In case you have not heard, no the bird is not the word, no really if you haven’t heard: You can jailbreak you iOS4.0 and iOS4.0.1 iDevices more easily than ever. How? Simple as going to: jailbreakme.com on your iDevice. This simple jailbreak operation seems to work flawlessly. This brings me back to the original jailbreak that was done via keeping the phone unactivated, opening an emergency call, typing a code, adding a contact and enabling the preferences, joining a wifi network, and then hitting the contacts website to go to, the very same site that we are using now! It’s funny how things seem to go back to where they started. Anyway this is simple and worked perfectly fine for my iPhone 4. Now that I am jailbroken, which was recently made LEGAL, although Apple never sued anyone who did jailbreak, we can customize our phones the way we went. There has only really been 1 problem and that is with Winterboard. If you don’t know, Winterboard is an app that is used to customize your theme, not everything is working correctly on the iPhone 4 since there has been some change to theme items names because of the HD retina display. Regardless, with my Elite Pro theme, my phone looks bad ass even though all of the customizations won’t kick in until Winterboard is updated. So to recap: if you want to jailbreak your wonderful phone to unlock its true power, go to jailbreakme.com on your device and jailbreak away.

The jailbreak is achieved using a recently found PDF security hole. Basically the site sends your phone a PDF with some code that allows the installation of Cydia. Now be careful when browsing sites that could have malicious code because the same path could be taken to put trojans or other baddies on your device. There is a jailbroken app called “PDF Loading Warner” which will stop a PDF from opening without your knowledge however, if you open it anyway, you could still get hit with something malicious.

Apple is aware of the issue and is rushing to release the next iOS version to fix the security flaw, so jump on this jailbreak while you still can! Although I am sure there will be another one for the next iOS as well. Either way like usual Enjoy!

iPhone Reception

Whether you have an iPhone or are looking to get what I am sure you have heard about the issues that early buyers seem to be having. Many people have posted videos demonstrating the “death grip” which can drop the phone from 5 bars to searching within seconds. I can not get my phone to do this. I have watched several videos and tried every grip yet no matter what I try I do not lose any signal. I have tried moistening my hands, using metal etc. Supposedly the issue is in the lower left corner where 2 bands are separated by a black strip. By touching both of these bands the antennas “short out” causing the loss of signal. If you read my earlier post you would know I did not get into the first batch of pre orders instead I ordered my iPhone on June 25th and received it July 9th. What this tells me is that the first batch of iPhones had a problem and were shipped anyway and the problem no longer exists for later batches of phones which also tells me that the problem most likely was occurring in the manufacturing process (maybe that’s why we haven’t seen the white IPhone yet). Although this is pure speculation on my part I feel it has a decent foundation.

Proximity Sensor

Another common issue seems to come from the proximity sensor just not working. The sensor is supposed to detect your face when you are on a call so that the screen turns off and you don’t press buttons with your cheek. This problem also can’t be reproduced on my iPhone.

Apple seems to be getting a lot of bad rep and if they in fact did know of the issue then silently fixed it and blamed it on software but left many pre ordered iPhones with the problem then they deserve the bad rep. It also very convenient that with the release of the new iPhone their very own rubber case which insulates the antenna was also released. I am sure many users bought the case and may not have even realized they had a problem at all. Either way I am very satisfied with my own iPhone 4.

I just got my new iPhone 4 from FedEx a few days early and I am loving it. I need to sync with my Mac when I get home from work but I threw some apps on to get started. I am using WordPress’s app to write this post and should be posting some pictures and more review info in the next few days!! Enjoy

I usually do not buy expensive accessories for my iPhone aside from the occasional blue-tooth device which usually ends up lost, missing, or even thrown out. Generally I have been successful with getting a cheap case+screen protector from eBay and updating the case every few months. When I had my original iPhone First Generation I found an awesome little screen protector and body protector called Invisible Shield by ZAGG. The shield covered the entire body of the phone and was some what difficult to put on. With all of the curves on the original iPhone it was very hard to apply the shield correctly. The case did an awesome job of protecting the phone there was no scratches at all. After a short time I removed the case because with all of the curves the corners kept coming off making the case some what hard to use. When I ordered the iPhone 4 I also went to ZAGG and ordered the new iPhone 4 Invisible Shield.

