IPhone news and information

Archive for December, 2010

Macworld

iPhone 4 users, did your alarm go off today? Channel News Asia SINGAPORE: Some iPhone 4 users got off to a bad start in the New Year when the alarm function of their ... PSA: Alarm clock bug may cause iPhone alarms to fail on New Year's Day 2011IntoMobile News: New Year's Bug Kills iOS AlarmsThe Mac Observer New Year's 2011 breaks (non-recurring) iPhone alarm clocks9 to 5 Mac tuaw.com -TFTS (blog) -Mac Rumors all 16 news articles »

Mac Rumors

PSA: Alarm clock bug may cause iPhone alarms to fail on New Year's Day 2011 IntoMobile According to a growing number of tweets, iPhone alarms that are set for New Year's Day are failing to go off as scheduled. For the merry reveller with ... New Year's 2011 breaks (non-recurring) iPhone alarm clocks9 to 5 Mac News: New Year's Bug Kills iOS AlarmsThe Mac Observer iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year's Daytuaw.com TFTS (blog) -Mac Rumors -ZDNet Australia all 13 news articles »

TFTS (blog)

iPhone Clock Bug Prevents Alarm Triggers after New Year's Mac Rumors Apparently a bug in the iPhone clock app prevents non-recurring alarms from properly triggering on New Years day. I was able to confirm this after a couple ... iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year's Daytuaw.com iPhone Alarm May Not Work In 2011 [iPhone Users Get To Relive Y2K Bug As ...TFTS (blog) iPhone users suffer another alarm glitchZDNet Australia 9 to 5 Mac all 9 news articles »

If you're using your iPhone or iPod touch as your primary alarm clock, it might be time to reconsider. In 2010, Apple had well-publicized difficulties with the switchover to Daylight Saving Time. Alarms failed to go off at their proper times, causing thousands of people in the Southern Hemisphere to wake up an hour early and many more thousands in the Northern Hemisphere to wake up an hour late. Now yet another bug has struck Apple's Clock app in iOS: single-use, non-repeating alarms fail to go off at all after New Year's Day.

Just like the Daylight Saving Time bug, living in New Zealand has given me the opportunity to test this bug ahead of time. Strangely, a single-use alarm scheduled to go off at 7:00 A.M. today went off on time, but now single-use alarms don't work at all. Only alarms set to repeat at least once during the week will work properly. 9to5Mac suggests that the problem will clear up after January 3rd, and our testing confirms that -- in a couple of days, the alarms are back to normal.

This bug in the Clock app is somewhat less insidious than the Daylight Saving Time bug, which affected repeating alarms. With this New Year's Day bug, you'll still be safe if you've got a repeating alarm set during the work week. Only single-use alarms will fail to go off. I've tested this with alarms created in 2010 and alarms created in 2011, and it makes no difference; all single-use alarms now fail to activate until after 1/3. I've tested this on an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.2.1 -- your experience may differ if you have a different iOS device or software version.

Considering how many things Apple's managed to get right in iOS, it seems really odd that of all things it's the Clock app that keeps getting mucked up. Let us know in the comments if any third-party alarm clock apps are experiencing the same issue (though I doubt it). In the meantime, if you've been using your iPhone or iPod touch to wake you up in the morning, it might be a good idea to invest in a cheap standalone alarm clock -- or take off work until Monday.

iPhone alarms may fail to activate on New Year's Day originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CNET

Verizon iPhone means AT&T must boost satisfaction San Francisco Chronicle Apple will probably introduce a version of the iPhone that works on Verizon Communications' network early this year, creating a challenge for AT&T Inc., ... Ringing in a new smartphone year (week in review)CNET Verizon iPhone 4 drinking game: how to prepare for upcoming rolloutBeatweek Magazine Day in Tech: Skype with video, Facebook on top, Verizon iPhoneStark Insider Tech Surf -Tech Jackal -Tech Pinger all 86 news articles »

Software Downloads Guide

An iPhone Lover's Take On The Nexus S TechCrunch This scene reminds me a lot of what the first Android phone, the G1, was like when compared to the iPhone. Luckily for Google, things have improved ... The Top Ten iPhone (and Android) Apps of 2010Wall Street Journal (blog) Korean carriers turn down Nexus S, say iPhone not at riskElectronista Apple vs. Android: The view from GoogleCNNMoney Switched -NetworkWorld.com -Erictric all 77 news articles »

We're not exactly sure of the cause of this fancy new issue affecting Apple's super cool iPhone line of cellphones, but apparently you've got trouble come 1/1/2011. According to an explosive stream of frustration-filled tweets on the Twitter microblogging service, when the clock strikes midnight, one off alarms will cease to sing out. The issue sounds eerily similar to recent Daylight Savings Time trouble we witnessed back in November, although we saw both repeating alarm and single alarm failures.

