Hasta La Gadget!

The “capacitor plague” issue of the early 2000’s has started to resurface, not thanks to another batch of bogus orange-hued electrolytes popping free, but this time thanks to the release of documents relating to a three year-old Dell lawsuit. As we reported earlier this week, those docs show that Dell asked customer service reps to deny there was any problem with their motherboards, telling them to pretend they’d never heard about the issue and to “emphasize uncertainty.” Now, Dell is responding to the latest flare up — sort of.

A post on the Direct2Dell blog reiterates that this was an industry-wide issue, which it was, but more or less ignores the crux of this latest report: those internal memos telling CSRs to play stupid while corporate IT departments panicked as OptiPlex desktops died left and right. (Boxes manufactured during those troublesome years would ultimately achieve an amazing 97 percent failure rate.) Dell also points out that AIT, the company that raised this particular lawsuit, was improperly using its OptiPlex machines as servers and not as mere desktops. That sounds an awful lot like sour grapes to us — or should we say sour electrolytes?

Dell responds to latest capacitor-related fallout, ignores the whole lying to consumers part originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meet the Sniper Stand, a tiny, adhesive-backed plastic carbuncle which sticks to you iPhone (or any other small flat-backed device) and lets you use a credit-card as an impromptu kick-stand.

The lump remains attached, limpet-like, to the rear of the iPhone and has two perpendicular slots crossing its ABS dome. You slide any convenient plastic card into one of these and set the whole assembly down, your phone now tilted back ready for some movie-watching or, more disturbingly, some hands-free FaceTime.

The Sniper Stand comes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based bartender (and avid Gadget Lab reader) Arthur Larsen, who tipped us off to his patent-pending design. And before you make the obvious complaint about the permanent plastic pimple attached to the back of the iPhone, let Arthur have his say:

It’s actually kinda nice having a bump on the back of your phone; the bump holds up the phone just a tiny bit of an angle for viewing, that tiny bit makes it much easier to grab your phone (especially a really thin iPhone 4), holding it in your hand the bump of the Sniper Stand makes a nice spot to place your finger and balance the phone in your hand with less fear of it sliding out of your hand, etc… What do you think?

Well, Arthur, I think it’s pretty cool.

Sniper Stand – Convenient Smartphone Support [Sniper Stand. Thanks, Arthur]

See Also:

• Simplest and Best? The MoviePeg iPhone Stand
• The One Minute Hack: DIY Suction-Cup iPhone Stand
• DIY iPhone Dock Made From Dead CDs
• Wired Bureau Chief Builds iPad Stand from $6 Doorstops
• The $5 iPad Dock
• Quirky's iPad Case With Two-Way Kick-Stand

Apple claims that the iPhone 4 reception problem doesn’t exist. They say that the “dramatic drop in [signal] bars” is explained by an erroneous signal display. However, they don’t address the data and voice degradation caused by their design. Updated. More »

Spotify, the jukebox-in-the-cloud which is still not available in the US has been updated to work with iOS4. This adds several new features, but the game-changer is that it can now run in the background, replacing the iPod app almost completely.

Spotify is a free, ad-supported or paid application for Mac, PC, iOS, Symbian and Android which lets you play any music in the catalog as if it were iTunes. Unlike Pandora, the US-only music streaming service, you can actually choose an artist and track, and organize music into playlists, even saving them for offline listening.

Now, with iOS4’s multitasking, you can continue to listen to Spotify in the background as you send mail, read Instapaper or do pretty much anything else. Just as planned, the music controls in the app-switching dock control Spotify instead of the iPod app, the inline remote on the headphones does the same, as do the music controls on the iPhone’s lock-screen. If your iPhone or iPad is in the universal dock, using the Apple remote will also let you control Spotify. In short, it takes over all iPhone music functions while running.

Further, if you play a track from Spotify that is already on your iPhone, it will be pulled from the local copy rather than over the network (currently, this causes the app to pause if running in the background).

There are more new features in this release. Just like the latest desktop client, Spotify mobile lets you send music to your Spotify and Facebook friends, as well as browsing the “top lists”, charts based on new and popular tracks.

The only thing that keeps Spotify completely replacing your iPod app is podcasts, which can be accessed but cannot be updated automatically. The usability is also a little clunky. Searching the gazillion songs in Spotify’s catalog is fast and easy, but browsing your own saved playlists is an annoyingly linear affair, with much scrolling and clicking to find what you want.