iPhone 4 Design

The new design and shape of the iPhone 4 makes the invisble shield an awesome added protection. Since the new design has 2 glass sides, and 1 band around the outside there are no hard curves to apply the shield to. This should make the new invisible shield very very easy to put on the new phone from day 1 and keep my investment protected for a long time. Of course the shield won’t protect the bands but that is what bumpers or fat rubber bands can be used for. All in all so far I am glad I decided to try out the invisible shield again, especially since the only problem I had with the original was caused by the curvey phone design.

The Pricing

The Invisible Shield is very fairly priced for the amount of protection you get. Starting at $14.99 for individual front and back pieces or $24.99 for the full body protection you are getting a great deal of coverage for the cost lower than that of your average case.

You can check out ZAGG’s website here. They have shields for hundreds of different phones, computers, gps’s, and tons of other devices. They also have a bunch of videos showing the strength and durability of their shields, as well as how to apply the shield.

Enjoy and have fun protecting your awesome gadgets.

I was surprised when my fiancee told me she was getting me the iPhone 4 as my Father’s Day gift. She didn’t tell me this until after 6/15, which if she had told me before would have allowed me to pre-order on the 15th. Regardless I placed my “pre-order” on 6/21 with the information of  Ships By: 7/14 Delivered By: 7/15-19. I was very excited to see that my order shipped on 6/5 and the new delivery time seems to be 7/13 via FedEx. It sucks having to wait for something this exciting but I suppose the wait will make it all the more worth while. I haven’t upgraded my iPhone in 2 years, I do all of my development and testing on the iPhone 3g/iPod Touch. Well enough about me lets talk about the problems that have been reported so far.

Yellow Dots and Streaks on the Screen

The yellow dots and streaks have been reported by a number of people, the problem really isn’t that severe and just seems to be from the adhesive for the glass not fully setting. The solution is simple use the phone and after a day or so of screen activity the adhesive will fully set and you will no longer have streaks or yellow dots.

Reversed Volume Buttons

I haven’t seen much information on this except for the occasional picture. The pictures seem to show that some iPhone’s were shipping with the buttons swapped putting the “-” on top and “+” on the bottom. This of course causes the “-” button to turn the volume up and the “+” to lower the volume. Whether this is a real problem or hoax, it doesn’t seem to make that big of a difference, how many people actually look at the buttons when adjusting the volume? Put a case on and you can’t see them anyway. For people who can’t live with this “unique” blunder, which could be worth money later on, take it to an Apple store and get another phone!

Reception Issues / Signal Bars / Grip of Death

Well this problem definitely seems to be getting the most attention especially, with the strange response from Apple. Apple claims that the formula to determine the number of signal bars to display has been wrong since the original iPhone came out, making the phone display up to 2 more bars than there really is. Okay so you say the problem has existed since the first iPhone, fine, you say my signal is actually 2 bars less, fine, but how does this have anything to do with losing signal this only describes the fact that the software displays two bars more than it should. The problem Apple seems to be focusing on would be the signal quality since the grip of death drops your bars all the way down. So is Apple saying that the software is wrongly displaying 5 bars, but when you change the way you hold the phone it changes the formula to display the actual 1 bar that you have always had? I don’t think so. On the other hand most of these popular youtube videos show the user losing all signal by using the grip of death, only one place actually did the test while on a call and guess what? The call would not drop or reduce quality no matter what the bars said / how he held the phone. I think this problem is some kind of software glitch that should be fixed in the next couple of weeks and is not that big of a deal, or at least not as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be.

Lack of Supply

This has been one of the biggest disappointments and it seems like the disappointment could have been avoided. While selling 600,000 units in 1 day is quite a feat, actually that is 10x more than the 3GS launch. That being said why not stockpile the devices? Maybe there were development delays and they didn’t completely finish the iPhone until a few months before the release, if that is the case why not push the release back further to better accommodate demand? From a marketing POV they have done a great job of driving hype, but what happens when they over hype? If the product doesn’t live up to the hype then demand will fall and the supply will rise. If on the other hand the device does live up to its hype (which it seems to have for most people) then demand will increase and supply will continue to decrease, causing demand to increase even more since the device is so scarce and hard to get a hold of. Well most of this is my own theory and could be completely wrong but, why not just delay the release until they had adequate supply? My guess is they wanted to continue the annual tradition around the same time each year.

