f13.net

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/live-from-apples-iphone-4-press-conference/

Some precious quotes:

- I thought Consumer Reports gave it a poor review...or was that a not recommend?




Oh wow... I am astounded by Steve arguments. I mean really astounded. Damage control, but the arguments are just weak.

Even the knobslobs at Twit are kinda balking. Kinda.

Schadenfreude at its best. I am enjoying the hell out of this shitstorm.

They're giving away free cases to fix the problem, along with giving people refunds.  That's decent enough, though they could have done so without acting like they were doing a grand favor to the plebeians.  And I haven't seen any mention that the free phone refunds are going to simultaneously let someone out of a new AT&T contract if they signed up for the phone.

(http://thenextweb.com/shareables/files/2010/07/David-Caruso-e1279293536766.png)

30 day return policy on AT&T plans - I'd guess you'd pay the piper even though you get the refund from apple. Free bumper... great, can't fault them for doing something... but really? Basically what amounts to a free rubberband for your phone? So much for the sleek design.

This is still gonna bite them, I think.  Most of their conference was spent claiming that all cellphones lose reception when touched, that it's not an iphone thing.  And that's true.  But the testing data online so far shows the iphone taking a reception hit about three times greater than other phones.  So claiming that it's no different than other phones is, while not an outright lie, very dishonest in the way it was presented.  And everyone on the net who was tech savvy enough to find the antenna problem is going to be very very fast to point that fact out in the wake of this conference.

Well when your product doesn't outperform the competition, compensate for it by making the competition look bad. Stay classy Jobs.

Yeah, the presser seemed to be the normal spin stuff. But, the full refunds through september 30th is nice, and supposedly ATT is backing them on this. Some interesting things was pointing out very much that they have a Verizon cell on campus, illustrating the frustraton for ATTs part in this mess.

There are reports that Apple may have slipstreamed a fix of sorts into production. PEople have managed to get newer iphone 4s after going to the store to complain that do not seem to have the issue, and seem to be flush wit the black "bumps" between antennas that may indicate a coating to help. September 30th may be the deadline for ramping that up.

I'm a mixed environment person. I have a macbook, work on Macs at work, but have a PC at home. I do love apple products, and I do like what Jobs has done for the company, but the arrogance does get old at times.

No actually on the CR chart for reviewed smart phones the iPhone 4 had the highest overall ratings. They just wouldn't recommend it cause of the antenna issue.

http://www.examiner.com/x-39728-Tech-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m7d13-Consumer-Reports-rates-iPhone-4-top-despite-not-recommending

Thanks for hunting that down. I got called to a meeting and and had to run before I could research it a bit.

Anyone who's gone out of their way to buy a phone on lolat&t sort of deserves to have a phone that doesn't work.  Even without antenna problems, AT&T phones don't get reception in half my city, so  :awesome_for_real:  I am eager to see the new ipod generation, though.  As long as they don't fuck up and intentionally subtract features from it (like the missing camera and mic from the third gen) it's a must-buy for me.

Meanwhile, I'm busy downgrading my current ipod back to 3.1, as it's turned into a laggy crashy piece of shit with no battery life after the OS 4 'upgrade'.

I am lucky in that coverage is just fine here. Verizon isn't any better or worse either.

You know, after a lot of this stuff, and everyone paying attention to signal and stuff. I am starting to think that its the iPhone not AT&T that is at fault for a lot of the dropped calls from the previous generation of iPhone. If the new iPhone in a case can hold a steady signal in areas where the old iPhone would always drop calls, that seems to me its the phone and not a congested network.

I really want an iPhone 4, cause its great, everything except the reception issue. I just can't bring myself to buy the phone until this issue is fixed.

 :oh_i_see:

Their PR folks need some humility installed in them via gunpoint

 :uhrr:

AT&T is pretty bad. It's definitely not just an iPhone thing. Hell, even Apple said there was an issue.... they just said other phones have similar issues. So, it's totally normal.  :awesome_for_real:

Just incase anyone wants to read it, here is the Anandtech article (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3821/iphone-4-redux-analyzing-apples-ios-41-signal-fix) that proves Jobs is full of shit when he said the iPhone 4's antenna issue is the same as every other smartphone.

Actually that article proves his point.

Jobs is the consummate sales person. Talk up the cutting edge, awesome and minimize the shortcomings by equating them to the rest of the flock... or just don't talk at all about it.  :oh_i_see:

The HTC Nexus One suffered a 10.7 dB signal loss when being held.
The iPhone 4 suffered a 19.8 dB signal loss.

The iPhone suffering 85% more signal loss than the competitors is somewhat the opposite of proving his point, which was 'oh golly gee, the iPhone's being unfairly singled out, this happens to everyone!'

Free bumper cases for all!

(http://rsk.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pRS1-6785233w345.jpg)

Am I doing it right?  :why_so_serious:

He didn't say the signal drop was the same with the other smart phones he compared just that many of them have the same problem. And comparing signal drop without measuring the actual impact on call performance or download speeds is almost meaningless. E.g. in that same article they discussed anecdotally how the 4G antenna design seems to handle weaker signals better than the 3GS's. I.e. because of the design of the antenna it's likely it picks up weaker signals better. That doesn't mean it totally offsets the drop when held in certain ways but it makes comparing the drop between different phones difficult without some other sorts of measurements.

All that you say is true.  However, I would point out that it took less than a day from the release of the new iphone for people to have noticed their calls and data connections being disrupted.  I am not yet aware of any group of people making similar claims for the Nexus One, what, six months after it came out now?  More?  If those 10.7 decibels were sufficient to meaningfully disrupt the Nexus One, I would suspect that there would have been some outcry from the Google nerds by now.

Probably because it's as much of a non-issue for the google nerds as this is for most 4 owners.

Also if you look at the signal loss when held normally compared to the 3gs, which lost 1.9db.

My good friend has an iPhone 4, and the signal loss for him is totally brutal. To the point where he almost cant use it as a phone unless he is using a bluetooth ear piece, and he has to be very careful how he holds it when using data, or he will totally stop his data signal. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the fact he live in a low signal area, but still, it was never even an issue with the 3g and 3gs at his place.

I'm laughing at this whole situation. It's a "smart phone" that sucks as a phone. Lol.

Calling these things phones to begin with is kind of  :awesome_for_real:  if they hadn't come from the mobile phone industry, it certainly wouldn't be the immediately obvious distinction.

What would you call it instead? A terrible gaming system? A shitty website reader? It's called the iPhone ffs, it should probably work as a phone.

I read this thread and all i see is, "Haters gonna hate."

