The first reviews are out for the iPhone 4S and they’re a lot like we expected, which is to say, exactly what we expected: the same phone on the outside but much better on the inside. It’s faster, has a much better camera and packs a golden bullet with Siri. More »
For the accident-prone, an iPhone can be a costly replacement. Luckily, Apple is about to offer a new iPhone-only warranty program that covers much more than manufacturer-based hardware malfunctions or software woes. The program is called AppleCare+, and it replaces the previous AppleCare warranty program for new iPhone owners.
AppleCare+ provides one year of hardware coverage and 90 days of telephone tech support. A new iPhone purchase already comes with a one year limited warranty, so this doubles your coverage time to two years, and allows for up to two “incidents of accidental damage due to handling.” So, if you’re one of those people who’ve accidentally dropped one (or more) cellphones into the toilet — you know who you are — here’s a chance to make out with just a $50 service fee for a new device rather than having to shell out the full cost.
A minimum one year warranty is pretty standard for mobile phone purchases. Motorola’s policy lasts one year from the date of purchase. Samsung mobile phone owners get two years’ warranty with a new purchase, except for the battery, which is warrantied for only six months. These warranties only cover manufacturer defects, not user-caused damage.
Verizon Wireless offers a service called Total Equipment Coverage which adds an extended warranty and covers loss, damages and theft. AT&T owners have the option of using Mobile Protect, a $7 a month service that offers protection against cracked screens, loss or theft, water damage and accidental damage. The company that makes Mobile Protect, Asurion, also provides solutions for mobile products on other carriers.
AppleCare, which did not cover accident-related damage, previously cost $70. AppleCare is still available for non-iPhone Apple purchases like Macs, Cinema Displays or iPad.
AppleCare+ costs $100 and will be available October 14, the same day that iPhone 4S debuts.
A first encounter with a multitouch device gets any active imagination running, so of course a home theater fan thinks it could make for the ultimate remote. But can any of that promise be realized in the dead zone that is the consumer remote control space? The leader of that dead zone is ready to give it a try with the Harmony Link — a WiFi-to-IR bridge that allows you to control your TV from any room of the house via an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android device. For $100, it’s a setup that promises to blend ease of programming with network connectivity and multitouch control. So exactly how good is Logitech’s attempt? We’ll reveal that after the break, of course.
Gallery: Logitech Harmony Link review
Continue reading Logitech Harmony Link review
Logitech Harmony Link review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This article was written on July 08, 2009 by CyberNet.
I’ve been waiting a long time for someone to come up with a way to get push notifications on my iPhone for my Gmail accounts, but up until today there wasn’t really anything available. Thanks to an iPhone app called Prowl I’m now receiving nearly instantaneous push notifications on my phone.
The one downside for a lot of people is that this app will require you to have some sort of computer running (either Windows or Mac) during the time you want to receive the notifications. For me I didn’t even have to think twice about that, because I have a Windows machine running 24/7 that does a combination of downloads, backups, and television recording. For others that might be a deal breaker.
So how does it work? I’m about to tell you how I set it up to send me push email notifications for all of my Gmail accounts. There’s basically three things you need: Prowl for your iPhone (of course), Growl (for Windows or Mac), and Thunderbird. We’re going to also show you how to setup Thunderbird to utilize Gmail’s IMAP IDLE (sometimes referred to as Push IMAP) functionality so that Thunderbird doesn’t go out to fetch new emails. Instead Gmail sends them to Thunderbird almost instantaneously.
The Prowl iPhone app is a critical part of this puzzle. It basically serves as a middleman between your home computer and your iPhone. The software on your computer will send notifications to the Prowl servers, which will then relay on a push notification to your phone.
The iPhone app does cost $2.99, but I didn’t mind paying the one-time fee considering that they need money to keep their servers up and running. Then after you buy the app (or you can do it before you buy the app) head on over to their site to create a quick account.
I’m going to focus on using Growl for Windows here, but Lifehacker has a great guide on setting up Prowl + Growl on a Mac. If you follow their Mac instructions you can always skip back to Step 4 in our article for configuring Thunderbird.
Once you’ve grabbed Growl for Windows go ahead and install it. You’ll probably be surprised to see that it doesn’t support notifications for any apps out-of-the-box, but that’s not a big deal. They have a centralized download page for the available add-ons.
