Tag Archives | iPhone 3G

Apple Aware of iOS4 Problems on iPhone 3G

Posted by Ed Oswald on July 29, 2010 at 12:28 pm

If you own an iPhone 3G and find iOS4 has slowed down your device considerably, you’re not alone. Apple’s support forums are littered with complaints, and the Wall Street Journal says that Apple is looking into the issue. In addition, it’s been reported that battery life has degraded and the phone has become hot to the touch.

It’s not clear why the phone may be heating up — then again, one could venture a guess that iOS4 may be taxing the phone a bit more that its predecessor. Any one with a iPhone 3G and iOS4 — are you seeing these problems?

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iPhone 3G Gets a Reboot, Price Drop

Posted by Ed Oswald on June 8, 2009 at 12:02 pm

As expected, Apple introduced a new 3G iPhone, called the iPhone 3GS. “The S stands for speed,” says Phil Schiller. Most of us have experienced the iPhone slowness — this new phone aims to try to solve that. Overall, the device will load applications about twice as fast as the previous 3G model.

7.2MBps HSDPA is built into the device, also speeding up the data side of things as Apple’s carriers build out their 3.5G networks. A new camera as expected will grace the 3GS, providing 3-megapixel resolution and autofocusing capabilities.

It also captures video, which was also highly rumored of the new device, along with rudimentary editing features: think an iMovie of sorts for the iPhone. Also added is voice control, allowing the device to do what many others have done for awhile.

It will also allow apps to respond to you with informtion, such as the iPod app speaking the song playing when you ask what it is, and the like.

The rumored compass feature is a reality, and integrates with maps. Thus you can follow a map easier without having to reorientate the phone.

Improved battery life is another plus, with 12 hours of 2G talk time, and 5 hours at 3G. Users would also be able to surf the internet for up to 9 hours, listen to music for 30, and watch videos for 10.

Pricing will not change, and would stay at $199 — that is for the 16GB. A 32GB model would also be made available for $299. But the 8GB is going nowhere: yep, it’s now $99. Existing standard 3G iPhones will now drop to $99.

The iPhone 3GS is set to debut June 19.

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Buy.com Selling Officially Unlocked iPhones

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 13, 2009 at 8:53 am

Who needs a jailbreak? In a fairly shocking move considering AT&T’s stranglehold on the iPhone market here in the US, Buy.com has begun selling unlocked iPhone 3G 16GB for $799, a $500 premium on the carrier price. These phones are not jailbroken: they were merely never locked to a carrier.

Apple will warranty these phones just the same way as they do the locked models. They will never lock: iTunes will update the phone normally. The only negative to Buy.com’s phones is the fact that instructions may come in a foreign language since they were likely made for overseas use.

So why the change of heart from Apple? It’s not too out of the question to think that the company is probably clearing out inventory ahead of a new iPhone release. Then again, it didn’t do this for the first-generation model, so thats something to consider as well.

Maybe, just maybe, Apple may have a change of heart on one-party rule in the US, but we all can dream, no?

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Get Ready for Unlocked iPhone 3Gs. For a While, at Least.

Posted by David Worthington on December 16, 2008 at 7:10 pm

Unlocked iPhone After many months of tinkering, Dev-Team, a cadre of self-described hackers who are not affiliated with Apple, announced on its blog that it had successfully unlocked the iPhone 3G. The group says it’s done so via a firmware modification — formerly codenamed “yellowsn0w”–that unlocks the iPhone 3G from AT&T, thereby allowing it to be used on any network. The target release date for the modification is New Year’s Eve 2008; Apple will presumably drop the ball on the group’s efforts by releasing an update that reverses the modification –or worse.

The hack requires iPhone that have a baseband (modem firmware) of 2.11.07 or earlier. yellowsn0w will be packaged into an end user-friendly application similar to the group’s existing applications, PwnageTool and QuickPwn, according to the blog.

While it provided no evidence that it had indeed unlocked the iPhone, Dev-Team has promised to post a video to the Web demonstrating its exploit in the near future.

Musician Frank Zappa, wrote the lyric “don’t you eat that yellow snow,” and Apple is likely to channel Zappa in its response. If its past behavior is any indication, the company could even retaliate against unlockers by causing modified devices to become inoperable after they are upgraded with Apple supplied iPhone software.

To keep things in perspective, there will only be a small subset of customers unlocking their phones. It is more likely that there is a provision in Apple’s contract with AT&T that it must make a good faith effort to keep iPhones locked to its network. Either that, or Steve Jobs simply does not want anyone messing with his stuff.

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