Get over it, if you don't want the phone don't get it.  It's existence isn't an affront to your personal universe..

By his numbers that is 20,000 or so phones with a problem already.  Sounds like a high number to me. 

Also, you have to wonder how much of this is partially due to AT&T's shittiness. 

Yes, how dare people pay hundreds of dollars (thousands if you count the bundled service contract) for a product that has a design flaw and then be unhappy that the product they were so psyched to have isn't working right!  Why, when the company that routinely brags about the magical nature of their products puts out a revision that underperforms, they should get a pass.  Clearly anyone expecting that company to fulfill their lofty PR claims is a hater.

Oh Kitsune, its only the Phone part in iPhone that doesn't work right. The rest works great.

I really love the design of most Apple products, but the excuses for this blunder get really retarded.

The patch that "fixes" the connectivity display. Means they manipulated the display to show more bars than were actually present. On purpose.

Assholes.

Meanwhile in non-asshat land... (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Paul-Allen-Bill-Gates-Charity-Philanthropy,10880.html)

And that has absolutely fuckall to do with the topic.

Well, yeah.  Like I said, I'm looking forward to this year's ipod touch refresh.  I skipped the third generation for its lack of any substantial update over the second gen, but am hopeful that the new stuff in the new iphone will make it into this year's ipod.  The only flaws in the phone are the reception and the tremendously breakable glass construction.  Sadly, those are two doozies.

I know nothing about the HTC Evo, but this video is brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg&feature=related)

I have some experience designing wireless systems, my company has its own high frequency and antenna design departments and we own our own antenna testing facility (which BTW should cost a lot less than 100 milion dollars). We design wireless systems of all purposes so I know a bit about the topic. (attn.: long)

Basically everyone involved from Apple, to the press, to competitors are talking extreme bullshit. It's been a PR disaster for Apple, yes, but everyone involved, including the people who first demonstrated the effects of the "death grip" are completely clueless. Alas Apple has done a bad job so far clearing things up.

1. "Bars" are a fucking bad unit of measurement because the mapping from bars to dBm (the real unit of measuring signal strength) is completely arbitrary. There is no standard, each company is free to choose a mapping that they like. It can even be even different with each device from the same manufacturer. I've seen everything from the "5 bars displayed although not even a magician could place calls" to "insanely good signal equals 3 bars". Although most devices tend to be "optimistic" or "very optimistic" (or as I prefer to call it "bullshitting the customer")

Two different devices from two different manufacturer might even receive with the exact same signal strength but show a different amount of bars.

The only site that compared actual dBm values was Anandtech and even they got some details wrong but at least they posted actual numbers that showed conclusively that signal attenuation on the iPhone 4 is significantly worse than on the 3GS and worse than on a nexus one.

Although if you look at the numbers you can see that the problem affects all handsets albeit not always in the same way.

2. The iPhone 4's noise threshold (the minimum signal strength at which reception is still possible) is -121 dBm compared to the -113 of the nexus or the 3 GS. Since dBm is a logarithmic scale this means that the iPhone 4 receives signals that are nearly an order of magnitude (power of ten) lower than the nexus or 3 GS.

-113 dBm = .015 pW (thats pico)
-121 dBm = .0018 pW

Even if the effect on the iPhone 4 is more pronounced it allows for a larger safety margin because of the better receiver. This is consistent with reviews that claim the iPhone 4 to perform better although signal is attenuated more. If you take that into account the iPhone 4 performs on par with the Nexus One

Since dBm is logarithmic you can just add and subtract dBm values so you could subtract 8 dBm (-121 to -113) from the measured values of iPhone 4 if you assume a -113 dBm baseline.

So if we take anandtech's numbers:

	Cupping Tightly	Holding Naturally	On an Open Palm	Holding Naturally Inside Case
iPhone 4	24.6	19.8	9.2	7.2
iPhone 3GS	14.3	1.9	0.2	3.2
HTC Nexus One	17.7	10.7	6.7	7.7

subtract 8 dBm from the iPhone 4's numbers to get a notion on how it would perform compared to the -113 dBm receivers (the 24.6 dBm attenuation would then be just 16.6 which is on par with the nexus).

So they actually designed the phone with a larger safety margin to counteract the effects.

3. If this sounds like being an Apple apologetic let's get to the things even Anandtech got wrong. Touching the antenna directly will always attenuate the signal, every electrical engineer worth his salt knows that. Apple must have clearly known that as do all of Apple's competitors.

Where Ananadtech (and nearly everybody else) is wrong is why a wireless signal get's attenuated. It's not the water content of your hand. On the contrary as far as microwaves between 800 MHz and 2100 MHz are concerned (the bands in which GSM and UMTS communication takes place) your body is nearly transparent. Signal attenuation because of water is only relevant as we approach 10 GHz.

A microwave oven uses 2.4 GHz not because waves at that frequency effectively heat water (which they don't) but because the band is available without obtaining a licence, at the time the microwave was first intruduced higher frequencies weren't possible, the microwave was primarily designed to dethaw not to cook and the process of dielectric heating doesn't rely on absorption (also you need a few hundred watts of power to effectively heat food)

A mobile phone can transmit at a maximum power of 1W (or +30 dBm) and usually sends at only .125 W (-5 dBm).

If microwaves were very well absorbed by water you wouldn't be able to heat the center of your food as the waves wouldn't even get that far.

Attenuation comes mostly from changes in the wave impedance level of the antenna. Not unlike speaker cables the connection between antenna and receiver requires a specific wave impedance level, if that changes reception suffers because the signal gets attenuated. To adapt antenna and transceiver a lot of coils and capacitors are placed in the signal path from antenna to transceiver to make sure the connection has the right impedance. This can be made to be adaptable to some extent. The human body is a very good capacitor so touching the antenna will change the capacitance of the whole system and mess with the adaptation. This is a well known RF issue.

Since antennas are susceptible to changes in capacitance you don't even have to touch the antenna to see the effect. You can see and measure an effect even if you are not directly touching the device but just get near it (You can even see changes in the reception depending on the surface the device resides on).

Anybody who has ever tried to tune an indoor antenna for radio or TV reception knows what I mean. You touch the antenna and reception is great until you let go of it (or vice versa). Thats because your body changes the adaptation of the antenna which can make the signal stronger (if the adaptation was bad to begin with) or weaker as you become part of the antenna system.

That's why antennas, transceivers and the signal path between them are always designed in conjunction with the device enclosure, because a good adaptation depends on all of these factors. Internal antennas tend to perform better than external antennas because you can control the distance from the antenna to the device enclosure (and therefore walls, surfaces etc.) and nobody can touch the antenna directly.

