Posts Tagged ‘iPhone 4’

This interesting iPhone accessory from Griffin made an appearance on the FCC today.  Known as the PartyDock, the device enables up to four players to play games on a single iPhone.

The PartyDock includes four wireless controllers that can be used with select PartyDock games.  To get users started, Griffin will release a PartyDock app that includes three free mini games, Midway Motors, Fishing Frenzy and Flippin’ Frogs.  Other PartyDock games will come in the future, and can be found by searching for “Griffin Publishing” in the App Store.

The PartyDock can connect to an external monitor, below, via composite or component connections.  The device can also be used to control video or music playback, or picture viewing.

The PartyDock supports the iPhone 4 and the iPad.  We don’t have any word on pricing or a release date for the device yet.

The iPhone 4 was jailbroken just a few days ago, and today the good folks at the iPhone Dev Team released an ultrasn0w unlocking tool for the device.  The tool works with iPhone 4 baseband version 01.59, as well as 3G/3G S basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04.

In order to install ultrasn0w, you’ll first need to jailbreak your iPhone 4 by going to http://www.jailbreakme.com .   Next just search for ultrasn0w (you may have to add the repo repo666.ultrasn0w.com first), and install.  It’s that easy.

Last week we learned that jailbreaking your iPhone is a-ok with the U.S. Copyright Office, and today a jailbreak tool for the iPhone 4 was finally released.  All you need to do to jailbreak your iPhone 4 is go to http://www.jailbreakme.com to download the JailbreakMe 2.0 tool and follow the on-screen instructions.  The jailbreaking process does take a few minutes, and earlier today the servers for jailbreakme.com were down due to high traffic, but there are many reports of users who have successfully jailbroken their iPhone 4.

The process does require a bit of patience, and be sure to backup your iPhone 4 before jailbreaking.  It also appears that FaceTime and MMS may be broken with the jailbreak.

In addition to iPhone 4s, JailbreakMe 2.0 will also jailbreak the iPhone 3G, 3G S and iPad.

You can take a look at the FAQs for JailbreakMe 2.0, and donate to the developers here.

Steve Jobs has developed a reputation for providing terse response to users that e-mail the Apple CEO with questions.  So, it wasn’t a complete surprise when BGR revealed a conversation between Steve Jobs and someone claiming to be “an Apple engineer” in which Jobs responded to the iPhone 4’s reception problems with, “No, you are getting all worked up over a few days of rumors.  Calm down,” and “You are most likely in an area with very low signal strength.”

While these comments do seem typical of Jobs, Apple’s PR team has confirmed that this email exchange is indeed a fake.  BGR vouched for the authenticity of these emails based on email header information.  However, this data can be easily falsified, which seems to be the case here.

Following BGR’s report, AppleInsider reported they were contacted two days ago by Jason Burford, of Burford Advertising (above), and asked if they would be interested in purchasing the email chain.  Needless to say, AppleInsider passed on the offer.  Which makes us wonder if BGR actually purchased this email exchange, and if so, for how much.

Problems like this do seem likely to arise when the CEO of the world’s largest tech company replies personally to random emailers.  It’s also unfortunate that this story wasn’t more thoroughly vetted before it went to print.

On Wednesday, Ward & Ward and Charles A. Gilman LLC filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T over highly publicized reception and antenna issues with the Apple iPhone 4.  The lawsuit accuses Apple and AT&T of general negligence, breach of implied warranty for merchantability, deceptive trade practices, intentional misrepresentation and fraud by concealment, among other claims.

The lawsuit is filed on behalf of two plaintiffs, Kevin McCraffrey and Linda Winn, although Ward & Ward and Charles A. Gilman LLC says there are several other unnamed customers represented.  Ward & Ward and Charles A. Gilman LLC is seeking class action status for the case.

Interestingly, the lawsuit quotes e-mails that Steve Jobs sent in reply to two iPhone 4 users asking for help with their reception issues.  Jobs’ replies include, “Just avoid holding it in that way,” “it’s not a big issue,” and “You are in a marginal cell area.  It has nothing to do with the phone.”

The lawsuit also cites a BGR article that revealed internal guidelines for Apple representatives dealing with antenna questions.  Among other things, these guidelines instruct Apple representatives to avoid promising free bumpers to iPhone 4 users with reception issues.

On Tuesday, we reported that a Sacramento law firm called Kershaw, Cutter and Ratinoff LLP was soliciting iPhone 4 buyers with reception issues.  However, Kershaw, Cutter and Ratinoff LLP has yet to file a lawsuit against Apple or AT&T.

