iOS 4 (iPhone OS 4)

[Engels]

So, not sure where to stick this conversation, since I don't think we have any recent iPhone threads, and its not strictly about the iPhone. If someone wants to move it, my feathers shall remain unruffled.

The new OS 4.00 for iPhone/iPod Touch comes out today. iPad OS revision coming in the fall, it seems. Rumors about battery drain on 3GS abound, but seem largely unfounded or based on folks having installed earlier betas of the new revision.

Slashdot is the usual mess of tards, so I'm not getting good info there.

One thing that's bugging me is that the some of the 'new' features just seem to be a slow trickle of features that should have been included as a rolling update or just bloody well done the first time, not a huge OS revision.

Found this

Feature listing:

Now can have independent home screen and lock screen background images, just like the iPad

Multitasking. Sorta. Some apps have 'save state' APIs that will allow you to minimize them and return to them in the stage they were in after using another app. How this will affect apps that you want actually running in full blown mode in the background, like Pandora, is unclear to me. Apparently media players do work in the background, and even have a universal widget in the 'task bar' that allows media player control, including fast forward, while doing something else.

Now can lock in portrait mode, but not landscape mode, via the same taskbar widget as described above.

Folders for Apps. Drag one App icon over another App icon and you create a folder (wth?) that is conveniently named for you. You can rename it.

New Mail feature: Universal Inbox for various email accounts. Wether this works for all inbox types or only those that can use ActiveSync is unclear to me. Also looks like there's some threading, which is actually kinda cool. Again, in this day and age, it should be a huge DUH, but its Apple. They've always been a bit slow on the uptake.

Built-in web and Wikipedia search.

Spellcheck tweaks, including the familiar red underline.

[Lounge]

Ars Technica has a pretty great writeup on the new stuff.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2010/06/ars-reviews-ios-4-whats-new-and-notable.ars

I've been running it since the first beta and its pretty meh overall.  I suppose my opinion will change once more apps are released which take advantage of the new features.

[fuser]

New Mail feature: Universal Inbox for various email accounts. Wether this works for all inbox types or only those that can use ActiveSync is unclear to me. Also looks like there's some threading, which is actually kinda cool. Again, in this day and age, it should be a huge DUH, but its Apple. They've always been a bit slow on the uptake.

I can confirm this works fine with activesync and gmail accounts same goes for threading. Email account coloring isn't there which is completely stupid. Calendar/notes also sync now from Google fine and calendar has the option to color based upon accounts.

[Wasted]

As with almost every update since I got my 3G I again got an error in updating, then continual errors in restoring the phone until I reinstalled itunes.

I like my phone but I hate itunes so much.

[Murgos]

As with almost every update since I got my 3G I again got an error in updating, then continual errors in restoring the phone until I reinstalled itunes.

I like my phone but I hate itunes so much.

Anecdotally, I had no problems updating my 3G to iOS4 other than the 90 minutes it seemed to take.

[KallDrexx]

As with almost every update since I got my 3G I again got an error in updating, then continual errors in restoring the phone until I reinstalled itunes.

I like my phone but I hate itunes so much.

My girlfriend's 3GS crashed in the middle of the upgrade.  After that all that would happen is the "connect to Itunes" image, but Itunes would not recognize the iphone and got an error whenever you connected it.

After 2 hours of playing with it, changing what USB port the iphone was connected to allowed Itunes to recognize it.  Don't know why the USB port would matter but by searching the net a lot of people have seen this.

[Flatfoot]

Perhaps I should have tried reinstalling iTunes (didn't occur to me), but in my frustration I went for a complete factory restore on my iPod Touch after iTunes fucked up the upgrade. I'm not happy with Apple at the moment.

[Morfiend]

Since there is no iPhone 4 thread, I will just dump this here.

Seems a lot of the new phones are having signal issues if you make a connection between the left side and the bottom of the phone, usually losing about 4 bars.

Videos and reports here.

Apples solution to people complaining? Buy the Bumper.

[Engels]

Ah, the joys of early adoption. Glad I didn't go for the 4 right away. To be honest, now that my 3GS has OS4, I'm not sure I can justify the iPhone 4.

