Is it necessary to have so much fucking lighting instore? I'd say somewhere between UFO-like glare of Apple and those (should be braille trained) idiots at Hollister is probably about right. It's even more noticeable now that everything has a glass screen, as demonstrated by this Specialist who is trying to show a customer how told hold an iPad so you can actually see the screen.
Apple hackers are at large again. One guy, Thuat Nguyen has apparently hacked into iTunes. He did this dastardly deed just to boots the ratings for his book apps that accounted for 42 of the top 50 books by revenue in the Books section of the iTunes App Store. Other developers noticed the lopsided rise in Nguyen’s app and found it very mysterious. Up to $200 from hacked accounts were reportedly used to buy the developer's apps. So far there’s nothing official that’s come out of Apple concerning the hack but word is they’re still investigating. So if you notice a few books added onto your account, try to remember if you bought them, even if they are in Vietnamese.
"Readers report that Apple's tech support forums originally confirmed that a iOS 4.0.1 software fix addressing the issue would ship early next week (as early as Monday), before the comments were subsequently taken down along with all the other related discussion about the matter.
The fix is expected to address a issue in iOS 4 related to radio frequency calibration of the baseband. Readers who saw the original forum discussions say that the issue is believed to occur when switching frequencies; because the lag is allegedly not calibrated correctly, it results in the device reporting "no service" rather than switching to the frequency with the best signal to noise ratio.
iOS 4 introduced some enhancements to how the baseband selects which frequencies to use, so it makes sense that the error may have crept into those changes. Additionally, this explains why iOS 4 has also caused similar problems for iPhone 3GS users."
I've decided to give you, the lovely readers, something to read at the weekend: and that's some reader emails! There's something about feeling other people's pain that makes us feel slightly better about ourselves, so hopefully every weekend we can all sigh together and let today be the first:
Floor's all yours Phil
"The company is a joke. It has turned into a glorified cell phone store with cell phone store patrons and problems. Only with a totally defective iPhone 4 product. I can't wait to leave that fucking place. I tell my fiancee everyday that this is the worst place i have ever worked in my entire life, and I've worked some shit jobs before. I feel like everyone there is possessed and I am the only normal one left. It's actually quite terrifying."
Ha. Terrifying it is. Don't forget onetoone with that phone Phil.
Just enriching our database with news of what might be the worst launch of a device in history. Not only in Apple's history but in the history of any electronic gadget ever made. If you're curious about the "and more" part I advise you to check some of the previous posts, as well as the feature check of iPhone 4 - obviously the 100 promised features where yet another shameless lie. So let's go!
Notice in these two pictures, firstly the background so you don't think it's a reflection and then the bright constellation - it consists out of the light leaking from the back panel through the dead pixels.
Apple has pushed TFT technology too far, hence the bright spots as the screen isn't lit uniformly and the dead pixels generated by both capacitative technology and miniaturization required to double the resolution. If they hadn't been so cheap, Super AMOL
ED would have been the perfect answer. One single layer, instead of a sandwich that traps various chemical substances (yellow spots) and burns 50-60% more power.
Inverted volume buttons
I'm quite sure somebody at Foxconn is having a healthy laugh right now. It looks like the volume buttons on some units have been "accidentally" swapped.
Looks like the Apple isn't getting any greener, so says Greenpeace anyway, and so says me, 'cos I see it on a daily fucking basis. Apple are always gloating about how much smaller the packaging is for their products, but for service parts it's a whole different story. Take for example an Airport card, Apple insist on using a huge box where a matchbox would suffice.
So next time you want to get your MacBook fixed and are told the part isn't in stock, consider the size of the truck that can only fit so many AirPort cards on it at once.
Working at Apple you will very quickly notice the lack of training and morale. I have never worked in a place before where almost all the employees want to leave, and from the emails and feedback this blog recieves I guess it's pretty common. Who knows, maybe some of the anonymous emails came from some of this lot, although from the Kool-Aid that's being drunk in the unedited version. I guess not.
This is a reader video found on Macrumors forums illustrating something weird. When the guy holds the iPhone in his hands, touching the outside antenna band in two places, he drops reception. Placing the phone down gets him 4 bars.