Once you’ve got Growl running you’ll need to get it setup to talk to the Prowl servers. In the Growl configuration just go to the Network tab, click the plus sign, and then choose the iPhone option:
Then just enter in your Prowl credentials that you setup in the previous step.
If you looked at the add-ons page for Growl you might start to wonder why we aren’t just using the dedicated Gmail solution. Two reasons. First, it only supports one Gmail account. Bummer. Second, it is only capable of “fetching” your emails at a specified interval. Double bummer. Thunderbird overcomes both of these things.
So head on over and get Mozilla Thunderbird which is a free email client. After you get it running you’ll want to grab the Growl extension for Thunderbird. Installing extensions can be a pain in Thunderbird, but generally what I do is save the extension to my computer, and in Thunderbird go to Tools -> Add-ons. Then just drag-and-drop the extension anywhere in that window. You should then receive a prompt to install it.
I’ll give you a heads up now that after installing the extension there isn’t a whole lot you can configure. Then again, there’s isn’t all that much that you’d probably want to configure. Here are the available settings:
One thing the settings are good for, however, is the “send test message” button. If you’ve done the previous steps you should be able to hit that button and receive a push notification on your iPhone.
Alright, now the fun part… hooking all of this up to your Gmail account(s)! Here’s the play-by-play for setting up your Gmail account in Thunderbird so that it uses the IMAP IDLE functionality, which is very close to having push:
At this point you may be wondering why you disabled the options to “check for new messages.” Simple… IMAP IDLE will take care of that. With these options unchecked you might be surprised to see that new emails show up almost instantly in Thunderbird. In my tests it never took more than 15 to 30 seconds after receiving an email for it to show up in Thunderbird.
You are all set to receive your push notifications! There are some additional settings you can configure in Growl in regards to how the notifications look when they appear on the computer, but for the notifications to show up on your iPhone there isn’t really anything else you need to do. You can, however, set priorities for the notifications, and then choose which priority will be sent to your iPhone. That way you aren’t getting notifications for all of your Growl-enabled programs.
Here are some screenshots of Prowl hard at work:
(Click to Enlarge)
Overall I’d say the time from me hitting the send button to receiving the notification on my phone was between 30 and 45 seconds. That is good enough for me. Almost immediately after setting this up I went and set the fetching to “manual” on my iPhone, which should also help save on battery life.
Another plus about this is that my credentials for all of my accounts are never passed on to the Prowl servers. Anyone that is security conscious will always think long and hard before giving their password to some third-party service, but with this you don’t have to. All their servers receive is exactly what you see in your notification.
There are Growl add-ons for all kinds of other applications, too. You can get notified when a Firefox download is finished, hook it up to your Outlook emails, get notified when your machine is low on disk space, reminders for when your favorite TV shows are coming on, and even a message telling you when your Torrents have finished downloading. This has the ability to become very powerful.
This has quickly become one of my favorite apps on my iPhone, but it won’t be for everyone since it does require a computer that is on during the times you want to get notifications. And for just $3 I can’t complain.
Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com
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Some lucky customers who pre-ordered the iPhone 4S in Germany got their delivery a bit early. Image: MacRumors
A few lucky customers who pre-ordered Apple’s iPhone 4S in Germany got their delivery today — three full days early. And according to benchmarks that are beginning to pop up online, the phone looks to be wicked fast.
Readers sent in images of the new Apple device, its packaging and screenshots of Siri to German blog Macerkopf.de. Legitimate-looking benchmarks have also started appearing online, with the 4S clocking in at 68 percent faster than its predecessor, the iPhone 4. Tests also confirmed that the iPhone 4S’ graphics processor is seven times faster than the 4’s.
The new iPhone scored a 677 on Geekbench’s benchmarking test, almost double the 370 that the iPhone 4 scored, and not too far under the iPad 2’s score of 751. The iPhone 4S and iPad 2 share the same A5 dual-core chip, but the 4S’ likely runs at 800 MHz, as opposed to the iPad 2’s 1 GHz processor speed.
The iPhone 4S has already hit record pre-order numbers of over one million units. Its specs are comparable to those of other major smartphones on the market, like the Samsung Galaxy S II, such as a dual-core processor, 8-megapixel camera and a pixel-packed display (Retina Display in this case, like the iPhone 4). The handset, which was unveiled at a media event last week, will be available on the three largest U.S. carriers — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. The 4S will run on AT&T’s HSPA+ network and also comes with GSM and CDMA antennas, making it a world phone.