Anecdotally, my upgrade to OS4 went smoothly. OS4 definitely hogs more battery than OS3, but its not crippling under my usual usage. I went from ~20% use a day to ~40% use a day.

[Jeff Kelly]

It's a problem every phone has to some extend. Touching the device changes the tuning of the antenna. You don't even have to touch the antenna directly just touching the enclosure is enough to change the impedance of the system. It might be more pronounced if you are in contact with the antenna directly however.

Also your hand is dampening the wireless signal that's why every manual states that you shouldn't touch the phone where the antenna is located.

[NiX]

Isn't the metal outer rim the antenna on the iPhone 4?

[Fabricated]

After putting up with how utterly shitty iTunes is and the battery life limitations of my iPod Touch I really fucking wish there was a decent substitute for it that had a proper web browser, a decent media interface, and access to slacker and pandora.

[dusematic]

Just get a Droid Incredible like I did.  I'm not a big app guy but I'm sure there is a quality media app out there.

[TripleDES]

Only since very recently, called Doubletwist. You should install it ASAP, since it's not going to stay free forever.

[Quinton]

It's a problem every phone has to some extend. Touching the device changes the tuning of the antenna. You don't even have to touch the antenna directly just touching the enclosure is enough to change the impedance of the system. It might be more pronounced if you are in contact with the antenna directly however.

Also your hand is dampening the wireless signal that's why every manual states that you shouldn't touch the phone where the antenna is located.

Yup, and a hard problem to solve, since people hold phones differently, smartphones are often held in various different orientations (some of which will inevitably get better reception than others), etc, etc.  I'm still not convinced actually exposing the antenna elements directly to external contact was the brightest idea. 

I would not be entirely surprised to learn that their testing policy required the use of the rubber boot (for secrecy), which helped avoid the issue, which meant the severity of it came as a surprise.  If I had a dollar for every time an end user manages to do something that somehow nobody in a multiple-month field test cycle ever managed to do...

[Trippy]

Isn't the metal outer rim the antenna on the iPhone 4?

It is and the iPhone 4 we have in the office has the problem.

[ghost]

"Just avoid holding it in that way," Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote in an e-mail that was making the rounds on the Web on Friday morning.


Think I'll avoid making this purchase for a bit   

[Trippy]

Or you could go for the $0.01 solution:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1663768/iphone-4-antenna-fix

[NiX]

That solution might work for a hipster, but if I'm dropping $700, I don't want to be putting scotch tape on it.

[Righ]

I wonder when Cisco will sue.

[Ubvman]

The human body touching and affecting the properties of an antenna is electromagnetics 101. I vaguely remember (15 years ago... its been a while) building a powered antenna of a radio for a class and you could suddenly improve the reception of the radio by touching and holding on to the antenna. Of course the TA flunked everyone who did that when we presented the assignment. Long story short... You could make a fortune if you could figure out a way to use the human body as a huge 5-6 feet antenna for your cell phone (without killing, shocking or giving cancer to the user...)

iOS4? Battery drainer. My fully charged iPhone 3GS would still be 100% or at the very least 99% after being left overnight on the table. After upgrading to iOS4, my fully charged iphone went from 100% to 60% if left uncharged overnight. Not a real problem for me so far as I usually charge up the iphone when I hook it up to my car stereo on the way to work. The iPod media player really has replaced the cassette/CD on car stereos.

the iPod functions on the phone looks a whole lot nicer though on iOS4.

[TripleDES]

Currently, I'm on the fence. While I think Android is technically better, getting another iPhone is an option that's itching me a lot lately. Visual and general quality of Android applications is still lacking. Smartphones are all about applications. I guess I have to hold out until Gingerbread (and a short while longer), since that's getting a major interface overhaul and hopefully a better UI toolkit, before I should consider making a switch. Hopefully by then, the steel frame's coated with some non-metallic compound (plastic, silicone or whatever) and as such fixing the antenna issue.

I wonder when Cisco will sue.

Apple licensed the name, at least that's what's being said.

[Trippy]

I wonder when Cisco will sue.

