Is the just released iOS 4.1 beta reporting fewer bars in more places, just like Apple said their next iOS update would? That’s what we’re hearing… but not (just?) on iPhone 4 — iPhone 3GS as well.

iPhone 4 has better reception in better signal areas, worse reception in worse signal areas when “death gripped”, and we’re hearing that’s holding true under iOS 4.1, but again the signal is being reported “better”. You see fewer bars in low signal areas, so you have a better idea what will happen if touching it in the lower left hand corner — it might drop off completely.

But iPhone 3GS? Well on iOS 4 had 5 bars in location x. Same location on iOS 4.1 it’s reporting 4 bars when on the table, 3 bars when picked up, and 2 bars when “death gripped”.

Here’s a vastly over simplified analogy: imagine iOS 4 was a school that gave anyone (any iPhone) who scored over 20% an A (5 bars). iOS 4.1 would be a much stricter school where you had to get an 80% for that A (5 bars.

iOS 4.1 – Fewer bars in more places? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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There’s some confusion in the wake of Apple releasing iOS 4.1 for iPhone and iPod touch to developers today — namely where is the iOS 4.0.1 bug fix release and where is iOS 4.x for iPad?

iOS 4.1 will be a proper new release, just like iOS 3.1 (iPhone 3.1) was last year, which means developers need to test against it, which means Apple needs to release an early beta for those developers. Last year, iOS 3.1 beta 1 was released on June 30, 2009. So today is a couple weeks earlier than last year’s point release beta — read into that what you will — but not crazily off schedule.

There will likely be a few more betas, maybe every 2 weeks or so, until September when Steve Jobs takes the stage for the annual special iPod and iTunes music event, announced iOS 4.1 proper, shows off a 4th gen iPod touch and a few new cool features they’ve kept in their back pocket. Remember, Apple is secretive but they like their cycles. The greatest indicator of what Apple will do this year is what they’ve done in previous years.

Which brings us to iOS 4.0.1. Again, iOS 3.0.1 (iPhone 3.0.1) was released to the public on July 31, 2009, and there’s no reason to think iOS 4.0.1 won’t be released late July, early August 2010. Apple’s open letter on the antenna issue said a few weeks, that would be a few weeks.

As to iOS 4.x (4.0 or 4.1) for the iPad, that’s the wildcard. It didn’t exist last year so it has no cycle. If Apple wants to make a big deal about it, they’ll announced it at the September show, highlight some features, release a beta that day, and the OS some time later (maybe November). We can only wait and see.

Where is iOS 4.0.1, iOS 4.x for iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Earlier this afternoon Apple released the very first beta for iOS 4.1 along with the software development kit (SDK) to all developers. Unfortunately, there has been no word on what changes have been made within the software from Apple. If you are a developer and notice anything worth a mention, be sure to let us know.

Sound off in the comments below!

Update: what about iOS 4.0.1 and iOS 4.x for iPad? And what’s the deal with the new iOS 4.1 signal bars algorithm?

iOS 4.1 and iPhone SDK 4.1 beta released by Apple is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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So on one hand the hype surrounding iPhone 4 antenna issues has risen to the level of a David Letterman top 10 list and Top Gear joke (see videos after the break), and on the other it’s got Microsoft COO Kevin Turner calling it Apple’s Vista (which is a bizarre slam on Microsoft’s own product):

It’s beyond the looking glass. What is Apple going to do? What should they do?

[CrunchGear x2, Computerworld]

Letterman, Top Gear, Microsoft poke fun at iPhone 4 antenna issue is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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To say there’s a lot to talk about this week would be a huge understatement… Join us right here at 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am BST as we discuss all the week’s iPhone news, reviews, and how-tos.

iPhone live takes over the home page 15 minutes or so before the show. Be here, and be ready to chat. We want to hear from you.

iPhone live tonight, 6pm PT, 9pm ET, 2am BST is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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How does a “shooting scene reconstructor” use his iPhone to get the job done and what iPhone apps help get him through his day? TiPb's iPhone at work contest aims to bring you just such slices of the iPhone life. Here's Theta’s answer and as a small token of thanks we're sending him a $20 iTunes gift certificate. If you want to see your name up on the TiPb home page and get a gift certificate all your own, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forum and share your story now!

