I’m on my second iPhone (contract) on the O2 network, and I’ve always noticed that the image quality when browsing sites over the cellular network has been quite shocking. Most of the time, this isn’t too much of an issue, and I’ve just become used to it. I appreciate that O2 would rather me use as little data as possible, and their on-the-fly image compression is their answer to that. However, sometimes, I really want to see images how they were meant to be seen. After all, I’ve invested in a pretty expensive phone with one of the best screens on the market.

So, I was pretty pleased to find (thanks to someone on twitter – I forget their name, sorry!) a way around this. In the iPhone settings app, select ‘General’ -> ‘Network’ -> ‘Cellular Data Network’, and change the Username from ‘vertigo’ to ‘bypass’. Suddenly everything becomes much clearer. Not the best examples, but here’s an original:

BBC Weather Image (Before)

…..Now without the compression:

BBC Weather Image (After)

EDIT 17/05/2009: I’ve been reading reports over the last few days that this doesnt work anymore. Leave me a comment if this is or isn’t working for you.