Apple licensed the name, at least that's what's being said.

Yes they licensed the name:

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/cisco_and_apple_agreement_on_ios_trademark/

[Ingmar]

In other iPhone news:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/07/02/financial/f055210D98.DTL

Oops?

[Trippy]

Translation: http://daringfireball.net/2010/07/translation_iphone_4

[RhyssaFireheart]

Can this be the iPhone discussion thread or is there another I don't know about?  Because it seems as if the rumours of an iPhone coming to Verizon just won't quit.

I currently have a BlackBerry Storm, but my contract's up in late 2011, so if there were an iPhone option by then, I'd definitely look into getting one.

[Sir T]

Apple drops Consumer Reports/iPhone 4 discussion threads down memory hole

    If you were looking for a message thread on Apple's support forums pointing to [urlhttp://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/07/apple-iphone-4-antenna-issue-iphone4-problems-dropped-calls-lab-test-confirmed-problem-issues-signal-strength-att-network-gsm.html]Consumer Reports' article 'not recommending' the iPhone 4[/url], it's not there any more. Apple's support forum moderators deleted the thread. Bing cached it.

    If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?

    I'm not prone to hysterics or a subscriber to conspiracy theories, but it's fairly hard to imagine any good way to interpret this. Every post that I saw listed in a Google search of Apple's discussion boards lead to the same result: "Error: you do not have permission to view the requested forum or category."

[fuser]

Now can lock in portrait mode, but not landscape mode, via the same taskbar widget as described above.

It angers me you can only do this on a 3GS/4 phone. Needless to say redsn0w fixed it and my 3g is now running all the multitasking features.

Having more then two or three apps running in the background grinds the phone to a halt but its pretty good if you keep up with closing apps. I dislike how "multitasking" is handled and the lack of choice of allowing an app to run in background or not is kinda silly. I wonder if a 3rd party app can help with that. An example is Blizzards mobile authenticator, it burns battery like a mofo if you leave it running parked in the background.

Oh well with WiFi off i'm getting 1-2 day battery life easily and its even an improvement over 3.x, downside is some txt messages have been delayed in alerting on the phone. The txt is sent and received on the phone but never alarmed/alerted until much later.

[01101010]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg

Just a little humor to brighten up the place.

[fuser]

Also, iOS 4.1 has new encryption technology, that will constantly check if iPhone or iPod touch, have been jailbroken. This is done by digital watermark that appears when iOS is jailbroken, and this watermark cannot be removed, even if reverted to unjailbroken status. Apple store employees will check for the watermark during iPhone service.

Seriously? I have jail broken my phone to get the the features deamed unusable on the 3g (multitasking and ability to lock the screen in portrait mode). Yeah next phone will be android.

[Surlyboi]

Also, iOS 4.1 has new encryption technology, that will constantly check if iPhone or iPod touch, have been jailbroken. This is done by digital watermark that appears when iOS is jailbroken, and this watermark cannot be removed, even if reverted to unjailbroken status. Apple store employees will check for the watermark during iPhone service.

Seriously? I have jail broken my phone to get the the features deamed unusable on the 3g (multitasking and ability to lock the screen in portrait mode). Yeah next phone will be android.

One tweet from a random guy on the internet and it's gospel now? Really?

Shenanigans.

[Segoris]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/201188/ios_41_beta_in_the_wild_developers_report_in.html?tk=hp_blg

There have also been rumors floating around that the new beta version of iOS 4.1 will include a jailbreak watermark that will let Apple identify devices that have been jailbroken, even if you restore the device. The rumor appears to originate with an Oregon State University student and iPhone blogger named Kento Ito, known as alchemistmuffin on Twitter. Ito said in a tweet that Apple included "new encryption technology [with iOS 4.1] that will constantly check if iPhone or iPod touch, have been jailbroken...this watermark cannot be removed, even if reverted to unjailbroken status."

However, it appears jailbreakers have nothing to worry about. Musclenerd, one of the master jailbreak specialists on the iPhone Dev Team says the rumors are false. "The "watermark" rumors are untrue," Musclenerd said late Wednesday.

Edit: Bolded the important part of the quote.