The iPhone 4 is in stores today and to help you get started using your new front and rear-facing cameras, Apple has released the iMovie app to the iTunes app store. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20008795-12.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Download Blog/a/p
A maintenance release is being rumored for the latest Android handset from Sprint. See what’s in store for the HTC Evo 4G. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20008797-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p
The iPhone 4 has finally arrived here in Gadget Lab. Some of you may have seen this before.
We’ve spent only a few hours with the iPhone 4, but our first impressions of the device are quite positive. The 960-by-640 screen is gorgeous, and the thinner profile feels nice in the pocket. FaceTime video conferencing was problematic — probably because of our weak Wi-Fi network here — but once it got working it was neat.
We’ll have a full review of the iPhone 4 by Friday, but for now enjoy the video above re-introducing the famous device at the center of perhaps the greatest drama in gadget history.
This episode of the Gadget Lab video podcast was produced by Annaliza Savage, with editing by Michael Lennon and audio engineering by Fernando Cardoso. If you want the audio version of this podcast, subscribe to the Gadget Lab audio podcast on iTunes.
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Say what you will about BlackBerrys — although with the Bold 9800 slider and OS 6, things might be looking up — Research in Motion is still doing strong in the pocketbooks. The company just released its first fiscal quarter 2011 results with revenue growth of 24 percent year-over-year, and here’s the rounded-number kicker: its 11.2 million shipments of smartphones this quarter has raised total shipments to over 100 million BlackBerrys. Quite a feat, but enough chit chat about the past — what does the future hold? In a conference call pertaining to the fiscal results, RIM alluded to two new devices shipping soon, with one for the summer and one closer to fall. We’d bet a pretty penny one of them is the aforementioned slider, but as for the second? Guess we’ll just wait and see.
RIM sells 100 millionth BlackBerry, hints at two more devices in the near future originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Motorola Droid looks set for a Froyo upgrade late next month, with the Droid X following close behind. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20008793-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p
Get schooled by CNET editor Jasmine France. This week: Get some tips on keeping your professional e-mails polished and your personal e-mails inoffensive. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-20008771-49.html” class=”origPostedBlog”MP3 Insider/a/p
How good is FaceTime, Apple’s video chat feature for iPhone 4? We did due diligence with a side-by-side comparison between FaceTime and Fring, in this iPhone 4 throwdown. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20008762-233.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPhone Atlas/a/p
Could Windows Live Essentials really be “better than Mac for photos, hands down,” as per the gauntlet Microsoft’s Brian Hall tossed earlier this month? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by trying it out yourself with the free download at our source link. The software suite just hit beta with not only the face-recognizing, photo-stitching new rendition of Photo Gallery, but also new versions of Mail, Movie Maker, Messenger, Writer and a Mac-friendly version of the Dropbox-like Sync (no, not that Sync) as well. So… what are you waiting for? Oh, you’re still “awwing” at the image above, aren’t you?
Continue reading Windows Live Essentials beta is ready for your downloading delight
Windows Live Essentials beta is ready for your downloading delight originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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For some iPhone users, months of waiting in anticipation for the iPhone 4 and hours of standing in line ended in a big disappointment. Glitches forced some users who had pre-ordered their phones to go home without a device in hand — even though they thought they were eligible for an upgrade.
Glen LaFratte, a Dallas, Texas, iPhone user, is one of them. LaFratte bought two 3G S phones — for him and his wife — last June. He paid the full price of nearly $700 for each phone.
To his surprise, when he reserved a pair of iPhone 4s a week ago, he found his wife’s phone was deemed not eligible for the upgrade pricing of $200 for a 16-GB version and $300 for the 32-GB model.
LaFratte says he bought both the 3G S phones on the same day and even showed AT&T store representatives a receipt to prove that. But so far, he hasn’t heard back from AT&T with a fix.