Spotify is free, but to use it on your iPhone or iPod Touch you have to pay the premium €10-per-month subscription. I do. I figure its worth it to have 8 million track on my iPad and iPod Touch.

Bonus tip: Did you know that in iOS4, music keeps playing even whilst you sync to iTunes?

iPhone app updated – background listening arrives! [Spotify]

See Also:

• Spotify Takes Aim at iTunes, Befriends Facebook
• Spotify Opens to Indie Bands
• Spotify Adds U.S.-Friendly Service Plans
• Rhapsody's iPhone App Beats Spotify, MOG to the Punch
• Hands-On With Spotify for iPhone: Is iTunes Dead?
• Spotify Adds Offline Listening to Desktop
• Six Million Songs in Your Pocket: Apple Approves Spotify for …

Update 6 a.m. PT: Apple has published a letter regarding the iPhone 4 antenna, explaining that a faulty formula is making signal strength display incorrectly. The company claims a software update coming in a few weeks will correct the formula.

Many customers are complaining that the iPhone 4’s antenna loses the signal when you hold it a certain way. They’re not delusional: Independent tests lend credence to the issue.

A study led by AnandTech saw a major drop in signal strength when the iPhone 4 was “cupped tightly,” covering a sensitive area in the lower left corner. The iPhone 4’s external band is actually two antennas — one for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, and the other for voice and data — and according to Anandtech, touching the point in the lower left, where the two antennas meet, causes attenuation.

“The fact of the matter is that either the most sensitive region of the antenna should have an insulative coating, or everyone should use a case,” Anandtech wrote. “For a company that uses style heavily as a selling point, the latter isn’t an option. And the former would require an unprecedented admission of fault on Apple’s part.”

Immediately after the iPhone 4’s release, several customers reported that covering the handset in the bottom left corner caused major signal loss, signified by dropped bars on the screen.

Criticism about the iPhone 4’s reception doesn’t look good for Apple. For years, dissatisfied customers have quibbled about the smartphone’s spotty 3G network performance. Apple claimed the iPhone 4’s new antenna design would significantly improve reception. Already, the erratic behavior of the iPhone 4 antenna has spawned lawsuits.

In a canned response, Apple said all phones experience attenuation when held in different positions. Consumer Reports also published a post agreeing that this is the case with all phones.

Is it a non-issue, as Steve Jobs suggests, or is it a major design flaw? Going beyond anecdotal experiences, Anandtech managed to hack together a way to get the iPhone 4 to display actual signal strength rather than reception bars. (The reception bars, many have explained, are a poor indicator for actual signal strength.)

AnandTech then held the iPhone 4 in five different ways — cupping tightly, holding naturally, open palm, resting on an open platform and holding naturally inside a case — and recorded results for each position. The blog ran the same tests with an iPhone 3GS and a Nexus One.

The results: All phones exhibited attenuation behavior in different positions, but the iPhone 4 did show a greater dropoff in signal strength in every holding position compared to the iPhone 3GS.

However, the blog noted that the iPhone 4’s reception is definitely better in low-signal situations than the other two phones. In short, the iPhone 4 gets a much stronger signal overall compared to the iPhone 3GS and the Nexus One, but that strength is greatly hampered by attenuation when held in different positions.

“Reception is absolutely definitely improved,” AnandTech wrote. “I felt like I was going places no iPhone had ever gone before. There’s no doubt in my mind this iPhone gets the best cellular reception yet, even though measured signal is lower than the 3GS.”

Corroborating AnandTech’s findings, antenna expert Richard Gaywood ran a different test gauging the iPhone 4’s speed in different holding positions and came to similar conclusions. Gaywood’s tests suggest that the problem is greatest when signal strength is already low.

“I think it’s pretty clear that there was still a performance penalty from gripping the phone in my bare left hand, despite the strong signal conditions,” Gaywood wrote.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:

• Photo Gallery: Hands-On With the iPhone 4
• IPhone 4 Loses Reception When Antenna Band Is Touched
• Showdown: iPhone 4 vs. HTC Evo 4G
• Apple’s Response to iPhone 4 Antenna Problem: You’re Holding It Wrong