Article Suggests iPhone is to Blame for AT&T’s Network Failures

A NY Times article suggests that the iPhone may be to blame for AT&T's network failures. Despite the fact that AT&T fell last on the list of Consumer Reports' latest annual cell phone satisfaction survey, the author claims that independent data sug...

Sketchy Evidence of iPhone 3.1.3 and iPhone 4.0 OS

BoyGenius points to some sketchy evidence found in their browser logs that seems to suggest iPhone OS 3.1.3 and 4.0 are being used in the wild.


The reason we label this as "sketchy" is that the ability to fake user agents is ...

Best of Smartphone Experts, 13 Dec 2009

As we bring you the best of SPE for the past week, don’t forget that starting Monday, we’ll be starting the Smartphone Round Robin in earnest – with new hands-on videos on six sites. If you haven’t already, go ahead a take a listen to our kick-off podcast hosted by The Cell Phone Junkie and take a tour of the Smartphone Round Robin website, where you can learn how to enter to win one of six smartphones we’re giving away!

HTC’s 2010 Lineup Revealed Droid Eric to get Android 2.0 in 2010, as will Hero and Moment on Sprint Nexus One, Google Phone, Makes its sneaky debut	Holiday Gift Guides for the BlackBerry User in Your Life Win a Custom-Painted BlackBerry Bold 9700 in the CrackBerry ColorWare Holiday Contest! Review: Nimbuzz Free All-in-One IM Client for BlackBerry Smartphones
Nokia N97 Review Nokia Closing US Flagship Stores Official Skype Client hits Symbian Devices	FourSquare Coming to webOS AT&T-Branded Pixi Spotted in the Wild Pixi with Wifi for Verizon passes FCC
Rumor: Foxconn Receives Order for 4th Generation iPhone as iPhone 4.0 Gets Spotted in Server Logs! Apple Hires iPhone Video Gaming Group, Counter-Sues Nokia and Buys Lala Music Out From Under Google Is AT&T to Blame for Poor iPhone Experience and Is Non-Exclusivity the Answer?	Review of the HTC Imagio on Verizon Hands-on with the HTC HD2 Skyfire upgraded to version 1.5, and we go hands-on

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Best of Smartphone Experts, 13 Dec 2009

iPhone 3.1.3 and iPhone 4.0 Discovered in Server Logs

Boy Genius took a look at his server logs and found somethings (plural!) very interesting — entries for both iPhone 3.1.3 and… iPhone 4.0!

iPhone 3.1.3 would denote a minor fix to iPhone 3.1 (currently at iPhone 3.1.2), and could drop any time. iPhone 4.0, if Apple keeps to their previous schedule, would get a Sneak Peak event in March, followed by a beta period for developers, and a public release in June or July to coincide with 4th generation iPhone hardware (also already caught in server logs).

No signs, of course, of the still missing-in-action iPhone 3.2. (Where are you?)

(Thanks Dylan for the tip!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 3.1.3 and iPhone 4.0 Discovered in Server Logs

Quick App: ESPN ScoreCenter

One of Phil Schiller’s favorite iPhone apps, ESPN ScoreCenter, [iTunes Link] just got that much better with the addition of push notifications. Even better you get the ESPN SportsCenter jingle as your notification sound.

With ESPN ScoreCenter you get real-time scores, live game details, game summaries and stats for 9 major sports including the following: MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, Soccer, NCAA Football and Basketball, NASCAR, Golf, and Tennis.

The only major sport that I wish was included is mixed martial arts coverage. That would make this app absolutely unreal. Life goes on and at the end of the day, with push notifications, this is the best sports app to get your up to the minute sports information and best yet, it’s free!

One more image after the break!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick App: ESPN ScoreCenter

TomTom Launches US-Only iPhone App For $49.99

Strand Consult to iPhone users: You’re delusional and a big, fat liar too

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, iPhone

In a report that is sure to bring cheer to legions of Verizon Droid owners, Strand Consult is saying that all of us who have purchased iPhones are delusional liars.

CNET's Chris Matyszczyk reported in his Technically Incorrect column that the Danish marketing consultants posted an article titled "How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?" Among other things, the article describes the similarity between iPhone users defending their (according to Strand) deficient smartphones and the psychological condition known as the Stockholm Syndrome. The latter has been used to describe how hostages often begin believing and defending their captors. Unswitchable Microsoft fans have also been accused of Stockholm Syndrome.

Yep, we're all delusional, and Strand Consult offers "proof" of how we've all been taken in by Apple by listing 20 deficiencies of the iPhone platform (most of which, by the way, are no longer valid). The company even goes so far as to say:

In reality the iPhone is surrounded by a multitude of people, media and companies that are happy to bend the truth to defend the product they have purchased from Apple.

Not only are we all delusional wackos, but we're also liars! Strand wittily created a name for our disease -- The iPhone Syndrome -- and is glad to share this with everyone in a free report. Of course, you have to register to get the report, which most likely puts you on a marketing email list. The following quote may provide some insight into the potential customers they're hoping to reach with this report.

if you are one of the many other phone manufacturers: Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, HTC etc., you will most probably be very envious of the euphoria that Apple has invoked in their customers.

I'm glad to be part of the Crazy Ones that Apple celebrated in the Think Different ad campaign. How about you? Do you think that we're all unable to see that the Emperor has no clothes, or is this report an insult? Do we completely disregard the mobile industry's rush to imitate various elements of the iPhone, including the App Store? State your opinion in the comments.

[via CNET]

Strand Consult to iPhone users: You're delusional and a big, fat liar too originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Strand Consult to iPhone users: You're delusional and a big, fat liar too originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Google Phone: A Faster, Prettier And Unlocked iPhone - Launching Next Month

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy that deals with dysfunctional emotions and feelings in a structured manner usually involving journaling, and reflecting on your journaled thoughts. The idea is to discover incorrect thinking and emotions. It has been found to be effective in quite a number of disorders including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and OCD.

