Category: Computers, Internet & Technology

I love my iPhone 4 and would buy it again without a moment’s hesitation, Consumer Reports objections notwithstanding.

Yes I did notice a deterioration in cellular signal strength when I held the iPhone. With the bumper case however, it’s no problem at all; indeed it seems the reception is better than with the iPhone 3G it replaced.

I do think Apple needs to address the issue more forthrightly.

After three days I have absolutely no issues with my iPhone 4. The reception is fine (I am using a bumper).

It is remarkably faster than my previous 3G. The camera is much improved. The resolution is superb.

I would buy it again without hesitation.

Indeed, I expect to in 2012 when iPhone 6 comes out.

I’ve only had it two hours and I love it, but the signal deterioration problems when you pick up the iPhone 4 are quite real. Resting on the arm of the chair: five bars. Held in my hand with my hand resting on the same spot: “Searching…”. The effect is not immediate; it takes up to a minute to go from five bars to no signal. It recovers in about 15-20 seconds.

So, it’s great if you don’t want to make any telephone calls.

I had signal problems around home with my iPhone 3G, but not this drastic. I haven’t tried the $30 bumper yet.

No regrets mind you — I’d buy it again for all the other reasons — but I’ve seen enough to come down on the side of those who say Apple messed up, at least for now.

UPDATE: The bumper, which I bought before the antenna issues came up because I tend to drop my phone, seems to resolve my reception problem rather well. I like it for protective purposes too.

There are a number of mobile apps from Uncle. Some look useful.

My iPhone 4 Bumper (a perimeter case) has arrived from Shenzhen, China, via Hong Kong, Anchorage and Memphis.

The iPhone itself is due to leave China by Friday.

There’s some concern going around the internets about how if you hold the iPhone 4 a certain way you compromise the antennas and degrade the phone signal. (Apple’s position is, all phones do that, don’t hold it that way.)

Are we so ignorant that we can’t remember six or seven years ago when cell phones had pull-out antennas and came with instructions not to touch the antenna while making a call as it would degrade the signal and cause the phone to use more power (giving you brain cancer and reducing battery life)?

Geez, grip the iPhone loosely and you won’t have a problem.

Electronic Arts has a number of its iPhone/iPod Touch app games on sale for 48 hours for 99¢.

I picked up Connect 4, Tiger Woods, Madden, Battleship and Need for Speed Shift.

And Yahtzee.

Oh, and Clue and Trivial Pursuit. What the hell, 99¢. A decent size candy bar is a buck-29 these days.

Besides, they’re for the grandkids to play. 😉

The new iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod Touch is available via iTunes.

This is not the new iPhone, which comes out Thursday. This is the new operating system for iPhone 3G and 3Gs and iPod Touch second and third generation.

The update has many new features depending on your device. It is free. It is also a rather large file and the process will take several minutes.

The iOS update requires iTunes 9.2, which was released last week. It too is free.

Google is great for many things and I use it often. Bing, the search tool from Microsoft, has gotten useful as well and may give better results than Google depending on your quest.

But if you really, really want details, try Wolfram. Here’s the background.

(Try typing “weather”, the name of the city where you were born and your birthdate. It was snowing and about 22º F. in Detroit when I was born. The sun came out about then.)

I ordered an iPhone 4 but I won’t get it until after July 4th. They’d already sold out the first week’s worth.

… old soft-hearted liberal, and susceptible to having my emotions manipulated, but how many iPhones do you think this ad will sell?

FaceTime on iPhone 4

Apple’s browser has been updated with several new features and a speed boost.

Safari – Download the world’s most innovative browser.

See the new features in Safari for Mac and PC.

Netflix on the iPhone this summer — free app. (Netflix membership, of course, needed.)

Farmville on iPhone by end of June. And Guitar Hero, available in the app store today.

iPhone 4. Glass front and back, steel sides. Mighty pretty. One-quarter thinner. Two cameras (one for photos with flash, one for video conferencing).

New iPhone display 4X the pixels; 326 per inch. Apparently 300 is as good as our retina; so the display is better than we can see. The images are amazingly sharp. 960X640 resolution.

They added a gyroscope. I’m not sure I know what that does, but I guess it makes the iPhone into a Wii-like device.

5 megapixels, 5X zoom, tap focus and LED flash. And HD video. 720p at 30 frames per second. Omigoodness. And with editing software (for $4.99).

This is a pocket device we’re talking about.

iPads are so April.

The new operating system will permit more than one application to run at a time. Yay! And folders for apps. Out June 21st.

iBooks coming to iPhone 4. Great, I like reading on my iPhone and like having choices where to get the books.

