Hardware

Wendy Cheng is your typical Apple hater. She hates how Apple users think they are superior because their computers are beautiful. She also hates how they act arrogantly towards other ‘PC’ users. Though, it seems as if, all too often this hatred for Mac fanatics is often translated into a hatred for all things Apple.

Wendy recently reviewed an iPhone, or at least thats what she thought it was. It was not until after she finished reviewing it, one of her affiliates told her she was really reviewing the “Fake China iPhone.” Ironically she seemed impressed with the knock-off.

Later when she actually got her hands on the phone she had a hard time operating it; instead of using her finger to scroll, she used her nail. She then goes on to talk about how the sound quality is surprisingly good, but everyone knows that no one cares about music anyways. Wendy says that the phone is only mediocre. This is because the touch-screen is horrible and even though the music feature is nice, no one cares about it.

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It’s a sad state when normal consumer electronics are rendered as tools only meant to be handled by technicians when it comes to the most minute of Hardware upgrades such as changing the battery (but then again we’d be depriving people of money). Although you can pay to have the privilege of Apple gracing your iPhone with a new battery, those with a sense of danger (or have the misconception that their wallets are deeper than they really are) and actually have a scrap of knowledge of busting open small, delicate devices can indulge in a cheap battery replacement kit for the iPhone.

I can only think of a few good reasons why this would be a good idea for the same reason you dislike mango juice with your filet mignon. A word of caution to those insane enough to try this: your warranty will be violated and you must know how to use a solder gun and no they do not function like a stun gun. But for the curious, you can reference iFixit for a take apart guide and battery installation.

The battery itself… more...

As Apple users we slowly came to accept the fact that once Apple ditched the limited range of colors they so enthusiastically splashed onto their products for the few years after Steve Jobs returned that we’d be stuck with the colors white and brushed metal. It was by no means a bad thing but eventually it wears down on you like William Hung singing at your child’s birthday party, with loud speakers.

Eventually Apple decided to bring back the trend of not being color blind and gave us a few new colors but some ignorant prick thought that the different shades of grey and black were already overkill for a consumer device and deprived us of any joy or uniform color scheme. That is why one enterprising modder, KnightKrew, equipped himself with some sort of device priced out of the range of most consumers that automagically converts the normal substances of titanium and aluminum plus nitrogen to form a plasma that coats the iPhone. To blow away the scientifically inert such as myself, a high cost optical telescope was used to examine the surface of the iPhone revealing… more...

You’ve unpacked your iPhone and all you’re left with is a box and the usual junk instruction manuals, what do you do with the rest? Scot Hampton had the same question and took the opportunity to make a pin hole camera, from an iPhone box.

Dubbed the iHole, the cardboard camera uses common household parts and of course some film. Unfortunately there are no building instructions but you can find out more about the project from Scot’s Blog

Via: iPhone Alley

Besides doubling the storage of the iPhone, Apple may have made some very minor hardware tweaks.

Navarro P. wrote into TUAW with a bit of info pointing towards some slight modifications in the newly updated iPhones. By his account, the iPhone has been given a louder speaker. We have to confirm or deny this but if any of our readers have recently updated, let us know if you’ve heard the difference.

Via: TUAW

In an ongoing attempt to cash out from the hordes of consumers offering up their wallets for iPod compatible accessories, 3rd parties have created every known addon to man and then released it about a couple dozen times. While you can buy cases, dock holders and even a bed for your iPod, we’ve yet to see this thrown at the iPhone with a raging desire for more opportunities to rebrand consumer goods with the almighty “Made For iPhone Label”.

DLO on the other hand disregarded everything and fused a pair of speakers to the iPhone in an abnormal fashion ruining an already good design. For $50 you can probably increase the iPhone’s loudness but to have the audacity of labeling these egg shaped oddities with the word “portable” makes about as much sense as using a lawn mower for flight. The possibility is there but should never be done lest someone in the marketing and design department decided that instead of bailing from a failing job created a horrible “Made For A Device That Starts With A Lowercase i” product to extract some sort of imaginary revenge.

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One day, maybe the iPhone will incorporate a lens that is capable of 8.0MP and at least a 3X zoom without jeopardizing the sleek form factor.

Until that day, why not use you iPhone to take some cool up close pictures using a funky add-on.

What looks to be a iPhone gone wrong, there is a super cheap zoom lens you can add to the iPhone to give it the ability to do some awesome close up pictures.

Called the ”Apple iPhone Mobile Phone Telescope,” this lens can zoom in as close as 6X!

One advantage they have on their site is: “The new design to run of rays can effectively avoid the contortion of image, and makes the super wide angle, the larger luminous flux, the higher visual acuteness, good for color reduction, which makes the high quality of photography.”

I’ve seen some pictures with this device and can say that I am impressed. Even better news - The price is $19.00!

Newer Technology, maker of iPod and Mac accessories has announced their new line of iPhone accessories expected to debut during Macworld Expo.

The new line of accessories encompass your generic line of iPhone addons from chargers to headphone adaptors but two of them have piqued my interest: the Mic Extender Cable and Speaker Dock. A caveat of headphones marketed for the iPhone is the lack of a mic. Shure has solved this problem with a cable adaptor and mic but the high price sets itself out of the range of some. Newertech is introducing a similar component that gets the job done for only $15.

In addition NewerTech is introducing a speaker system for $35 that includes a microphone allows calls while docked.

Via: iLounge

One of the oddest iPod accessories, OhMiBod, has received iPhone compatibility along with some new features.

The founder of the company was quoted as saying:

“Since the iPhone has the same music storage and playback capabilities as the iPod, we knew we had to make sure that all of our products functioned with the iPhone, too. When the iPhone is attached to your OhMiBod and you receive a call, OhMiBod will vibrate to the caller’s voice, a feature that will truly revolutionize phone sex!”

Smaller versions of the product will be available in black, green, pink and blue to match Apple’s recently revamped Nano lines. They will retail for $69.

Via: Gizmodo

Engadget is reporting info from a tipster that TomTom, the GPS company, may be working on a GPS module developed for the iPhone. The supposed photographic “evidence” (to the right) was received by Engadget from a Dutch tipster. Could such a device really come into development? Apple already has a partnership with Google, and I don’t know what they will think of TomTom coming in with their own mapping system. On the other side of things, Apple will soon be opening up the iPhone to third party developers. Could a 3rd party GPS chip be the next step in Apple’s plans?

[via Engadget]