Hasta La Gadget!

An iPhone bug already seen when Australia switched between Daylight Savings Time and Standard Time a few weeks ago has now hit Europe. Twitter just lit up with reports of recurring iPhone alarms going off an hour later than usual. So even though the iOS clock changed correctly over the weekend, the alarm did not. Thing is, according to a ZDNet Australia report from more than three weeks ago, Apple acknowledged the bug with a promise to fix it with a software update. So why wasn’t it rolled out in time to avoid this mess in Europe? Let’s see if Apple fixes it before North America makes the switch on November 7th, otherwise, you’ve been warned.

Update: Deleting and re-adding the alarms will NOT fix the issue. We’ve now tested a number of scenarios under iOS 4.1 on European iPhone 4 and 3GS devices for ourselves. The bug (demoed on video after the break by Roman) appears when using a repeating alarm for anything other than “every day.” So for example, your alarm will go off an hour late if it’s set for “weekdays,” or “weekends,” or every “Monday.” The following alarms are not affected by the bug:

• An alarm that doesn’t repeat (repeat set to “never”)
• An alarm set to repeat “every day”

You can test yourself by creating a repeating alarm (but not every day) to go off one minute in the future and 59 minutes in the past.

Update 2: Some US readers are now waking up to alarms reportedly going off an hour early.

[Thanks, David O. and Matthieu Di B.]

Continue reading iPhone DST bug causing alarms to fail across Europe (updated)

iPhone DST bug causing alarms to fail across Europe (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Halo series has always been about addictive multiplayer experiences, so it’s most disturbing to find out that campaign co-op gaming on the latest title is a non-starter for people without a hard drive attached to their 360. An issue has been identified by users of the 4GB Xbox 360, whereby attempts to team up on the baddies with your buddies — whether locally or via Xbox Live — is met with an error message saying that a HDD is “required for this game type.” This affects both Halo: Reach and the earlier Halo: ODST. Adding extra memory via USB has been found to be ineffective, but at least Microsoft has stated that it’s aware of the limitation and is “quickly working to resolve it.” Standard multiplayer is predictably unaffected, so we suggest taking your rage out on some newbies while the MS techs figure out their caching algorithms.

Halo Reach requires hard drive to play in co-op mode, Microsoft working on this ‘temporary issue’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you own a Galaxy S anywhere in the world or you’re thinking of buying one, you’re probably well-acquainted at this point with the GPS issues it’s been suffering that prevent you from getting anything close to a precise lock on your location — it might not be a deal-breaker for some, but for anyone planning on using their phone for turn-by-turn nav or fitness tracking (for instance) it’s a big deal. Samsung’s already committed to updating released versions of the phone in September, but what about the upcoming Epic 4G? Our testing suggests that it’s functional — Google Maps was able to give us extremely precise positions very quickly — and a statement we’ve received from Samsung seems to corroborate that:

“We have tested and validated both Network Assisted (indoor) and Autonomous (outdoor) GPS on the Epic 4G. With regards to Vibrant and Captivate, we are currently testing software updates which will optimize GPS performance. We expect to be able to make the updates available in September and will communicate more information and download instructions in the next few weeks.”

In other words, the Captivate and the Vibrant have the bug and will be fixed next month; the Epic, meanwhile, should be good to go when it launches on the 31st. Cheers to that, we say.

Samsung says GPS is ‘tested and validated’ on Epic 4G, our testing agrees originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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JailbreakMe brought root to the iPhone 4-wielding masses, but also unearthed a nasty exploit in a PDF font. Thankfully for the rooted and those who never intended to root, Cupertino claims it has already patched the hole. “We’re aware of the reported issue, we have already developed a fix and it will be available to customers in an upcoming software update,” an Apple spokeswoman told CNET. We’re not sure exactly when it will arrive, but we’d lay odds on soon — in the meantime, don’t open any PDFs you don’t trust, don’t do anything illegal or immoral, and hit up Comex’s hack ASAP if your heart’s still set on that shiny new unlock.

[Image Source: F-Secure]

Apple: PDF security hole fix is already ready to go originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“Fixes a phenomenon in which the set aperture moves when shooting movies in manual exposure mode using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).” If you’ve got a 5D Mark II, 1D Mark IV, or Rebel T2i handy and have been keeping its firmware fresh, that phrase should be all too familiar; all three of those shooters have received updates in the past two months to fix such an issue, and now it’s time for the EOS 7D to get a fix all its own. Our darling budding filmmakers’ tool is also getting a few tweaks with AF point display and selection, and the multilingual copy editors of this world can breathe a deep sigh of relief as typos in the Spanish and Thai menus have been corrected. Well, what are you waiting for? Focus your lens on Canon’s website and download away.

Canon EOS 7D joins fleet in receiving firmware update to fix manual exposure movie bug originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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