Apple iPhone news

[jlb1705]

What's this iOS 4.1 update I downloaded and installed tonight?

It made your signal bars taller. No shit.

Basically, once upon a time Apple decided to deviate from the AT&T formula for how they represented signal strength on their phones. Apple's formula would possibly show five bars where a regular AT&T phone would only show three under the same conditions. iPhones weren't actually picking up a stronger signal, they were just misrepresenting it on the phone. At best it was a blunder and at worst it was a sort of fraud.

The iPhone 4 antenna problems led them to admit to this, as one of their early excuses was that iPhone 4 owners who were experiencing problems didn't actually have as strong a signal as they thought they had in the first place.

The update, and therefore the misrepresentation of signal strength was apparently present in earlier versions of iOS as well, and affects models clear back to the iPhone 3G.

The update doesn't actually affect your reception or real signal strength. Your phone should still work in all the same places it has before (or not work in all the same places, as it were). You just won't be led to believe you have five bars of signal now when AT&T's standards would say you only have three.

 

[Mac]

Anyone know what was updated in 4.0.2??

 

[Folanator]

For any of you that have the unlimited data and phone plan, they have reduced it from 99 to 69$. But you have to ask for it.
Free money boys.

 

[THEWOOD]

For any of you that have the unlimited data and phone plan, they have reduced it from 99 to 69$. But you have to ask for it.
Free money boys.

How did you go about finding this? Do I just call up ATT and say, hey take 30 bucks off my bill?

 

[Folanator]

How did you go about finding this? Do I just call up ATT and say, hey take 30 bucks off my bill?

I was paying my bill and the person gave me a heads up. She just changed the rate, no contract extention. I would call and say you want the new lower rate.

 

[jlb1705]

Any word on a similar price cut for family plans?

 

[Folanator]

Hey, is there a way to tether my iPhone without buyin the AT&T tethering option? I have unlimited voice and data now. In order to get the feathering option I have to switch plans and that puts me on a data limit of 2 meg. I would burn that in a week with my lap top hooked up.
I was reading that you could teather into windows 7 in 2009, but am not sure if AT&T closed this loophole.

 

[Dryden]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple...1.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

Apple share price tops 300 today as the iPad continues to blow away all industry expectations.

I brought it up before, but it bears repeating ... If you'd have spent $10,000 on Apple in 1998, today you just hit $4 million.

 

[jwinslow]

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/13/apple-awarded-anti-sexting-patent/

A newly-awarded Apple patent addressing parental controls for text-based communication is receiving a considerable amount of attention from the mainstream press today for its ties to the hot-button issue of "sexting", the sending of sexually-explicit messages that is of growing concern to many parents.

Apple's patent, which was filed in January 2008 and first revealed in July 2009 when the application for it was made public, addresses the means by which a filtering system could be used to block messages such as emails and texts containing objectionable material according to user-defined criteria.The invention, in various embodiments, addresses deficiencies in existing attempts at solutions by providing systems, methods and devices that enable an administrator to control the text-based communications of a user of a text-based communications device through an administrative mode of an intelligent text-based communication control unit or application. The text-based communication control application filters incoming and/or outgoing text-based communications based on administrator-defined criteria.
An entire message identified by the filter could be blocked, or the objectionable content could simply be stripped out while the remainder of the message is allowed to be sent or received.

Apple's focus extends beyond that of simply addressing objectionable content, noting that the feature could be used in an educational enviroment to encourage proper spelling and grammar or usage of certain vocabulary words, or to set quotas for usage of foreign words by a student studying a new language.

Yet another example of:

1) Apple limiting and parenting their consumer.
2) Apple deceiving consumers into thinking they are providing useful censorship (like the 'porn = Android' absurdity given what the iphone browser can do)
3) Another patent awarded to Apple for very old technology invented and implemented by others

Meanwhile the core feature of the iphone 4 is a video chat, ripe for sexual exploits. Even if they don't use that, sexting centers around racy pictures more than texts, and this doesn't address that at all.

 

[sparcboxbuck]

iphone 3/4 issue

So, anyone ever have their iphone rapidly discharge? I've had the issue on both a 3G and a 4 where it charges completely but then discharges in 20 minutes or so. It also gets warm... not HOT, but really warm.

I've found that if I reinstall the OS and reload everything it all seems to fix itself but that's a serious PITA.

Anyone else? Got a fix?

And yeah, I've googled it. Everyone talks about it getting hot... and that's a different problem. It's not so hot that it burns your leg when it's in your pocket... but definately hot enough to notice.

I switched from syncing from my windoz box to my mac mini last night. I hoped that a clean sync would do it, no go. Looks like a fresh install :(


Thanks!

SBB

 

[MaliBuckeye]

So, anyone ever have their iphone rapidly discharge?

Nope, my rapid discharge issues have seldom been phone related.

Unless there was a 1-900 number involved, that is... on the bright side, I was paying by the minute.

 

[CentralMOBuck]

There is now a site like xda-developers for the iphone.

http://forum.iphone-developers.com/forum.php

 

[jwinslow]

Greatness: Fold Up This iPad Case Like Origami and Make a Stand

Also: How Did Apple Let Kinect Slip Through Its Fingers?

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

During the Iowa game (halftime) they ran an iPhone4 commercial...

They REALLY ran a commercial about their Lithium Polymer battery? You CANNOT buy a cell phone that doesn't have a Li-poly battery. It is not possible. Some call them Li-ion, but they're ALL Li-poly (Li-Poly is a subset of Li-ion). The energy density of Li-poly batteries doesn't differ by 10% from the best battery to the worst (by that metric). And the best by that metric are typically hideously unreliable.

Not bashing the iPhone4... I'm about to buy one.

But that is about the stupidest reason to tout your smartphone there is.

 

[fanaticbuckeye]

During the Iowa game (halftime) they ran an iPhone4 commercial...

They REALLY ran a commercial about their Lithium Polymer battery? You CANNOT buy a cell phone that doesn't have a Li-poly battery. It is not possible. Some call them Li-ion, but they're ALL Li-poly (Li-Poly is a subset of Li-ion). The energy density of Li-poly batteries doesn't differ by 10% from the best battery to the worst (by that metric). And the best by that metrix are typically hideously unreliable.

Not bashing the iPhone4... I'm about to buy one.

But that is about the stupidest reason to tout your smartphone there is.

In your face Apple