 2 in a weekend (albeit a very fun weekend). There’s also a bug in Glyder 2 (also in Glyder) where if you set the orientation of the phone at vertical, you’re either climbing really high or diving.

I didn’t buy Glyder 2 when it first came out mostly because I was afraid of the “one fixed puzzle” downside. I waited until it was on sale for a dollar. Would I recommend it? For a dollar, yes. For more, it depends on how easy it was to solve Glyder for you. If it was easy, you might not be happy. But there are a lot of challenges, even after you solve the main puzzle, so yes, you might like it anyway.