The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg–who was the only early iPhone 4 reviewer to bring up reception as a potential problem–has written about his experiences after having used the phone for a few weeks. His verdict is similar to mine: In areas with good AT&T signal, the iPhone 4 is fine, but it (sometimes) struggles more than the 3GS when reception is poor. He still thinks it’s the best smartphone overall (and so do I).
Tag Archives | Apple. iPhone
Is the White iPhone Leaky?
I’m instinctively skeptical of news reported by TheStreet.com’s Scott Moritz. (Among other things, he said that Apple was “likely” to respond to iPhone 4 antennagate by using its press event a couple of weeks ago to announce that it had a fix.) For what it’s worth, though, Moritz is saying that a source told him that the white iPhone 4’s delay stems from Apple having trouble manufacturing ones that don’t leak light from the edges of their glass cases.
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Just How (In)secure are Smartphones?
Last week a clever, duplicitous fifteen-year-old got Apple to approve an iPhone flashlight app which contained a secret tethering utility. A few days later, Citi told users of its iPhone mobile banking app that it was storing personal information in a manner which might have left it vulnerable to misuse by other apps or hackers.
Neither incident represented a security disaster, but both provided sobering evidence that the iPhone’s level of security is less than airtight. The tethering app’s acceptance showed that it’s possible to sneak hidden code past Apple’s approval process, and the Citibank storage glitch was a useful reminder that iPhone apps aren’t completely isolated from each other.
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Has Apple Leveled the iPhone App Playing Field? Maybe
Of all the controversies over Apple’s iPhone App Store acceptance policies, the one that’s bothered me most doesn’t involve smut, flatulence, tethering, bizarrely expensive knickknacks, or even the work of Pulitzer Prize winners. No, what’s really bugged me has been the periodic evidence that Apple has a problem with iPhone software that aims to compete with its own apps. The examples started soon after the App Store opened (Apple told the developer of a podcasting app it nixed that it wasn’t allowed to duplicate iTunes functionality) and most famously include the company’s refusal to approve the Google Voice app on the grounds that it “interferes with the iPhone’s distinctive user experience.”
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You Going to Jailbreak and/or Unlock Your Phone?
Now that it’s clear that jailbreaking iPhones (and performing the similar act known as rooting an Android phone) and unlocking them isn’t a violation of copyright law, let’s conduct a Silly Little Poll. (Note: The fact that this stuff is legal doesn’t mean that Apple, Google, or your wireless carrier is going to help you do it…)
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Still Waiting for the White iPhone
First the white iPhone was supposed to ship on June 24th, just like the black one. Then it was delayed until late July now. And now Apple says they’ll be available at some unspecified date later this year–they’ve “continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected.”
I don’t explain Apple to explain exactly why white iPhones are harder to make than black ones, but it presumably has something to do with the fact that the phones have unique glass cases. And I’m wondering: How many people who want an iPhone 4 have delayed their purchases until the white version shows up?
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Theft Fail: Stolen iPhone Had Beta of GPS Tracking Software
iPhones are one of the most commonly stolen mobile devices according to crime statistics. But for 31-year-old Horatio Toure, he found out you better hope the iPhone you steal isn’t a test for a new type of tracking software.
He found this out the hard way after allegedly stealing the phone from Jordan Sturm, an assistant to Covia Labs CEO David Kahn. Kahn was at the company’s San Francisco office providing a demo of his company’s latest software, Alert & Respond. To simulate how it worked in real life situations, he asked Sturm to take his phone on a walk around the block.
This may have been a little more than they were bargaining for.
According to police, shortly after Sturm left the bulding Toure rode by on his bicycle and snatched the phone from the young woman. Seeing the phone moving at a high rate of speed down the street must have intially made Kahn thing it was malfunctioning, but it was actually Toure pedaling as fast as he could from the scene of the crime. Sturm ran back into the building and alerted her boss as well as the police as to what had just happened.
Police stayed on the line with Sturm as she relayed the position given by the device. It took police about ten minutes to finally track Toure down, who was arrested for grand theft and possession of stolen property.
Alert & Respond apparently has other capabilities such as remote microphone activation and picture taking, but Kahn said they didn’t want to give the robber any clue of how he was being tracked.
“What are the odds that you would grab someone’s cell phone during a demonstration of the ability to track the phone’s location in real time?” he told SFGate.com. Maybe Toure doesn’t know of the Ten Commandments: one of them being “thou shalt not steal.”
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Report: 80% Chance of iPhone Coming to T-Mobile
Here we go again! This time it’s Cult of Mac, with a “highly placed source” saying T-Mobile is going to start selling the iPhone in the third quarter of this year. In English, that means the device would appear in the next two months or so. Talks are apparently in an “advanced stage,” and the source puts the odds at about 80 percent that it’s going to happen.
This would be a huge victory for the nation’s fourth largest carrier. Verizon has been long rumored to be the next US carrier to get the iPhone once the AT&T exclusivity ends (whenever that is). But certainly, Verizon’s marketing has turned markedly more anti-Apple in recent weeks. That’s certainly NOT the way to court the company that you are apparently trying to court.
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Your Take on iPhone 4 "Antennagate"
It’s always nice when a survey shows a clear consensus–hey, it sure makes things easier if you’re trying to draw conclusions about the results. But the survey we conducted on the controversy over the iPhone 4’s reception and Apple’s response to it defies easy analysis.
The results to nearly every question we asked are a split decision. We heard from lots of happy iPhone 4 owners, and lots of unhappy iPhone 4 owners. People who think Apple’s handling the situation well, and people who found last Friday’s press conference profoundly unsatisfying. If you think this whole affair represents a catastrophe for Apple, you may be surprised by the percentage of respondents who say it’s no big deal. Then again, if you believe it’s a non-issue, you may be surprised by the percentage who are still bothered by it all.
Here’s a telling snapshot of the survey’s conflicted results: About two-thirds of respondents who have iPhone 4s say they’ve noticed the grip of death themselves…and about two-thirds say they have no plans to return their phones. In other words, the majority seems to be saying that the problem is real, but outweighed by everything that’s right about this phone.
Almost five hundred people participated in this survey over the past two days, eighty-two percent of who live in the US. Two-thirds have already bought iPhones–a handful of who have already returned their phones–and ninety percent either watched Apple’s Webcast of its press conference or followed liveblogs and other reports closely.
The standard disclaimers apply: The results you’re about to read represent unnormalized data from a pool of respondents whose opinions don’t necessarily map to those of iPhone owners and iPhone watchers at large. As usual, I still find what you had to say interesting…
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Last Call for Our iPhone 4 Survey
Got an iPhone 4 and/or opinions about how Apple has handled the controversy? We’re conducting a survey which is closing soon. Click here to take it if you haven’t already–and thanks. [UPDATE: We have enough responses, so the survey has closed. Thanks again.]