Was Consumer Reports iPhone 4 antenna problem study, the one picked up by mainstream media and used to hammer Apple and iPhone 4, flawed from the get go? If you’re just joining us, after first telling users not to worry about iPhone 4 antenna problems, Consumer Reports came back and said they couldn’t recommend it based on the antenna issues — even though they still listed it as the best smartphone on the planet.

Back to the question. Electromagnetic engineer Bob Egan thinks Consumer Reports tests were, in fact, flawed:

Consumer reports "RF" engineers should know better than to think they can run an engineering grade test for an issue like this in a shielded room. And certainly not one with people in it.

He goes on to describe why — hit the read link below for the details — but he also bottom-lines it:

I'm not saying that Apple has no [hardware] problem and they surely have a [software] issue. But I'm still wondering that if the software signal algorithm was not AFU'd in the first place how many, if anyone would talking about this "problem"

What’s more:

We also don't know if placing a finger on the antenna bridge is detuning the antenna or detuning the receiver itself. And neither does Consumer Reports.

So Apple remains silent, experts argue, consumers have or don’t have problems, and the mainstream media snowballs the story. In other words, the saga continues.

[Viewpoints -- Thanks Phil!]

Is Consumer Reports iPhone 4 antenna problem study flawed? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The iLuv Casual Fabric iPad Case with Band Clip for iPadis a pouch-style enclosure that you can use to keep all that precious glass and aluminum tucked away safe and sound.

The iLuv case itself is snug. I could shake it — gently — upside down with only minor panic that it might slip out. However, with the velcro belt in place it’s locked in. Shake away!

The outside is durable fabric and slightly padded. It will prevent bumps and scrapes but I wouldn’t want to risk drops, especially not high ones. The inside is lined with soft, plush material to really pamper your iPad. This is a great case for those who like to carry around their iPad in their brief case or backpack and do not want to worry about it being scratched or damaged.

Black with orange, pink with purple, and beige with blue are your color choices. It is quite a stylish pouch case, though I do feel that it holds appeal more to the female audience.

Take a look at the video for more. iLuv Casual Fabric iPad Case with Band Clip for iPad is available from the TiPb iPad Accessory Store.

iLuv Casual Fabric Case for iPad – quick look is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The TiPb forums are naturally a great place to talk, commiserate, celebrate, get help, and offer advice to your fellow iPhone users. In order to create a new thread of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is easy and free so if you haven't already head on over and register now!

• There is no denying many iPhone 4 users are clearly having some reception issues, that being said is this a issue that Apple will have to eventually resolve by a recall? Cast your vote in the poll thread!

• You know you love to talk about it – a Verizon iPhone. Is it going to happen or not?

• It appears that the iPhone 4 has been unlocked and should be released in the near future. How many of you are chomping at the bit to get your hands on this software?

• Apple generously gave all iPhone 4 buyers 30 days to return their undamaged device for a full refund. For those of us who picked up the product on day one our time is running short, how many of you will be returning your phone for whatever reasons?

See you in the forums!

iPhone 4 recall, Verizon iPhone, iPhone 4 unlock, Returns, – From the Forums is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Twitter lit up this morning with signs that an iPhone 4 jailbreak and unlock is definitely on it’s way.  On the other side of things, original iPhone Jailbreaker, GeoHot (George Hotz) has apparently deleted his Twitter account and made his blog private. What’s going on? Keep reading.

I noticed this morning @planetbeing had posted a tweet saying a soft unlock had been achieved.  He’s followed up by posting pics of an iPhone 4 running Cydia and a pic showing the phone running on Canadian carrier, Bell.  This is definitely good news for all you iPhone 4 owners itching for your jailbreak and/or unlock.  For end users, a jailbreak may still be a month or two off, but for developers and hackers, this is great news and major progress. @Comex had reported a userland jailbreak not that long ago. Using that, himself and @planetbeing are making great progress.

Now on to GeoHot. He posted up an article talking about his jailbreak for iPhone 4 and what he had posted over the weekend.  I showed a little skepticism about whether or not it was real.  In the past, geohot had always given us a little bit more “actual” proof than what he gave this time.  Apparently in his last blog, he commented that the screen shot actually wasn’t real.

