Tag Archive for Apple

When is an iPhone 4 not a phone?

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 iPhone, Tech, Tips 2 comments

A: When you’re left handed.

Surprisingly there is one big complaint about the new iPhone 4. If you make a call with the phone in your left hand you might not receive a cellular signal.

The redesign of the iPhone 4 moved the antenna to an external stainless steel band that wraps around the phone. A significant portion of this antenna band is on the left hand side of the phone. So when you hold the phone in your left hand, the flashy part of your palm below the thumb can significantly reduce or block the cellular signal needed to make a call.

How not to hold an iPhone 4

How not to hold an iPhone 4 (Credit: Apple / Screenshot by Scott Ard/CNET)

Interestingly, at June’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Steve Jobs praised this antenna redesign as “brilliant engineering” and commented that it has never been done before. In a report on iPhone 4 signal issuesby cnet news’s Scott Ard mentions “some other companies may have considered a similar solution but backed off due to the attenuation caused when a person’s hand ‘covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band,’ as Apple put it”

He also points out that during Jobs’s demonstration he used WiFi instead of the AT&T cellular network. The Wifi signal portion of the antenna is higher up on the band, and less likely to be covered by your hand or fingers. Steve Jobs, himself, has a tendency to hold the iPhone in his left hand, so he may very well have been aware of the reception issue that would cause.

Now that word of the reception problem is spreading, word has it Apple suggests “not holding the phone in your left hand to make a call”. Or to use a case or bumpers that lift your hand off the edge of the phone. The bumpers from Apple cost $29. maybe Apple should send them out for free to iPhone 4 owners.

For more information on the signal reception problem with the iPhone 4see this report at AppleInsider.com.

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HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One C309 conflicts with iPod

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 iPod, Printers, routers, Tech, Tips 7 comments

Hello, folks! Hope you had a great weekend. I’m getting better, too.

So last week I mentioned I had been helping a client with a HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One C309 printericon that was causing trouble with his iPods. The client had just replaced a printer in their home office, but now when they attached their iPods to synchronize their music they were alerted that the device was not recognized. They suspected they had done something wrong when installing the printer, so they reinstalled it, updated their iTunes software, but still no luck with their iPods.

After a little research and double-checking I had learned that there were other reported cases of an iPod not being recognized after a HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One C309 printericon had been added to the computer system. So I unplugged the printer, connected the iPod, and lo and behold the iPod was recognized once more.

No one wants to have to remember to unplug their printer to access their iPods. And no one wants to have to rememeber they disconnected their printer before they go to print something.

What to do?

Fortunately, the HP Photosmart C309 printericon comes equipped with WIFI (wireless capability). Furthermore, the client had a wireless router in their office as well. The HP C309 also works with a wired network connection, which I would preferred to use, but they didn’t have a spare network cable.

So I configured the HP C309 to access the wireless network using the instruction provided in the owners manual for the printer. The C309 supports WEP and encryption tools for a secure wireless link. Furthermore their router accepts MAC filtering (the unique identifier tag associated with any wireless capable device) to restrict which devices are allowed to access the network. Their PC is wired to the router, otherwise I could have set the PC to connect wirelessly to the printer without goin g through the router.

A few minutes later the printer was wirelessly online with the network, and the iPods could be relied upon to be recognized once more when attached via USB.

I know there are more people out there experiencing this problem. I hope this article helps you out. If anyone has discovered other solutions to this problem, let me know.

If you’re interested in learning more about the products in this article, click the images and text links for more information.

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New iPod Nano Shoots Video and plays FM Radio

Thursday, September 10, 2009 Apple, Retail No comments

I thought this was pretty amazing, but the new iPod Nano (5th Generation) has a video camera in it. Yep, the new nano shoots video. Now, if you’ve seen the Nano, you know that it’s just a little bit bigger than a lighter. Imagine a video camera the size of a lighter.

That’s kind of amazing. Right?

And as you can see, it’s available at MacMall.com, the Apple Superstore.

Shameless plugs aside, let’s look take a closer look at the iPod nano.

The back of the new iPod Nano has a camera lens, and next to the camera lens there’s a pinhole. A pinhole microphone, that is. So you can shoot video with sound, too.

Three years ago, I bought a 2nd Generation iPod Nano, and I still use it to this day. Back then, $199 got you 8 GB of storage space for holding about 2,000 songs. The 2nd Gen iPod Nano didn’t play video. That was a bit of downer for me at the time, but I’ve lived with it.

nano-videoHere we are 3 years later and the Nano hasn’t gotten any bigger, and now it plays video, and it records video.

What’s more than that? It plays FM radio now with a built-in FM tuner, and you can even pause the radio while you’re listening to a station. Think of it as Tivo for radio in an iPod. Apple calls this Live Pause. The radio is recorded onto the iPod, so you can pause a song while you listen. While the song is paused the station is recorded to the Nano’s flash drive.

nano-radioNow my 3 year old iPod Nano only held 2,000 or 8 GB worth of music (no video) and it set me back $200, but now for just $179 you can get 16 GB of storage for 4,000 songs or 16 HOURS of video.

Now, that is amazing. I’m sold.

Head over to MacMall.com, the Apple Superstore, and get your iPod Nano, now. There’s an 8GB model for $149 and the 16GB model for $179. You can also get a Free Altec lansing Portable iPod/iPhone speaker (a $39 value) with it. There’s also an option to get free engraving and a free charger. You pay for the engraving and charger now, but you get your money back from a rebate later.

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