I just got my first iPhone, an iPhone 4. Before that I used two different generations of iPod touches.

I do quite a few “shooting scene reconstructions”, and other investigations related to firearms examination. To that end, I have converted over from using a Tablet PC for field note taking, to using Office² and various self made worksheets. I can quickly enter various types of data related to the evidence I am examining. Today I even took a picture of a fired casing comparison using the iPhone 4 camera through the microscope objective, cropped the image (CropForFree), annotated it (iRetouch Lite), and then inserted into my worksheet in Office².

I track my various Google calendars using SaiSuke. I have used it for a few years now. I allows me to update and track various calendars (work, personal, baseball, swimming, cub scouts). When I’m and get a call from a client, I can quickly add an event, which will update on my company website that many customers use to check on my work availability.

I also use Office² to track case numbers, payments received, to update a Google Doc that my bookkeeper checks daily to make invoices for me, and to track courtroom testimony.

I use Air Sharing to take PDF copies of my electronic case files along with me, for reading while on the phone with clients, or reviewing prior to courtroom testimony. It truly allows me to have a mobile office.

I use MileBug to track my mileage and email reports to my accountant.

I use the standard Apple Notes app to email bank deposit summaries to my bookkeeper.

skobbler has become my GPS app (I switched from Sprint with free turn-by-turn, so I’m a little hesitant to start paying for a formerly free service).

Those are just the main ones. There are various other ones I will quickly use on the stand to covert units to answer questions from attorneys, spreadsheets for performing blood alcohol calculations, rulers for measuring, protractors for measuring angles, periodic charts for chemistry questions, and even RxDrugs for looking up prescription drug information.

What about you? Do you do investigations related to firearms examination? If so, how do you use your iPhone for work? If not, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forum and let us know how you use your iPhone for your job.

iPhone at Work: shooting scene reconstruction is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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According to the Sun, Apple has purchased Quebec-based Poly9, a mapping API provider for Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, MSNBC, and NORAD.

Poly9’s website has been shuttered, their employees moved to Cupertino.

Last year, Apple bought PlaceBase, a company that specialized in API for layering data sets over maps.

Since there’s only a few companies that actually own the maps themselves, Apple still isn’t going into the map business — but they certainly look to be doing a lot to make their implementation of maps better and more powerful.

iOS 5 anyone?

[MacDailyNews, image via designrevolution.org, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Apple acquires map API company Poly9 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Osfoora is a Twitter client that's been gaining a lot of traction on the iPhone platform.  Me, being me, decided to finally give it a go.  As we already know, I'm extremely shallow and finicky when it comes to picking an everyday Twitter client.  But as we all know, there's tons to choose from and what may suit one person, doesn't suit another.  For me, I'll use whatever serves as the best all around client for me until something better pops up.  In my opinion, Osfoora is the best all around client right now.

Hit the jump for tons of screens and an overview!

[iTunes Link]

Like clients such as Tweetings, Osfoora's general layout looks a lot like the official Twitter for iPhone client, which isn't a bad thing.  It also adds a couple simple customization options such as a user home screen.  You can tweak the colors to your liking as well.

You can also choose between two themes, light and dark.  I prefer the light theme but a lot of users like the dark look as well.  I think it provides a balance without overdoing it and ruining the UI.

Osfoora boasts a lot of the features we've come to expect from a good Twitter client.  It supports pull down to refresh, lists, uploading pics and videos, conversation views, read it later, search (nearby, users, keywords), now playing, link shorteners, hashtags, and much more.  Another feature I like is the Follow Friday feature.  It allows you to set up follow Fridays in a much easier way than editing and adding people manually.  You can choose how many people you'd like it to post from your friends list.  It's definitely a neat feature a lot of users may enjoy using over entering their Follow Fridays manually.

Nearby Tweets also has a cool add-in I haven't seen many Twitter clients implement. Given I'm not a huge user of nearby, maybe some do, but I've never noticed it.  Osfoora has added in a list view in addition to the map view.  This seems a lot easier to browse through than looking at a map and tapping individual bubbles to read tweets.  It's minor, but shows the developer really put a lot of thought into user experience.