So how can you fix this potentially life-ruining problem? Well until Apple patches its OS -- and it's currently unclear if this is just iOS 4.2.1 or earlier versions as well -- you can simply create a recurring alarm at the time you need to be woken up, and then disable it once your dreams are completely ruined. We're taking a deeper look into the issue and have contacted Apple -- if we get more news, you guys will be the first to know. In the meantime, feel free to commiserate in comments, and... happy new year?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PSA: iPhone alarms not working come New Year's Day 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here, in no particular order, are some of the top stories we saw in 2010. The year was packed with Apple announcements, some planned and one unplanned. The real standout this year was iOS coming into its own. This year's WWDC was all about iOS, for example. The Apple TV now runs iOS. iOS 4.2 breathed new life into the already-new iPad, another major story of the year (a wildly successful one at that).

Even OS X 10.7 "Lion" has some iOS-inspired elements from what little we've seen. But it's looking like 2011 will be a return to the Mac side. In 2010 we saw the new MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs called the "future of notebooks." What surprises does Apple have for us on the Macintosh side of the house? 2011 will be an interesting year (again) to watch!

iPad

In 2010 the iPad was revealed and the netbook industry felt the impact. The tablet industry has awakened. We expect 2011's CES to have an enormous range of tablet computers. iOS 4.2 was released months later, giving the iPad features like multitasking which should have been there to begin with. Still, with paltry RAM, no front-facing camera and still not enough storage, the iPad has plenty of room to grow in 2011.

Apps on the iPad made news in themselves, with some apps being available for both iPads and iPhones, some costing more for "HD" versions (a term Apple doesn't endorse, by the way) and some only available for iPad. The new realm of a tablet format opened up possibilities for developers and we continue to see innovation from them on Apple's latest product.

Still, the publishing world was a little dismayed to see the iPad not take off as an e-reader on its own. Digital magazines are falling flat (in part due to Apple's lack of a proper subscription model) and the iBookstore has had its own problems.

iPhone 4

We all knew the iPhone 4 was coming thanks to a forgetful Apple employee and some poorly executed shenanigans from Gizmodo. If only they had tested the antenna!

The iPhone 4 introduced the high-resolution Retina Display, plus a sleek new form factor that brought about "antennagate" and a subsequent press conference to address the issue. iPhone 4 cases were given away and the problem was mitigated by a clever Apple marketing/communications team.

The iPhone 4 also heralded FaceTime as a video calling service (and potential open standard, although we hear inside Apple there is little impetus to release the open portions needed to bring the service to other platforms). The iPhone 4 introduced a front-facing camera to facilitate video calling.

The iPhone 4's addition of an LED flash introduced another wrinkle into the app approval process in that developers quickly started writing flashlight apps which took advantage of the powerful (but battery-killing) light source. Guess what? Apple finally woke up and wrote some clear but open-ended app approval guidelines that addressed many of the previously-unknown guidelines surrounding app approvals.

Continue reading 2010 in review: Rise of iOS

2010 in review: Rise of iOS originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With just a few hours to go in 2010, I'm thinking about 2011 already. This year, I'm not really making any resolutions, since they are made to be broken. Instead, I've written a list of things that I can do using my Apple products to make my life even more enjoyable than it already is. When you get to be my age (over a half-century old), you want to "grab for all the gusto you can get." Since I'm never away from an Apple product (well, almost never -- I don't use my iPhone in the shower), I know that my Macs, iPad, and iPhone can help me make 2011 a very happy New Year.

1) Read more books. I do a lot of writing, which has strangely enough left me with less time to read for enjoyment. With iBooks and the Amazon Kindle reader both installed on my iPad and iPhone, I plan to download a lot more books in 2011. Re-reading some old favorites and exploring new authors will be a nice way to start reading again.

2) Take at least one photo a day. Having my iPhone 4 in my pocket all the time makes it dead simple to take pictures, and even when my day consists of hanging around my home office writing, I can usually find something to snap a photo of with Instagram, Camera+, or the regular iPhone camera app. I started doing this last year just before New Year's Day, but the app that I was using changed mid-year and wouldn't let me post additional photos. This year? I'm just going to post my daily pictures to a new Flickr set so my Project 365 isn't dependent on the whims of a developer.

Continue reading Ten ways I'll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011

Ten ways I'll use Apple products to have more fun in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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msnbc.com

Time Square Ball App; Ring In The New Year On Your iPhone My Gadget News By V_Geek Most of us aren't planning on being at the big party in Times Square on New Years Eve, but that doesn't mean you have to be completely left out. ... Live Times Square iPhone App Celebrates NYEiPhone FAQ 10 iPhone Apps to Ring in the 2011 New YeareWeek Watch 2011 Times Square ball drop live online,Twitter, Facebook, iPhoneExaminer.com tuaw.com -Examiner.com all 1,549 news articles »