Apple has finished their investigation in the case of the exploding iPhones/Pods and the results are not shocking - the battery malfunction theory has been rejected. It was first rumored that defective batteries were more than likely the cause of the devices going boom but as it turns out, excess force was the reason - according to Apple.

“The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone.”

With 26 million iPhones and 200 million iPods sold to date, Apple claims there are zero confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS and the number of reports of overheating they have investigated are in the single digits.

So are you buying what Apple is selling? Could these isolated incidents actually be due to excessive force in every case or could there still be something up with those batteries? What do you think?

[Via Mac Daily News}

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple to Exploding iPhones: Screen Pressure not Battery to Blame

While most recent rumors have been swirling around Apple developing a 10″ iTablet that would basically look like an oversized iPod touch, Gizmodo has a source, said to have been 100% reliable in the past, who’s telling them Apple is also planning 13″ and 15″ tablets, one of which… will run Mac OS X.

This source claims that the two touchscreen prototypes—made of aluminum, but on the shape of big iPhones—were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. One of them “was running Mac OS X 10.5.” When I asked, the source didn’t know if these were built for demonstration purposes, or if they were preproduction units. The company has a tight relation with Apple but “it’s not FoxConn.”

Could Apple be making both small, iPhone-like tablets and larger, MacBook-like tablets? Do we want them to?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Developing 10″, 13″, and 15″ iTablets?

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Note: We’ve renumbered the episode to #64 to reflect both Phone different and iPhone Live!) Join Dieter, Chris, and Rene for FCC vs. Apple, AT&T, and Google fallout, more iTablet and Apple Music Event rumors, and all the news… and appoplexy! Listen in!

Congrats to Brandon who won our live give-away for a Motorola MOTOROKR S305 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones. Join us live next week for your chance to win iPhone accessories!

Apple, AT&T, and Google FCC Fallout

• Apple Responds to FCC Questions (Google and AT&T as Well)
• Apple: 8500 Apps to Review a Week by 40 Odd Reviews
• AT&T To Reconsider VoIP Applications Over 3G? Yeahbuwhat Apple VoIP apps?
• Do Other Countries Lose Out on Apps Because of AT&T Policies?
• Apple iPhone is a Restaurant, Not a Super Market, and They Should Say So on the Sign
• Apple Afraid Google is Taking Over the iPhone?
• Apple Kicking Themselves They Didn't Buy GrandCentral (Google Voice) First?
• Act Now or Apple Will Be the Next Microsoft Monopoly?

iPhone and iPhone OS

• iPhone 3GS Can Play Back 720p, 1080p Source Videos?
• Apple Investigates: "Exploding" iPhones and iPods

Apps and App Store

• Poll: Should Apple Improve the iPhone App Store, Eliminate It, or Both?
• Poll: Is Jailbreak the Answer to App Store Woes?
• iPhone App Review Astroturfing Gets Uglier
• Rhapsody App Coming to iPhone - Approval Pending…

iTunes, iPod, and iTablet

• Apple iTunes and iPod Special Music Event on Sept. 9 Seconded?
• Steve Jobs Locked on iTablet

Carriers

• AT&T Rolling Out 850 MHz 3G to Improve Service

The Competition

• The Competition: BlackBerry Browser Going WebKit via Torch Mobile?!
• The Competition: BlackBerry Storm 2 - Piezo-Electric Boogaloo!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Presents: iPhone Live #64 - Renumbered

As anticipated — and anticipated again and again — China Unicom has finally announced that the iPhone is coming to China:

On 28 August, the Company and Apple reached a three-year agreement for the Company to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with brand new communication and information experience.

Now all that’s left is to find out if it will have, you know, WiFi, an App Store, etc…

(via Engadget)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple and China Unicom Reach 3-Year Deal to Bring iPhone to China

According to developers Bjango, Apple is now telling developers to remove the “Free Memory” function — the ability to clear data from RAM without force quitting or rebooting — from their iPhone (and iPod touch) applications or those applications will be removed from the App Store.

Bjango, who makes iStat [$1.99 on sale - iTunes link] had to do just that for their latest version:

Stat's Free Memory function was removed at Apple's request. This decision was completely out of our hands. Please note that all other apps with Free Memory appear to have been removed or updated without their Free Memory function too.

After eliciting feedback and considering their options, Bjango went ahead and removed the feature. (Bjango advises users who want the feature to NOT UPGRADE their copies, and reminds Mac users with Time Machine how to downgrade to the old, “Free Memory”-enabled version if necessary.)

To rub salt on their wounds, negative reviews are now piling up for iStat in iTunes, of course, despite Bjango explaining Apple requested the removal in the app’s “What’s New in This Version” section.

What Apple’s rationale may be (if Phil Schiller deigns anyone with another email) is unknown.

[Thanks Scott for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Telling Developers to Remove “Free Memory” Function from App Store iPhone Apps?

Bing Community Blog has announced that Microsoft is “sprinkling some Cocoa” on their Bing. (No laughing!):

The Bing iPhone and Mac SDK is available for download on CodePlex, open source under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

The SDK provides:

• The ability to easily query Bing from within your Cocoa or Cocoa Touch application.
• Perform both synchronous and asynchronous queries.
• Search Bing for Web, Image, Video, News, and Phonebook results.

We hope that you’ll be able to make some great Cocoa/iPhone apps that harness the power of Bing!

Happy Bing-ing!

Of course, the iPhone’s default search is Google, with Yahoo! as an option, and Bing will soon be powering Yahoo! search, so it’s ipso de post facto (pardon the Latin-ish) it’s already there, but still it will be interesting to see what kind of iPhone apps come of — and leverage — this. We just hope it really makes an awesome “BING!” sound whenever a query hits the index…

[Via Macworld]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Microsoft Releases Bing SDK for iPhone

Convertbot [$0.99 - iTunes link] has seen their latest update, version 1.4 for iPhone (and iPod touch), rejected by at least 2 of Apple’s 40+ App Store reviewers because the icon they’re using for “Time” (the same icon they’ve been using since 1.0, mind you) is nigh-identical to Apple’s built in “Recent” icon, and that was enough to raise that troublesome “user confusion” flag at iTunes HQ.

They’re going to try and find a different yet equally minimalist icon, and we’re going to start counting down to a letter from either Phil Schiller or the FCC…

Sigh.

[Via Daring Fireball]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Convertbot 1.4 for iPhone Rejected by App Store Because Same “Time” Icon Now Confusable for “Recents”

Presslite, the folks behind Métro Paris [$0.99 - iTunes link] and London Bus [$0.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone let us know that their apps are now updated in the App Store to contain… augmented reality!

For those unfamiliar with the concept, basically it uses the iPhone 3GS compass, GPS, and live video (what the camera sees) to figure out where you are and what you’re looking at, and then adds an information layer (text, icons, etc.) on top of the live video to expound upon what you’re looking at. For example, bus routes and schedules could be layered over a street corner, hotel room rates and vacancy over a building, Twitter status in the direction of a person you follow, etc.

Yelp! 3.0 [Free - iTunes link] has apparently also gotten into the AR game but through an Easter Egg that is activated when you run the app and then shake the iPhone 3 times. Check out Mashable’s video after the break!

(Thanks to Nicolas and Frank for the extra info!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Metro Paris, London Bus, Yelp! — Augmented Reality Apps Appearing Now in App Store