Profile viewing is also similar to a lot of other popular Twitter clients.  It's got basic user profile information, follow information, list support, block user, and report as spam access. Overall, I feel comfortable saying Osfoora will stay in my iPhone dock until something better comes along.  The only thing I'd really like to see added is native push.  Boxcar does support Osfoora, but I've been having a lot of issues with Boxcar lately.  I've also tried Notifo, but as of now, I couldn't find a way to make Osfoora my default Twitter client for things to open within Osfoora instead of Twitter for iPhone.  I don't believe the functionality is there just yet.  If I missed it though, let me know in the comments!

Pros

• Clean but powerful UI

• Easy to navigate, you can use it right from the gate without having to teach yourself too much

• Developer put a lot of thought into the "little things"

• Decent price

Cons

• No native push support

Osfoora for iPhone – App Review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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One of the huge advantages of iOS 4’s virtual keyboard is that, for people who write in multiple languages, changing from English to Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, or other non-Roman options involves a simple Settings change. This is helpful for language students and business travelers alike. It can also be fun, especially when it comes to things like Japanese Emoji (think emoticons gone wild).

Kyle sent this our way:

When turning on the japanese romaji keyboard, if you return to the keyboards menu you will be given a new option “edit user dictionary” where you can add a new word/Yama (if I remember that right) to the auto-correct dictionary and I assume the spell-check as well.

After tinkering for a bit, I saw the Chinese Pinyin keyboards work as well for the dictionary. Now, while meandering through the Japanese keyboard, I saw this “^_^” key under the ‘123′ tab. Tap it and you’ll be given a gigantic list of ‘emoticons’ if you will and some of which include symbols like those of a character map.

I HIGHLY recommend you see these as some are a bit funny looking and it really makes you think why Apple would put these on here, and why so many?

We’re guessing it’s because iPhone is popular in Japan, Emoji are popular in Japan, and Apple’s using the latter to increase the former. If any Japanese readers have a better theory, let us know!

More pics after the break, and more on iOS 4 in our walkthrough…

iOS 4 features: Keyboards and Emoji is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Otterbox Commuter Case for iPhone 3GS strikes the perfect balance between convenience and protection. If you’re rocking Apple’s other big smartphone release this year, the $99 iPhone 3GS (or the unlocked iPhone 3GS, depending on where you live), or still lucky enough to have a 16GB or 32GB iPhone 3GS from last year, this case should be on your radar. (It also fits the iPhone 3G.)

Confession: I thought I’d hate it when it first arrived. I don’t know why exactly, maybe it was fear of layers bulk, uncertainty about dual color schemes, dunno, but I was not looking forward to testing out the Otterbox Commuter. Then I put it on.

AD&D analogy time — If skins are the chainmail of the case world and the Otterbox Defender is the full plate armor (yes, even the pink one), the Commuter is the in-between, plate-mail option. It’s strong but still a but flexible, solid and secure but still snug and light.

Like plate-mail it comes in two layers, the silicone that you slip on first, and that has covers for the 3.5mm headset jack and 30-pin dock connector, and the plastic shell that goes over it. Together they provide protection against scrapes and scuffs and minor impacts.

The Otterbox Commuter also comes in a ton of colors — yellow, white, blue, green, brown, burgundy, and black. (Yes, I’ll spare you the strained surcoat analogy).

Again, not as big as the Defender, not as thin as a skin, I found myself leaving it on even after my typical week-long review period was over. Since I’ve been carrying an iPhone 4 around as well, maybe I was a little more concerned about my iPhone 3GS getting damaged, maybe I started to like the look, or maybe I wanted my fellow SPE editors to think I had an imaginary, super-secret iPhone 5 prototype hidden in a fancy camo case (I’ll never tell!)

But leave it on I did.

If you’re looking for a combination of protection and convenience, something strong but still light, check out the Otterbox Commuter Case for iPhone 3GS available now from the TiPb iPhone 3GS accessory store.

Pros

• Good level of protection, including minor impact
• Covers headset jack and dock port
• Includes screen protector

Cons

• Dual layers means slightly more bulk

Otterbox Commuter case for iPhone 3GS review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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