Price of the Bumpers

Well what did you expect? Apple put their name on the bumpers of course they are going to be $29. A few people have but the Lance Armstrong – Live Strong wrist bands to good use and say that with a small incision in the wrist band you can actually wrap the band around the outside of the phone and still have access to the dock and speakers. So spend your $29 because Apple told you to, or spend $1 and have a nice DIY bumper for your iPhone. Oh and if you happen to buy a breast cancer band, congrats you are also helping charity at the same time!

Waiting for my New iPhone

Well some of the problems will have to wait until I can actually test them out my self. My phone is due to arrive on 7/13 and I plan on getting it all set up and registered as a developer phone. Once this is done I can do some more examination in the “existing” problems and see if I can find any more. So I will be posting a review of the iPhone with in the next 2-3 weeks and hopefully have some positive posts as well!

Do you have a problem I didn’t mention? or just want to chime in? Feel free to leave comments!

-Chris

There has been a lot of news about the leaking of the new iPhone 4G by Gizmodo. Gizmodo apparently paid between $5,000-$10,000 for this “prototype” iPhone. The story basically goes like this: Apple Software Engineer gets drunk at bar, and leaves the prototype hidden in an iPhone 3GS case. Someone finds the phone, tries to find its owner, then brings it home and tries to contact Apple. Apple does not respond, Gizmodo catches wind, and buys the device from the finder. The Apple employee reportedly still works for Apple, a month after all this has happened, Apple remotely killed the device, and sent a letter to Gizmodo asking that the device be returned. Is this proof that this device really is the iPhone 4g? Perhaps, but the story seems to have a lot of lucky coincidences that just don’t make much sense. Here is the Gizmodo story:

This Is Apple’s Next iPhone

You are looking at Apple’s next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It’s the real thing, and here are all the details.

While Apple may tinker with the final packaging and design of the final phone, it’s clear that the features in this lost-and-found next-generation iPhone are drastically new and drastically different from what came before. Here’s the detailed list of our findings:

What’s new

• Front-facing video chat camera
• Improved regular back-camera (the lens is quite noticeably larger than the iPhone 3GS)
• Camera flash
• Micro-SIM instead of standard SIM (like the iPad)
• Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×640 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.
• What looks to be a secondary mic for noise cancellation, at the top, next to the headphone jack
• Split buttons for volume
• Power, mute, and volume buttons are all metallic

What’s changed

• The back is entirely flat, made of either glass (more likely) or ceramic or shiny plastic in order for the cell signal to poke through. Tapping on the back makes a more hollow and higher pitched sound compared to tapping on the glass on the front/screen, but that could just be the orientation of components inside making for a different sound
• An aluminum border going completely around the outside
• Slightly smaller screen than the 3GS (but seemingly higher resolution)
• Everything is more squared off
• 3 grams heavier
• 16% Larger battery

• Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery

How it was lost

Here is a detailed account of how the phone was lost.

Why we think it’s definitely real

We’re as skeptical—if not more—than all of you. We get false tips all the time. But after playing with it for about a week—the overall quality feels exactly like a finished final Apple phone—and disassembling this unit, there is so much evidence stacked in its favor, that there’s very little possibility that it’s a fake. In fact, the possibility is almost none. Imagine someone having to use Apple components to design a functioning phone, from scratch, and then disseminating it to people around the world. Pretty much impossible. Here are the reasons, one by one.

It has been reported lost
Apple-connected John Gruber—from Daring Fireball—says that Apple has indeed lost a prototype iPhone and they want it back:

So I called around, and I now believe this is an actual unit from Apple — a unit Apple is very interested in getting back.

Obviously someone found it, and here it is.

The screen
While we couldn’t get it past the connect to iTunes screen for the reasons listed earlier, the USB cable on that screen was so high quality that it was impossible to discern individual pixels. We can’t tell you the exact resolution of this next-generation iPhone, but it’s much higher than the current iPhone 3GS.

