“External Force” Caused Exploding iPhones, Says Apple

Under fire for covering up incidents of exploding iPhones and iPods, Apple asserts these were caused by “external forces”.

In a statement to the AFP, Apple says ” To date, there are no confirmed battery overheating incidents for iPhone 3GS and the number of reports we are investigating is in the single digits… The iPhones with broken glass that we have analysed to date show that in all cases the glass cracked due to an external force that was applied to the iPhone.”

In non-marketese layman-friendly terms, Apple is characterizing these incidents as isolated, most likely caused by user carelessness. What’s interesting are reports that at least one customer complaining of an iPhone exploding or cracking “without explanation… has so far refused to hand over the phone to Apple’s management for testing”.

Obviously, Apple’s using this to support their case, as it’s a case of the customer’s word versus the company’s. Still, if your iPhone exploded in your face, and you’ve heard that Apple is trying to keep things quiet, what would you do? Would you willingly hand over your destroyed gadget, even if it’s perhaps the only evidence that you had nothing to do—intentionally or accidentally—with its failure?

Source

Palm Pre Easily Jailbroken?

The claim that it’s easy to open up the Palm Pre to third-party software should attract some interest—or raise complaints about its lack of security.

Ah, but given how iPhones continue to chug along smoothly despite the breadth of its undeground software ecosystem, such complaints would be dubious at best. In any case, here’s what led Steven Troughton-Smith to claim ownership of “the first jailbroken Pre in existence.”:

On Tuesday, I decided to be adventurous. I was able to buy a Palm Pre from a local Sprint Wireless store without activation or a contract (apparently I hear it’s very hard to do? $602 including tax), so I instantly ran off back to my hotel room to see if I could A) hack the activation out of the OS, and B) get it working so I can develop apps for it and run them on device.

Well, success I gave up Tuesday eve because I couldn’t get the device into restore mode no matter what I did, but on Wednesday morning I figured it out: you have to hold the volume-up button while the device is off before plugging it into USB, and from there you can use Palm’s firmware flashers to do whatever you like with it. As the device can run unsigned firmware (!!!) I was easily able to hack out the activation check, and get up and running and enable the root shell.

He continues. Read more

Showdown of “New Generation” Smartphones

In attempt to get more people to their website BillShrink recently came out with this well-made digital flyer that compares the so-called “new generation” smartphones:

Here’s that table in real-text form:

	iPhone 3GS (AT&T)	Palm Pre (Sprint)	Android G1 (T-Mobile)
Storage Capacity	16GB	8GB	1GB (Expandable SD Slot)
Talk Time (hours)	5	5	5
Standby Time (hours)	300	300	130
Camera Megapixels	3.0 With Video Recording & Editing	3.0	3.0 With Video Recording
WiFi?	Yes	Yes	Yes
GPS	Yes Turn By Turn (& Digital Compass)	Yes Turn by Turn	Yes Turn By Turn (& Digital Compass)
Voice Commands?	Yes	No	Yes
App Store	iTunes App Store	Palm App Catalog	Android Market
Price (With Contract)	$199	$199	$149
Price (Without Contract)	$599	$550	$399
Service Plans	Unlimited: $99.99 – Voice $30.00 – Data $20.00 – Messaging	Unlimited Voice, Data, & Messaging: $99.99	Unlimited: $99.99 – Voice & Messaging $24.99 – Data
Total Costs (+Tax Over 24 Months)	$3,600	$2,400	$3,149

Those Palm Pre Shortage Rumors Were True

Why Palm, why?!? Isn’t your future dependent on how widespread the Pre becomes? How could you let manufacturing problems complicate the Pre launch? Why did you prove all those shortage rumors true?

Everything Pre last May 19: “Shortly after the announcement of a June 6th release date for the Palm Pre, Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse indicated the company did not plan to spend much on advertising and expects supply shortages to develop. “We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time,” said Hesse.”

PC World last May 23: “Well, now it’s time for the bad news, because Best Buy is rumored to have only 4250 units in stock for the Pre’s June 6 launch, according to BGR.