“Sorry, this post was probably a bad idea. Next time I won't say anything. I miss when this blog was actually about technical things(I've been reacting too much to the feedback, which led it to the place it's in now). I didn't fully realize most of the current scene don't care unless they are getting something. Now I do. It's late tonight, I'll think about what to do about this in the morning. The real reason behind no release isn't technical. It's just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd. Also, to the haters, the picture is quite obviously fake ”

Geohot got a lot of heat on his own blog and all over the Twitter-verse for his post over the weekend. Many people calling foul and saying his ego had gotten way too large for his own good. I somewhat see his point about it never ending. He’s never charged for his work so people waiting with their hand out can probably get a little irritating at times. Maybe he didn’t handle it in the best manner, but he’s made up his mind (for now anyways).

So to @planetbeing and @comex, congrats and thanks for all your hard work, we’re all just as excited as you are! And to geohot, maybe we’ll see you around again soon?

[via GumballTech, via MobileCrunch]

iPhone 4 Jailbreak and Unlock becomes real just as Geohot leaves the Jailbreak scene is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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When someone starts writing it’s not unusual for them to want to be creative, to be un-boring, so when they have a character talk, that character “intimates”, “whispers”, “suggests”, “exclaims” and otherwise enjoys every imaginable bit of literary variance the author can throw at them.

More seasoned writers tend to just stick with “said”. When a character talks, it’s “said”, “said”, “said”. Over an over again. Page after page. Turtleneck after jeans. “Said”, “said”, “said”. It’s used so often it just disappears, the mechanics disappear, the author disappears, and all that’s left is the character.

Apple’s iOS has a pretty consistent user interface. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it’s more consistent than its competitors. Occasional page curl in Maps aside, the basic ways you move around the iPhone are the same, Apple app after Apple app. (And anything that’s not tends to get hidden away so power users can “discover it” and mainstream users can live their lives never having to be bothers by its existence).

iOS is so consistent, so single minded it being consistent, that when it isn’t — especially when 3rd party apps aren’t — it causes problems. Upper left had corner is a virtual back button. Tap and you go back. Tap and you go back. Tap and you… are suddenly editing your account? That’s the type of exception that proves the rule. You’re so used to doing something, it’s so instinctive to do certain things, that when they don’t happen you notice, and you get annoyed.

Beyond the UI it applies to Apple’s platform as well. From 2007 to 2009 every iPhone and iPod touch — 6 devices not counting re-issues — not only ran pretty much the same OS but had pretty much the same specs, the same screens, the same types of chips. When newer, better technology was thrown in — GPS, 3G, faster chips, more RAM, iOS abstracted them through API like CoreLocation so they remained broadly consistent. In 2010 Apple added the iPad which admittedly muddied the consistency waters, but they made sure it could run iPhone apps either 1x or 2x in double fuzzy chunky mode. iPhone 4 quadrupled the resolution but kept the same size so old apps “just worked” with 4 pixels instead of 1 if they had to, and the new gyroscope got hooked up to the old accelerometer and CoreMotion was born.

When speaking of the iPhone and the iPad, Apple SVP of design — and again, how many hardware/software companies have an executive level designer? — said he did everything possible to get the device itself out of the user’s way. It’s just a screen. Apple’s software designers have done a little of the same. But maintaining consistency to such a a consistent degree, a significant part of the OS gets out of the user’s way as well and only the content is left.

Say what you want about the iOS home screen being a boring old app launcher, but it’s always a boring old app launcher, swipe after swipe, page after page. It’s not a card view one moment, app launcher the next, wave in between. It’s not a bank of widgets arrayed like Hong Kong street signs surrounded by empty spaces and the occasional app in between — if they’ve been liberated from the drawer.

iOS consistency is so prevalent it becomes easy to overlook, but just spend a few days with another platform and it you start to realize it almost immediately. Incredible variations in hardware and UI skins are great for varieties sake but usability takes a huge hit.

Just for fun I passed around a few non-iPhone devices to co-workers, all smart techies. It took them a while to do even basic things like turn them on, unlock them, find Wi-Fi and add the password (note: never have two buttons for Wi-Fi one on top of the other where the first one turns it on and off, they’ll hit that one every time while looking for the settings hidden in plain sight beneath it.) I watched in particularly horrible fascination as a friend of my went to Digg’s mobile site, tapped a link, and had the device activate the link below it. He repeated and it did it again. About 4 out of 5 times when he hit pretty much the same spot — a link — it would trigger the one below. And yes, only 4 out of 5 times, just to be inconsistent about the inconsistency. Finding the phone to place a call? Woz wasn’t wrong. It was comedic at times.

