iPhone 3.0 beta turns up the WiFi juice?

Since I’ve had my iPhone 3G in July I’ve noticed on several occasions on which I was not able to see all available WiFi hot spots around me, but my MacBook sitting right next to the iPhone would see a much larger list. Since upgrading to 3.0 I’ve I seem to have a lot more locations showing up. On top of this personal observation I have also noticed that while hanging out with my iPhone 3G 2.2.1 friends (suckers!) they have fewer (or none) WiFi locations while I have serveral.

At first I thought it might be knowing I had a newer version affecting my judment, but doing this direct comparison with a 2.2.1 has convincied me that 3.0 has turned up the juice or made some tweak to greatly improve the WiFi. Has anyone else noticed with 3.0 noticed this increase int he WiFi location list?

The only downside is it hasn’t affect the connection speed. Just ran a speed test on My3Gspeed.com (site created Chiyin and I) on my DSL connection and got about the same results of about 3 mbps as when on 2.2.

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iPhone, Speculation

at&t refuses to enable MMS for iPhone 3.0 beta customers

UPDATE We know now that even with 3.0 out at&t still hasn’t activated this, really pathetic if you ask me. The good news is they said they will turn it on in “late summer”. Vote now in our when will at&t enable iPhone MMS poll to win a $25 iTunes card.

First off I’m not a big fan of MMS, but since I’m a nerd and have iPhone 3.0 installed I wanted to test and see how it works. I’ve read that some people were able to get an at&t agent to change their messaging service to the regular setup vs the iPhone special case setup. It looks like I’m too late because  they already have a canned response:

I do apologize.  AT&T does not support MMS with the iPhone or 3G iPhone regardless of any application you may have downloaded.  I understand that you may found information in forums or by word of mouth that we can alter our system to allow for this.  Be advised that we will not be able to make any changes in our system to enable MMS for your iPhone.  If you need further information in this regard, please contact Apple iPhone Support by calling 800-694-7466.  Their hours of operation are 8am to 8pm CT daily.

I then asked why they wouldn’t do it and was told it was because of Apple:

Justin: Is there any official word why att won’t do this?
Agent: Yes, Apple does not want MMS enabled for the iPhone at this time.  We are abiding by the legal contract that exists between the two companies.

I have a hard time believing that, but you never know. Guess I’ll see if Apple has any comment on this.

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Apples & Oranges, iPhone

Jim Cramer gone mad? Bullish on Apple

As I’m sure you know by now Jim Cramer, of CNBC’s Mad Money, appeared on the March 12th episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. During this interview Jon Stewart played a December 2006 video from The Street website. In this video Jim Cramer discusses how easy it is to short and then manipulate Apple stock, in this case by spreading the rumor that neither Verizon or at&t want the iPhone.

I guess Jon Stewart was able to show him the light because now he is bullish on Apple. In the Thursday night’s episode during the “lighting round” Cramer takes a question about Apple and here was his response:

I’m not going to go against Apple, what was discovered in the last few weeks is that as they introduce new product after new product after new product that Steve Jobs is not alone, there’s like a thousand Steve Jobs at Apple, I’m sticking with my recommendation, I think apple goes higher.

This just shows you the power of Apple, even this Cramer guy can’t think of anything bad to say about Apple.

If you watch the clips below I recommend skipping to the part about Apple (about the 7 min 30 sec mark) as this guy is pretty annoying.

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Apples & Oranges, Stock Market

When Will Apple going worldwide baby!

Well, we’re not, but our contest are! That’s right world, our awesome Apple prizes are now available in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Republic of Ireland, Italia, Denmark, Deutschland, España, and Nederland! Some prizes may only be available in the United States, but we will provide alternate prizes for those polls to other countries so everyone can participate. These new rules apply to all current polls (over there to the left)…so world, get voting!

Also, thanks to When Will Apple member Kian for helping us come up with some ideas on how to handle international prizes.

View full contenst rules
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Apples & Oranges

iPhone 3.0 A2DP first impressions

UPDATE 6.21.09 A2DP bluetooth on iPhone 3G S works great, 3G not so much

UPDATE A2DP on iPhone 3.0 beta 4 follow up

Now that the first beta of iPhone 3.0 is out I decided to take a dip into the wireless stereo world with my first pair of A2DP headphones, the Motorola  S9-HD. I plan on posting a more detailed review after I’ve had a few days to test everything out, but here are my first impressions…

Good stuff! First I wanted to test to make sure it was truly in stereo so I played a couple songs that have very distinct use of the left and right channels. I used Money by Pink Floyd and Mr. Brightside by The Killers (Treaty of Paris is just the last song I was listing to before taking the picture). Everything worked as it should with the correct audio on the left and right channels. The sound quality is pretty good, but it just doesn’t seem quite as good as the wired set. This could be the norm for all I know since this is my first set of stereo bluetooth headphones.

One issue that is a bit annoying is the music gets choppy or even stops playing for a few seconds when trying to do anything with the phone. Even browsing for another song to play inside the iPod app causes this issue. When you just let the phone be, like locked up in your pocket, it plays perfectly. It’s possible the sound quality and stuttering issues are due to this being the first beta, so I don’t want to harp on it too much just yet. Even with these cons it’s already good enough for me to use the wireless set over the wired when it makes sense, like…er, jogging?

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iPhone, iPhone Accessories, Reviews, Speculation

at&t to allow no commitment iPhone sales?

The Boy Genius has posted internal at&t memos suggesting that iPhones are going to go on sale without the contract attached. The iPhones would sell for $599 (8GB) and $699 (16GB) and would be limit one per customer. The limit of one per customer is kind of funny because the memos show there isn’t really a good way to track it. So it seems as though they may not enfoce this policy very well.

Could this be a fire sale to clear out inventory faster for a 3rd gen iPhone? Is this just available at at&t stores and not Apple stores and just a way for at&t to clear out some overstock due to a fall in iPhone demand due to the crap economy? Is this rumor false? Like I’ve said before, following Apple rumors is similar to watching LOST…lots of question with few answers.

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iPhone, Speculation