Like most phone cameras, the iPhone's lens is focused for the most general possible use, i.e. nearly at infinity. TUAW reader Daniel Forsythe modded his iPhone to focus a bit closer up so he could use it to read bar codes that he shoots from magazines and equipment labels.
The mod involves breaking the glue that holds in the camera module and rotating the lens to bring the focus closer to the camera. With this hack, he can snap photos of close-in subjects. Check out his Flickr photo set for samples and discussion.
He writes that he plans to make a full mod guide should readers express interest in it. The photo seen here is focused to 0.25".
iPhones.ru posted a video (with dialogue in Russian, I think) showing a first-generation iPhone that's been modified to light up the Apple logo on the back of the device when it's turned on.
Sadly, it doesn't show how exactly the modification was made, though I conjecture it uses light from the main display somehow, perhaps with optical fiber. Maybe the presenter is discussing it, but I don't speak Russian, so it's hard to say.
It looks pretty cool. I'm old enough to remember when people were doing this to their PowerBooks, so who knows? This might just be a built-in feature of some future iPhone.
If black and white aren't enough for you, ColorWare is now offering their gadget coloring service for the iPhone 3G. Their iPhone site allows you to customize parts of your phone with 35 different colors on an à la carte basis. Obviously you have to send in your iPhone and the service takes about two weeks.
Unfortunately, it's not cheap. Just to color the back of the phone is $150 (all prices are US dollars), with additional color options for the frame, home button, SIM tray, earbuds, and dock running $10-$20 each. In fact, if you went wild and purchased full customization, your bill would be $230 -- more than the iPhone 3G. On the other hand, can you really put a price on being the only guy whose lilac-colored iPhone has a Candy Apple button?
Two intrepidusers have found a simple way to mod their old iPhone docks to work with iPhone 3G: a rotary tool.
All it takes, apparently, is grinding away about a millimeter of the plastic where the back of the iPhone 3G rests against the dock. A rotary tool with a tapered grinding bit appears to work the best, as it avoids touching the dock connector.
It might not have exactly the fit and finish of a new dock, but hey, the price is right if you already have the tools.
Many Mac users have wanted a tablet for years, but Apple has definitely failed to deliver such a device. But if you think that the ModBook is too expensive, or if you're the DIY type, then why not build your own Mac tablet? Hack-A-Day has posted a gallery of images showing some of the various types of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Mac tablets.
If you are too scared to start ripping apart a Mac notebook and blindly build your own tablet Mac, then why not take a peek at this Instructables project. If you have built your own Mac tablet before, be sure to tell us about it in the comments.
While browsing Flickr this afternoon, we came across a shot of a Nintendo DS running Macintosh System 6 in emulation on reader Ken Fager's Flickr stream. Of course, we contacted him to ask how he did it. Here's what he had to say.
Once that's done, place the Mac Plus ROM into the "vmac" folder along with a System 6/7 install disk (you can make a blank disk image using Disk Utility).
Finally, turn on the DS and select MiniVMacDS. It will boot the disk images. From there, install (minimal) System 6 onto the blank disk image.
Ken notes that it's a bit pokey, but hey, this wasn't done for speed! Have fun if you try this for yourself. Thanks for sharing, Ken! We love it.
It's June, you're bored, and you're looking at that 40GB AppleTV sitting on your media center. The next thing you know, you've bought a solid-state drive (SSD) and created the world's first (as far as we know) SSD-equipped Apple TV.
Josh Lee modded his original AppleTV not to increase the size of the drive -- he's using a 32GB Transcend SSD since he stores most of his media on NAS -- or speed it up. In fact, it sounds like he did the mod just for the hell of it. The benefits of the mod include less heat generation by the AppleTV and almost silent operation.
Josh reports in his email to AppleTVHacks that all he had to do was take an image of his AppleTV drive, mount it, resize the media partition, DD the image to the SSD , do a factory restore, use the patch2stick, and the SSD was quickly up and running. Whew!
Your challenge, TUAW reader, is to nab one of those fast 256GB Samsung SSD's when they ship this fall and use the Josh Lee method to create a fast, cool, and silent FrankenAppleTV. If you're the first, tell us about it.
A big thank you to Luck for the pointer to AppleTVHacks
If admiration of an iPod-powered Lego vehicle indicates that one is a nerd, then buy me a pocket protector and hike my pants up to my ribcage.The folks at BattleBricks have constructed just such a creature. Here's (briefly) how it works. There are two iPhones involved. The one on the vehicle displays certain colors based on commands issued from the 2nd controller iPhone via a Safari app written with Google's Web Toolkit. The vehicle executes a command based on the color it "sees."