Still you will see some attenuation if somebody holds the device in his or her hands. That's why every handset manual I know of clearly states that you shouldn't hold the device in a way that covers the antenna by your hand. Touching the antenna itself has to be a lot worse. Short circuiting two antennas (that's what happens when you place your finger over the gap, you connect the cellular antenna and the WiFi one) even more so.

Yet it is something every mobile handset designer should be aware of and has to deal with. The mere existence of the "Bumper" is clear evidence of the fact that Apple was aware of these issues right from the start, it covers and insulates only the antenna portions of the device from getting in contact with your body.

TL;DR conclusion. Apple clearly knew that the issue existed, claiming to be unaware of the problem is bullshit (or they only employ clueless engineers), any other handset manufacturer that claims he doesn't have the issue is also talking bullshit. If you take the better transceiver of the iPhone 4 into account it doesn't perform worse than competing products which unfortunately is not enough to magically make the crappy AT&T service perform better. People living in areas with good coverage (which would be everyone not being a customer of AT&T) shouldn't even notice it.

Placing the antenna somewhere people are likely to touch them will make matters worse, the existence of the bumper clearly shows that Apple knew the problem existed.

Changing the mapping of bars to dBm values to make a device (or service) magically seem to perform better is standard practice of the entire industry but also a dick move. Since digital transmission is digital it is also largely a non issue. You can either place calls or you can't, it's irrelevant if you have the best signal strength possible or are below -105 dBm, performance should be exactly the same (although data transmission speeds can be lower).

Also there is no way to improve this situation by means of software only a complete redesign of the signal path including the antenna would help.

Dropped calls, bad coverage and crappy service aren't related to signal levels as much as you'd like to think (a topic I won't get into here) so as far as I'm concerned it's largely a tempest in a teacup kind of situation.

Apple got some well deserved backlash for being a dick (you are not holding it right, my ass) and for selling plastic that's worth $ .10 and should be free with your purchase for $30. A lot of tech journalists showed their total lack of technical knowledge either defending or condemning Apple and Apple's competitors try to bullshit the media and their customers into believing that the issue doesn't affect them. The rest is just one big media circle jerk.

Interesting, thanks. Needs more equations though...

BTW, how do you know what the noise threshold is?

See the follow up from Anandtech.

The new mapping for the bars is so that the limit is -121 dBm

They compare the mapping to the ones from the 3 GS and the Nexus One:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3821/iphone-4-redux-analyzing-apples-ios-41-signal-fix

Also you can get the info from the data sheets if you know the transceiver model.

edit: provided link

So what do I have to do for my free plastic thingy?

I'll just leave this here... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-YesqzvNk)

Love the solution for the signal problem.

I was over at my friends house last night, who has the iPhone 4 and he let me DL Speed Test and mess around with the phones for like 30 minutes. First, the area where we live has notoriously low signal strength for AT&T, so that makes the problem really stand out, I never get more than 3 bars on the new 4.01 OS bars.

Using speed test I got results like this. (Going from memory, I dont have the numbers with me).

I did each test 5 or 6 times.

Phone flat on table: Download 500kb to 1000kb. Upload: 300kb to 800kb.

Phone held loosely in left hand (as I currently hold my iPhone 3g): Download: 0 to 100kb. Upload: 0 to 80kb.

Phone "death gripped": Download 0kb Upload: 0kb.


Next we called my phone and put it on speaker phone.

Phone on table: worked great both ways.

Phone in hand held up to ear: cut in and out. He could hear me, but often I got no sound from his phone. Ended up with dropped call after about 20 seconds. (5 times).

Phone death gripped (same results with one finger touching the "magic spot": dropped call in 5 seconds, very choppy.


I was honestly surprised how bad it was. The phone was basically unusable for phone or data if being held in the hand anyway except for the "3 finger grip". After doing these less than scientific tests, I am honestly amazed. It was REALLY bad.

Doing the call tests, never resulted in a dropped call on my end no matter how much I death gripped my iPhone 3g.

Two bars at best would be -98 dBm according to Anandtech. So if we take the numbers Anandtech measured we'd get a drop of 20 or 24 dBm (gripping it tightly vs holding it) which would push it well beyond the noise threshold either way.

I am not saying that it won't be an issue in places with notoriously bad coverage because it obviously is. If calls are dropped in places with average to good coverage however it's usually not a signal strength problem but rather related to congestion.

Don't get me wrong the antenna construction on the iPhone 4 is clearly not a very good design, especially if compared to the 3G or 3GS. Its not worse than the Nexus though. Two bars on the Nexus would be -98 dBm so holding it in exactly the same way as the iPhone 4 would lead to a drop of 11 to 18 dBm which would also push it over the limit (which is at -113 dBm). Crappy reception is crappy, the only phone that'd still be able to place calls would be the 3G or the 3GS (as far as phones measured by Anandtech go). All assuming that the numbers I quoted are correctly measured.

Download speed is another matter entirely because it's closely related to signal strength, as signal strength decreases the maximum speed of data transfers decreases as well. The coding schemes used to achieve HSPA speeds are more susceptible to interferences. Also speeds are related to congestion because calls take priority over data so if a cell is heavily congested data transfer speeds are reduced.

In your case the crappy reception alone is not the problem (it's near the noise threshold bot not under it) but the crappy reception combined with several interference effects (not that it's any consolation) most probably short term fading effects by multipath reception.

In congested cells the cell radius shrinks as more people place calls, this is caused by the channel access scheme employed (CDMA). Each active handset slightly raises the noise threshold which translates into shorter range of communication.

I think Steve really wanted to bitch out AT&Ts part in this. I think this is clear when he casually mentioned having a Verizon cell on site.

Not to go too far off topic, but I seem to remember calculating that at 2.4GHz, assuming a relatively high dielectric constant for the food, that most of the energy transfer occurs in the first several centimeters of the food, which is why high-water-content foods tend to get hottest on the outside while the center stays cold.  The rest of heating occurs by convection (which is why most foods with high-water content indicate that the food should be left standing for several minutes to heat properly).

Perhaps I remember wrong, but if food was transparent to radio energy at this frequency why would this occur?

Looks like the iPhone 4 isn't going to be tied to a single provider here in Canada.  Thats was a real dumbass move on Apple's part to have only one provider in the US.  Its enabled the competition to gain strong market share.

wasn't Rogers the only provider for a long time?  I don't associate CDN telecom with any kind of free market.