We’re guessing that Ward & Ward and Charles A. Gilman LLC’s lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg.  Generally, class action lawsuits can be very profitable for the filing law firms, since settlements often include payments for lawyer’s fees in addition to the lawyer’s cut off of damages paid.

It was only a matter of time.  Sacramento-based law firm Kershaw, Cutter and Ratinoff LLP (KCR) appears to be investigating a class action lawsuit against Apple due to reception problems with Apple’s recently-released iPhone 4.  The firm’s website features a prominent solicitation for iPhone 4 users with reception problems, above.

KCR is no stranger to class action lawsuits.  The company has already filed a lawsuit against Facebook and Zynga over deceptive third party promotional offers.

There’s no indication if KCR will actually file a lawsuit against Apple – at this point the company seems to be just investigating the issue.  However, with over 1.7 million iPhone 4s sold so far, we wouldn’t be surprised if the company is able to develop a long list of iPhone 4 users willing to participate in the suit.

Last week, Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4 may experience reception problems when the device’s lower sides are covered.  This so called “death grip” is typically used when the phone is held in the user’s left hand.

Of course, if you run a left handed organization this was your moment to shine, and Lauren Milsom of the Left-Handed Club quickly jumped to the occasion.  According to Milsom:

”It seems ludicrous to suggest that 10 per cent of potential users should be told they have to adopt a less natural hand hold to use this latest technology.”

”I would strongly suggest that Steve Jobs employs left-handers in his design and testing team in future, and urgently address this issue to ensure the phone is fit for purpose.”

”It is disappointing that a leading innovations and design company like Apple have not considered left-handers in their initial design and testing stages of the 4G.”

”Clearly more testing is needed to be certain this is the case, but if so, left-handed potential customers need to be warned that the phone will not work for them, until it can be redesigned to remedy the fault.”

We’re guessing that this will be the first of many charges against Apple for the iPhone 4 death grip.  Luckily, the Left-Handed Club does not appear to be particularly litigious, and the company’s website seems to have been dormant since 2009.  But over the next few weeks, we expect that Apple will be hit with one, if not many class-action lawsuits over the iPhone 4 death grip.

Our sister site iGear 360 ran some tests on the so-called iPhone 4 death grip, and the results were quite interesting.  The results of the test, which were conducted with the SpeetTest.Net app, are shown in the table above.  Each figure represents the average of five tests per scenario.

iGear 360’s testing confirmed that the death grip had a big impact on upload and download speeds.  In their testing, upload and download speeds dropped to zero when the death grip was used with no case.  Ping times to the SpeedTest.Net servers also took an extraordinary amount of time with the death grip.

But the good news is that cases did help to improve upload and download speeds.  Both the Apple Bumper and Luxmo TPU Argyle skins improved upload and download speeds significantly.  However, download speeds were still 40% lower than with no death grip, while upload speeds were about 80% lower with no death grip.

So, if you use the iPhone 4 with a left handed grip, be sure to pick yourself up a case.  This will help to improve your reception, but not eliminate reception problems altogether.

It will be interesting to see if Apple releases a fix for this solution, or provides cases to users at no charge.  It’s disappointing that Apple did not discover this issue earlier.

A video of the full test is below.

The white iPhone 4 will not be officially released by Apple until the end of July, but this news report from Sky News showed two white iPhones in Apple’s flagship UK store.  The Sky News reporter doesn’t appear to be aware of the white iPhone 4’s scarcity, and the white device isn’t mentioned specifically in the report.

The white iPhone 4s do appear to be held by civilians, however – not Apple employees.  It also appears that these users had already purchased their white iPhone 4s.

You can view the whole video here.

Just hours after the launch of the Apple iPhone 4, complaints of reception issues started to circulate on the Internet.  Later this afternoon, Apple confirmed issues with this short statement:

“Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”

That’s right, it appears that some of you are holding your phone wrong.

Steven Jobs actually offered his own solution to the reception issue in an email response to an iPhone 4 customer.  According to Jobs:

“Just avoid holding it that way.”

This is certainly a peculiar development for the iPhone 4, although the good news is that it can easily be rectified by purchasing a case.  It’s still not clear if Apple plans to offer a long term fix for the solution, or if the company will just tell customers to change the way they hold their phones.  The latter option seems appropriate for the company that killed the floppy drive and is on its way to taking out Flash.