Hasta La Gadget!

We’re not exactly sure of the cause of this fancy new issue affecting Apple’s super cool iPhone line of cellphones, but apparently you’ve got trouble come 1/1/2011. According to an explosive stream of frustration-filled tweets on the Twitter microblogging service, when the clock strikes midnight, one off alarms will cease to sing out. The issue sounds eerily similar to recent Daylight Savings Time trouble we witnessed back in November, although we saw both repeating alarm and single alarm failures.

So how can you fix this potentially life-ruining problem? Well until Apple patches its OS — and it’s currently unclear if this is just iOS 4.2.1 or earlier versions as well — you can simply create a recurring alarm at the time you need to be woken up, and then disable it once your dreams are completely ruined. We’re taking a deeper look into the issue and have contacted Apple — if we get more news, you guys will be the first to know. In the meantime, feel free to commiserate in comments, and… happy new year?

Update: 9to5 Mac says that the bug will get fixed all by itself once the calendar hits January 3rd. We haven’t confirmed this, but if it turns out to be the case, that’s pretty good news. In less good news, the issue seems to be affecting iOS 4.1 and 4.0.2 as well.

Update 2: Apple responded to us on the issue, though they didn’t offer any surprises:

We’re aware of an issue related to non repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PSA: iPhone alarms not working come New Year’s Day 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Venue Pro delay situation certainly isn’t getting any clearer with Dell’s latest update on its support forums, but we know this much for sure: the new kid on the smartphone block still has a few things to learn about shipping handsets. A post from a Dell moderator says the company is working directly with Microsoft to draft a battle plan and that current Venue Pro owners (those that got their devices early on from Microsoft stores, that is) “might require another hardware swap” to get their issues solved. The rep says that she’s hearing that some orders could still potentially ship this week, but she doesn’t know which ones, and that affected customers are welcome to cancel their orders if they wish. So yeah, kind of a good news / bad news situation there. We’re still clinging to hope that we’ll see these things on the streets before the end of 2010, but it certainly seems like an iffy proposition at this point.

[Thanks, @steveymacjr]

Update: Dell’s posted a new blog entry on the matter, too, though it’s not much help — basically, you could get your phone before January 6th, but it’s anyone’s guess. They’re promising to keep people abreast of the situation as it develops.

Dell: ‘Venue Pros are being reworked in the factories,’ ship schedule unclear originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh boy. We’d actually passed over reports that the HTC HD7 suffers from a “death grip” issue this past week, since we think it’s been well-proven that you can get almost any phone to drop some signal if you hold it exactly right, but apparently the furor’s gotten loud enough to merit an official HTC response. Here’s the statement, sent to Computer Weekly:

Quality in industrial design is of key importance to HTC. To ensure the best possible signal strength, antennas are placed in the area least likely to be covered by a person’s face or hands while the phone is in use. However, it is inevitable that a phone’s signal strength will weaken a little when covered in its entirety by a user’s palm or fingers. We test all of our phones extensively and are confident that under normal circumstances reception strength and performance will be more than sufficient for the operation of the phone when network coverage is also adequate.

Yes, that sounds almost exactly like what Apple said during its iPhone 4 Antennagate press conference, but that makes sense — we wouldn’t honestly expect HTC to say anything else, even though John Gruber points out that the company told the Wall Street Journal that Apple’s reception problems were “certainly not common” in July. But we do find it extremely interesting that the HD7 is clearly based on the HTC HD2, a handset which came out over a year ago and suffered from reports of similar reception issues. (In fact, a post at xda-developers in June noted that the HD2 has the same death grip issue as the iPhone 4.) Whatever the case, much of the problem seems to stem from the fact that the HD2 / HD7 antenna is located at the bottom of the phone where it’s most likely to be covered by a user’s hand, so it looks like the ultimate answer for HD7 owners is a familiar one: you’re holding it wrong. Video after the break.

Continue reading HTC responds to HD7 death grip reports, says some signal drop is ‘inevitable’

HTC responds to HD7 death grip reports, says some signal drop is ‘inevitable’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers from security firm SecTheory have described a handful of flaws in webOS, saying that the platform — by its very nature — is more prone to these sorts of things than its major competitors because Palm puts web technologies like JavaScript closer to webOS’ core where system functions are readily accessible. At least one of the flaws, involving a data field in the Contacts app that can be exploited to run arbitrary code, has already been fixed in webOS 2.0 — but the others are apparently still open, including a cross-site scripting problem, some sort of floating-point overflow issue, and a denial-of-service vector. We imagine Palm will get these all patched up sooner or later, but as SecTheory’s guys point out, how long is it until mobile malware becomes a PC-sized problem?

Security experts unearth unpleasant flaws in webOS originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is warning iPhone users that the daylight savings time glitch that plagued Europe affects US iPhones too, meaning you’ll wake up an hour late if you rely on the Clock app built into the device. Though Apple representatives say there’s a permanent fix in the works, it’s not due until iOS 4.2, so the company suggests you set a new alarm today if you want to rise on time. Since the bug apparently only affects certain repeating alarms, you can create a new one-time alarm (i.e. with the repeat option set to “never”) instead, and the iPhone clock will take care of the rest. Don’t be the gal or guy blaming your tardiness on failed technology, folks, when it’s this easy to be able to point the finger at traffic, family, or spontaneous bouts of dance fever instead.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PSA: Apple’s iPhone may not wake you up on time tomorrow morning originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Nov 2010 17:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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