Verizon turned Apple down when Apple first went looking for a partner in the US. AT&T was the next logical choice given their size compared to Sprint and T-Mobile.

The only thing that doesn't make sense is the five year exclusive, apparently even carrying over to future models.  Typically you give a carrier 90-180 days exclusive on a form factor.

Supporting the iPhone was a huge risk for whatever provider was going to do it first so it makes sense to me that they would want a long term exclusive contract with Apple. 5 years does seem too long, though, and the rumors are getting louder that a CDMA version for Verizon will be coming in January 2011.

You make the same mistake most US analysts (and the pundits like Gruber) make when analysing Apple's strategy and the question of why they didn't go with Verizon instead.

The iPhone allegedly cost 4 billion US$ in research and development (which is probably in the right ballpark considering that the project went on for nearly five years).

It never was a choice of where they'd get the better deal at least at first, the technology choice basically limited them to AT&T in the US. Verizon is CDMA2000/EV-DO while AT&T uses GSM/UMTS

If you discount the United States of America and its associated territories like Puerto Rico, all MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators, companies that lease existing networks for their service) and also all foreign networks that only cover small areas (e.g. a few cities) then there are only around 30 EV-DO capable networks worldwide. There are more CDMA2000 networks but you would not get the bandwidth necessary to really use those phones without it being EV-DO capable.

Most of those network operators cover countries that are not very attractive markets (Bolivia for example) or are in countries where the iPhone isn't even available today.

The only three big markets for CDMA2000/EV-DO are the USA, the east of China and Japan and even NTT DoCoMo (the Japanese operator of CDMA2000) doesn't cover the whole of Japan.

Compare that to more than 220 different 3G (UMTS) networks worldwide.

They'd basically have the choice to start with two seperate versions of iPhone of which one would only really work in the US (forget worldwide roaming, most of Europe and most of Asia don't use CDMA) to start with a only CDMA version that would only work on one provider in one country or to start with one GSM version that could probably be rolled out all over the world.

If you choose UMTS/GSM however AT&T is the only choice for the US. Verizon uses a different wireless standard and T-Mobile USA uses non-standard frequencies for it's 3G network.

Starting off with two seperate versions of iPhone or with just a CDMA version would have been a bigger risk. It's also not that simple to design a seperate CDMA version as many of the tech journalists would like you to believe. You'd have to design a completely new phone.

You'd need a different logic board (other baseband and transceiver chips with different pinouts and different adaptation networks), a different antenna (CDMA operates in 450 MHz and 900 MHz as compared to GSM/UMTS 900/1800/1900/2100 MHz) a different signal path to connect the antenna to the transceiver, the baseband processor would be totally different and you'd have to adapt your low-level and OS routines to the completely different call handling and connection management of CDMA even then you wouldn't be able to get calls while using your data connection (and vice versa). Verizon is currently changing that behavious but that would be non-standard.

Also CDMA2000/EV-DO is an end of the line technology, there were attempts to devise a successor standard but the only proponent (being the only one making chips for CDMA200) dropped it in favour of LTE (long term evolution the successor to GSM/UMTS) so beginning in 2010 most CDMA2000/EV-DO capable networks will start to upgrade to LTE (and automatically to 3G).

Verizon is already rolling out upgrades as we speak. So two or three years from now there will be no longer a need for a CDMA version of the iPhone because most CDMA operators will then be LTE capable (and therefore GSM/UMTS).

Sprint's EVO 4g already uses an GSM/UMTS/LTE capable chipset (that is unfortunately currently only running Sprint's own proprietary 4G protocol stack).

I don't really believe the rumors of an imminent CDMA iPhone, for one thing that particular rumor surfaces every other month, it would also only attract US customers that haven't already bought an iPhone because they value Verizon's network more and it would clearly be a bridging technology for maybe the next two years until Verizon completed its roll out of LTE.

So basically they'd need to attract enough US Verizon subscribers to break even on the additional costs of developing and manufacturing a CDMA iPhone.

There's no mistake. It's a fact that Apple went to Verizon first and Verizon rejected the idea. Yes GSM makes more sense for an international phone but there's no reason why you can't have CDMA and GSM versions or a single phone that does both, though Apple probably won't do that cause of space constraints.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-01-28-verizon-iphone_x.htm

I'm going to necro this one instead of starting new.

I have a 3GS and need to jailbreak it. Is there a current idiots guide out there for doing this? Searching proves confuzzling since I don't know which sites to trust (I'm not a super iPhone user but need to tether).

No, really - I wasn't attempting humor. Anyone got some love for pointing to a useful link that teaches this?

I have no guide, but is there some reason the website that jailbreaks phones wouldn't work for you? Just don't trust it?

Exactly. Too many sites that want to show me how that look dubious, and then there are the ones who want to sell me it. Not sure w here I should trust since I'm not an iPhone warrior.

You misunderstand, I think.  Simply going to the correct site jailbreaks your phone. www.jailbreakme.com

http://www.pmptoday.com/2010/08/28/iphone-4-jailbreak-jailbreakme-website-alternatives/

Ahhhhh yeah that helps a lot. Now to downgrade the phone so I can break it. Thanks :)

You own a 3GS so downgrading is not easily done.

Shortly after a new OS version ships Apple no longer allows restores to previous firmware versions. All firmware versions are signed with the unique key of your 3GS, to restore Apple needs to verify the signature or the firmware can not be installed. After a new version ships Apple won't let you restore to previous firmware versions the old signatures are simply marked as invalid.

There are tools that help you back up your signature files (they are called SHSH blobs) for your current firmware versions and requests by iTunes for verification of a certain blob can be redirected to them (they simply tell iTunes that your version is still valid for restore, your unique SHSH blobs are needed for that)

If you are already on 4.02 and haven't previously saved your SHSH files you are SOL, downgrading is not possible and you have to wait for an unlock for 4.02 or later firmware versions (since the dev team already announced that they won't do a jailbreak for 4.02).

If you are still on 4.01 now's the time to save your SHSH blobs. Download firmware umbrella and save them. Even if you are still on 4.02 it might be worthwhile to save them for future downgrades.

Firmware umbrella stores the blobs locally and can also upload them to Cydia. You can even check if there are already SHSH blobs on file (if you had previously jailbroken your phone they might be)

Jeff, I don't know what SHSH files are so maybe I misunderstand, but I can assure you that downgrading the firmware is pretty damn easy.  I did it on my own iphone 4 and lost nothing.  I did it on my wife's 3G and lost some pictures and game saves, and only then because we didn't have a proper backup on her iTunes (because the phone used to be mine, and the backup she needed was long gone).  I'm a complete amateur with this stuff, but it was a snap.