One downside, look for more ads in apps.

Video calls, iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over wireless only for now. It’s called Face Time. The demo (an ad we’ll be seeing soon I imagine) shows two people communicating via sign language on the phone.

16GB or 32GB; white or black. June 24th. $199 or $299 with AT&T upgrade offer.

iOS (new software) free for iPhone and iPod touch (except won’t work on first generation touch like mine) June 21st. Not all features will work on older models.

AT&T is going to let everyone upgrade to the new iPhone at the subsidized price, no matter how much time remains on their existing agreement. Just sign a new two-year agreement.

That tells me AT&T is about to lose exclusivity.

If you can’t quit, Consumer Reports lists 7 things to stop doing on Facebook. Click link for a fuller discussion of each.

Using a weak password

Leaving your full birth date in your profile

Overlooking useful privacy controls

Posting your child’s name in a caption

Mentioning that you’ll be away from home

Letting search engines find you

Permitting youngsters to use Facebook unsupervised

I think this will be my last posting about Facebook. You’ve either gotten the idea — or not. I found it interesting that one of my friends on Facebook disappeared and when I emailed to ask her why, she said an employer required it — no family member could have an account.

Such information may, for example, be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), be indexed by third party search engines, and be imported, exported, distributed, and redistributed by us and others without privacy limitations. Such information may also be associated with you, including your name and profile picture, even outside of Facebook, such as on public search engines and when you visit other sites on the internet.  The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” You can review and change the default settings in your privacy settings. If you delete “everyone” content that you posted on Facebook, we will remove it from your Facebook profile, but have no control over its use outside of Facebook.

Privacy Policy | Facebook

So, bottom line, do you really want your name and photos of your kids out there for billions of people to see?

Keeping in mind that your information is only as private as EACH of your friends’ information.

“When a piece of software is automatically installed on your computer without your knowledge, it’s called malware. But what do you call it when Facebook apps are added to your profile without your knowledge? We discovered Wednesday that this is actually happening, and stopping it isn’t as easy as checking a box in your privacy settings.”

Macworld

I never stay logged into Facebook, in fact I ONLY access it through my iPhone app. But still.

“A security flaw was discovered on the Facebook Web site early Wednesday morning that enabled users to see private chats taking place between friends. Another security issue allowed users to see their online friends’ pending friend requests.”

Bits Blog – New York Times

On Facebook…

• 56 percent of users posted at least one piece of personal information that could lead to ID theft.
• 42 percent posted their birth date with year, and 25 percent didn’t use or know about Facebook privacy controls.
• More than 18 million people use apps, and 38 percent thought apps were secure or hadn’t thought about it.
• Meanwhile 1.8 million computers were infected by apps.

Consumer Reports Electronics Blog

That’s Consumer Reports folks, not exactly firebrands.

The techie website Gizmodo — you know, the highly ethical site that paid to buy the lost iPhone — has issues with Facebook.

After some reflection, I’ve decided to delete my account on Facebook. I’d like to encourage you to do the same. This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I’d like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I’m not missing anything. In any event, here’s my “Top Ten” reasons for why you should join me and many others and delete your account.

Here’s the 10 reasons. Follow the link above for background on each.

10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided
9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch
6. Facebook is a bully
5. Even your private data is shared with applications
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account
2. Facebook doesn’t (really) support the Open Web
1. The Facebook application itself sucks

As noted already today, Facebook has serious ethical issues that they continue to make worse. Again, that may not matter to you. I’m not even sure it matters to me. I mostly use Facebook to see what others are up to and include no personal information myself.

But the point is, bad companies should be boycotted, particularly when it’s easy to do so, at least until they clean up their act.

What do you think?

The highly-regarded Electronic Frontier Foundation writes about Facebook. An excerpt:

It’s clear why folks would associate this kind of deceptive practice with Zuckerberg. Although Zuckerberg told users back in 2007 that privacy controls are “the vector around which Facebook operates,” by January 2010 he had changed his tune, saying that he wouldn’t include privacy controls if he were to restart Facebook from scratch. And just a few days ago, a New York Times reporter quoted a Facebook employee as saying Zuckerberg “doesn’t believe in privacy”.

Zuckerberg is Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

So that you understand — Facebook’s business plan is to take the information you put on their site — all those likes, your name, age, schools, jobs, photos, friends — and sell it to advertisers. And they make it difficult to prevent this. Further, any application you link to through Facebook may have access to all your personal data as well.

If you don’t care, fine. If you do care . . .

“Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance.”

Microsoft

Um, what else is there?

“The future of the web is HTML5.” So say Apple and now Microsoft.