CBTReferee [iTunes Link] $4.99US, was written by Andrew Arrow to assist in his personal therapist-directed CBT. Finding himself always needing to carry around a notebook, since negative thoughts and feelings happen at random, he built quite a simple app for his own use. Finding it personally effective, he decided to put it in the app store, not really knowing if it would be useful for others. Feedback he received convinced him otherwise.

The app contains a brief description of CBT and clear instruction on how to properly utilize the app. It's just enough information to get started, and doesn't bog down in theory, so you can get up to speed quickly.

When a negative thought occurs, the app directs you to write it down immediately. Once done, tapping the next button takes you through a screen of ten potential fallacies inherent in your entry. Some of these include: Nothing or All (black and white thinking where one small flaw kills an entire concept), Conclusion Jumping (assuming facts that don't' exist), Emotions as Evidence (assuming that if you feel a certain way, it must be true), and many others.

With the journaled text visible, scroll through the list and check any of the options that you think may apply to your statement. Next, you are presented with a type-in screen titled:
Referee Says, where, based on your statement and the options you have chosen, you try to write as objective an assessment as possible, to negate the statement.

Continue reading Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in your pocket with the CBTReferee app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

App Store Bugs: App Updates Downloading Over and Over and Over Again

There appears to be a bug on Apple’s iTunes App Store that’s causing apps to show up as having updates available even after they’ve been downloaded over and over again. We’ve gotten quiet a few readers writing in about it now, and there’s the usual huge thread up on Apple’s discussion boards.

Here’s what it looks like — the App Store on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iTunes on your PC tells you you have an update for an app. You tap or click to update, enter your iTunes password, and the app downloads — but it still shows the app in the update list. You tap or click update again, it downloads again, but again still shows the app in the update list. Or worse (as happened to me a few weeks ago), iTunes pops up a Checking for Available Downloads dialog then proceeds to try, over and over again, for days, to download 1.3GB of turn-by-turn navigation app update.

Of course, the problem seems intermittent and random — different users experiencing the it with different apps at different times. It’s also unclear if everyone is having the same problem. For some, Apple’s iTunes app servers may not be properly providing the updated app file and so the new version is not successfully getting installed on the device. For others, the file might be getting installed but iTunes doesn’t recognize or register it so keeps offering the same update.

Possible solutions include rebooting your iPhone or restarting iTunes on your PC, or just waiting and trying again in a day or so. On rare occasions it looks like it takes a few days to sort itself out, which for small apps isn’t a show-stopper for those 1GB apps (or large games), it can be untenable, especially for people in countries with tight data caps on their home internet.

Some developers are hearing enough feedback on this that they’re contacting Apple in hopes of some server-side fixing (see image of Twitter conversation above). We’re hoping for some as well.

If you’re having this problem, let us know in the comments, and let us know what (if anything) is fixing it for you.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

App Store Bugs: App Updates Downloading Over and Over and Over Again

So in 2007 if Apple Slapped a Logo on an HTC Excalibur, it Would That Have Been “the iPhone”?

Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s a fanboy thing; maybe it’s my desire to impose yet more text on screen about this, but when I say people calling an HTC HD2/Dragon/Passion device absent HTC branding “THE Google Phone” (now officially caught on camera, see above), but I can’t help but think that if we go back to 2007 and Steve Jobs had taken the stage at Macworld and pulled out an HTC Excalibur with Apple branding on, even if it had an Apple OS, it wouldn’t have been “THE iPhone” and it certainly isn’t what Apple did or what we as consumers got.

“This changes everything” say many blogs. Certainly, for Google’s Android partners, competing against the Google brand, and bank, and engineering team changes a lot. And if they sell it unlocked (assuming they put a radio in it that can support all 4 US carriers, including both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G, and Verizon and Sprint EVDO) it will change things for the carriers, and for users who are accustomed to paying subsidized prices.

Before Apple released the original iPhone in 2007 there was talk (read: hope) of Apple releasing it unlocked, and talk (read: more hope) again with the iPhone 3G. (TiPb even predicted that as WWDC 2008’s “one more thing” — and boy were we wrong). It sounds great and we gadget geeks love it, but the truth is unlocked devices coast $700+, as anyone currently trying to import an HTC HD2 or Xperia X10 are no doubt aware.

The iPhone became a phenomenon when it hit $199 and a bigger one when it hit $99 through heavy carrier subsidies. Next June/July when another iPhone comes along, current owners will again be livid if AT&T doesn’t cut them a break on costs, even if they haven’ fulfilled their own end of the 2 year contract again. Google could possibly try to self-subsidize with the intent on making back the money via advertising (or online services, though they traditionally give those away for free in exchange for the aforementioned ad revenue), and that really would “change everything” if it worked. (Hey, TiPb’s joked Google should just give free cell service to everyone in the US. Then it’s game over.)

This might be a great phone. It might be the best smartphone to date. But for an end user, how will it be different than if HTC simply released the Dragon/Passion/HD2 running Android 2.1? It’s even identifying itself as Nexus One for Blade Runner’s sake.

So, unless the above is just an HTC shell for as-yet-unrevealed and totally redesigned-by-Google hardware (or Google just buys HTC like they’re buying everything else), it might well be a Google-branded phone, but it’s not “THE Google Phone”, at least not in the way the iPhone was and is Apple’s.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

So in 2007 if Apple Slapped a Logo on an HTC Excalibur, it Would That Have Been “the iPhone”?

Defects In iPhone to Blame for AT&T Network Woes?