Existing users, 
Still more undocumented 1.1.1 features: Mail port settings; Japanese keyboard mode
Posted 5 October 2007 @ 12pm in Guides/How-Tos
The iPhone 1.1.1 has much more than meets the eye (the eye being Apple’s included release notes). It has better H.264 video support, the ability to play MP3/AAC/WAV audio email attachments, text message sounds, international characters, new video playback options, and a debug mode.
Mail port settings You can now set a custom port for mail servers directly on the iPhone by going to the Mail pane under “Settings,” and selecting your account. Previously you had to set this variable on your Desktop then re-sync the system in order to set a mail port.
Japanese Input Keyboard Though the iPhone doesn’t sport the same ability to select different language keyboards from within the Settings application or switch between international keyboards like the iPod touch, the 1.1.1 update allows the iPhone to bring up certain International keyboard sets automatically when navigating to a Web page encoded in that language.
For instance, iPhone Atlas reader Harry writes:
“There is also a new feature of a ‘Japanese Input Keyboard’ which currently only shows up when navigating to a Japanese web-page, to a field supporting or requiring Japanese input. This appears to be part of the code shared with the iPod Touch, which supports far more non-roman languages and localizations than iPhone overtly does. I suspect the same could be true (haven’t tested it yet) with Chinese, or other supported non-roman alphabets.”
Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.
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5 Comments
Posted by Chas_IC
5 October 2007 @ 1pm
Ah, I was wondering where the Japanese IME was, I heard it was available in the update but I couldn’t find it.
HOWEVER… there is a huge problem. It appears that the IME is only available when viewing a web page that is properly tagged with a Content-type. Many Japanese websites do not bother to properly tag their pages, they assume the page will be viewed with a native Japanese OS that is set by default to a Japanese encoding. So many pages will not activate the iPhone Japanese IME.
I really want the Japanese IME to be available at any time I want, presumably activated in a preference, allowing me to switch to Japanese input in any application, like Notes. It’s almost there, it just needs a little more work to activate it everywhere.
Posted by totorototoro
5 October 2007 @ 3pm
Well what if we want to send emails in Japanese? SMS? Just give us access to the keyboards in Settings if its already in the iPhone. Why bother with all this context-sensitive stuff? I’m sure it sounds like a neat trick, but really, its more frustrating than useful.
Posted by Chas_IC
5 October 2007 @ 6pm
I did another test, I sent an email in Japanese from my Mac to an account I use solely on my iPhone. It displayed nicely, but I could not reply to the message in Japanese, the IME would not activate. I figured the iPhone might sense the message’s encoding and allow the Japanese IME, but it did not. Darn it.
Now come to think of it, I haven’t properly tested the iPhone with sites that are incorrectly tagged, it is fairly common to see sites encoded in Shift-JIS or EUC that are not tagged at all. If I encounter one of those in Safari on my Mac, I can set the encoding manually in the menu View>Text Encoding (usually it takes a couple of tries before I hit the right encoding). But there is no option for this encoding override in Mobile Safari. I’m sure this will all get ironed out before the iPhone ships in Japan (whenever that is).
Posted by Birru
7 October 2007 @ 3pm
You could always add a port by appending it to the mail server address with a colon. smtp.yourdomain.com:587 for example. Now it’s more obvious with a nice GUI update.
Posted by daniel4510_dotmac
7 October 2007 @ 7pm
Another undocumented feature?
Even after the 1.0.2 update, that supposedly improved the color quality of the iPhone’s camera, the camera wasn’t taking the sharpest of images, even for a cell phone. But today I took some photos of my grandson on his birthday (outdoors in bright shade), and noted remarkable improvements in both color balance and sharpness. Also, bright highlights, which in previous firmware versions would result in an outer glow or “halo’ed” look, were tack sharp with no artifacts. You know when cell phone ads have in small print “simulated photo” when showing the results of an image taken with the camera? The images I took today were every bit as sharp and well-balanced as those examples.