Firmware version 2.1. It is supposed to display “more accurate” signal strength. Well... it appears that “more accurate” may mean “unreasonably generous.”
Users can actually see the results of iPhones dB meter. Dial *3001#12345#* then press “Call”. A dB reading below 50 generally indicates good strength.
Here's what I've got:
iPhone Atlas reader Michael did some testing, and found that widely varying dB readings resulted in the same five-bar signal indicator on his iPhone. He writes:
According to the South China Morning Post, the carrier wants Apple to supply a custom version of the iPhone which disables both W-CDMA (3G) and Wi-Fi. China Mobile doesn't yet have a 3G network in place and is afraid that customers will buy the iPhone and unlock it for use on more capable networks. This explains the lock-out for 3G, but killing the Wi-Fi is just spiteful.
Given that Apple ships an identical iPhone to every other world market, it's doubtful that China Mobile will get its way. But then, no other world market has a potential customer base of two billion people. If these functions are disabled, it will most likely be done in software.
New racing game got green light from Apple. This game will be avaliable in AppStore soon. Very good 3D graphics, wi-fi multiplayer and much more. Costs $7.99.
One of the major announcements during last week's media event was the return of NBC shows to the iTunes Store. NBC reportedly accounted for 40% of iTunes video sales prior to their removal late last year.
Hollywood Reporter reveals that over 1 million NBC iTunes downloads have been logged since the studio's return on September 9th. Some of those downloads may have been free HD episodes which are currently available from iTunes.
A list of all free HD iTunes episodes provided by TUAW include:
The devices that competed against the iPhone 3G were as follows: Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, Nintendo’s Wii Fit, and B&W’s Zeppelin iPod speakers. All of the products up for this honor were judged in categories including performance, design and value, as well as “cool factor”.
Several users have reported an issue in which GPS functionality and location services in general do not work properly after the update to iPhone OS 2.1. In most cases of the problem, location service crosshairs appear, but the tracking blue dot (indicative of GPS) never appears.
As described by Apple Discussions poster hitchsaid:
“Both my brother and I have iphones and we both updated to 2.1 and the GPS on both our phones were working fine prior to 2.1 Now all we get are the crosshairs- the blue dot is nowhere to be seen. I have tried all the recommendations sitting outside for 20min, 3G off, airplane mode on/off, soft reset, location services on….wi-fi on, bluetooth off…. but nothing seems to make it work again….what is really bugging me is that it was working fine before the update.”
The fix for this issue, for many users, is to navigate to Settings > General > Reset and choose Reset All Settings.
CopierciN is a cool app that implements some copy / paste functionality. It’s in the beta stages but has potential. It lets you import and export between apps like notes, sms, email. Avaliable via Cydia Installer for 2.x firmares.
CopieriN is a basic text editor which, hopefully, bring some kind of copy/paste mechanism to iPhone (to jailbroken ones only, unfortunately). It does not add copy/paste functionality directly to other applications but it provides a mechanism to import text from and export text to SMS, Notes, Mail applications (more to come in the future) and files in the filesystem.
Usage: It basically has two parts: Text Editor and Importer/Exporter. Within the text editor, you can select a piece of text using your finger, cut or copy it, and paste it to a selected location.
Dev Team released QuickPwn and PwnageTool for firmware 2.1 (2g firmware, 3g firmware). It doesn't work with new iPod yet. Mac OS versions only for now.
Theiphoneblog just published first screenshots of the new iPhones firmware 2.1.
Running 2.1 (5F136) now, and here’s what we’re noticing: WiFi works fine (tried on Apple and Linksys routers). New icons for connection type (3G/Edge) in the top bar. New blue filled and half-filled dots to describe state of video and podcasts (watched/listened to). Genius Playlists don’t seem to work as well as iTunes 8, at least for me, with lots of songs coming back as “not related”.