You can only downgrade as long as Apple allows it. Usually you have a grace period of about 90 days after the release of a new OS version until restoring to old versions is no longer allowed.

If you click restore, iTunes verifies the OS version with Apple. It exchanges a certain amount of information that is uniquely connected to your individual iPhone with an Apple server and either allows or disallows the restore. After the grace period has ended and Apple has flagged your old SHSH as invalid a downgrade will fail and you can only restore to the latest firmware version.

You can only get around if your unique SHSH for that particular version is on file somewhere. Note that this is not the case on the 3G and the classic iPhone.

Yup. I'm hosed until 4.0.2 is jailbroken. Ah well I didn't like internet anyway.

I love Netflix for the iphone.  I'm able to let the little man watch something and I watch something on the ipod.

So, I ordered the new iPod, because they were finally giving it all of the iPhone's features!

Well, the camera actually sucks and isn't the nice one from the iPhone.   :oh_i_see:

And the screen has the iPhone's resolution, just not its contrast, brightness, or viewing angle.   :ye_gods:

Oh, and it has half the RAM of the iPhone and can't run the Unreal game demoed at the event because it needs the 512 megs.   :uhrr:

And none of those details were actually revealed by Apple before people found it out for themselves.  Mark of quality!

The Unreal thing runs on a 3G. It sure should run on the new thing. The rest is totally dickish though.

It's not running because it detects the iPod as an iPhone 4 and tries to load the high res textures, runs out of memory, and crashes.  There's apparently an update coming to make it use low res textures on the iPod so it'll stop crashing.

What's this Unreal game demo you're all referring to?

Epic Citadel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiOynw7cCo)

I can't imagine that being any good for your battery life.

The new ipod showed up today, and true to advertising the doubling of the screen resolution does make a very noticeable improvement in the visual quality.  I wish I could test the new camera and whatnot, but the case I ordered is apparently delayed by a week  :oh_i_see: so I'm using an older case without the cutout for the camera until it arrives.

And fun fact, Apple didn't bother putting in a cheap plastic dock adapter with the 4th generation ipods.  But don't worry, you can buy a three-pack from Apple for just nine dollars.  Stay classy, Apple.

:uhrr:

I always wondered what the fuck that piece of plastic was for.

It's to make the ass of your iDevice fit properly in generic docks so the dock-makers don't have to worry about newer iDevices not fitting.  Which isn't a bad idea.  It's just fucking tacky to stop including them and then make everyone purchase them in three-packs when not many people need more than one.

All I want in my iPod is more memory.

It's pretty lame how instead of getting a lot bigger iPods are getting a little bigger and adding a bunch of features I don't care about. I have a nano. I don't need to look at cover art, I don't need games, I don't need tilt controls. (LOL?) I like music and I like to burn things with a high bit rate. An 8 gig nano today costs about the same as a 4 gig one 4 years ago - double the size for the same price over 4 whole years.

Err.. mine came with one.  I threw it out since the radio I bought for work also came with one.

The camera's a pretty fun little toy.  The videos aren't terrible but they're not great either.  It's better than nothing, plus some of the in-camera stuff (like Cyborg or "infared") are pretty fun to dick around with.

Sorry for the necro, but my question seemed appropriate here:

Is there anything coming down the pike relatively soon that would make purchasing an iPhone 4 with ATT 2yr contract a poor decision right now?  (other than all of it, I'm sure some will say...)

I'm sick and tired of my HTC Hero and I'm considering early termination on it to go with a iPhone 4.  Too many missed calls, replaced the Hero 2 times, still doesn't work right.  I just want a phone that works - and my wife's iPhone 3GS just "works" all the time.  Faster than my Hero, more consistently. 

Just don't want to sign a 2year and next week some new awesome thing comes out....

Wait ~two months.

Is that due to the possibility of Verizon offering service for iPhones?  Is it really expected to decrease the monthly bill by a significant amount?  Or is there some other reason?

You'll want to do some research on how AT&T is in your area. AT&T in New York, for instance, is notorious for dropped calls. I have it in Seattle, and its fine.

But the bottom line is, its probably not your phone, but your service.

ATT is decent here in Columbus, Ohio.  My wife has it on her work 3gs and there's no issues.  We're planning a move to the Seattle area mid to end-2011, so it's good to know the network is decent there, too.  Thanks!

Your bill will never go down. Ever.

From MacRumors' iPhone Buyer's Guide (http://guides.macrumors.com/iPhone_Buyer's_Guide):

Hmmm.  Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

I don't really want to wait until June, so I think I'll pull the trigger soon.  Can't really see a reason not to, by this info.

I assume you're with Sprint now if you have a Hero? How far are you into your contract?

I believe Sprint lets you upgrade once you are one year into your contract, at least they did for me. Pick up an EVO or Epic if you can upgrade and be a million times happier than you are with the Hero. You'd end up spending less money I'm sure since you wouldn't have to pay an early termination fee.

Or be crazy and buy a phone from Virgin Mobile and pay $25 a month....

It's a wash, really.  If I go with the iPhone, it's $130 early termination and $199 for the iPhone.  If I stay with Sprint I can upgrade in February by signing a new 2year contract and spending $250ish for the new phone.

I'm just at a point where I want a simple, easy to use phone.  I know the iPhone offers that, so I think that's what I really want.  The epic is a damn nice phone, but frankly I just don't trust Android phones after being burned on this Hero. 

The Hero is a first gen Android phone and with anything that's first gen, there are problems. Every Android based phone I've played with since hasn't been such a pain, not to mention the technical limitations of that phone are pretty big.

Off topic but Hawkbit's avatar is  :heart:

Thanks all for the tips.  I ended up getting the iPhone... it will cost me a bit more, but overall is just simpler to use than the Hero.  I'm already using it more than I ever used my Hero, simply because it works smoothly.

Any idea how service will compare between Verizon iPhone and AT&T iPhone?  I hear shit things about AT&T/iPhones in the bay area, but I've also heard that Verizon's network will be slower for the iPhone.  Any truth to this?  I currently use Verizon and like it quite a bit (I get good reception just about everywhere), so I'd like to stay, but if the phone takes a big performance hit for data....

Depends on where in the SF Bay Area.

For voice in San Francisco itself Verizon is probably better. Other places vary. E.g. in my old place on the Peninsula only AT&T has good reception cause the city doesn't allow others to build cell towers there. In my new place my AT&T reception is very poor. I haven't tried Verizon or Sprint at my new place to see how they compare here.