The operating system
According to the person who found it, this iPhone was running iPhone OS 4.0 before the iPhone 4.0 announcement. The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it. We were unable to restore because each firmware is device specific—3GS firmware only loads on 3GS devices—and the there are no firmwares available for this unreleased phone. Which is another clue to its authenticity.

It is recognized as an iPhone
This iPhone behaves exactly like an iPhone does when connected to a computer, with the proper boot sequence and “connect to iTunes” restore functionality. Xcode and iTunes both see this as an iPhone. Mac OS X’s System Profiler also reports this as an iPhone in restore mode, which is a natural consequence of remotely wiping the phone, but report different product identifiers (both CPID and CPRV) than either the 3G or the 3GS.

It uses micro-sim

The fact that it uses a micro-sim is a clear indicator that this is a next-generation iPhone. No other cellphone uses this standard at this point in the US.The camouflage case
The case it came inside was a fully developed plastic case to house this phone to disguise it like a 3GS. This wasn’t just a normal case; it had all the proper new holes cut out for the new switches and ports and camera holes and camera flash. But it looks like something from Belkin or Case-Mate. It’s a perfect disguise.

The fact that it’s in the wild right now

Logic can also narrow down why this phone is this year’s iPhone, rather than next year’s model or one from the previous year’s, just because it was found in the wild right now. It makes no sense for Apple to be testing 2011′s model right now, in super finished form—they wouldn’t be nearly finished with it. The phone also can’t be last year’s test model, because last year’s model (based on the iPhone 3GS teardowns) components were way different. No micro-sim, much bigger logic board, no flash, no front camera, smaller battery and an inferior camera. That only leaves the 2010 model.The guts, the definitive proof

And finally, when we opened it up, we saw multiple components that were clearly labeled APPLE. And, because the components were fit extremely well and extremely conformed inside the case (obvious that it was designed FOR this case), it was evident that it was not just a 3G or a 3GS transplanted into another body. That probably wouldn’t even be possible, with the size constraints of the thinner device and larger battery.

The New Industrial Design

At first sight, this new iPhone’s industrial design seems so different from the previous two generations that it could be discarded as just a provisional case. Even while the finish is so perfect that it feels right out of the factory, some of the design language elements that are common to all Apple products are not there. Gone is the flushed screen glass against the metal rim. Gone is the single volume button, replaced by two separate ones. Gone is the seamless rim, and gone are the tapered, curved surfaces.

Despite that, however, this design is not a departure. Not when you frame it with the rest of the Apple product line. It’s all the contrary: This new iPhone gets back to the simplicity of the iMac and the iPad. In fact, you can argue that the current iPhone 3GS—with its shiny chrome rim and excessively curved back—is out of place compared to the hard edges and Dieter-Ramish utilitarianism of the iMac and the iPad. Next to the iPad, for example, the new iPhone makes sense. It has the same feeling, the same functional simplicity.

But why the black plastic back, instead of going with an unibody aluminum design? Why the two audio volume buttons? Why the seams? And why doesn’t the back have any curvature at all?

Why the plastic back?
The plastic back is the most obvious of the design choices. The iPad, with its all aluminum back, has seen its Wi-Fi reception radius reduced. The 3G version comes with a large patch on the top, probably big enough to provide with good reception. But the new tiny iPhone doesn’t have the luxury of space: It needs to provide as much signal as possible using a very small surface. I’m sure Jon Ive is dying to get rid of the plastic back, and go iPad-style all the way, but the wireless reception is the most important thing in a cellphone. A necessary aesthetical-functional trade-off.

Why separate volume buttons?
This new iPhone uses separate buttons for the volume instead of the single button that you can find in the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. It’s one of the factors that may indicate that this is a provisional case, until you think about one of the most requested features for Apple’s phone: A physical button for the camera. The new iPhone has a bigger sensor and a flash, which means that the camera function keeps gaining more weight. It’s only logical to think that Apple may have implemented this two-button approach to provide with a physical shutter button. It makes sense.