That’s a big problem since Best Buy will sell the Pre at almost 1000 of its Best Buy Mobile counters and specialty stores nationwide, leaving an average of just four devices per store. What Best Buy will likely do in this case is, just like Apple did during the early days of the iPhone 3G, direct larger quantities of Pre devices to higher population areas. That means if you live in a smaller city or rural area, you may be waiting a long time after launch day before seeing the Palm Pre on store shelves near you.”

Read more

New iPhone Rumors are Hardly Breathtaking

If I was attending the upcoming WWDC and Apple does reveal new iPhone functionality or a model (as rumored by so many websites online), I’d sarcastically scream the following phrases at the top of my lungs.

• “Oh my God!!! It can now capture video??!?!? Fantastic!!!!!”
• “People can now copy and paste text from one app to another??!?! Amazing!!!!!”
• “Wow, people can now get an iPhone for less than $100?!?!??! Why, how generous of Apple!!!!!”
• “What, I can now send pictures, music and videos as text messages?!?!? Unbelievable!!!!!!”

So what new features will Apple introduce with the latest iPhone, presenting them as revolutionary to the Jobsian masses? What new arguments will Apple users employ to insist on their superiority? This and more to be revealed this coming WWDC!

Palm Pre Review Roundup

Syndicating the syndicated: What follows is Boing Boing Gadget’s compilation of Palm Pre reviews from all over the web.

David Pogue, leaked by the Financial Chronicle, at The New York Times:

So do the Pre’s perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, slow program opening, ringer volume, Sprint network)? Oh, yes indeedy. Especially when you consider that last weak spot might be going away. Verizon Wireless has announced that it will carry the Pre ”in the next six months or so.”

Steven Levy, at Wired:

It’s a huge win … The Pre emphatically shows that Palm has not reached the stage of suffixes. And multitasking rules!

Walt Mossberg, at the Wall Street Journal:

The Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard. It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.

Joshua Topolsky, at Engadget:

To put it simply, the Pre is a great phone, and we don’t feel any hesitation saying that. Is it a perfect phone? Hell no. Does its OS need work? Definitely. But are any of the detracting factors here big enough to not recommend it? Absolutely not. There’s no doubt that there’s room for improvement in webOS and its devices, but there’s also an astounding amount of things that Palm nails out of the gate.

Jason Chen, at Gizmodo:

The software is agile, smart and capable. The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware–someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market.

Mark Spoonauer, at Laptop Mag:

We’ve seen many smart phones come and go since the original iPhone, and the $199 Palm Pre is the first device we’ve tested whose user interface not only matches up well to Apple’s offering, but also beats it in some areas. … Palm and Sprint have a hit on their hands with the Pre, and the webOS is a smart phone platform to be reckoned with.

Boy Genius Report:

The OS is great. There’s no ifs ands or buts; it’s really refreshing to see something that’s brand new with a UI unlike anything else out there. The only problem with this is, Palm’s never been a hardware company that anyone’s really cared about. … Couple that with the nation’s underdog carrier at a $299 price-point (before rebate), and we’re not sure how many people are going to be lined up overnight, yet we’re pretty confident once people are able to play a real unit themselves, there will be more than a lot of happy Palm Pre customers.

Bonnie Cha, at CNET:

Despite some missing features and performance issues that make it less than ideal for on-the-go professionals, the Palm Pre offers gadget lovers and consumers well-integrated features and unparalled multitasking capabilities. The hardware could be better, but more importantly, Palm has developed a solid OS that not only rivals the competition but also sets a new standard in the way smartphones handle tasks and manage information.

Ginny Miles, at PC World:

The long-awaited Palm Pre lives up to the hype with a responsive touchscreen and an engaging interface, but a few hardware design flaws keep it from being the perfect smartphone.

