Category Archives: iPhone

Jul 15 2010

iPhone 4 Press Conference

So tomorrow Apple are planning a press event to talk about iPhone 4. There’s no word as to what they’re going to talk about but it’s certain to be about the much-discussed ‘antenna issue.’

I put that in quote marks as I don’t have an issue. If I hold the iPhone in a ‘death grip’ style squeeze, it does drop bars. But I don’t hold it like that! Simple.

There’s a number of things that can happen tomorrow, I call it BURRN. Bumpers, Update, Recall, Returns and Nothing.

Bumpers: Apple have already suggested to buy a Bumper if you want to help with any signal issues, would they give them away? I think so, why not? Last time I was in the Regent Street Apple Store, there were hundreds of Bumpers dotted everywhere. Literally, every display desk had a case of them on and there were hundreds hanging with the iPhone accessories. Two days later, they were all gone… A follower on twitter reported that they didn’t have any at all. How odd… Maybe they’re saving them all to send out to any iPhone 4 owners who’d like one… A simple form to give your address and IMEI would be a nice easy way to give out free Bumpers.

Update: iOS 4.01 is rumoured to sneak out later today and possibly tomorrow. iOS 4.1 has been pushed out to developers.
There are several features added to 4.1 and first up, Game Center is back!! (More on that another day) but the main thing that’s changed are the bars. The signal indicator formula has changed and your signal is now shown more clearly and accurately. It’s a software update though and it doesn’t do anything to the real issue.
It you squeeze the iPhone, it still loses signal. If anything, it does take longer to drop all signal so it has improved slightly.

Recall: Never. There are around two million iPhone 4′s in the wild and no company would ever recall that many products. Unless it’s deadly (like a Toyota say) and the problem with the iPhone 4 (as far as I know) isn’t deadly.

Returns: Apple have always said if you’re unhappy, you’ve got 30 days to return it. That’s true if you bought it from Apple, but most networks don’t have a returns policy like that. With O2, you even had to sign a return waiver that by upgrading early, you had NO returns policy. I think Apple may keep this open for customers at their stores, maybe extending the 30 days some.

Nothing: From time to time, Apple have commented on the issue that everyone’s going on about but really, they’ve always said, there isn’t a problem. They may bring out a load of stats, specialists and PR experts to put a stop to all the concerns. They’ll release the iOS update and that will be the end of it.

By inviting ‘high level’ press to the event they’ll make sure they get the publicity they want whatever they decide to do. I’m hoping for bumpers because I’d like to try them but I’m really not concerned about the issue. I haven’t had much difference in dropped calls and if anything, I get better signal in most places.

We’ll see what happens at 18:00 tomorrow though…

Jul 12 2010

FaceTime… The Future?

Only a quick one as I wanted to share my thoughts on FaceTime.

OK, so everybody did it the first day they got their iPhone 4 and so did I. You FaceTime the person you just got back from the store with! Over the next few days, you find everyone you know who has an iPhone 4 and even if you’re on the same WiFi network – You call each other to test it. It’s great fun!

Then you think it ends… It’s a fad that’ll pass and something fun to use, once in a while at best.


OK, this is kinda extreme!

This weekend, I got to use FaceTIme a lot and I have to say, I love it. My better half was in Spain for the weekend and spent a while figuring out the cheapest way to keep in touch, bearing in mind the roaming charges.

Luckily, the hotel she was staying in had free WiFi. We spoke over FaceTime I think four times in total and every time had a different meaning and a different reason. Apart from the stuff I’m not gonna bore you with, the best experience was when speaking to a couple of people at the same time. Imagine trying to do that talking on the phone… It wouldn’t happen!

The greatest thing that happened was on Sunday night… The World Cup final was interrupted whilst I jumped on FaceTime to say hello, whilst talking I heard something in the distant… I remembered that Soraya was in Spain… Watching Spain in the World Cup Final. She held the phone out and I could hear chanting and chearing!

In the end, it was great seeing each other, even though we were in different countries! Yes you’ve gotta be in WiFi but the quality was perfect! I understand why you have to be in WiFi and it’s fine! Try it, spend some time apart and get on FaceTime… I’m intrigued to see where this goes.

Remember what Steve said… “Apple will ship 10′s of Millions of Face Time devices in 2010″ – Why say devices if you just meant iPhones…?

Jun 28 2010

iPhone 4 HD Video

In advance of my full review of the iPhone 4, I thought I’d share some HD videos I shot over the weekend whilst I was in London.

These were all shot on my iPhone and edited using iMovie for iPhone. These are just simple videos with one or two clips in each, so I’ll be testing more features soon. Such as including photos in videos and hopefully using my own music.

A Walk In The Park

Apple Store, Regent Street

London Underground

Click through for HD versions of the video and leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Jun 16 2010

iPhone 4 SOLD OUT!

So the iPhone 4 became available to pre-order today but only through the online Apple Store (and AT&T if you’re in the states.) The store was up and down all morning and there was plenty of anticipation to see if any of the networks would start theirs… They didn’t.

This evening, I spotted that the due date when pre-ordering had changed from 24th June to 2nd July!

After poking around a few minutes, I found where to reserve an iPhone to collect in store. New contract and upgrading customers can also reserve from Apple… Interesting!

Until I see the model I want (32GB) is unavailable… Gutted.

S got hers reserved but I’m gonna wait. I’ll wait to see if O2 or Carphone Warehouse allow you to pre-order for collection. I don’t want to wait for delivery, I hate waiting for couriers. If it comes to it, I’ll get up early and hunt around town until I find the model I want!

Or, I can call a friend…

Jun 13 2010

How to get iOS 4.0 NOW

So I’ve been sharing a link around for e past few days and thought I’d just crack on and do an article myself.

Anybody running Mac OSX is able to get iOS 4.0 on their iDevices NOW! No need to wait for the 21st June, no need to register as an iPhone developer and no need to install X Code on your machine.

Apple may change things, so please make sure you backup and please don’t blame me if anything goes wrong. All you need to do is update iTunes to 9.2, download the iOS 4.0 ipsw package and the GM is the same version that’ll be pushed as a software update in two weeks.

How do I do it?:

1. First things, first – Download and install iTunes 9.2 (Mac only, download links here, here, or here).

2. Now download the iOS 4.0 Golden Master, making sure you get the right pakage for your device:

  • If you have an iPhone 3GS, download this.
  • If you have an iPhone 3G, then you need this one.
  • iPod Touch 3G, get yours here.
  • And finally if you have the iPod Touch 2G, download this.

3. How to install iOS 4.0:

  • Plug in your iOS device, and open up iTunes. Let it sync one last time and make sure you backup.
  • In iTunes, alt+click on the ‘restore’ button (for those that asked, ALT is the key to the left of COMMAND/APPLE), and then when asked to locate the file, select the IPSW file we just moved to your desktop.
  • iTunes will now install iOS 4.0 to your iPhone or iPod Touch! You can start fresh or restore that backup you just did.

That’s it. iBooks is slowly being pushed to 4.0 users, so be patient and you’ll have that soon.

Also, Apple are now allowing 4.0-compatible updates to be submitted to the App Store. So shortly, we’ll start seeing apps taking full use of the new API’s including multitasking!

Once the update is pushed to users on the 21st June, you probably won’t have to update. This is the same copy. Finally, please remember that I’m just sharing this information. Don’t blame me if something goes wrong. The best option if you brick your device is just go to an Apple Store, tell a Genius you don’t know what went wrong, and they’re likely to swap it for you. (This happened to me last year with 3.0 and they kindly swapped iPhones).

Enjoy, have fun and share your findings with me here, twitter or facebook!