Ghetto iPhone

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Reuters reports that a “market source” has confirmed that Apple has finally sealed a deal to bring the iPhone 3G to Russia in an official capacity, launching on Mobile TeleSystems “likely” in Октябрь (October, that is). Neither MTS nor Apple would agree to comment on the situation — no surprise there — but seeing how Russia is one of the remaining gargantuan markets where the iPhone has yet to materialize, it seems like a no-brainer deal for all parties involved.

[Via mocoNews]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Now that the BlackBerry Bold’s made its official North American debut, there’s a lot of talk about a video Mobile Computer did of the Bold getting blown away browsing head to head with an iPhone 3G over WiFi — but there’s a slight problem there: the Bold was actually using 3G and EDGE. Yeah, that’s not a fair fight — and given how flaky the iPhone 3G’s data speeds can be, it actually reflects quite well on the Bold. Head to head on WiFi, the Bold does seem a tick slower, but we’ll let you judge that for yourselves — videos after the break.

Read - BGR browser vid
Read - Mobile Computer browser vid

Continue reading Debunk: BlackBerry Bold’s browser on WiFi actually not that slow

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Filed under: Announcements

For obvious reasons, we’re not really big believers in optimizing Engadget for individual devices or platforms. Despite the unrelenting number of requests for an iPhone-optimized version of Engadget, we thought we’d let Apple stand by its whole “the real internet in your pocket” thing. And then we ran the numbers. We could hardly believe it.

So far in 2008, the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod touch account for some 95.8% of all mobile views on the full site. We’re not even kidding. That doesn’t factor the visitors who hit our current mobile version of the site, but it’s pretty hard to argue with any number like that, so we’re rolling out a new beta version of Engadget optimized for the iPhone at i.engadget.com. (Don’t worry, we’ll still be keeping original mobile site active at m.engadget.com.) Please feel free to let us know what you think in comments!

Oh, and for the stats nerds in the audience, you can check out Engadget’s mobile device breakdown after the break.

Continue reading i.engadget.com - Engadget for your iPhone or iPod touch

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Hopes were high that 2.0.2 would decisively crush the reception woes some iPhone 3G owners have experienced since taking delivery of their cracking beauties; dropped calls, latching onto EDGE reception when 3G (also known as “the good stuff”) is available, and general signal strength wonkiness have all plagued a select group of handsets since launch, making for a decidedly MobileMe-like user experience. Some upgraders are actually reporting just the opposite, though — for these lucky few, 2.0.2 seems to be making reception somehow worse than it already was, and what’s more, there are intermittent reports cropping up of broken third-party apps, too. With the 1.x line of builds having chugged along with relatively little drama for a year, here’s our question: what the hell is going on? Why does 2.0, after two post-launch builds, still feel like a beta? MobileMe took the lion’s share of the fall for Apple having spread itself too thin through the launch-heavy summer months, but did some of that fire-drill mentality trickle over to the breadwinner, too? Sound off in comments with your experiences putting 2.0.2 through its paces so far!

[Via Mobility Site]

Update: Apparently Steve Jobs, who should have his face buried in a developer workstation somewhere in Cupertino slaving away on iPhone bug fixes, somehow found the time to slack off for half an hour and fire off an email to some guy who wrote him complaining about third-party apps that are crashing on startup. Jobs allegedly says that the issue is a “known iPhone bug” and that it’ll be fixed in the next update come September — but frankly, we wish he’d let his assistants attend to this sort of needless communication so he could get back to, you know, writing code and inventing phones. Thanks, Alexander!

Update 2: An Ars Technica reader seems to have developed a workaround to the crushing pain of dead third-party (and installed first-party) apps and iPod player weirdness: go back to iTunes 7.7 from 7.7.1. It’s not for the faint of heart because you’ve got to reset the phone and delete some files off the computer, but until this supposed firmware update (and possible iTunes update) rolls around in September, it may be the best thing affected users have going. Thanks, Garrett!

