Apple iPhone | Gear Diary

Steve Jobs- “There Is No Antennagate…”

Steve Jobs took the stage this afternoon to address the growing perception that the iPhone 4 has a fundamental flaw that can only be remedied by a recall. He took a multi-pronged approach and, in the process, turned lemons into some delicious lemonade. First he showed real examples of other smartphones displaying the same phenomena as the iPhone 4. Wrapping up he said that phones aren’t perfect and this is a flaw in many phones. It is just that the iPhone 4 marked the spot externally thanks to the thin black line separating the antennas. Then he used something that…

News & Features

An iPhone 4 Jingle That Offers… Perspective

We’ll all be watching later today to see what Jobs and company have to say about the iPhone 4 antenna issue. (Quick recap for those living under a rock… if you take your iPhone 4 out of the case that you ought to be keeping it in and touch it in just the right spot or squeeze it hard you MAY see the signal drop off.) So what will Apple say today? Your bet is as good as ours but at least we’ll know in a few hours. Throughout this entire episode Larry has made one consistent point. Time and…

Editorials

Fact Checking, Public Relations, and the Droid X Versus the iPhone

(image courtesy Newsrealblog) At Gear Diary, we receive a fair bit of unsolicited email pitching ideas. The originators of this email sent us such a boneheaded set of statements that I don’t feel it would be fair or right to post their names. However, I will post the five points they attempted to helpfully share, and why they are wrong…and let this be a lesson to any other public relations types out there-fact checking is your friend! The “helpful” email was trying to convince us why a Droid X was a worse choice than an iPhone: Five Reasons Not to…

News & Features

Gear Chat- The Apple Boycott Edition

In today’s podcast Larry and Dan ponder, “What devices would we use if we were on an Apple boycott?” Other topics on GearChat 13 include the ongoing iPhone 4 controversy and Evernote’s new Evernote Trunk. A Content Note- How quickly things move. We recorded this podcast late in the afternoon on Wednesday, July 14. At one point Dan laments Apple’s silence on the iPhone 4 reception issue only to find out an hour later that Apple had called a press conference for tomorrow Friday, July 16. Go figure…

How to Do It Yourself!

Add Custom Words to iPhone Dictionary

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Antidisestablishmentarianism? Okay, so maybe you don’t use those words every day, but what about other words that you do? And they aren’t in your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) dictionary? Judie was running into this issue recently on her iPhone. For some strange reason, she frequently needs to type the word “Kev”, and the iPhone kept auto-correcting it to “KeV” (note the upper-case “V”). So what do you do? Buying a bumper won’t fix this problem! Well, with the release of iOS 4, a little-known feature is available to allow you to add custom words to the iPhone dictionary….

Editorials

Apple Picking iPhone Reception Issues- A Gear Chat

Dan: The drama surrounding iPhone 4 reception issues moved up a few notches yesterday when Consumer Reports announced that they were reversing position and announced that they could not recommend the iPhone 4 due to a design flaw in their external antenna. Bear in mind that they seem to love every other aspect of the phone and give it a score of 76 out of 100 with the next highest ranked phones, the iPhone 3GS and the HTC Sprint Evo each getting a 74, but the particular antenna issue is, for them, a deal breaker. As the day went on,…

News & Features

Uh Oh… There’s Trouble In the Apple Orchard- Consumer Reports “Can’t Recommend the iPhone 4 “

The summer’s not the only thing turning up the heat on Apple right now as Consumer Reports states, “we can’t recommend the iPhone 4”. Talk about reversing positions… When the iPhone 4 first came out CR took a look and determined that “There’s no reason, at least yet, to forgo buying an iPhone 4 over its reception concerns.” Phew… sigh of relief. Not so fast however… After being able to replicate reception issues out in the real world CR has changed their tune. Actually it is a complete reversal as today CR emailed us and said– Consumer Reports engineers have…

Editorials

Email, iPhones and Steve Jobs: a Cautionary Tale

Before you read this post I need to ask you to participate in an experiment with me. Seriously, thus isn’t a joke. The gist of this post will make more sense it you play along. Bookmark this post, do the experiment and then, when you have finished the task, come back and read on. Here is the experiment. 1. Next time your significant other, child or parent is really upset about something say the following to them… “Stop getting so worked up. Calm Down and Relax.” 2. Make a mental note of their response and how effective your “calming” words were….

News & Features

Woot- Sells TiVo HD, Takes Shot At Apple

Woot, newly acquired by Amazon, has a TiVo HD DVR for sale today. As an owner of this same model, I can attest to the fact that it is a nice unit. It will certainly do the trick… At least until Apple’s revamped Apple TV comes out. And speaking of Apple, the description of the DVR offered by Woot takes a little shot at the iPhone maker’s recent press release. It is rather amusing… Dear Wooters: The TiVo HDXL 150 Hour THX Certified DVR has been the most successful product in the history of the world. Ever. Okay, that’s a…

Editorials, News & Features

Apple’s Statement On iPhone 4 Reception Issues Translated…

Apple just released a statement on the reported iPhone 4 reception issues. It is a rather long and complicated release so as a public service we have taken the liberty of sharing the entire release… and its translation, with all of you. All joking aside… a bunch of us who write for the site have iPhone 4s and… yes… we do love them.

News & Features

iPhone 4 Reception Issue Solved? Signal Reporting Not Hardware to Blame?

