Hasta La Gadget!

Reports of iPhones exploding, starting fires and killing people in cold blood have been around since the inception of the handset. They’ve also been relatively sporadic, seemingly short on evidence, and Apple hasn’t given complaints much credence or response. So when we heard a story from France the other day about a security guard’s iPhone “exploding” and sending a shard of glass into his eye (though apparently not serious enough to warrant a hospital visit), it was a little hard to believe, but with a few other stories of cracking screens due to overheating cropping up in Europe over the past couple weeks, French authorities have taken an interest in the story. Anecdotally, a teen says his phone “imploded” in Belgium and gave him a headache, a woman’s phone cracked without warning, and ten or so victims in France have come forward to complain of similar problems, picking up the interest of a French consumer watchdog group. Apple is naturally not new to the concept of overheating in its battery-powered devices — in fact, it’s just entered into its first full-on iPod nano recall in Korea of the 1st-gen players after numerous reports of battery faultiness worldwide — but with 26 million iPhones out and about, and the iPhone 3GS tending to run a bit hotter than its siblings, a systemic problem with one or all models of the handsets isn’t something consumers or Apple would take lightly.

Herve Novelli, France’s top trade official, met with Apple France’s Michel Coulomb today to discuss the problem, and so far Apple is sticking to its guns: it claims that reported incidents are in the single digits, and that all cases it’s investigated fully so far have turned out to be blamed on “external force” to the screen. Herve and Michel seem to have parted on friendly terms, promising to keep in touch over the issue, and the EU’s alert system for dangerous consumer products (inexplicably dubbed RAPEX) is staying in the loop as well, asking the 27 member nations to keep tabs on the situation. Novelli says it’s “too early to blame anyone,” and we’d have to agree, but we hope Apple keeps up the (freshly) open communication about this issue going forward.

Read – French minister meets Apple exec over iPhone problems
Read – Apple denies ‘exploding’ iPhones
Read – Apple denies battery problem with exploding iPhones
Read – Belgian teenager latest victim of exploding iPhone phenomenon

Filed under: Cellphones

Overheating iPhone reports ‘exploding’ all over France, Apple responds originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We always suspected the iPhone 3GS was capable of 1080p HD video playback, and now we’ve got proof. Although Apple lists the iPhone 3Gs’s max video playback res at just 640×480, iLounge linked to Chinese forum post claiming that the 3GS could do 30Mbps 1080p playback earlier today — and when we saw that the only thing we needed to do to test it out was download the free FileAid app, well, you know how we’ve just spent the last 20 minutes. We tested out a bunch of HD trailers from Apple’s QuickTime trailer site, some videos we shot with a Lumix DMC-GH1 and some other random videos with general success, but there were some major hiccups: high bitrate 720p video off the GH1 stuttered during playback, and loading the Avatar trailer consistently crashed the phone’s audio driver until we restarted. We tried the same thing on an iPhone 3G and just got error messages at almost every resolution, so it seems like it’s a combination of the 3GS’s extra horsepower and different built-in software at work here — software that’s clearly not ready for prime-time, as evidenced by the bugs. We’re hoping Apple is polishing that up and getting ready to unlock this functionality, since it’d be sweet to just plug into an HDTV and play video — anyone listening out there in Cupertino? Video after the break.

Read – Apple iPhone specs
Read – Chinese forum posts claiming 30Mbps 1080p playback

Continue reading iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone 3GS totally capable of 1080p video playback originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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True, it’s not the first app offering turn-by-turn driving instructions for the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS — but it is from TomTom, an industry heavy-weight that is finally delivering on years of rumor and speculation. After starting with New Zealand a few hours ago, the iTunes App Store is now populated with region specific TomTom apps for NZ ($95), Australia ($80), US and Canada ($100), and Western Europe ($140). If that sounds expensive… it is; dedicated TomTom navigators start at $120. In other words, this isn’t one of those knee-jerk 99 cent App Store purchases. Naturally, that price does not include the announced TomTom iPhone car kit (rumored to cost £113.85 (about $194) with bundled mapping software) that mounts and charges your iPhone 3G or 3GS while enhancing its GPS performance, speaker, and microphone. Our advice: wait for the reviews before dedicating your non multi-tasking iPhone to the dashboard for navigation duties.

Update: Recombu took the software for a spin and seem duly impressed by their ability to navigate streets with an iPhone taped to the dash (not a joke). They say that when a call comes in, the TomTom app “turns off but restarts as soon as you finish the call.” Lame. See the video overview after the break.

Update 2: TomTom says the upcoming car kit dock / windshield mount will also work with the iPod touch and third-party apps — it contains a faster, more accurate GPS chip than the one in the iPhone. Check a video of it after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read [Warning: iTunes link]

Continue reading TomTom navigation for iPhone 3G and 3GS arrives (update: Video!)

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS

TomTom navigation for iPhone 3G and 3GS arrives (update: Video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Studies just released by RBC Capital and ChangeWave Research polled iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre owners on their respective levels of satisfaction with their devices — then compared them. In the studies, 200 iPhone 3GS users and 40 Palm Pre owners were polled. Overall, 99 percent of owners of Apple’s phone proclaimed themselves to be “satisfied,” while 82 percent of that number declared they were “very satisfied.” The poll of Pre owners showed that 87 percent are “satisfied,” and 45 percent of those owners describe themselves as “very satisfied.” Interestingly, the 42 percent of “very satisfied” customers are the highest score ever attained by a Palm device, and it’s a number that’s only ever been bested by RIM and Apple. When asked about their respective reasons for buying their devices, Palm Pre owners listed the touchscreen interface, ability to multitask, and ease of use in the top three, while iPhone users cite its touchscreen, ease of use and faster web browsing as its biggest draws. So what about drawbacks? iPhone users (a whopping 55 percent of them, in fact) say that AT&T’s network is their main gripe with the device, while Pre owners list short battery life and lack of third party apps as the devices biggest drawbacks. All in all, a pretty good showing for both — though the microscopic sample size (especially for the Palm Pre) makes us wonder about the validity of the findings a bit.

Read – Apple’s iPhone 3GS has 99 percent satisfaction rate
Read – iPhone vs. Palm Pre: Satisfaction bakeoff

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS owners’ satisfaction polled, compared in new study originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As history tells us time and time again, iPhone apps / updates submitted to Apple aren’t a sure deal for approval. Still, we can’t help but like where SlingPlayer Mobile is going with the recently-submitted version 1.1. In addition to providing true 16:9 widescreen support that stretches across the whole screen, Slingbox owners with DISH Network can now navigate using a touch-supported native browser, instead of pushing through the TV-standard browsing screen being streamed in. That last bit’s great for US customers, but it’s what the rest of the world might get that has our interests very piqued. The company’s submitted a version for use outside of AT&T’s homeland that would finally allow for streaming over a 3G connection — again, not a certainty for approval, but we’ll be most interested to see if that one makes its way through the system.

Filed under: Cellphones, HDTV

SlingPlayer 1.1 for iPhone promises DISH integration for US, 3G streaming elsewhere (maybe) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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