Problems

In the olden days the big battle was Mac or PC now it seems like the tech culture wars are all about the iPhone versus the Blackberry. Todays volley in the never ending battle? The iPhone fails much less than the Blackberry. We’re not talking just a little less but around half as much. That’s according to a study by SquareTrade which concluded that the iPhone failed at a rate of 5.6% and the Balckberry failed at a rate of 11.2%. Both numbers were better than the Treo which clocked in with a cool 16.2% failure rate which may be why no one seems to want a Treo.

Now you want to know why does the iPhone go bad at even a 1 in 20 rate? The answer is your bumble prone fingers. Yep, the most likely cause of iPhone failure is accident. Dropping the thing, seeing how far it will skip across the glass like surface of the pond outside your cabin door, the all over beer bath etc. So if you buy a great case you shouldn’t have much trouble.

How does SquareTrade get this data? SquareTrade sells extended warranties… more...

You know the iPhone is insecure, thats why you lock the car doors when you leave in the car.  You also know about that the iPhone is watching you.

Now there’s two new tricks to watch out for. One involves links in mail messages. The idea is that you can disguise a link to look like http://www.foodfororphans.com when it really is http://www.foodfororphans/feed/forcedpornodownload.com. See since the mail program truncates the link even when you hold your finger on it for a few seconds you can’t tell that you are about to download really bad porn.

The second flaw concerns mail as well. Mail with images can be used by spammers to make sure that your e-mail account is active and thus know to target you with more spam. This seems like a big deal, who wants to be targeted with more spam? But the majority of spammers don’t seem to be worried about hitting live mails or not. They seem more interested in just sending spam to anything that might possibly be an address.

Well, there are the two new iPhone worries for you today via:more...

You love everything about your 3G iPhone don’t you? You love the shiny non metal back, the superior browsing speed, the call clarity, the GPS that isn’t all that GPSish, the minimal packaging, the cord to plug the iPhone into a USB port, and the USB power adapter. One of these things is actually pure evil. Don’t touch it. All the safe stuff about the iPhone take one step forward. Not so fast USB power adapter.

What’s wrong with the USB power adapter? Well, besides the fact that it is made up of pure evil as mentioned above? Turns out, according to Apple, that under “certain conditions” the metal prongs can break off and remain in the power outlet. This happened to me and it wasn’t that big of a deal until I tried to use a fork to get them out. Anyway, according Apple this creates a potential shock hazard (or as we call it in the biz: involuntary electron flow incident) and they want them back. Apple claims it isn’t a big problem, that it has only been reported by a small number of users and hasn’t caused any injuries but… more...

You’ve seen iPhone commercials and you’ve seen how quickly and smoothly the iPhone navigates the web in those commercials. If you have an iPhone you’ll likely agree that your iPhone doesn’t seem quite as snappy as the iPhone in the commercial. (On a personal note: sometimes my iPhone does seem as snappy as the one on the commercial, most of the time though…) Check out this awesome advertising versus reality bit:

Man, if we could do that to politicians… never mind. Anyway does this constitute deceptive advertising? Are customers being mislead by ads like these? Or is Apple compressing the normal amount of time it takes to do something on the iPhone just to get everything in the ad?
via: silicon alley insider

It may be because of the latest firmware, 2.1.

Forum members on Macrumors and Apple Discussions have been reporting issues with GPS with the new 2.1 software update.

While it seems to have fixed the bulk of most users’ problems like poor reception and frequent crashes, it may have created issues with location services.

The solution: Go to Settings > General > Reset, and chose Reset All Settings.

Many users have had success with resetting all of the settings on the device. If I had problems, I would test it out, however, if you are experiencing problems with location services, then try it out and let us know if that worked for you.

Via: iPhone Atlas

Hi Friends,
Does your iPhone have problems? Does it suffer from the embarassing ailments of:
Dropped calls?
Low battery life?
slow sync times?
Frequent hangs?
That urge to go at the worst times?
Good news friends, the iPhone software 2. update can fix all that. Except for the “frequent urge to go” part. But wait, there’s more!
You get an option to wipe your data after ten failed passcode attempts
a more accurate signal strength display

Now how much would you pay? Well, for the foreseeable future this gotta have update is free, free, free! For iPhone owners anyway. The reaction to the update? Let others go first so you don’t have to:

Seth Weintraub

Fantastic is all I can say about the final result. Finally, I can sync my iPhone like I did in version 1. I added a full album and it only took about 2 minutes to update the iPhone. These stupid 100mb games I bought also don’t crash the iPhone when I try to install them. And they install quickly!

Others haven’t haven’t had such an easy time with the update:

Lately it seems like time has stood still. I have been frozen in time. I am a statue. I am watching paint dry. Actually, its more like I am trying to pull up my contacts to populate a “To:” field in an email.

For as fast as the 3G iPhone is network-wise, it is slow as molasses when it comes to basic tasks like opening and closing applications and pulling up contacts!

It appears that other people have noticed this as well:

“I have the same experience - a lag like 2 - 3 seconds before the contact list load completely. The flick is jerky unlike the original iPhone and iPod touch. It also took a while for the cursor to appear when I tap on the contact’s search bar.”

There is no question that features-wise the iPhone 2.0 software packs a punch. But to what sacrifice? If you peruse the Apple discussions forums, you will see a seemingly endless list of complaints of slow and lagging behavior. This includes slow key response, slow flick scrolling, and the aforementioned slow contact list.

Anyone else experiencing this slowdown?

I did not follow Gizmodo’s method, as I was too impatient after about 20 minutes. What I did was I kept clicking between the iTunes Store logo and the iPhone logo. This reset my connection to the Store and did not allow me to get an error message. I believe I got in just at a moment when the traffic died down. The moment probably lasted about 2 seconds. If you continue to reset your connection, you may be able to find a similar pocket wherein the server may serve you.

Good Luck, try to utilize all of the methods available to you. People have tried them all with varied success.

Gizmodo has just saved the day. Apparently it is still possible to activate your iPhone amidst all of the terror. The simple answer. Leave your phone plugged in. Unplugging the phone restarts the entire activation process. I am testing out their method as we speak. I will update with further details as they become available.

We’ve successfully activated five different iPhone 3Gs with error screens just by letting them sit plugged in for anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. Hopefully that might work for you, too.

Update: Some may be confused, so I will clarify. Do Not press “OK” when the error message pops up in iTunes. Just plug your phone in and do not interact with iTunes until after the phone has been activated.

[via Gizmodo]

Does anyone have their phone activated yet? I don’t and neither do any of my friends. When activation took too long in store, I was instructed to return home and activate my phone. Now I face the same problem with activation at home. Apple and AT&T were not ready for this kind of traffic on launch day. Now I am left with 2 iPhones, none of which have service.

This does not look good. Apparently people at home can’t even upgrade to firmware 2.0 and the problem is afflicting iTunes on an international scale.

So How Did This Happen:
The source of the iTunes crash/slowdown seems not be those buying iPhone 3Gs from Apple/AT&T stores at all but the millions of people updating to the new firmware at home. Firmware 2.0 isn’t like other firmwares in that it needs to update the phone and reauthenticate the service. And in turn, when the servers are slammed and the phone reaches for reauthentication, the server isn’t always there to reactivate the service. This is how some of those newly bricked iPhones are occurring, and a source tells us that even first gen iPhones… more...