In stark contrast I’ve mention numerous time how I’ve given iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads to children as young as one and half and they’ve been able to unlock them and launch the apps they wanted to launch. At two and half they could use it well.

That’s the power of a fairly consistent platform running fairly consistent consistent software.

It’s what Apple has been doing for years, for decades — making software and focusing on human interface (they’ve even got guidelines). It’s why feature checklists might not be the best way to measure advances in the smartphone space (though every June Apple takes as good a jump down checklist street as anyone.)

Microsoft is reportedly laying down the consistency law for partners with the upcoming Windows Phone 7, and rumor has it Google might try to divest itself of all those Android UI skins with version 3.0.

Sure, “power users” might get bored but we complain about everything anyway. People who just want to use their device won’t even notice — they’ll be too busy using their device. Just like readers are too busy enjoying their novel and don’t give a second though to “said”, “said”, said.”

Consistency, consistency, consistency is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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My latest favorite iPhone game is Fruit Ninja. The premise of Fruit Ninja is simple; slice fruit, don’t miss any and don’t slice a bomb by mistake. Sound easy? Think again grasshopper! After beginning a game, fruit flies up from the bottom of the screen. You use your finger (or fingers) to slice the fruit. If a fruit falls back off the screen without being sliced, you receive an X. Three X’s and it’s game over. To make things interesting, bombs are thrown into the mix as well. So, not only are you trying to slice a lot of fruit coming at you and not missing any, you have bombs that shoot up as well. The challenge is, if you slice the bomb, it’s instant game-over.

When it comes to difficulty with this game, it is a nice and smooth curve. The issue is that once you get good at it, it would be nice to start at a higher difficulty. However, Fruit Ninja always starts you back at the beginning. Your efforts are not at a loss though, the game has plenty of achievements via Open Feint and unlockables. Different colored swords and backgrounds can be unlocked if you have the dedication and skill of a true ninja.

Fruit Ninja also has two different play modes. First is Classic. This is the primary play mode I have described above. Score points by slicing fruit while avoiding the bombs. Zen mode is fun and fast. There are no bombs, but you have a time limit to slice as many fruits as you can. This is not hard, what is hard to is to slice with combos to rack up more points. Check out the Open Feint leaderboards and you will see what I am talking about.

I can’t say enough about this game. It has great art direction, animation and fun. When you lose, it even gives you facts about fruit. This is a near-perfect game, I love it!

[$0.99- iTunes Link]

Pros

• Fun gameplay
• Great graphics
• Unlockable content

Cons

• No option to start at a higher difficulty

Fruit Ninja for iPhone- app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Spell check, which debuted in iOS 3.2 for iPad, is now a system-wide addition to iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod touch as well. Words that the OS thinks you’ve misspelled will be underlined in red (familiar to any Microsoft Office or Mac OS X user). Tapping on them will give you a popup containing a recommended replacement. Tapping the popup replaces the misspelled word with the (hopefully!) correctly spelled one. Combined with the iPhone’s existing, fairly stupendous, predictive auto-correct, it’s a powerful combination.

What makes it even more powerful is the addition of “replace” to the cut, copy, and paste popup. This is also something that debuted on the iPad but moved over to iPhone and iPod touch with iOS 4.

As an added bonus, if iOS 4 autocorrects a word and you immediately backspace, a popup will appear offering to replace the correction with the originally typed word.

Text replace functions similarly to spell-check in that you can use it to swap out a bad word for a good one, but there’s a different use-case behind it. Words don’t have to be spelled wrong for it to work, they just have to have alternative. For example, “downloads” is spelled correctly but you might not have meant to pluralize it. Tap it to get the copy/paste popup, hit replace, and “download” comes up as an option.