We're not sure if he's doing something particularly weird, like holding the metal antenna in such a way that it's shorting out. But it is strange. Or, it could be just a bug in the software, showing no bars and no reception even when you do have reception. But, he does hold the phone with the glass, and it doesn't have this reception issue.
If you've got an iPhone 4, we'd like to have you test this out too, and contribute to YOUR iPhone 4 review. Test holding it in various ways, like one finger on the glass and one on the metal, or any combination that you think might produce different results. Let us know what you find.
Update: Make sure to test this while you're IN a call too, to see if the call drops. This way we can determine if it's just displaying bars incorrectly, or if it really does impact your reception.
What's next on the list of things I fucking hate I hear you ask? This beauty:
Just a quick note to anyone buying any new MacBook, I would strongly recommend a cheap USB mouse to go along with your computer. Either that or learn how to use VoiceOver. No particular reason obviously...
"Well, this is not encouraging. The photo you're seeing above is our leader Joshua's iPhone 4 review unit, snapped by Ryan Block just moments ago. Ryan pointed out that there are some nasty scratches on the back of the phone. While we don't have any better photos of it at the moment, Josh told us that they're hard to see unless in bright light, but they look pretty notable to us for a five day-old unit made of Gorilla Glass. We'll get some better photos for you as soon as humanly possible."
Here’s how the material was described by Apple’s Jony Ive:
"We’ve also developed a custom glass that’s comparable in strength to sapphire crystal, but about 30 times harder than plastic. This glass is not only used on the front of the phone but also on the back."
It's bullshit that the friends and family discount can be so close to that of a student. And if they want AppleCare then EPP2 offers pretty much nothing at all. That's why I used to get EVERYTHING on EPP1. My mum used to work with this guy who got his cat off his former roommate's cousin, well this cousin's ex-girlfriend had a brother that needed a MacBook for his mate, and that dude got EPP1.
But now they've changed it so you have to sign in with your AppleConnect. Bum.
The A third-party solutions provider catering to customers of Apple's mobile devices, iFixYouri has recently acquired an authentic iPhone 4 enclosure whose glass panel failed to withstand a fall from just a few feet, creating an opportunity for the firm to question Apple's heightened durability claims.
They dropped it on "the sidewalk" - probably cement, but without any internal components. This makes us wonder, if the glass breaks this bad with less than 10% of the original weight, how easy will the actual device break? How much stress will there be applied on the internal components? We complained before about capacitative screens cracking, but this is actually the worst we've seen so far. Looks like Apple neglected quality control (again) in favor of of pushing the device on the market as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, iFix is using this experiment to generate attention and challenge Apple's stated claim that the iPhone 4's all-new design and build quality are "like no other mobile device." The iPhone maker said earlier this week that the device's aluminosilcate glass front and back are "chemically strengthened to be 30 times harder than plastic, more scratch resistant and more durable than ever."
iFixYouri contends that while the glass may be 30 times stronger than plastic and able to withstand bending, its durability still falls short on sudden impact, which is "what causes 95% of glass shattering. Not because you bent the glass in your pocket, not because you dropped it and it bent, but really because of sudden impact."
"Readers report that Apple's tech support forums originally confirmed that a iOS 4.0.1 software fix addressing the issue would ship early next week (as early as Monday), before the comments were subsequently taken down along with all the other related discussion about the matter.
I warned you guys about this one in my article "The iPhone 4 screen - a multimedia flop?" a month before the release of this "magical" device. 
"Well, this is not encouraging. The photo you're seeing above is our leader Joshua's iPhone 4 review unit, snapped by Ryan Block just moments ago. Ryan pointed out that there are some nasty scratches on the back of the phone. While we don't have any better photos of it at the moment, Josh told us that they're hard to see unless in bright light, but they look pretty notable to us for a five day-old unit made of Gorilla Glass. We'll get some better photos for you as soon as humanly possible."
But now they've changed it so you have to sign in with your AppleConnect. Bum.
The A third-party solutions provider catering to customers of Apple's mobile devices, iFixYouri has recently acquired an authentic iPhone 4 enclosure whose glass panel failed to withstand a fall from just a few feet, creating an opportunity for the firm to question Apple's heightened durability claims.