For data it's going to vary as well. You might want to borrow an iPhone from somebody and check signal strength and bandwidth speeds in the places where you use your phone a lot.

In my experience with data networks, VZW > TMO > ATT, but as Trippy points out, it depends a *lot* on where you are, what the infrastructure is like there and what the network load is like there.  At the office, TMO has been better than ATT, but at my house ~5 miles away, ATT has been more solid.  VZW beats both of them in most places around here, in my experience.

Of course if iphone ships on VZW and several million disgruntled ATT users suddenly jump ship, who knows what that'll do to your data/call experience...  Maybe things on ATT will improve significantly ^^

Is there any stats or metrics on carrier data volume? Like a while back, AT&T claimed that iPhone usage on the mobile network was a factor greater than any other phone or smartphone.

It's infuriating to me that the mobile data access is expensive, fee ridden, unreliable, spotty coverage, capped, etc.… I can deal with cost, but the others irk me, especially in a market that appears to be a competitive one, but it seems each carrier has pledged not to rise above a specified "ill service" mark.

In contrast to broadband at the home, where there is no competition but a fat pipe serving up the internet at a 99.9% clip.

Virgin mobile on the sprint network has a nice 25$ all you can eat plan with like 300 minutes.

Available on Verizon February 10. (http://www.apple.com/iphone/notify-me/)

Counting down the days until my AT&T contract ends.  :awesome_for_real:

Very tempting if I ever get a job again.

I'm assuming they are saving LTE for the iPhone 5 in june

:nda:

I'd be surprised.  More likely 2012.  The LTE transition plan sucks (requiring both CDMA and LTE radios operating simultaneously, bad for power, bad for board space, bad for antenna designs) and if you don't do that (LTE-only) your coverage area is massively smaller, unless VZW steps up the roll-out significantly.  Would not blame Cupertino for skipping over that awkward transition phase at all and waiting until LTE coverage was complete to deploy an LTE-only device.

LTE iPad might make some sense though.

My contract is up in June, but I was hoping for iPhone 5 by then (still toting a 3Gs which has served well) - or maybe just dumping the cell phone altogether -- I love the iPhone, but it's pricy (paying almost $200 per month for Mrs. Naum and me, getting slammed on unlimited text message monthly fee which is robbery)…

…considering just swapping iPad for 3G iPad and using that as "emergency" phone.

 :nda: but I can say that Verizon's LTE deployment methodology of splitting LTE for data usage and relying on CDMA for voice is so horrifically fucked up that an LTE based iPhone that would work on Verizon's hodgepodge will definitely not be coming out this year.  

Oh but if you want good coverage in the US, never plan on leaving the US, want an iPhone, and can switch to Verizon without too much of a penalty then this is the iPhone you want.

It requires two different cellular modems operating at the same time.  It's insane.  Amazing that VZW got as many OEMs actually implementing it as they do, but I can't see Apple wasting the energy on it and doubt they have the board area to spare for it even if they wanted to.

I think I'll just wait for the mass rush of folks to Verizon and then my phone service will be better through AT&T.

Anyone who buys the non-4G model is just asking for it. The damn thing comes out what, 5 months after the CDMA version?

If you mean asking to not be punched in the nuts with a huge mark-up price on the new shiny, then I am your guy. I'll gladly take a discount on a generation older tech phone if it means forking over substantially less. But then again, I am not a big phone user anyway.

Now that I have my iPad I would love to just get a phone with the 10 numbers, a * and # key, and a talk button, old school style.  I don't do anything on my iPhone now anyway other than talk. 

I have a spare iPhone4 now and I am debating if I should buy one of these since having a proper handest would be nice at the office.

(http://i.imgur.com/Qtsey.jpg)


 Etsy  (http://www.etsy.com/listing/55539816/iretrofone-skyliner)

I would totally buy one of those if I had an iPhone!  I miss my proper handset mic and speaker, just so much better than the mobile ones.

That's a shitload of money for just a block to set the phone onto. Why not save a couple hundred dollars and just get a handset (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/7830/) and extra charging cable?

The journalists at Verizon's release announcement deserve to be smacked for not one of them asking, "Okay, so what happens in June when the iPhone 5 comes out for AT&T?"  Is there gonna be a Verizon model at the same time?  Or is it going to be perpetually coming out six months after AT&T's model and Verizon people only have the option of the iPhone 4 until 2012?

The only problem with the handset you linked is that the iPhone slides all over the place if you put it down on a desk and move about while talking.

Apparently iphone4's aren't made for the normal norwegian weather, so doing radical things such as listening to music in your car during winter is at your own risk.

Background: some woman bought an iphone4 in october, and was driving to work one day in december (I think, the article doesn't really say), and she was playing music from her iphone to her car stereo. It was -12 outside when the phone "exploded", and because it was -12 outside apple decided it was her fault for using it below 0c, and that selling a phone which can't take sub-zero in a country where the normal climate means that sub-zero temperatures are common during large parts of the year. I'd understand apple saying "it might not work perfectly in sub-zero conditions", but "it'll blow up and we won't fix it if there's even a chance it might've been below 0c"? Not really.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/11/frozen_iphone/

Oh, they did ask, they just didn't get an answer. Wouldn't make much sense either because Verizon wants business now and doesn't need customers holding off for the iPhone 5 in June.

Here's an insight. No piece of consumer electronic equipment is built for that kind of weather. Standard batteries and recharchables are certified for 0° C to 40°C and a maximum humidity of 75%. Standard electronic components (which includes everything, even resistors and capacitors) are certified from -10°C to +45 °C and a maximum humidity of 75%.

Even Nokia which should have similar weather conditions in Sweden only certify their handsets up to -10°C and have a disclaimer in their manuals that states that the battery might suffer if the handset is exposed to minus temperatures for a certain amount of time.

The reason? Components which are certified for a broader temperature range (e.g. -30°C to + 65°C) are more expensive and there are some components that you simply won't get (batteries, for example because the chemical reaction simply stops at certain temperatures). Even your car only certifiably works inside a certain temperature range (and I'm not talking about the fuel freezing in the tank).

Sucks, yes but it's as far as I know industry standard to design personal consumer electronics for a temperature range that only barely covers minus degress, since the device is usually not directly exposed to those temperatures for prolonged periods of time anyway (you usually keep it in a bag or pocket or on your body where the device is not directly exposed to those temperatures, at least in theory).

Most other manufacturers probably wouldn't cover that as part of their warranty either.

I understand the whole "batteries won't last long in sub-zero conditions" thing because of the chemical reactions not working well at that temperature, but are you really saying that a phone which costs at least 500 USD without contract (it seems) should be expected to "blow up" just because it might have gone below zero for a bit?