The iPhone 4S will hit stores on Friday, Oct. 14. Pre-orders will also be delivered that day. It’s priced at $200, $300 and $400 on contract for 16-, 32- and 64-GB models. Pre-orders began last Friday, so if you missed out, you’re going to have to spend your morning waiting in line at your favorite Apple retailer this Friday. But don’t worry; that just means you have the opportunity to make some new iPhone-loving friends.
via MacRumors
It’s been a few days now since we checked out seven different iPhone resellers and determined the highest possible amount iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 owners could get for selling their old iPhones. If the thought of selling your phone has been brewing in your head, now is a good time to do it. As […]
Siri, Apple’s “one more thing” at last week’s iPhone 4S launch, looks like some kind of magic from the future. But then, demoes of speech control on the Mac also looked pretty good (yes, you can control your Mac with your voice — kinda). Up on stage, with just the right commands, Siri was bound to make a great demo. But how will it do in the real world?
To see, check out this hands-on video from the folks at UK-based mag Stuff.
I’m sure the outtakes have been, ahem, taken out, but what remains is impressive. Not only does it look accurate, but it also looks useful. I can totally see myself mumbling drunkenly to Siri to please, please wake me up in the morning, or sending a quick message to somebody.
Other hands-on reviews around the web also point to another way to activate Siri. Instead of touching the button on screen, you can just hold the phone up to your ear. This way you’ll look like you’re talking to somebody, instead of dorking out with your little iHal.
But most impressive is that Siri can handle different accents, something that the iOS Dragon apps fail miserably at. We’ll have to see how it copes with other British accents though. In the U.S, English accents are fairly homogenous. In the British Isles, though, you run from Scottish to Irish to Geordie to Black Country to (shudder) Welsh. Some natives have trouble understanding these accents, so I don’t have much hope for a computer.
I do like the posh-accented Butler voice used in the British English version of Siri, though.
Still, we’ll find out soon enough when folks start to receive their handsets this Friday and start commanding Siri to do all sorts of crazy things. Me? I’ll do what I always have done whenever possible, just like I still do when I get a new dictionary. I’ll start with the swear words.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri demo [Stuff TV/YouTube]
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Continue reading Benchmarks clock iPhone 4S’ A5 CPU at 800MHz, show major GPU upgrade over iPhone 4
Benchmarks clock iPhone 4S’ A5 CPU at 800MHz, show major GPU upgrade over iPhone 4 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Until now, when a merchant using Square racked up over $1,000 in payments in the course of a week, everything above that limit was held for a period of time, ranging from just a few hours up to a whole month. As of today, roughly a year and a half after the company’s founding, that restriction has been lifted. Now all payments will be processed immediately and merchants will have access to the funds the next day. Square also announced that, in the year or so since it started offering its wares to the public, it has signed up 800,000 merchants who have processed over $2 billion in transactions. After ditching the $0.15 per-transaction charge and with the $1,000 per-week restriction limit lifted, we’re sure those numbers will only increase in the year ahead.
Square ditches $1,000 per week limits, has 800,000 merchants processing $2 billion per year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Phil Schiller introduces the iPhone 4S' voice-controlled assistant, Siri. Image: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
If initial sales figures for the iPhone 4S are any indication, Apple could issue a resounding “I told you so” to critics who initially panned the phone’s new features and unchanged physical appearance as disappointing. Perhaps even more telling: Solid sales of older iPhone models continue to prove Apple’s dominance in the smartphone space.
The iPhone 4S sold over one million pre-order units in its first 24 hours of availability, trouncing previous record pre-order sales of 600,000 units for Apple’s iPhone 4. Early iPhone 4S purchasers are likely a mix of 3G and 3GS owners who qualify for an upgrade, those who just want Apple’s latest and greatest, and those unable to previously get access to the iPhone on their network, says Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.
“It reinforces [Apple’s] belief in their strategy, building the products that they think make the most sense,” Golvin says.
The sales figures challenge a number of recent negative headlines that read like Apple had failed before the smartphone even launched. Business Insider wrote, “Is Apple’s decision to release just an iPhone 4S, not an iPhone 5, a huge disappointment, or just a regular sized disappointment? Depends on who you are, but either way it’s a disappointment.” The Daily Beast titled an article “Apple’s iPhone Letdown” and wrote, “In short: there is no new iPhone.” And even Apple darling The Wall Street Journal reported widespread disappointment and titled its story “Apple Underwhelms with iPhone 4S.”
