Filed under: iPhone
Apple's antenna woes continue with unabated fury today.
Bloomberg news is reporting that Apple's senior antenna guru raised concerns about the antenna design planned for the iPhone, and allegedly told Steve Jobs that design could lead to dropped calls.
The engineer, says Bloomberg, is Ruben Caballero according to a source cited tin the article. It's also reported one of Apple's carrier partners also questioned the performance of the antenna design.
Apple has declined to comment on the report, and Caballero isn't responding to calls and emails. He might be busy checking those Silicon Valley help wanted posts. A quick check shows a Ruben Caballero of San Jose has several
patent applications for antenna designs, including one that is a design for a "handheld electronic device with conductive bezels." Sounds familiar. The
Linkedin site lists Caballero as a Senior Director, iPhone/iPod at Apple. He's been there since 2005.
It's not unusual for a design team to have differences of opinion on technical matters. I've been through a few of those meetings myself. In light of the current storm of controversy over the iPhone design, those conversations take on added importance.
You can bet Steve Jobs will be asked about all this at the
news conference tomorrow at Apple headquarters.
Uh oh! Apple engineer reportedly warned company about iPhone antenna design originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Uh oh! Apple engineer reportedly warned company about iPhone antenna design originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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TheStreet reports on new research from Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar claiming that Apple has developed an internal insulator to isolate the iPhone 4's antenna connection that has been causing signal ...
Announcing that Hobbyist Software, the developers of iBrowse, has released the latest update for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. The iBrowse app is a beautiful browser, with visual flowing of tabs, bookmarks and history, private browsing and a new power search that takes users directly to a specific, commonly searched site. Users can also [...]
Filed under: iPhone
Consumer Reports, the same magazine that said earlier in the week that it couldn't recommend the iPhone 4 (even though it is their top-rated phone) because of the antenna issue, is now reporting that Apple's
Bumper fixes the problem.
tweetmeme_url='http://www.tuaw.com/2010/07/15/consumer-reports-apples-bumper-fixes-iphone-4-antenna-issue/';tweetmeme_source='tuaw';
The organization's report stated that "With the Bumper fitted, we repeated the test procedure, placing a finger on the Bumper at the point at which it covers the gap below. The result was a negligible drop in signal strength - so slight that it would not have any effect, in our judgment." Consumer Reports went on to say that duct tape would also do the trick, and that in their opinion, any fix should be done at Apple's cost and should not come out of the consumer's wallet.
While this doesn't provide an answer for other reported problems such as the "
proximity sensor issue" or the "
Bluetooth headset issue," it does lend some strength to speculation that Apple could announce a giveaway of Bumpers to all iPhone 4 owners at tomorrow's press conference. An offer of a free Bumper to every iPhone 4 owner would be a much less expensive solution to the antenna issue than a full-scale recall of the devices.
[via
MacObserver]
Consumer Reports: Apple's Bumper fixes iPhone 4 antenna issue originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Consumer Reports: Apple's Bumper fixes iPhone 4 antenna issue originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We've been assuming that the next iPod touch will get in on Apple's
FaceTime video-calling action, but the open question has been how calls will actually be initiated without phone numbers, and BGR's saying it has the scoop: it's going to be based on email addresses. Registering an email address with the touch and FaceTime will let people videocall you using that address, but apparently calling an iPhone user will still involve knowing their phone number, which is a little odd -- but BGR believes the email-based system will extended to the phone eventually as well. It all sounds plausible enough, but we'll wait and see --
we've been burned waiting for Apple to
add a camera to the touch before, after all.
iPod touch FaceTime calling to be based on email addresses? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As if we needed any more drama in this situation,
Bloomberg has someone "familiar with the matter" that claims Apple's own antenna expert, Ruben Caballero, told Apple management that the iPhone 4 antenna design could cause reception problems, dropped calls, and a serious engineering challenge. Caballero is a senior engineer for Apple with a large quantity of antenna patents under his belt, and while we certainly don't know the whole story -- perhaps his claims were somehow quelled by Apple's own testing -- it certainly adds a twist to this story if Steve Jobs and co. had been alerted to this
very real problem during the design phase. The
Bloomberg article also claims, from a different source, no less, that a carrier partner also raised antenna concerns before the release. Apple and Caballero naturally did not comment on this report. We're not really sure about the real-world implications of all this behind-the-scenes drama, but we suppose we'll see what Apple has to say for itself
tomorrow.