For more features check out our massive iOS 4 walkthrough.

iOS 4 features: Spell-check and text replace is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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It’s no secret our beloved iPads will not be running Adobe Flash natively anytime soon. That however hasn’t stifled the communities desire to at least try it out. Be it good, bad or just downright ugly; @comex has come to the rescue of those with inquiring minds by putting together what he considers and alpha build of Frash. Frash, being a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for Android taken from the latest Froyo builds. It’s been a while now since the actual release took place. Given that, I decided since I have a jailbroken iPad I would give it a try and see if Flash on iPad was something so compelling that it would add to the already awesome experience and the following is what I came up with.

Installation And Uninstallation:

The installation process of Frash is quite simple. While it may not exactly be for everyone, if you managed to jailbreak your iPad then you should be quite comfortable in installing Frash. The process is as follows:

1. You must have a Jailbroken iPad.
2. You will need to install SSH on your iPad from Cydia and then reboot iPad.
3. You will need the latest Frash.deb file (Google this folks, we cannot host it)
4. You’ll need to load up something to browse your iPads internal files. CyberDuck for Mac is suggested or WinSCP for Windows users. When logging in, you will need to supply your iPads credentials. In this case login is 'root' and password is 'alpine'.
5. Open up the iPad's filesystem and navigate to /var/root/Media
6. Inside here create a folder named 'Cydia', open it and inside it create a folder, 'AutoInstall' i.e. /var/root/Media/Cydia/AutoInstall
7. Open the folder 'AutoInstall' and copy Frash.deb from step 3 here and reboot the iPad (May need to do it more then once)
8. Should you decide to uninstall Frash, just search for Frash in Cydia and you will find the uninstaller.

Implementation And Use:

So now what?? If the process has gone as it should have you should now be able to open up mobile Safari and browse to any site which has Flash content be able able to view it. Again, keep in mind all this is alpha. Do expect crashes, do expect certain portions of flash enabled sites to not work. Also, get used to seeing that HUGE red Flash logo on practically every site you go to. The implementation is certainly not where some folks would love it to be but, comex has said he will continue to improve upon frash and eventually also make it available for the iPhone (3GS and iPhone 4). This is great stuff for those who really want to have Flash on their devices.

Closing Thoughts:

For now anyways, Steve Jobs was right in my opinion. We really do not need flash in our iPads. Using Frash in it’s current state after a while just simply began to annoy me. Flash ad’s, big flash logos all over the place, embedded videos that once worked, no longer did. Some of this stuff comex can surely fix. However, some of it really just isn’t worth having in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure many could argue had Steve allowed it we’d likely see a better implementation of Flash but since that’s not how things turned out, this is what we have. Once some of the bugs have been worked out in frash, I may return to check it out but for now, I’m of the impression that I’m better off without it.

How to set up Frash Jailbreak Flash player for iPad is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The internet is abuzz with news that Apple has deleted discussion threads involving the Consumer Reports tests concerning iPhone 4 antenna issues.

Apple routinely deletes threads from discussions.apple.com when their main purpose is to complain about Apple or Apple products. The moderators seem to act as though the forums are for people asking questions and getting answers, and not just piling on complaints. Since there’s no freedom of speech on someone else’s dime, that’s the way it goes. There are plenty of other forums on the internet where you can complain away about Apple issues to your heart’s content — including TiPb’s own iPhone forums.

(You’re better off using apple.com/feedback/iphone to send in complaints anyway, there’s no indication discussions.apple.com holds any weight with Apple when it comes to issue tracking.)

The internet buzz concerning the thread removals is important for one reason, however — it shows how sensitive customers are to the antenna issue. Never mind that Consumer Reports said they couldn’t recommend iPhone 4 in one sentence then named it the best smartphone on the planet in another. Never mind we still don’t know how many people have the problem. Never mind that other phones have the same problem albeit to lesser degrees. Never mind that Apple’s historic misrepresentation of signal strength might be exacerbating the issue, as could AT&T’s network. Never mind anything else.

The antenna issue has become a matter of public perception now and that’s a huge problem for Apple. The mainstream media has their teeth in it now. They smell blood. The open letter and its contents clearly weren’t enough this time. As brilliant as they are in marketing, handling customer-facing problems is their kryptonite. MobileMe’s initial launch might have been the goofy red kind of kryptonite. They finally acted, they finally fixed it. This might be the green kind of kryptonite. The kind that hurts.

Regarding Apple deleting Consumer Reports threads from discussion groups is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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