News tagged ‘iPhone 3G’

Recently tech journalist Stephen Fenech wrote an interesting iPhone 4 review for Australian Daily Telegraph. Besides saying that iPhone 4 is "a massive jump" in the smartphone industry, Fenech also tried to reproduce the antenna issue. To make sure his results are correct he used his phone on 6 different Australian carriers - Optus, Telstra, Vodafone and 3 other networks in different parts of Sydney. Here is his conclusion:

"I tried the 'death grip' on the bottom left while making test calls in areas I knew to have weaker reception and the times I did manage to reduce the signal bars... my calls were still not affected. The worst thing that happened was a web page I was loading timed out but after refreshing it came up fine. I even managed to watch a YouTube video over 3G while in the 'death grip.'"

Fenech also added that the "death grip" is unnatural and iPhone 4 call quality was significantly improved in comparison to iPhone 3GS.

After using two iPhones 4 for six weeks Wall Mossberg finally reviewed the newest Apple’s handset.

So, one phone was obtained by Mossberg personally, while the second was provided by Apple. Walt found that iPhone 4 works better than iPhone 3GS in those areas where there is a "strong AT&T coverage", but when it comes to weak coverage areas iPhone 3GS performs better, because it drops less calls and 'no service' status can be seen rarer. That became a reason for Mossberg to not recommend iPhone 4 with its limited AT&T data plans to people who "live, work or travel" in areas with poor reception signal.

Walt also found that the 'death-grip' issue is not a problem as it causes signal bars to fluctuate only and even to rise in some cases.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple started to investigate the compatibility problems of iOS4 and iPhone 3G. The company's spokesman explained that such a decision was made because of numerous user reports, which reveal that after installing iOS4 on iPhone 3G the latter started to work more slowly, became overheated and its battery life had significantly decreased.

Some people are annoyed and disappointed because of the situation:

“This phone has gone from being a dream to constantly annoying me. Not a way to make friends. I would upgrade to an iPhone4, but I’m feeling pretty angry that Apple has forced my hand by making my 3G unusable”.

iOS4 version for iPhone 3G does not support multitasking and Bluetooth keyboards, which was disabled because of RAM requirements, according to Apple.

iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G work a bit slow with iOS 4. The video below shows a nice trick that will put the speed back in your device. You need to go do Settings and deselect Spotlight.

On iPod Touch 2G go to Settings - General - Home Button - Spotlight Search. On iPhone 3G go to Settings - General - Spotlight Search. Then uncheck all the searches that you don't use. This will increase the speed of your device.

This also works on iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, however the speed increase is very small there.

Watch the video:

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MuscleNerd tweeted today that the recent redsn0w utility is able to jailbreak the iOS 4.1 beta2 on iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. This is useful for developers only, however good news for everyone.

Here's some info from the DevTeam wiki page:

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Apple’s iPhone 4 handset is scheduled to hit Canadian stores this Friday. According to a recent report by CBC, Canadian customers will have the option of buying the phone unlocked, directly from Apple:

Unlocked iPhone 4 is not going to be cheap.

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Here is an interesting video demonstrating an iPhone speed test across all four generations of the smartphone (iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4).

It’s fantastic to see how far the speed of the iPhone has advanced. As you’d expect, the iPhone 4 is obviously the fastest, closely followed by the iPhone 3GS. Interestingly, the difference between the 3GS and 3G is pretty big, as is the difference between the iPhone 3G and the first-gen handset.

Watch the video:

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This week developers started receiving Microsoft’s test units, which will allow them to test the performance of their apps for WP7 instead of using an emulator. The test smartphones are produced by Samsung and LG and have a Technical Preview version of Windows Phone 7, and guys at NewsGeek decided to compare its browser speed with iPhone 3GS' that runs on iOS 4.

Since the difference in speed is so huge it is noted that both of the phones used 3G network (not Wi-Fi) and iPhone 3GS is a completely finished product, while Samsung's test unit is a prototype with an unfinished OS that is still in development.

Newsgeek also found Internet Explorer in the Windows Phone 7 to be "surprisingly competent and quick" though it was mostly built off of IE7's desktop version.

Today Skype released a new version with support of multitasking (iTunes link).

What's New In Version 2.0.1

- Run Skype in the background with multitasking in iOS4.
Receive Skype calls and IM while other apps are running or when your iPhone is locked. You can also continue your call while you switch to another application.
Multitasking is available only with iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

There is no official jailbreak utility for iOS 4.0.1. However you can still jailbreak and unlock iPhone 3G. Just do the following:

• Download the latest RedSn0w 0.9.5-b5 in our utilities page here.
• Download firmware images for iOS 4.0 here.
• Run RedSn0w and point it at the 4.0 IPSW. (Yes – point it at the 4.0 IPSW even though you're at 4.0.1). This will also hacktivate your iPhone3G at 4.0.1 if you haven't already been activated by iTunes.
• Install ultrasn0w in Cydia (add repository http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com) if you need a carrier unlock (and in the USA, remember to turn off 3G mode in Settings→General→Network).

Yesterday Steve Jobs told many interesting facts about antenna issues and iPhone 4. Those who doesn't want to watch the video from the event here, you can study the next list:

• Over 3M iPhones 4 were sold since its release three weeks ago;
• The antenna issue can be reproduced on any other phone. The details can be found here;
• Apple has special testing rooms, which cost it $ 100 million. You can learn more about it on Apple's new webpage here;
• Only 0.55% of all iPhone 4 users complain on antenna issue;
• AT&T return rate with the iPhone 3GS was 6.0%, with the iPhone 4 - 1,7%;
• The proximity sensor problem will be fixed in the next update;
• White iPhone will be shipped at the end of July;
• On July 30th iPhone sales will be launched in 17 more countries.

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Apple has just released iOS 4.0.1 for iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. The free update fixes the issue with signal indication - the math formula to display the iPhone's service signal bars. Official changelog for iOS 4.0.1:

• Improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display

The updates for the iPad OS 3.2.1 are:

• Improved Wi-Fi connectivity
• Fixed an issue that could prevent copy and paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
• Addressed an issue that could cause video playback to freeze
• Improved reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
• Added Bing as an option for Safari's search field

You can get the update right now via these links:

• iPhone 4 - 4.0.1
• iPhone 3GS - 4.0.1
• iPhone 3G - 4.0.1
• iPad - 3.2.1

Here is a screenshot of the new signal bars:

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According to The Wall Street Journal, last week Chinese Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center approved Wi-Fi enabled iPhone to be put on sale soon in China. The problem is that on the accompanying picture it is clearly seen that the approved device is the iPhone 3G or 3GS, but certainly not the iPhone 4.

Apple’s smartphone went on sale last year, but it was Wi-Fi disabled because technology's standard was temporarily banned by the Chinese government. In May 2009 the ban was relaxed.

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You do not need high budget DSLR camera. You can make great pictures with almost anything, even Olympus.. even iPhone 3GS. Lee Morris performed a high-end fashion shoot, complete with sylists, make-up artists, and others. And all the images were captured with an iPhone 3GS.

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MuscleNerd, famous hacker from DevTeam, has announced via Twitter that an upcoming comex release will jailbreak all 4.0 devices. This will include latest iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, new iPod Touch and iPad.

jailbreak for all devices at 4.0 is already handled by upcoming @comex release so, good time for iphone4 unlock stuff

Comex is also well-known, he authored the 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 jailbreak called Spirit. He's also recently demonstrated Frash, an upcoming release of Flash for the iPhone and iPad.