Apple has finally broken their apparent silence on the iPhone 4’s signal-gate and admit that they were surprised when they uncovered the cause of the issue. The full text of the letter is below but here are the highlights… …we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them… …gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones… We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars,…

Editorials

Apple’s FaceTime Slight of Hand – It Isn’t About Video Chat

Two days into using Apple’s new FaceTime on the iPhone 4, and I’m coming to a realization… despite what Apple may say, FaceTime isn’t about video chat, it’s about Apple moving into yet another area of communications. Bear with me while I try to explain… With the arrival of over 600,000 new iPhone’s Apple has quickly introduced a brand-new communications system. Going by the name of FaceTime, it is the first implementation of mobile video chat that actually works. No let me correct that: it doesn’t merely “work”, it works really, really well! So long as you have a high-speed…

News & Features

iOS 4 Multitasking Introduces New Popup Notifications and More

One of the reasons Steve Jobs came for the late arrival of any form of Apple-supported multitasking was the battery hit that occurs when multiple apps are running even after the user has moved away from that particular screen. The result is that only in the 4th iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system has any form of multitasking emerged and even with it there are strict limitations. As Larry and I discussed in last weeks Gear Chat, there are only a certain number of functions that can run in the background and, even then, developers have to retool their apps…

Editorials

Apple iPad Sales Top 3 Million Units- Surprised? Not!

Apple just announced that it has sold over 3 million units in just 80 days. That is… remarkable. (It is almost as remarkable as Apple getting over 600,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4. And, no doubt, that number would be even higher if Apple hadn’t run out of the first run.) As Sir Stevo notes- People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives. We’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month. So why is the iPad such…

Editorials

Do I Still Need a Flip Camcorder If I Have an iPhone 4?

We received this question from one of our readers… here are the answers from our editorial staff… Dear Gear Diary, Does iPhone 4 kill the flip? I’ve wanted something like that for a while but think the new iPhone might be as good or better. Signed, Flipping Out For The iPhone 4 Dear Flipping Out, Dan: I love my Flip Video Camera. I really do. But I do worry about their future… unless they make one significant change in a hurry. When the iPhone 3GS came out and had the ability to shoot video, I questioned how it might impact…

News & Features

Gear Diary Predicts that Thursday June 24th Is Going to be UGLY Due to iPhone Madness

In the Book of Amos you’ll find the famous quote– “I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet…” Well we don’t fare much better. (One look at my stock purchases over the year proves that.) No, neither of us can see into the future… usually. But this time seeing the future is not difficult in the least. Hence we are not only writing this post in advance but we are publishing it early too. 600,000 iPhone Activations Crash AT&T Servers… Mayhem Ensues Published Thursday June 24th 5pm Today made Monday June 15th’s iPhone pre-order day…

Game Diary, Reviews

Shift for iPhone/Touch

Once again my weekly app store search has brought yet another game. This week’s choice combines subtle, simple graphics and a cool soundtrack with platform game play and puzzle strategy into a truly addictive and unique gaming experience. Shift utilizes simple, yet intuitive controls to guide the character through each level. The game usually costs $.99 but has been free the past couple of days. Shift’s graphics are extremely simple, yet work amazingly well. No fancy 3D rendering or colorful puzzles, just black and white. Much like Spy vs. Spy, the game is entirely in black and white which is…

News & Features

Dan and Larry Serve Up Gear Chat #11

We’re back with episode #11 of Gear Chat. In this episode Larry and Dan talk iPhone 4. We talk iPhone ordering, hardware likes and disappointments and more. And, of course, we’ll talk iPad and iPhone apps, tips, tricks and news. FiWi- Create 2 symmetrical Finder windows in a snap. $.99 Get it here. PadSync for Mac- Ease browsing, management and sync of iPad shared files. $9.95. Get it here. Reeder RSS Reader for iPad- $4.99. Get it here. Osfoora HD, Twitter for iPad- $3.99. Get it here. Weight Watchers Mobile for iPhone- Free. Get it here. reQall for iPhone- Free….

Game Diary, Reviews

Angry Birds for iPhone/Touch App Review

It is summer and time to have some fun. I have recently heard rumblings of another great iPhone game. The game was mentioned in the same sentences as Plants vs. Zombies so my ears perked up and I paid attention. I needed to check out the game if it is near as good and addictive as what I was hearing. First I tried the Lite version and thought about using it as the Blue Plate Special, but I was having so much fun I had to go ahead and buy the full version. I was trying to find the words…

Editorials

iPhone 4: As Far As The iPhone Can Go?

When iPhone 4 was announced I’ll admit it, I was giddy. Apple’s newest creation looks to be almost as revolutionary as the first iPhone they released. Jammed packed into arguably the sleekest, most stylish handset on the market, are a ton of features. Some of the highlights that really stand out? Multitasking Orientation Lock Video Calling Gyroscope iMovie Only 9.3MM thin Glass Front and Back 960×640 Screen Better Battery 5 MP Camera with LED Flash HD Video A4 Chip Portrait Lock iPhone 4 looks to have almost every feature I could ask for in a mobile device. And to top…

News & Features

WWDC Keynote Roundup…

Well, today’s the day. After much anticipation Steve Jobs has finally taken the platform and is ready to announce all sorts of new goodies. Over the last few years WWDC has become the launchpad for some of Apple’s more significant items and upgrades. And it’s no surprise that today is once again serving such a purpose. Much of the anticipation was reduced by the week next generation iPhone that made its way to Gizmodo and cause the whole ruckus in recent weeks but even still, there remained a host of unknowns about the phone as well as what else Apple…