The way I interpret it, she got out of her apartment, into her car, plugged the iphone into the stereo system and drove long enough that she felt the air in the car had a temperature of 20c. I realize this doesn't mean whereever the iphone was positioned was at 20c, but that sounds like a pretty normal trip to/from work to me during the winter.

Hell, me and a friend was running around on Dovre in Norway, trying to photograph a few musk oxes, and the only problem he had with his cellphone (an android I think) was that he had to heat the battery up a bit because it was -22c and we were walking around for 3-4 hours. My cell (3-4 years old or older) had absolutely no issue whatsoever, just like the D300's we had with us, which aren't certified below 0c either.

vOv

If it exploded as she said, I'd suspect the phone was in the car overnight not just the few minutes it takes to warm up the automobile. 

This. I've been walking to work in anywhere from -5 to -20 C weather, listening to music and my iPhone has no issues. There's no doubt in my mind that she did something else. I can see there being issues if she left it in the car attached to the charger and when the phone went from freezing cold to being charged, shit just went bad.

Or maybe it was a defective battery and the company is using it as an easy way to not replace the phone, because you never trust the consumer, right?

At the other extreme, here in Arizona, if you leave iPad/iPhone in an automobile parked in ~105+ degree heat, the device simply will not operate, except to give you a display message that the device is too hot.

Without resorting to complex technical explanations let me just say that most electrical components are very susceptible to temperature. Most characteristics of such components are only stable at certain temperature ranges or might vary a lot if temepratures get too hot/too cold.

Which doesn't necessarily mean, that the device will fail catastrophically but a resistor or capacitor for example might have more resistance/capacitance above certain temperatures than it has below them. Since modern consumer electronics devices are complex things with hundreds of individual components this might create a cascading effect (if each component deviates a few %, the combination might create a huge deviation) that will let the device fail or might cause it to operate outside of the certified specifications. This is most often a problem with wireless devices, where you need to certify that you will always adhere to specs and never produce erroneous transmissions.

Most often that means that the device simply switches off when the temperature gets outside the specified range. Batteries however are very susceptible to temperature. Firstly because the chemical reaction simply stops below certain temperatures or increases above certain temps but also because the electrolyte in the battery (which is a liquid) might actually freeze or expand due too cold or heat and may cause the battery to rupture (or even explode due to short circuiting it).

If you need to operate your device in sub zero or tropical conditions you'd need to switch to different chemical composition or employ other measures (like heating the device).

As far as this case is concerned I'm with NiX. Two or three hours at those conditions won't cause the device to fail or explode. Leaving it in the cold car until the electrolyte in the battery freezes however would.

I found a much better article than the one I initially found (that was in norwegian, and I see that it said a little bit more than the english one I linked, but running it through google translate didn't work very well), in http://www.mobilen.no/wip4/iphone-taaler-ikke-kulde/d.epl?id=49206

It doesn't say she took the phone with her into the car, so it's one possible theory, but the details I see in that article is that it was -12c when she started, and she'd been driving for 45 minutes when the rear glass broke. It does also say, however, that if it's being operated outside of its normal temperature parameters, then that can lead to a temporary reduction in battery capacity or the phone temporarily not work as it should. It doesn't say anything about the glass breaking.

However, if we assume that she left it in the car (I kind of doubt this, as most norwegians that age tend to be very attached to their cellphone, but I'm not going to discount this), wouldn't that mean that the phone itself would more or less stop working in its entirety, if f.ex the battery expanded? I've no idea where the battery is, but if what you say about the battery expanding could happen without actually ruining the battery fully (so the phone could appear to still work), then that's one viable theory.

The glass. What could've caused that thumbprint shape?:
(http://www.mobilen.no/photoalbum/view2/P3NpemU9bWVkaXVtMyZpZD0zNTc2MDU)

I'd be interested in seeing the phone with the rear plate removed (should be easy enough to determine if the battery ruptured/exploded by visual inspection), but that breakage pattern certainly doesn't look very "omg battery asploded" to me...

Not the same thing, I know, I know, but....  I used to work for a large-ish company that made notebook computers.  Obviously we bought parts from overseas manufacturers and assembled the systems here in the states.  One of the jobs I grew into was determining how LCD screens were broken and assessing a cost/estimate to the customer.  I've done lots and lots of screen break tests on LCDs to find patterns of damage so that we could determine the best likely cause of damage.  Closing a pencil in the notebook was one of my favorites.  :)

If the iPhone glass breaks anything like the glass of a TFT, then that was impact damage on the iPhone.  There's an outside shot it was damage from rapid temperature change, but the pattern of glass fracture is of impact.  Temperature change glass breaks somewhat uniformly with no obvious impact point. 

Again, take with a grain of salt because those are different glass structures, but I'd put a dollar on that being impact. 

Also, of note, our company had a couple of issues with malfunction of units in extreme low temps and it usually affected the battery capacity permanently, but I've never seen one cause damage to the LCD before.  Our company had a warranty clause regarding extreme temps, too. 

The battery would be on the top in that picture (the left hand side when looking at the back of the phone.)

Bet she drives a Saab and dropped it on her key.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/12/5824256-jon-stewart-says-it-all-about-the-verizon-iphone

Stewart on Verizon's snag.

You've done troubleshooting and tech support.  How often was it the software or hardware vs the user.  Anything high tech or high maintenance with a rare or single incidence of occurrence, my first thought is always user error. 

It's an easy enough test.  Put an iPhone 4 in -30 degrees for a day and see what happens.  I'm sure Apple's engineers did it the minute they heard about the story and any tech mag or website could do it if they felt like it.  So, why is no one talking about how their phones assploded?

Because it doesn't happen.

Depends upon the call.  If it involves "my computer blew up" I generally assume hardware until I see the remains of firecrackers littered about the case.

Looks like she put it in her pocket with her keys and sat down.  Because that's near exactly what my 3 day old Galaxy S looked like after I put it and keys in the same pocket without thinking then squatted down to pick up my kid.   :ye_gods:

Especially since the screen is apparently still working.  I can't imagine anything the battery could do that would shatter the faceplate glass without reducing the display to random Rorschach blots.

--Dave

iPhone Nano is on the way (http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/02/14/iphone.nano.mashable/index.html?hpt=T2)

I haven't been excited about any of Apple's recent offerings, including the iPad, but this is something I would really support.  The iPhone and it's ilk have been losing their luster for my own personal use as I've moved into using the iPad more. 