Why the seams?
The seams are perhaps the most surprising aspect of the new design. They don’t seem to respond to any aesthetic criteria and, in terms of function, we can’t adventure any explanation. But they don’t look bad. In fact, the whole effect seems good, like something you will find in a Braun product from the 70s.

It’s doubtful that the seams are arbitrary, however. Either they will disappear from the final product, or they have a function we can’t foresee at this time.

Why no tapering or curves?
As you will see in a future article, the new iPhone is so miniaturized and packed that there’s no room for the tapered, curved surfaces. Everything is as tight as it could get, with no space for anything but electronics.

The hardware specs

The phone measures 4.50 by 2.31 by 0.37 inches. It weighs 140 grams. The 3GS weighs 137 grams on a postal scale (and 135 on Apple’s official measurements). So, in comparison, it’s 3 grams heavier. The battery is 5.25 WHr at 3.7V, compared to the 3GS battery, which is 4.51 WHr at 3.7V. On the back of the phone, it said it was XX GB, but since we were unable to get the phone to a running state, we couldn’t see exactly how large it was.

How it feels

Freaking amazing. As a person who never really liked the round mound of a back in the 3GS, the sleeker, flatter, squarer design is super welcome. It feels sturdier than the 3GS, and much less plasticky. The metal buttons give it a heftier feel—less of a toy—than all previous generations. The closest analog to it would be the original iPhone, which is more square and heavy than its newer brothers.

It feels completely natural up to your face, and the fact that both the front and the back are glossy makes no difference on how well you can hold it without the phone slipping. And because it’s thinner, it feels even nicer in your pants.

What all this means

Apple has updated the exterior drastically different from the 3G and 3GS. That design is old, it felt out of place compared to the rest of their products and needed desperately to be killed. Now you have a thinner body, a much more pleasant form factor with no wasted space and lots of hard lines. But the design isn’t the most important part that’s changed.

They’ve delivered many of the features people have been waiting for—that damn front camera!—while at the same time upgrading everything else. Flash, better back camera, better battery life and another microphone for better voice clarity. People who bought the 3G two years ago and are now in the perfect position to upgrade and get a dramatically different, and better, phone. If confirmed this summer, and if it performs as we expect, this next-generation iPhone looks like a winner.

Much additional reporting and design analysis by Jesus Diaz. Rosa Golijan also contributed.

If you want to link to this article, here’s a YouTube video you can use to illustrate your post:

For iPhone OS 4 coverage: the hidden secret features, our hands on video, describing (and showing) how it is, and the best features overall.

And for more next-gen iPhone coverage: the rumored announcement date, AT&T blocking vacation days for iPhone launch and video and group chat code in the OS.

Camera gear and lenses courtesy Borrowlenses. Check them out if you need camera supplies but don’t want to own it forever.

Any media who wishes to get in contact with us should email ccmascari@gawker.com

Here is the direct link to the Gizmodo post.

One thing that strikes me as odd, there is no hardware specs really given by Gizmodo, a tech news site, no processor info, no memory, no screen information, nothing. Why would they pay to get their hands on this device, if they were not going to rip it apart and find out what was running under the hood? What do you think is this a PR stunt, did Gizmodo mess up? Post in the comments how you feel about this whole situation.

I made this little batch program to help at work. I figured that other people may have a use for it so here it is. It is used to look up IP addresses when you have a list of server/computer names. I used it on a list of about 200 servers and it took about 8 minutes, manually would have taken much longer.

You just run the batch file, and you can enter in a server name or ip address (I don’t know why you would want to lookup the ip of an ip…) and the batch returns the IP, or if it is not on the network, and also rights the name and ip out to a CSV (comma separated values) document that can be read by excel. If you have a txt file of server names (copy and paste the list from excel maybe?) then you feed the file to the batch program and it pings every server and returns the ip address and exports to the CSV file.

I spent a lot of time trying to find a way to automate the process of pinging a ton of servers. It was very hard to do from completely within excel so I just made the txt file from my server spread sheet and fed it into the batch program. I hope this is helpful to someone besides me, feel free to tweak it to your needs.

IP Finder

Well that is the program in all its glory. Enjoy!