Bloomberg: Apple engineer was concerned about iPhone 4 antenna early on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Research firms Gartner and IDC yesterday both released preliminary reports detailing U.S. and worldwide PC shipments for the second quarter of 2010, with both firms showing sales growth of Apple's Mac product outpacing that of the industry as a whole...
Bloomberg reports that Apple senior engineer and antenna expert Ruben Caballero expressed his concerns to CEO Steve Jobs early in the iPhone 4's design process over the device's antenna design.
Apple Inc.'s senior antenna expe...
Boy Genius Report claims to have received information from the new iOS 4.1 beta partially revealing how FaceTime might work with future front camera-enabled iPad and iPod touch devices. While those devices have been presumed to gain FaceTime...
Filed under: iPhone, iPad
Millennial Media has a new report (out this morning) that they sent along, and it's got some interesting research, based on their advertising network, about Apple and its place in the smartphone market. As you can see above, Apple's still got the majority base of OS users in the smartphone market; while we've heard that
Android has pulled ahead in sales, this research shows that Apple has a clear majority in terms of actual OS usage.
Android did, however, see an increase in the number of devoted, single-platform developers. Currently, 31% of single-platform devs are working on Android (an increase of 2%) and 57% are creating apps for the iPhone. Games remain the number one app category on the network, while social networking apps are down and news and sports apps are up.
Finally, Millennial is seeing a huge spike in ad requests. Apple ad requests jumped up 36% month-over-month, and iPad ad requests alone blew up 205% month-over-month in June. Both Android and RIM saw big ad request increases as well, suggesting that more developers are learning how to successfully use ads in their apps.
Millennial Media report has Apple with 56% of smartphone market, ad requests up big time originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Millennial Media report has Apple with 56% of smartphone market, ad requests up big time originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: iPhone, App Store
Helsing's Fire is an interesting little title with a pretty original gameplay premise. The idea is that you place torches in an area full of objects and walls, and you have to target or hide certain creatures with that light. The backstory of the game is about the adventurer Van Helsing and his fight against the undead, but it's more of a strategy title; the idea is to line up the light and shadows in just the right way in order to conquer various monsters on the playing field.
It's pretty original. While it doesn't start out very tough, more gameplay features slowly get added (eventually you have to match color attacks with certain colored monsters, and you only get a set number of attacks per stage, so you have to plan things out pretty carefully). And while the backstory is really just a frame for the gameplay, it's got a fun edge to it; it's a nice satirical spin on the old "fighting Dracula" theme, and there are a few fun celebratory fist bumps in between stages with Helsing and his assistant.
For 99 cents,
Helsing's Fire offers up a good bit of original gameplay that spans 90 different levels. A survival mode and full Crystal integration add some extra fun as well, so the game is well worth the buck.
TUAW's Daily App: Helsing's Fire originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
TUAW's Daily App: Helsing's Fire originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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iPhoneHellas.gr is claiming they’ve heard Apple will release iOS 4 later today. They’ve gotten that kind of stuff right before, and Apple does have an iPhone 4 press conference scheduled for tomorrow, so the timing would make some sense. iOS 4.0.1 being released would mean the changes to the way bars are shown and reported in the developer beta for iOS 4.1 would be public and could be stated as such by Apple.
It would be a couple weeks earlier than Apple’s usual end of July/beginning of August iOS x.0.1 update cycle, but likely welcome by those suffering proximity sensor issues and other iOS 4 bugs.
Ping us if you’re iTunes catches an update.
[iPhoneHellas.gr via MacRumors]
Rumor: iOS 4.0.1 coming today? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.
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