Stephen Wildstrom, at at BusinessWeek:

If the Palm Pre had appeared a year ago, it might have turned the smartphone market upside down. It would have beaten out Apple’s iPhone 3G and the iTunes App Store, Google’s Android, the BlackBerry Bold and Storm as well as BlackBerry App World, and possibly taken the spoils. But the field has grown so crowded with clever entries in the past 12 months that the Pre, ingenious as it is, seems evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Sinead Carew, at Reuters:

The long-awaited Pre has nice new touches, but Palm Inc has a lot of work to do if the device is to be a serious competitor to the iPhone.

Om Malik:

…it is a pretty good-looking device, but it feels a little plasticky and is lower in build quality than a BlackBerry. It is squat, has a nice screen, and is easy to grip. It is round in the right places. However, the slide-out keyboard seems flimsy and cluttered.

Peter Svensson, at the Associated Press:

Move over, iPhone. You’ve had two years on top of the smart phone world. Now there’s a touch-screen phone with better software: the Palm Pre. In a remarkable achievement, Palm Inc., a company that was something of a has-been, has come up with a phone operating system that is more powerful, elegant and user-friendly.

Ed Baig, at USA Today:

The first Palm Pre will certainly give the iPhone and other rivals a run for their money. To be sure, there are areas where it could improve: Bring on the apps. But Palm has delivered a device that will keep it in the game and give it a chance to star in it.

Would you get the Pre? I’m sure long-time Palm fans like myself would enjoy putting a Pre through its paces.

“Never-Locked” iPhone 3G for $200

If you really wanted an iPhone 3G but never wanted to adhere to the carefully cultivated Jobnesian smartphone setup (or you didn’t want to pay a massive extra for freedom), here’s your chance!

Through buy.com, you can get a “never-locked” iPhone 3G for only $200. The special label applies because this is a rare, fully-functional, and affordable unit that has never been jailbroken. It enjoys full support courtesy of Apple’s warranty, and will not break when new software updates are installed. Most importantly, being “never-locked”, the phone works with any network provider.

What are the catches? First and foremost, the $200 gets you a refurbed unit. It’s not brand-new. Also, from all indications, you still have to commit to a two-year plan from AT&T. Unfortunately, the offer is currently “temporarily sold out”, so it’s impossible to fully verify this offering.

Thanks Peter The Mordo Juan! Image courtesy of Apple Inc.

Last Week’s Top Posts

• Current Earphone Controllers Don’t Work with 3G iPod Shuffles
• Quad-Core Toshiba X305-Q725 Notebook Reviewed
• V-Moda and Scosche Working on iPod Shuffle Compatible Earphones
• Calling on All For-Sale Sites: Require Serial Numbers!
• AT&T to Offer Unsubsidized iPhone 3G

AT&T to Offer Unsubsidized iPhone 3G

Yippee kay yay if you’ve dreamed of owning an iPhone without committing to a two-year AT&T contract! Seems that by March 26, the service provider will start offering Apple’s smartphone with no strings attached for at least $600.

$600 is a lot of money, and I’m not even sure if that price gets you full iPhone functionality. For instance, will Visual Voicemail run on other networks? To be sure, unsubsidized iPhones aren’t really new. The French and Germans required that their local counterparts also be available without any sort of lock-in.

Is the relatively high price worth it? Gearfuse implies that unsubsidized units free the user from the jailbreaking game, definitely a benefit worth considering. But I imagine bypassing Apple’s and AT&T’s restrictions will remain in vogue, so long as really good apps only work on jailbroken units.

(image and source: BGR)

Current Earphone Controllers Don’t Work with 3G iPod Shuffles

If nothing else, the Shuffle’s inline control interface definitely isn’t the same as that used in iPhones and other iPods. The Griffin SmartTalk inline iPod headphone controls pictured here don’t work, for example, in the 3rd-gen Shuffle. They have the same triple-ringed version of the headphone plug and nearly identical functionality, but do nothing.

-BBG\

The silence from the other side is deafening: Could it be that, for the first time, those Apple-can’t-do-wrong fanboys have nothing to say?

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