ModifiedLogic

Last weekend I was fifth in line at one of my local Apple stores for a 16gb black iPhone. I was knocked out of line because I had a discount on my AT&T account and Apple basically said, if you have a discount on your account, their system throws up an error, so it’s a no go. I was told the change would take a minimum of 24 hours to even take effect, so I just watched my friend get his shiny new toy hoping that this was a sign to hold on to my silver iPhone.

Later that day, I called AT&T to remove my discount in anticipation of getting a new phone in the near future. I called a different local Apple store and asked them if they had 16gb black phones in stock and they did. When I got there, the lady at the store told me they only had white ones left so I just went for it.

After a few days of usage, I was very disappointed with the battery performance. I couldn’t believe that it was THAT bad or as bad as some on the internets were saying it was. It got so bad I started to do tests. One thing that was truly wrong was, when plugging in the phone at 10% charge in red, the phone would charge to 100% within an hour. But I was getting mixed comments from Twitterers and friends. Some say 2 hours of usage between charges was normal. Other friends were getting between 4 and 6 hours of usage with 40-50% battery left. The most I was getting was 2 hours of usage with 10% left. I knew that couldn’t be right.

Mix this with the fact that the white ones were starting to crack, I really thought it was time to get a replacement. I was able to do a retail swap for a black 16gb iPhone and the results were staggering. My usage went way up to about 6 hours of usage with 50% battery left. With this in mind it’s easy to say that the white one I was using had something wrong with it. And to the people who told me that they thought 2 hours of usage was normal should really take a look at their phone as well. When a product like this comes out to less than stellar battery reviews, it can be hard to tell if your battery is actually performing properly. I wonder how many people, like me, actually have a defective battery and think it’s normal.

I’ve had the worst luck with iPhones in general. Last generation, I had gone through two different replacements because my iPhone had the washed out black issue. I’ve actually had bad luck with Apple hardware altogether. My first Macbook Pro had a defective ambient light sensor. My current Macbook Pro had a whacked out keyboard which I just got replaced. Now, I am reading that all of the nvidia graphics cards in Penryns (mine) are defective. It never ends with me and this “luck”.

Technorati Tags:
Apple, hardware, iPhone, Macbookpro

I really wanted to test this battery out in a real situation. I took the phone up to full charge last night and left it in the charger until I was heading out to the mall.

In my car, I do not have a charger that works. I played music from my library on the way to the mall. I sent a few text messages here and there and also made a few phone calls.

To the surprise of no one, stores like Target, FYE, and the AT&T store did not have any updated 3g ready branded car chargers. On the way home I listened to Last.fm over 3g in the car. The day started around 2pm. Then, when I got home, I did my regular browsing, app, gaming on the unit before and after taking a nap. By the end of my use, it was about 6pm. At this point, I was already down below 50% battery.

With my first gen iPhone, I was very preventative with battery life and it was always a non factor. I charge overnight, I charge at work if necessary, and I charge whenever in the car. I never had to think about my battery. Now, with this new 3g version sucking down more juice, I think I just have to follow the same routine. The only missing piece is a car charger, which there seems to be a lack of and also a lack of a web page or list that states which chargers are compatible.

One positive thing I noticed is the 3g iPhone wifi signal seems to be a tad better. In a couple spots in my house, the 3g gets a bar or two more than the first gen iPhone.

On a side note, while in Radioshack looking at their iPod accessories, an employee there saw my white iPhone and said “Is that a white iPhone?”. And I said “Yeah”. And he said “Oh, I never seen one of those”. I said “It’s new”. I thought everyone was at least aware of what was going on with the iPhone, especially someone who works for a store that sells competing products and accessories for the iPhone.

Technorati Tags:
Apple, hardware, iphone

I literally JUST got my iPhone 3g. They only had White left so I dared to be different. Here are some notes on things I noticed before it’s even done restoring.

1. My Belkin car charger / amplifier is not compatible. I love this charger because it plays the sound from the usb / power port which is amplified by the charger as opposed to an unamplified signal through the headphone jack. This was also SUPER convenient because I only had to plug in the charge connection and never anything into the headphone jack. I hope Belkin makes a new version or some kind of adapter to turn the firewire juice into usb juice. Until then, I will have to get a plain jane car charger and the sound quality will be less through the headphone jack for the time being.