A half size iPhone seems like it would pretty much require an external peripheral to actually use it as a phone, unless you have a really, really tiny head. Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.

There's phones that size in use already.  I used to have a Sony that was about half the size of an iPhone and it is still the best phone I've every had.  It had great reception and clarity. 

Yeah, phones like the Palm Pre are pretty damn tiny when the keyboard isn't slid out.  A smaller iphone could be doable.  But in all honesty I'd prefer the larger form factor of the current size.  A teensy iphone would be fine for basic phone and calendar stuff like the functions on the Pre, but sorta awful for typing and games, which get much easier to handle with a larger touch surface.

Additionally, Verizon was fucking the new iphone users pretty hard.  I checked on what it would cost to get an iphone as a current Verizon subscriber, and my monthly rates would've increased by $30 over what I'm paying now, without the $20 tethering feature for anyone dumb enough to try to get a good net connection for their laptop off Verizon's shitty 3G speeds.  I'm already using a smartphone on my current plan, with the usual extra monthly fee for the internet access, for about $80 a month.  There was no excuse whatsoever for them to offer me the same plan for $110 a month just because their voice waves were going to an iphone instead of a Palm Pro.

Yes there is, the excuse is that stupid people will pay it.  Yay capitalism.

Err how is that price any different than their current plans?  It's not like it's IPhone specific, it's been like that for years.

Well, there's still the cheaper option of AT & T, or choosing a different phone and a different carrier altogether. 

As far as the size issue, I suspect they may come out with something between the size of the iPad and iPhone for people that do a lot of data work on their phone and would like something a bit larger for that purpose, but that don't do a lot of actual talking on the phone.  I unfortunately have to do a fair amount of talking at times, and would like something that more easily fits into my pocket.  Sony is looking at coming out with a phone option PS portable.  I think we'll have a lot of options about size and functionality in the future.

AT&T and Verizon are pretty much price matched.  The only other options here are Sprint, which isn't a bad option, or T-Mobile, which blows for 3g here and spotty elsewhere (and neither have Iphones)

AT&T is reasonable where I'm at for service.  I guess it really depends up on where you live. 

Upon further investigation, I found that they weren't raising the price on my 500 minute plan, but instead were only giving me the option of a 900 minute plan as a valued Verizon customer preordering an iphone.  I went to their website and went through the signup as a new customer and was offered a 450 minute plan for roughly the same price as my current plan.  So, may've been a glitch in their site during the floor of preorders, may've been an evil scheme to upsell customers into a more expensive plan, dunno.

Steve Jobs is not long for this world (http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/02/world-exclusive-video-apple-boss-steve-jobs-unsteady-his-feet-day-treatment).

To heck with the unsteady gait.  This guy looks seriously cachectic.   :ye_gods:

That wasn't a 55 year old body, that was more 70-80 years. :ye_gods:

Jesus Fucking Christ. 

Someone, anyone, going through an illness of that magnitude might be unsteady on their feet.  He's a human being:  News flash, we're all vulnerable in some way!

The amount of worry over his health is fucking retarded.  It's as if he produced the iWhatever through immaculate conception and once gone, Apple will crumble into the sea because there's no more iIdeas. 

The fact that someone is out there camera-raping him after his breakfast is disgusting.  What's worse you folks perpetuating it.  Let the man get through his sickness or die, but holy hell just give it a rest. 

Yeah, that's the cachexia.  Usually you see that in terminal cancer.

I suppose that the Apple company will continue to run without him, but Jobs had vision that they may find hard to replace. 

Should he go, the change in Apple will probably be gradual. There will be marketing attempts to keep the 'out of the box thinking' alive, or some such, but most likely, Apple will start to cut corners. No more IPS screens for the iPad, poor design choices that halve the lifespan of a Macbook, some messed up marketing for iTunes that slowly turns customers away, over the course of a decade.

The thing that I think people forget is that what makes Apple a success is the over all quality of the product. They aren't as 'out of the box' as their marketing makes you think. They branded the 'concept' of recorded voice files aka 'PodCasts'. They redid the GUI for BSD Unix. They joined the rest of the world in adopting an Intel platform. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, from my vantage point. What they did do, and what you're actually paying for at the register, is good quality hardware.

Chemo beats the fuck out of you.  If you've never seen anyone go through it, what you've just seen is only a small glimpse.  It's not pretty and at times I questioned if it was any better than the cancer.


Those little changes were things that also happened during his decade away from the company, weren't they?  Lots of small, poor decisions that had them teetering until he went back and beat them back in line.   While Apple's products may not be the work of one man, its culture and dedication to quality certainly have been.

Where he's at with the weight loss isn't the chemo.  They've improved side effects some over the past 15 years and also have developed some pretty decent anti-nausea medicines like Zofran. I expect Jobs to go within the next 6-12 months. 

My dad lost between 30 and 40# when on heavy chemo.  He was so thin and frail I thought I was hugging a 90 year old at times.  He wouldn't eat because, despite the nausea medications, he'd just sick up or feel nauseous all day when eating.  It eventually went into remission, but it was awful watching him go through it. Watching Jobs there reminded me of the exact same walk and shake he had when doing chemo.

Also, in the end it wasn't the cancer that killed him but his practitioner's failure to remove his chest port for over a year beyond its schedule, which got infected, passed through to his brain and set off a series of strokes when he was in a car accident some 5 years after the heaviest of the chemo.

Yikes.  Sorry to hear that Merusk.  When did your dad undergo his chemotherapy?  A real problem with patients with some forms of cancer is fungal infections of the mouth and esophagus.  That can be very difficult to treat too.  Why didn't they remove the port?  That sounds weird to have problems 5 years after the chemotherapy from it, and if provable could be lawsuit worthy.

I do not think it is the same scenario as the previous Jobs departing. Then, he was nuzzled out by more corporate centric foreseeing inner crew. Today, he has surrounded himself with like minded people -- Jonathan Ive, Tim Cook, etc. who share his mentality and are totally down with his product philosophy. That designer chic vibe and eye to overall product quality.

I guess this is the place we talk about iPhones in general. The new music support for iCloud is bad ass. I bought a song on my PC and within 20 seconds my phone had downloaded it. I'm pretty shocked it just worked given all this stuff is in beta.

This iCloud thing comes off as some big huge iTunes catalog database that just ties a person's id to certain data in the catalog and then to the devices linked on this id. I dunno how I feel about this...

More information about iTunes Match can be found here (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/what-you-need-to-know-about-itunes-match-your-questions-answered.ars) if anyone is interested

They already have ids tied to iOS devices and to Apple accounts, we just finally get some useful services out of it all.