“How much blood do they want?” he wrote in an e-mail to Gadget Lab. “Apple needs to dump AT&T. I cannot understand why a huge computer manufacturer like Apple lets a cellular company control their pricing and cripple them.”
Apple’s iPhone 4 debuted in retail stores Thursday morning to huge crowds. Meanwhile, a number of users are complaining about network reception problems with the device, especially when the left and the bottom of the phone is touched or squeezed.
Apple had said that any current iPhone customers whose contracts were due to expire this year would be eligible for the lower upgrade price of $200 for the 16-GB iPhone 4 and $300 for the 32-GB version.
The problems with the upgrade are not widespread, with just a handful of users reporting the issue to Gadget Lab so far.
Among them is Josh Strom, who handles system support for Wired, who faced a similar baffling upgrade problem.
After waiting in line for two hours, Strom found out his pre-ordered iPhone 4 won’t be available for the upgrade price of $200. His current iPhone 3G contract ends this month.
“I am frustrated and really upset with AT&T,” says Strom. “They just couldn’t tell me why I cannot upgrade my iPhone.”
Meanwhile, other AT&T users are discovering that the upgrade pricing may not be for everyone.
At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this year, Steve Jobs made an offer that seemed too good to be true.
“I am thrilled to announce that AT&T is going to make an incredibly generous upgrade offer. If your contract expires any time during 2010, you are immediately eligible for a new iPhone 4 at the same $199, $299 prices if you top up your contract for two years. You can get up to six months early eligibility for the iPhone 4,” Jobs told the attendees while introducing the phone.
That declaration, though, left out the fine print. Some AT&T users found that unless your current phone is an iPhone, the upgrade offer does not apply, even if you have another smartphone from AT&T.
Another user, Chris Heery, faced a system glitch that froze him out of the reservation system in the store. He’d canceled his pre-order in the hopes of picking up a phone from the store on the day of the launch. Heery says he might now have to wait until the end of this week so AT&T can sort the issue out and give him an iPhone 4.
If you are eligible for an upgrade and have been denied one by AT&T, let us know what happened. Post your experience in the comments.
Photo: Kevin Aungle yells triumphantly as he exits the Apple store with a 32-GB iPhone 4 in Emeryville on June 24. Aungle slept in his car the night before the new iPhone was launched and says he waited a total of 15 hours. (Stefan Armijo/Wired.com)
Wired.com reader Ryan Rhea says he found a way to double the download speed of his new iPhone 4 with nothing more than black electrician’s tape.
Rhea, clearly a graduate of the Home Depot School of Gadget Hacks, simply applied a thin strip of black tape on the lower left corner of the phone’s outer metal band, starting right below the volume buttons and extending down to the edge of the speaker on the bottom of the phone.
That was enough to stop the reception problem reported by many iPhone 4 customers. For those with this problem, touching the lower left corner of their new phone causes signal strength to drop, often cutting off calls and sharply decreasing data download speeds.
Wired.com has not been able to duplicate the problem, although more than 30 readers have reported experiencing it.
That metal band forms the phone’s antenna, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained when announcing the iPhone 4 earlier this month. And while touching a radio or TV antenna can often improve reception, by making the conductive surface of your skin into an extension of the antenna, it seems to have the opposite effect on the iPhone 4.
Several readers have reported that putting the iPhone 4 into a protective case, such as the $30 “bumper” case sold by Apple, solves the problem.
The electrical tape achieves the same result at a much lower cost, by putting an electrical insulator between you and the phone’s antenna. In Rhea’s case, his 3G download speed as reported by Testmyiphone.com went from 0.41 Mbps without the tape to 0.82 Mbps with the tape (in both cases, with the phone gripped firmly in his left hand).
The cost for a roll of electrical tape? About $4 for a 66-foot roll of 3/4″ tape, which should be enough to fix your iPhone — and about 790 others.
As a bonus, electrical tape also works great for fixing nerdy glasses.
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Photo courtesy Ryan Rhea
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