My Dell XPS m1530 is up for sale on ebay! Check it out and happy bidding!!
eBay auction

I literally StumbledUpon this program (pun intended) when checking out Ben Nadels Blog (bennadel.com). So far the site has some bugs but works very well at building web site traffic.The web site is su.pr.

You have to sign up for an account but they are only approving a few per week, you can try this invitation code: “suprbeta” to see if you can get in. StumbleUpon has created a site that allows you to link your Facebook and Twitter accounts to this supr account. This is great to get your website out there, the best part is it creates small links for each of the posts you make, and then analyzes each url for number of clicks, followers, etc. This means you can track how many people are visiting your site from your facebook status or tweets, and also lets you see what articles people seem most interested in.

The best part about supr is that it lets you install a script on your website so that your website will have its own short links (ie. chrissheldrick.com/shortlink) which can be tracked and used to build your domain name. I have been using supr since last night and have already generated a decent number of hits but they have not been picked up by googles analytics.

Try to sign up for supr if you have your own website and want to increase traffic.

The official iPhone Dev-team jailbreak has been released. It is now called redsn0w and can be used on all iPhones except 3GS. The iPhone Dev Team have a great blog with precautions and information on their projects. Check out the redsn0w entry here. Official rules and instructions:

1. GOLDEN RULE: If you are using a 3G iPhone with yellowsn0w and rely on yellowsn0w to obtain cellular service, then you should NOT use redsn0w right now. Ultrasn0w (the 3G carrier unlock) is not included with this release and therefore your baseband will be locked and unable to use an operator other than the official one it was bought for. UltraSn0w will be released via APT (cydia and icy) soon. If you have an original iPhone (1st generation) then 3.0 carrier unlock works with this redsn0w release.
2. Yellowsn0w in its current form will NOT work with the baseband version that is present in the 3.0 update, you will need Ultrasn0w, which will be released sometime soon, Ultrasn0w will work with all iPhone 3G models (but not 3GS), even ones that were previously unlockable, Ultrasn0w (when available) will be released via APT (this means you will be able to get it via Cydia or Icy).
3. Please read all parts of this post before downloading and using these tools.
4. Read items 1, 2 and 3 again and again.
5. At the bottom of this post are the bittorrent files for the latest version of redsn0w.
6. This app is suitable for the recent 3.0 release
7. redsn0w will NOT work for the iPhone 3GS.
8. redsn0w WILL work for Original iPhone (1st Generation), Original iPod touch, iPod touch 2G and the iPhone 3G (not the iPhone 3GS).

To use redsn0w simply upgrade the device in iTunes to firmware version 3.0 and run redsn0w to activate and jailbreak the device (and if you are using an original iPhone 2G, it will unlock it too!)

I will also provide the redsn0w app for mac and windows here:

• Mac
• Windows

Jailbreaking worth it or not?

So what is the big deal with jailbreaking? Well iPhone firmware 3.0 has added a ton of new functionality to the iPhone that we have been waiting for forever, but there are still things missing. Apple blocks us from doing many things, background running applications, custom themes/icons, apps that they deem unworthy, etc. With a jailbroken iPhone you can use all of the apple features while also being able to use really nice apps that can be run in the background while you are doing something else. The custom themes are pretty cool too, since you can change your keypad, keyboard, safari, every app can be changed and icons can also be changed.

The one app that comes to mind for me when deciding whether or not to jailbreak my phone is Notify (well I think that is what it is called).  This app would add an email, text, or missed call icon to your taskbar (where the clock is) whenever you received one of those items. Why was this great? I didn’t have to take my phone out unlock it and see what icon had a number in the corner, which would then make me check it since I already had it all out. With the icons you can see what you have and just check it when it is more convenient.

The custom themes are also pretty cool since they are all free and can be customized to use parts from one theme or another.

Whether you would like to break free of the apple chains and be able to use your phone the way you want, or you just want a few extras here and there, jailbreaking has become incredibly easy to do and well worth the effort in my opinion.

For those people who do not want to jailbreak, well more power to you and your limited phone. Also, the new redsn0w unlocks your phone, allowing you to switch to any GSM (they use SIM cards) based provider.