And the lukewarm 4S sentiment wasn’t just expressed in headlines. @redmusk tweeted me, “Very disappointed for not seeing major change in #iphone.” Gadget Lab commenter Adam Johns said, “It looks the EXACT same as a 4…this is not an upgrade, this is lame.”
The iPhone 4S shares its form factor with the iPhone 4, but features some dramatically revamped innards. These include an 8-megapixel camera with a faster shutter speed and backside-illuminated sensor, a voice-activated digital assistant called Siri that could revolutionize the way we interact with mobile devices, and a hot new A5 processor that provides up to 7x faster graphics processing. A video leak shows that the Safari browser is about twice as fast on the iPhone 4S than on the iPhone 4.
“There are so many new features in the 4S, it might as well have been called the iPhone 5,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg says. And although the 4S designation makes the new phone sound like it’s a minor upgrade from the iPhone 4, it’s not, Gartenberg says: ”I wouldn’t call it an incremental upgrade, I’d say it was an evolutionary update with revolutionary features.”
One of the most revolutionary new features is Siri, a natural language voice-control tool. You can ask Siri questions, and “she” will pull data from websites, your calendar, or Wolfram Alpha, a dynamic search engine that uses linguistic analysis or advanced computations to provide information. For example, if you say, “Define mitosis,” she’ll provide the definition from Wolfram Alpha. If you say, “Find me a great Greek restaurant in Palo Alto,” Siri responds with “I’ve found 14 Greek restaurants, five of them are in Palo Alto. I’ve sorted them by rating.” You can also use Siri to find out information about your daily schedule, dictate emails and text messages. Siri will translate your dictation to text, and then dispatch your communiques. All in plain English. Or German and French.
“Apple’s new Siri Assistant is a powerful harbinger of the future use of mobile devices,” Golvin said in a statement.
Norman Winarsky, co-founder and board member of Siri prior to its purchase by Apple in 2010, thinks that Siri is a paradigm-shifting innovation. “This is a first. This is real technology, with real artificial intelligence. It’s a do engine, not a search engine,” he says.
This is just the beginning of the era of virtual personal assistants, Winarsky says. Imagine calling an airline to make a reservation. Instead of suffering through a series of menus — misdialing or having a bot misinterpret your commands — you could call the airline, voice your exact request, and be quickly transferred to the right representative. Or you might even bypass the representative altogether. For example, saying something like, “I would like to make a reservation for the cheapest flight before noon on Oct. 14″ would automatically present you with relevant options.
With regard to the iPhone 4S’s improved camera hardware, photo expert and pro-retoucher Joe Gerardi told Gizmodo, “This is not just a bigger megapixel camera upgrade. The lens improvements combined with back-side illuminated chip with a dedicated image processing chip, all powered by the A5 processor really make this an impressive camera.”
And Ryan Block of Gdgt expressed the significance of the iPhone 4S’s world phone functionality very nicely: “The GSM/CDMA worldphone functionality of the 4S is genuinely impressive … Antenna design is one of the most difficult engineering challenges in the handset industry, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a dual-mode worldphone engineered with as much (apparent) finesse as the 4S.”
With the introduction of the iPhone 4S, Apple now has a full product portfolio, from the shiny new iPhone 4S to the budget-friendly free 3GS. And despite their “old age” (well, in smartphone years), the iPhone 4 and 3GS continue to dominate carrier sales charts. For June through August of this year, the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS were the number one and number two selling smartphones, respectively, on AT&T, while the iPhone 4 was the top seller on Verizon (which does not carry the 3GS).
Given their reduced prices, the iPhone 4 and 3GS will likely continue to deliver solid sales numbers, despite the fact that they’ve been eclipsed by the 4S.
“I believe that Apple’s iPhone sales will continue to grow significantly, and not just due to the 4S, but because now there’s an iPhone for anyone, no matter what they can afford to spend,” said Golvin via email. Sixty percent of cellphone owners still use feature phones, so providing a cost-effective, entry-level option for consumers puts Apple in a strong position to gain wider adoption.
Indeed, Apple has its ducks in a row, and seems poised to realize killer market-share figures over the next few months as consumers gobble up its handsets. The ball is in the Apple critics’ court.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