You can download the source code for yourself from Battle Bricks. Think of the applications! Frighten children and small animals, attach a small brush and clear away dust bunnies or deliver very small parcels.
Here's a clever blending of Apple past and present, in keeping with our post yesterday on Mac mini mods. Rich Willis has managed to stuff a Mac mini, an external HD, and an Airport Extreme into the clear plastic shell of an old G4 Cube.
Moving very slowly (to avoid melting the acrylic Cube case) he cut away the back of the case to give access to the various ports and then installed some acrylic supports to hold everything up. Voilà -- the Cube lives again, sorta. Rich has a gallery up that documents the entire process.
Here's the situation. You're sitting with a friend when she gives you some great information that you want to write down. Or, you want to share something with her, but your Mac is not running, and it seems like a hassle to wait for it to boot just to complete that simple exchange. What's a nerd to do?
How about cover the lid of your MacBook Pro with chalkboard paint? That's exactly what Russell Davies did, and the BlackBoard Pro was born. It's got a certain "Little House on the Prairie Schoolhouse" charm, and as Russell says, "...there's something very satisfying about crossing off a to do by licking your finger and smearing it out."
Here's a neat little hack with some retro gaming chic. A clever modder has basically stuffed the guts of an Apple Remote into an old NES controller sans cable. He's got step-by-step instructions if you want to make your very own very Mario-friendly Front Row / Apple TV controller. Personally, I'd love to leave one of these sitting on my coffee table.
Back in February, we posted a link to a beautiful iPhone case mod that used a matte black TiAIN finish. iPhoneclub community member Jo Croiman has gone in the opposite direction, creating a polished metal beauty complete with LED logo.
The Psycho iPhone Mod, as he calls it, is the result of manufacturing his own rear case pieces, polishing them for hours with a Dremel and affixing LEDs -- taken from another dead iPhone -- underneath a plexiglass logo (the LEDs only pull an additional 50mAh from the battery).
Finally, he sandblasted his own logo into the back of the case. We think it looks fantastic! Great work, Jo.
Ben Heck, known for his many mods (including the recent PS3 laptop mod), has outdone himself by creating an Apple IIGS laptop. He started with an original Apple IIGS motherboard and added a custom acrylic keyboard, 15" color screen, and a CompactFlash-based hard disk. Most notably, a glowing blue Apple II logo was added.
You can see the up close pictures on his website. He also has a video of the mod that will not disappoint.
We love reading articles like this. Folks who use old gadgets for novel purposes make our geeky little hearts dance. Take as evidence the DIY iPod video projector and the iPod nano slide viewer.
Today we came across a post from jeffkobi at Instructables describing how he turned a 5.25" floppy drive into an amplifier. After building a prototype with a Tupperware container, Jeff (can we call you Jeff?) put the guts of a Sonic Impact 5066 T-amp into the drive case (it fit quite nicely, actually), attached a volume knob and in/out ports, connected his iPod and was in business. A retro-amp that looks cool on any desk.
Steampunk. Since the late eighties, the genre has spawned a diverse lineup of books, movies and – perhaps most importantly – hardware mods. The playground ranges from Nerf guns to revamped R2D2s, but computers have likely been one of the most attractive targets for Steampunk modders. Sadly, the romantic vision of technology-sans-silicon has been heavily oriented towards the PC platform, leaving most Macs untouched by the fog of steam and coal smoke.
A new entry in the Mac category – created by one Dave Veloz for his wife – takes on a Mac Mini and forges a machine that Captain Nemo would be proud to use. The keyboard may be familiar, and the monitor is an evolution of previous works, but the treatment of the Mini and gold lettering in vintage Victorian style brings the full package together in a wonderfully Mac-centric, Steampunk fantasy vision with superb attention to detail. And all that work didn't just sit around looking pretty: the final product was set up at Dave's wedding to display a slideshow of engagement photos.
We at TUAW would like to extend a hearty "hurrah" to Dave for what may be the coolest mod ever to befall a Mini. Maybe even cooler than the Millenium Falcon mod. And yes, that can be taken as an official challenge: show us what you've got!
Two 
Many Mac users have wanted a tablet for years, but Apple has definitely failed to deliver such a device. But if you think that the 
While browsing Flickr this afternoon, we came across a shot of 
It's June, you're bored, and you're looking at that 40GB 
Here's a clever blending of Apple past and present, in keeping with our 
Here's the situation. You're sitting with a friend when she gives you some great information that you want to write down. Or, you want to share something with her, but your Mac is not running, and it seems like a hassle to wait for it to boot just to complete that simple exchange. What's a nerd to do?
Back in February, we posted a link to a 
We love reading articles like this. Folks who use old gadgets for novel purposes make our geeky little hearts dance. Take as evidence the 