2. Not only is it not compatible, but the temporary case I bought, the Contour iSee, is not cut out properly so as to accomodate the Belkin charge cable. Double fail.

3. BONUS: The Contour iSee fits PERFECTLY into my Contour Showcase belt clip. That will come in handy for the time being.

4. Whatever charge the iPhone had out of the box was used up in the time it took me to get home from the Apple Store which was about 30 - 40 minutes. I was using it to listen to a podcast through Safari half the ride and then used the GPS real time for the rest with a few phone calls in between.

5. The first calls I made didn’t seem to have the echo effect when using my V-Modas which was an issue with my first gen iPhone.

6. Restoring this phone from a backup is going slower than dogshit.

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, iphone3g

At least it didn’t for me. You probably want this update however. Just install it over the top. It deleted my profile pic and moved the icon to the last spot on my last page, BUT, a SIGN OUT button was added. I couldn’t believe they released 1.0 without this button. It’s damn near life changing.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, itunes, appstore, aol

I emailed Contourcase asking when my one and only favorite case the Showcase would be available for 3g iPhones and here is the response i got.

"This is Matt from Contour.

The Showcase for iPhone 3G will be ready sometime in early
August.

Thanks

"

Awesome. Can’t wait! If I were a famous sports star or Hollywood superstar, this would be the iPhone case I endorse. It has protected my current iPhone for the greater part of a year successfully. When holding an iPhone out of a case, it feels foreign to me because the form factor of this case is so much more comfortable to me.

If you’re like me you KNOW that Twinkle is THE twitter app for the iPhone. It has been missing from the app store. I decided to contact the good people at Tapulous to get the hot scoop on what’s going on and here is what I received.

Free free to blog that it has been with Apple for some time and waiting for approval. So any day now you’ll get to see it. And it will be sporting:

* a sexy new interface

* all the standard Twitter features

* some failsafe protection that your tweets/messages will be delivered to your connections that are also on Twinkle

* the ability to use Twinkle even if you are new to Twitter or not a Twitter user

Cheers,

Andrew

Co-Founder, Tapulous, Inc

Thank you Andrew. I can’t wait!

I was very happy with my jailbroken iPhone. I was using more apps than I ever had. Today as I browse the iPhone App Store (just search for AOL in iTunes 7.7), I realize, at least on Day One and the immediate short term, I am giving up certain things, hopefully not for good though.

Losing - Twinkle. Awesome location based Twitter app with picture attaching.

Gaining - Twitterific. What seems to be a plain Twitter client.

Losing - Mobilescrobbler. The fantastic app that helped me scrobble more tracks than ever with super functionality. Reading lyrics to songs that the iPhone was playing was pretty damn cool.

Gaining - Pandora. Totally different service.

Losing - Mobilechat. aim/chat client with horizontal orientation.

Gaining - Official Aim client. Not sure if it gets horizontal.

Losing - iFlickr. I only took pics with this program.

Gaining - Mobile Flickr.

Losing - uSirius. I was able to go to a restaurant on lunch and listen to Howard Stern while I ate over EDGE!!

Gaining - Nothing.

Losing - Summerboard. My PRECIOUS UI! Icons and wallpaper. Some sick themes.

Gaining - Nothing. This could be the biggest loss because I don’t see an Appearance, UI, or Tweak cateogry in the App Store.

NemusSync - gCalendar sync

Gaining - Nothing

So those were my main ones. Other than that I think overall:

Losing - Fully free software, constantly updated apps, unofficial OS tweaks and fixes

Gaining - Better game selection, a "funded" development community,

In the end, I hope it’s just a matter of time before my truly favorite apps are sent to the App Store because the ones I’ve listed are the ones I will spend cash on without batting an eye. I really am not optimistic about Summerboard though.

The keynote has come and gone. There were no real surprises. I feel pretty lukewarm due to the simple fact that I cannot buy a new iPhone, Me.com account, or download iPhone 2.0 right now.