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Filed under: Cellphones

Well okay, we don’t know if it’s angry or not, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the 2.0.2 update of Apple’s phone OS is out there for your downloading pleasure (via iTunes, specifically). So far, all we know is that this iteration tackles those pesky “bugs,” but what those exact bugs are, we couldn’t say… nor could Apple. We’re grabbing now and will update with any exciting developments.

Update: Well we’ve got the new firmware up and running, and it’s true — those bugs have been fixed. Which bugs? Well, it’s still hard to say, but our voice suddenly sounds deeper, and we’ve noticed improved grammar during calls.

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Filed under: Cellphones

According to Appleinsider, the newest beta of iPhone firmware (2.1, beta 4) has been seeded to developers, but takes one crucial element off the table — push notification. If you’ll recall, the new feature will allow third-party developers to take advantage of Apple’s servers for real-time push of data to applications. Apparently, the feature has been cut from the most recent beta for “further development” with no indication of when it will be reinstated. Of course, this is a beta seed of the firmware — the actual release is slated for September — and it makes sense that Apple would be tweaking major additions like this before going live, especially considering its recent launch debacles.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Of course, it all seems so obvious now! How did we not interpret El Jobso’s true meaning of the iPhone kill-switch — it actually kills you. We have noted iPhone expert Stephen Colbert to thank not just for this brilliant deduction, but also for sticking up for the lot of us and giving the iPhone 3G a cold staredown — but not before declaring, “I knew I should have gotten a Zune! They can’t kill me… or do anything else.” Zing! Clip after the break (iPhone at 5:45).

[Thanks, Matt]

Continue reading Colbert’s top threat of the week: killer iPhones. Solution: buy a Zune.

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Filed under: Cellphones

Sure, this video feels like it might veer into creepy snuff-film territory right at the beginning, but luckily it just reveals a fairly sweet looking iPhone mod. Apparently some Russian iPhone fans have replaced the regular, boring Apple logo on the back of an original iPhone with an eye-piercing, glowing version. There’s not a lot of detail on how this is done — and the video is in Russian — but the source link claims it’s just a matter of, “removing the aluminum ‘fruits’ and inserting the glowing ones.” We’ll see about that. Otherwise, check this similar step-by-step mod seen earlier. Eerie video included after the break.

Update: As commenters (and Croiman himself) have pointed out, this appears to be a boost of the impressive Croiman Psycho iPhone mod we saw back in April.

[Via Hack a Day]

Continue reading iPhone mod turns the Apple logo into a mini-flashlight

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a Premier (business, that is) account with AT&T, you’re now able to forgo the charade of meandering down to your local store to buy — or place an order for, more likely — the iPhone 3G. All three varieties of the best cellphone Apple makes are now available directly through the carrier’s B2B online store for the usual $199 / $299 pricing scale; if we had to guess, it’s just a matter of time before they’ll throw the doors open to the riff raff (read: us), too. We’ll drink to that.

[Thanks, Vasudev R.]

Update: We touched base with AT&T, and it looks like the real news here is that Premier account holders who pay their own bills now have access to the iPhone 3G online, whereas before, only those whose bills were covered by their companies had access. The more, the merrier!

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

And now for the irony: it’ll be no better a buy than what you can find at ye olde Apple or AT&T store. Best Buy officially becomes the first third-party retailer in the US to sell the iPhone in an official capacity — 3G or otherwise — when it launches the iPhone 3G in some 970 stores plus an additional 18 dedicated Mobile locations on September 7 for the same $199 and $299 price points found elsewhere. Quoth Best Buy Mobile’s CEO, “We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple and AT&T would feel good about Best Buy Mobile carrying it, and that’s what we’ve done in the last 18 months.” In other words, this has been a pretty persistent effort to score the third-party exclusive essentially since the original model was announced, and it’s just now paying off. There’s no indication on how the addition of Best Buy to the US sales mix will affect production or distribution, but at least there’ll be one more place to try to find some frickin’ stock.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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