Peon's Place

For iPhone owners, it always comes back to the antenna. Apple’s touch-screen smartphone has been a sensation since Day 1 three years ago, and many who own the device believe it to be almost perfect — if only it worked better as a phone.

So it is not surprising that as the first boxes of the new iPhone 4 landed in the hands of the earliest adopters late yesterday, Wednesday, the antenna’s reception quickly became an Internet obsession. What surprised many of them: the precious little bars that signal network connections inexplicably disappeared when they cradled the phone in their hands a particular way. Sometimes, but not always, the cradling resulted in dropped calls.

With no official word from Apple, iPhone fans turned to each other on the Internet in a zealous exercise in crowd-sourcing for answers to the mystery. They were all the more baffled because the iPhone 4 was designed to have better reception. A metal band that wraps around the edges of the device is supposed to pull in a stronger signal; software is supposed to choose the section of the signal with the least congestion. A user calling himself FFArchitect appeared to be the first to report the phenomenon on MacRumors.com, a site for the Apple-obsessed. He said that touching the band in various places caused reception problems. His report, like many that followed, included a video demonstrating the problem.

Soon after, Gizmodo, a popular site for gadget fans, picked up on it, calling the phenomenon “weird.” “When the guy holds the iPhone in his hands, touching the outside antenna band in two places, he drops reception,” Jesus Diaz, a writer for the blog, said. “Placing the phone down gets him 4 bars.”

Apple has not acknowledged any problems with the iPhone 4 and did not respond to requests for comment. For all the reader reports, and suggestions for how to fix the problem — Update 19: use nail polish to insulate the antenna; Update 21: enclose the phone in a rubber case — there appeared to be limits to the wisdom of this crowd. On Thursday afternoon, the mystery remained unsolved, though one report suggested that the problem with dropped calls when users cradled their phones, which also occurred on an older iPhone running Apple’s new operating system, iOS4, might come from software.

If you lose your iPhone or iPad while on the go, simply install this free app on any other iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to find it. If you are the owner of iPhone and/or the latest iPad you cannot afford to miss this app. The app by Apple Inc designed for iPad and iPhone can help you trace your lost or stolen phone or iPad.

Most of the applications available on the internet would require you to install the app on your device and when it gets stolen or lost the app already installed will help you locate your missing device. How this free application, Find My iPhone, is different and unique, you need not install this app on your iPhone or iPad in fact when your device is lost simply install the app on any other (may be your friends) iPhone, iPod or iPad and the app will help you locate your device.

You need to subscribe to the MobileMe services before you can locate your lost device. Once you get the MobileMe subscription you can see the position of your device on a map.  MobileMe gives you the power to use your device remotely even when it is not in your hands. For example you can remotely lock the device, erase all information and sound an alert or display messages. Lock the device remotely is a good feature especially handy in case the person who has your device is not ready to give it back or there is no chance of you getting your device back.

Get your MobileMe account from http://www.apple.com/mobileme, which comes with a trial period of 60 days.

Wal-Mart is to cut the price on the entry level iPhone 3GS, with 16Gb of memory, by $100 to $97 with a two-year AT&T contract. When Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS last June, it cut the price of the older iPhone 3G to $99.

This can only mean that the approach of the new iPhone 4G is to be announced, with a likely July release date at this point. I’d be surprised to see it fall into our hands any sooner. Dual camera, flash, multitasking goodness.

We will not see the announcement of the Verizon iPhone for sure, so for all the AT&T haters – sorry! The WWDC (Worldwide Developer’s Conference) on June 7th will give all our questions some sort of resolve, when Steve Jobs takes the stand.

No more need to jailbreak hack your iPhone! AT&T is testing, with the OS 4.0 beta software, the possibility to allow users to naturally tether their phone.

What is tethering you may ask? It basically utilizes the 3G coverage and turns your phone into a wireless hub, allowing your laptop to connect to it when you are not near a Starbucks, etc, for Wi-Fi access. Granted, your speed is limited to that of your 3G signal, but it’s better than playing solitare!

I sort of wish Apple would stop leaving their trash around, but then we wouldn’t have all these cool updates provided by techy website companies giving Apple free advertisement for their new phone launch next month. Another iPhone 4G has been found, and this time in Vietnam.

If you don’t understand the language, it won’t hurt you to mute the video below. Basically he models the outside of the phone, giving display of the blocky/edgy feel of the phone as opposed to the smooth curved iPhone we have become used to. The volume buttons are obviously different, and ..is that a memory card in the side? I disbelieve that. Unless it’s the SIM card, so easily accessible.

We see the signs of the dual-camera, the first phone to ever sport two different cameras, but most everything else is the same. Supposedly the device is a little thicker, 3 grams heavier, but sports a battery lasting 16% longer than its predecessors.

This time, it is from the country of Vietnam and they have gone all out. Not only is the unit a little bit different physically from the one Gizmodo had (there are no screws at the botton of the device), but the gentleman who has the phone has torn it apart and revealed the custom Apple A4 processor. There is no working OS loaded (besides a test one called Bonfire) and the unit appears to be a 16GB mode, though it is pre-production obviously. Word on the street is that this unit was purchased for $4,000. Couple additional shots in the gallery and video after the break!