The iPhone 3G - Yes I will be buying one immediately. I am however, FURIOUS that I have to leave my house and wait in a shit line for it though. It does not have ALL the features I was looking for in an update. I’ll take better battery, GPS, and 3G though. My missing feature list mirrors that of this one on Macnn. It’s the same crap I’ve been asking for forever that I thought would be "no brainer" material. But things like A2DP, referred to in this article as "headphones support for music listening" would most definitely eat up further the battery optimizations Apple figured out for its challenges with 3G. So maybe that will come in the iPhone 4G when gadget batteries run on oxygen or dust particles.

Me.com / MobileMe - While I don’t have an immediate need for MobileMe since I have Exchange support at work, I feel like I can make some good use out of the service. Ultimately dropping $100 on a yearly service is fine with me as long as I think I can get my money’s worth. I think I can.

Sidenotes -

- macrumorslive seemed to hold up the whole way through

- twitter had it’s share of issues

- it would be nice of Apple to have a live QT feed

- Scott Forestall’s evil grin each time he walked back to the stage after each dev did a demo bothered me

- So did Phil Schiller’s polo shirt

- The 3G is being touted as thinner, yet it’s widest measurement is wider than current gen (12.3mm to 11.7mm) I guess they mean the weird curved empty space around the edges?

- When Apple’s website came back up, it didn’t come back up all at once. It took about 10-15 extra minutes for the new pages to show up. Wonder if someone got yelled at for that. It’s been smoother in the past

- So far the 3G cases I’ve seen look like shit. I can only hope that Contourcase ignores the new curve and makes a case VERY similar to the showcase. it is THE BEST cell phone case I have ever owned.

I think it’s all but imminent that the, one, or multiple iPhones are announced today at WWDC. In all of the excitement and rumors leading up to it, as an iPhone user, the hopes that I have I feel, are realistic.

I hope that GPS, Bluetooth A2DP,  is up in there. Hopefully the battery is a little bit better of a performer especially with the 3G and GPS options being a factor. I hope they didn’t fuck with the form factor and case design too much (but a flush headphone jack is more than welcome seeing as how I lost my $15 dollar adapter for the moment). I hope iPhone 2.0 is available today and that it blows me away. I hope the App Store opens today so I can drop loads of cash. I hope I can order a new iPhone today even if it doesn’t ship right away.

All of the rumors about a tablet, OSX for PC, would all be bonuses for me.

Also in this leadup to what looks to be a big iPhone day, I looked back on the last couple of months with my current gen (last gen) iPhone. Currently I’m still using ZiPhone as a jailbreak. The apps and customizations that come along with it need no introduction or explanation. I can safely say that I cannot live without apps like Twinkle, iFlickr, Summerboard, and MobileScrobbler. So today is a crossroads. Am I going to have to choose between two versions of functionality meaning, the apps that are ready for 2.0 or apps available via a Jailbroken iPhone? In my imaginary world, those four apps, amongst others will magically and quickly show up in the App Store. If that happens, I am ready to dish out cash for them immediately.

"Regular" functionality of the iPhone lately has improved by way of companies like Google just enhancing their code. The latest build of gReader is almost perfect. That’s a far cry from what it started out as. Web apps like Hahlo, now 3.0, have come a long way as well.

There’s also some weird things that I started to notice just based off of the amount of time spent with the thing. I was sweating profusely the other day and had my ear up to it in a phone conversation. When taking it off my ear to press some buttons on the keypad, they wouldn’t work. I had to dry it off. Then it was fine. And this past winter,  while driving, I learned you can’t use the iPhone with winter gloves. Probably obvious, but a rude awakening in the heat of the moment nonetheless.

One thing that really gets me sometimes, is when BLASTING music off the iPhone, while in the car at super high volume, and I am singing along, at high volume…the phone rings. Music cuts out (which is a spectacular feature in most other cases) and I’m left singing a cappella. Maybe this leads to a hold calls or go straight to voicemail button or mode.

As I’ve said many times in the past. The iPhone is a huge part of my daily routine and beyond. Whatever the new model is or is not, the ultimate hope is that it will seamlessly plug into where the old one left off and further advance and enhance my life. 4 hours to go to know for sure.