It will not surprise you that the news this week was pretty much all about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4. Here is the news that I found of note:
- Jenna Wortham of the New York Times writes about people waiting in line for an iPhone 4 yesterday.
- Late this week we saw several good iPhone 4 reviews, such as this one from Peter Cohen of The Loop. Also worth reading is Harry McCracken's Initial Random Thoughts on the iPhone 4, and David Chartier of Macworld notes some of iOS 4's hidden features.
- To get a gaming perspective, Eli Hodapp writes for Touch Arcade about what the iPhone 4 means for games.
- You can download the iPhone 4 user guide (243 pages) in PDF format here.
- Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times discusses iOS 4, as does Roy Forchgott of the New York Times.
- iSmashPhone looks at the Best 64 Features of iOS 4.
- Tom Kaneshige of CIO writes about the benefits of iOS 4 for enterprise customers.
- Could iOS 4 be even better? Michael deAgonia of Computerworld suggests five ways that iOS 4 could be improved.
- If you and someone else with an iPhone 4 are talking to each other on your phones, you are of course using your AT&T minutes. What happens if you start using FaceTime to switch over to a video call? Apple confirmed to Dan Frommer of Business Insider that your cell call ends at that point and the call takes place solely over Wi-Fi. Thus, you are no longer using your AT&T minutes.
- How long can you use FaceTime? Jeremy Horwitz says that you use about 30% of the iPhone 4 battery life for every hour of FaceTime, so you get just over three hours of videochat before you need to recharge the battery. I suspect that using FaceTime is the most battery-intensive task you can do with an iPhone 4.
- If you are having trouble with reception on your iPhone 4, it might be because of the way that you are holding the phone. The official statement from Apple, quoted by Joshua Topolsky of Engadget, is: "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."
- Antenna expert Spencer Webb writes about the iPhone 4's unique antenna built in to the outside of the case and explains why the 3G antenna is at the bottom of the iPhone, and most other phones.
- Should your law firm have its own iPhone app? That question is explored in this article by Slyvia Hsieh of Lawyers USA, which quotes me and several other bloggers who discuss the iPhone and the law. For what it's worth, I agree completely with the opinions of Kevin O'Keefe and Dan Friendlander in that article. If you aren't going to offer anything unique in your app (for example, if the app is just a version of your website) then I don't really see the point. Having said that, one thing that I did tell Hsieh but which didn't make it into the article is that I do think it is smart for law firms to create iPhone-friendly versions of their website that are nicely formatted on the small screen of an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc. to make it easier for current and potential clients to navigate a law firm's website when they are on the go.
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I talked earlier this week about the ways to get an iPhone 4. I forgot to mention one method — as iPhone Savior notes, you can also get an iPhone 4 by being the President of Russia and visiting Steve Jobs in person. (Picture at right is from the new official Twitter feed [English version] of the President of Russia.)
- I don't use a GPS app when I drive very often, but when I do I use MotionX
GPS. That app is only $1 up front, and then $3 a month after that,
but you only have to pay during those months that you use the app. I
mention the app because it was just updated for iOS 4 and can now work
in the background. It is also supposed to have a more accurate GPS when
your iPhone is plugged in (which of course it usually is when you are
driving). Click here for MotionX GPS Drive ($0.99):
- My favorite Twitter client for the iPhone is Twitterific, and the
app was just updated to version 3.0. Technically, the iPhone app wasn't
updated; instead the iPad app was updated to work on both the iPad and
the iPhone. Thus, if you currently have Twitterific installed (either
the free or premium version) you wont be alerted that an upgrade is
available. Instead, you'll have to download Twitterific anew from the
App Store, unless you already have the iPad version. The app is free,
but you can pay $5 within the app to remove the ads (which I did).
Click here for Twitterific 3.0 (free):
- My favorite app to remind me of things to do in the future is NotifyMe, and it was updated to version 2.0 for iOS 4. It includes lots of new features such local notifications, a new interface, and tons of other tweaks. Click here for NotifyMe ($5.99):
- Christopher Breen of Macworld discusses Apple's new iMovie app for the iPhone 4. Click here for iMovie ($4.99):
- I've written in the past about the AT&T 3G MicroCell (1, 2, 3), a way to use the Wi-Fi in your home or office to boost the AT&T cell signal. Chris Ziegler of Engadget notes that the MicroCell is now available nationwide. And George Ponder of WMExperts posted a recent review of the MicroCell.
- Lee Ann Enquist writes for iPhone Life magazine about how more and more attorneys are buying iPhones.
- Dan Moren of Macworld reports that Apple has now sold over 3 million iPads.
- And finally, Dilbert explores the compulsion to buy iPhone apps:
