The iPhone 4; a fantastic piece of pure Apple engineering. This all new creation is no doubt an amazing piece of craftsmanship, but is it really worth the money?

I am often asked "What's so amazing about the iPhone?". This is a question that I have a considerable amount of difficulty answering, in one sentence or even one paragraph for that matter. For many people the iPhone 4 is a no brainer because their contract has expired so they get it for free or for the tiny sum of $18. But for others, like my self, their contract has not yet expired so they have several options:

1. Simply wait until you eligible for an upgrade.

2. Pay the early termination fee on your contract, then start a new contract with an iPhone 4. This is the option I will take.

3. If you are in UK you can buy the iPhone 4 on pay as you go then cut down you current sim card and stick it in the new iPhone. If the £499 price tag is less that the early termination fee on your contract this is defiantly the better option as you don't have to start a new contract, so you will be eligible for upgrade when the iPhone 5 comes out.

My early termination fee is just over £350 pounds and then I still have to pay £119 to get the bottom end iPhone on the contract I want. thats a total of £469, a large sum for a phone that I'll be paying a £30 a month contract for. So after looking over everything I decided that to pay such a large sum of money I would have to justify this purchase.

I would begin with pros and cons but as the only con is the price ill just do the pros.

A beautiful new design, the retina display, 720p video recording, longer battery life, new A4 chip, 5MP Camera, flash, front facing camera, stronger glass, and of course FaceTime. So that 10 new features that matter to me. Thinking of the only con, the price, will any of these features actually save me money? At first glance no. But looking deeper i realised I could now sell my Flip Ultra because of the 720p and if the glass if a strong as they claim replacing cracked scenes would no longer be an issue. But the flip ultra would only fetch me £50 and the glass would only benefit me supposing I would of broken the glass if it were not as strong. I came to the inevitable conclusion that the new iPhone is not going to save me much money.

I pondered on this very topic for several hours, it even once crossed my mind that I would be better off with an Android phone. But finally I decided that at whatever the price even be it £1000 I would have to purchase an iPhone 4. The retina display is really the most key element for me, I love screen clarity, and the new camera would pretty much replace my point and shoot, 720p video recording replaces my flip, breaking the glass is no longer a major problem, its as fast as my iPad, it is without a doubt the most beautiful handheld device Apple has ever branded a product with and of course FaceTIme; I need say nothing about that. Read More...

When the iPhone was released it had a lot of expectations, but not even apple could have predicted such popularity. The iPhone has single handedly managed to give Apple 20% of global marketshare and 30% US marketshare, almost destroy AT&T's network and sell a record breaking 8.7 Million phones in a single quarter making a grand total of just under 70 Million iPhones sold to date. The iPhone is undoubtably a huge game changer and, to me, the best handheld device ever to walk this earth.

But along with any ground breaking invention comes masses of competition. Wether its palm with the pre, RIM with the Bold, curve and storm, Motorola with the Droid or even Google with the Nexus One, everyone is out to make an iPhone killer. All these phones have come and gone claiming to be the next big thing; but do you ever see someone walking around with a Droid a Nexus or a Pre?… No. I cannot deny the fact that i do often see someone welding a blackberry, but only ever a stern business man. The iPhone is used globally by casual users, Geeks and even the stern business men.

There are several main reasons why these phones have failed. The first that Apple released the iPhone first, everyone saw the ads first, everyone heard about it first … everyone wanted one first. This of course gave Apple a huge head start, setting the standards from the beginning


Secondly the iPhone is just a better phone overall. All though the other phones may have better screens, faster processors and more memory they just don't have the same experience as the iPhone. For example the Droid is a great phone and can do the big things like multi-tasking well but it just can't do the little things for example it is very easy to hit the enter key when trying to hit the backspace key. Things like this are where all these phones let down. I mean why would you use that keyboard when you could use the iPhones perfected keyboard.
If you look at the interface of many of the "iPhone Killers" it is usually very similar to what the iPhone first introduced. The icons along the bottom are very much like the iPhones dock, the whole idea of having icons on some sort of home screen that you click to open the application. Even that, applications, initially came from the iPhone.



The iPhone has one thing that no one else does, the whole apple Eco-system. If you have a mac it works perfectly with the iPhone, from amazing syncing to discounts when you buy a mac. It syncs everything between you mac, Apple TV and iPhone so you are always with all your media. Most importantly once you start buying apps you cant stop and they sync with your mac and then you can home share them across with all your macs and other iPhones and iPod Touches so everyone in you home can have them. If you decide to ditch the iPhone for another phone then all of these apps that you have spent your hard earned money on become useless to you. Even if you don't mind re buying the apps for the new platform you simply can't because there are so many apps that are exclusive to the iPhone. It is almost impossible to port every single application because every user has their own specific combination of apps for them no amount of work could bring all 100,000 of them successfully to a new platform.

All the reasons why the iPhone is invincible are impossible to list, but putting aside all of these there still remains one reason why someone would choose not to have the iPhone. This reason is nothing whatsoever to do with the iPhone itself but more to do with the carrier it is available on. Many people refuse to use Apples device simply because it is only available on AT&T, if Apple were to move to even just Verizon then the iPhone's user base could expand almost without limits. I recently wrote a post on this topic here.

But the reason that stands above all for me is the fact that 70 MILLION people own an iPhone, a number is every increasing, anyone with an iPhone will only ever switch to a better iPhone. Apples main competition is themselves; the next iPhone killer is the iPhone 4G.

Ever since the iPhone was released, in 2007, there has been talk of it moving to Verizon's CDMA network. Recently the rumours have been stronger than ever; especially with the latest predictions that the iPhone will finally make the inevitable move to Verizon at Apples "Come see our new creation" event on 27th January. A quote from Brainstorm Tech reads "Verizon iPhone unveiling next week?" is followed by a further quote from an analyst saying, "We believe there is a good chance".

The only way that the iPhone could work on Verizon is if it were to be given CDMA capabilities. As it is now the iPhone does not have these capabilities, so there are only two ways that Apple could crack a deal with Verizon:

1. Not so long ago a chip was released that supported CDMA and GSM networks. If Apple took advantage of this chip they could in theory release a new version of the iPhone on both networks. Now that seems all very well, but of course there is a down side. To include this chip it would dramatically decrease the iPhones battery life, which is bad enough all ready. Also i would presume it would be much more expensive. But above all these things it would be moving backwards, the CDMA technology is old as it is and will soon be overtaken by Verizon's upcoming LTE network. It is against all Apple stands for to move backwards just to please customers now, but to cause great difficulty for themselves later. A perfect example of this is flash on the iPhone; Apple are waiting for HTML 5 so they don't have to drain the iPhones battery with flash support.

2. The second option is of course to have a second iPhone with just CDMA support. The chances of Apple doing this are nearly impossible they would never have a secondary model just for Verizon, would they?

Basically what I’m trying to get at is that Apple will not release an iPhone on Verizon until Verizon rolls out their LTE network, sometime in late 2010. Of course I could be entirely wrong and this time next week there may be a Verizon iPhone available for purchase, but i am willing to bet my mac that they wont. Read More...

Tags: verizon, iPhone,

Two days ago the rumour of an 8GB 3GS was reborn with a post from a german shopper. He reported ordering a refurbished iPhone 3G and that was exactly what he received but the box that it was shipped in was labelled as an iPhone 3GS 8GB.

The boxes exact labelling was "iPhone 3GS v2.2, 8GB”; The model “A1241” and part number
“MB490DN/A”. These model numbers mean nothing as we have seen them previously in earlier versions of the iPhone, but the box was labelled with 3GS in more than one case leading us to believe that it was no mistake. The shopper posted two images to prove his authenticity:

Read More...

Tags: iPhone, 3GS, 8gb

Not so long ago people were talking about Apple hitting 10 Million iPhone sales in Q4 but recently predictions have been made that 11.3M sales may have taken place this last quarter, blowing away the already hefty figure of 10 Million.

Broadpoint’s analyst Brian Marshall is stating to investors that he expects Apple to of sold just over 11.3 million iPhones at the end of the current quarter, ahead of the previous figures of 10. Marshall also announced that Apple “remains the best technology company on the planet”

Marshall is basing these predictions on several facts firstly the fact that abroad the iPhone is becoming exceedingly popular abroad. For example France alone has reports of 2 Million sales this year alone and also in Britain Apples signature device has moved to 4 different carriers; O2, Orange, Vodafone and just recently Tesco Mobile. Finally and most significantly is the fact that the iPod touch’s sales have increased by 900% this Christmas leading most people to believe that the iPhone’s sales must have also increased quite significantly. In Q3 we saw 7.4 Million sales will we see the 25% increase in sales for Q4?

Read More...

Tags: iphone, q4, 11.3M

Recently the head of O2 has issued an apology to the many customers who could not access data because the network was overwhelmed by bandwidth hungry smartphone users in London, the iPhone being the main culprit. The mobile operator has blamed the crash on "a fault with the allocation of IP addresses”, and claims to be fixing the problem. 
These issues only seem to be effecting users with Smartphones on an O2 contract as the O2 pre-pay service, which has a different access point was not effected by the crash.

Mr Dunne, the CEO of O2 stated the following on the matter:
"Where we haven't met our own high standards then there's no question, we apologise to customers for that fact,"

So now we ask what has O2 done to solve these ongoing problems? Well for a start they invested Billions of pounds building over 200 new network towers in places worsely effected; it would be nice to see AT&T do the same thing in the US.

Read More...

If your with O2 in the UK and you were planning to switch to Vodafone or Orange, when they begin selling iPhones, then you could be out of luck as recently O2 have stated that, very unforttunatly, they are still unsure if they will let there users unlock their iPhones and switch over to a different carrier. This means that if you buy an iPhone from Orange or Vodafone then it will be unlocked; but if you already currently own an iPhone on O2 then you may not be able to unlock it to another carrier. One thing that came to my attention was that if you can't unlock the iPhones then many people who already own them will buy new ones on Orange or Vodafone, boosting Apples sales.
What do you thing have Apple got something to do with this. Leave a comment.

Read More...

Tags: O2, unlock

Here is a funny clip of t-pain auto tuning President Obama with his auto tune app.


Read More...

Tags: obama, auto tune, t-pain

Here are a few ways to to help you save your battery life:

1. The thing that uses by far the most battery, after phone calls, is data transfer. When 3G is on it will of course make everything faster but your battery will decrease dramatically, like wise with wifi. I recommend that you turn these settings off unless you are using them and never have them both on at the same time, you will never be using them at the same time anyway.

2. Unless your iPhone are in airplane mode your phone will always be checking for new mail, this is a major battery drainer. iPhone will check for mail at set intervals the more often it checks the more battery it drains. You can set it to check every hour or every 15 minuets, also you can set it to never check and you have to open up the mail app to get it manually, this saving the most battery. Go to settings>Mail ,Contacts, Calendars> Fetch New Data to change these settings. But that method means you never know when you have received a new email, what I personally do is use the application GPush to send me a push notification every time I get an email I then go and manually read the mail. This has saved me massive amount of battery and I know as soon as I get new mail. Alternatives to GPush are Mail notifier and Push Gmail.

3. Something that wont effect your battery that much but does make a difference is how bright your screen is I have my screen brightness set to about 75%, having it set to 100% will drain your battery slightly faster.

Read More...

Tags: tips, battery life

Steve Jobs is well what most people would call extremely rich but i would of never of expected him to gain this level of wealth. The CEO of Apple is ,surprisingly for me, in the Top 50 richest americans list, Steve has a total estate of 5.1 Billion US dollars ranking 43rd in the Top 50 richest americans list. No surprise that Bill Gates defends his title as richest american for the 16th year running. Read More...

Tags: steve jobs, rich, 5.1 billion

China's wireless carrier China Unicom has recently announced that they will be selling 5 different iPhones through several 24 month plans. The iPhone 3G is rumored to be priced around 5,000 yuan ($732USD), and the 3GS 7,000 ($1025USD). When it does go on sale some time in October. On Sep 29, China Unicom stated that it would begin accepting preorders for iPhones on Oct. 1, also the day they will launch there 3G service, sounds a bit risky the 3G launch might not go to plan.
Read More...

Tags: china, china unicom, iphone in china

On Apple.com there is a brand new section for iPhone Apps, Apps for Everything. This is very positive, the volume of apps in the appstore makes it incredibly difficult for quality apps to be discovered this new Apps for everything is another way for apps to be promoted.

What apps for everything does is give you a category for a particular thing e.g Apps for Cooks, working out, mums and dads, music, money and so on. This really helps Developers out there promote there apps, along with staff picks and the featured apps this is a new way to get your app out there, nice to see Apple making necessary changes. Read More...

Tags: Apps for everything

The appstore has just surpassed 2 billion download and I presume, unless the appstore dies, this will continue to get much higher. The appstore now has over 85,000 apps and 125,000 developers behind it.
Steve Jobs quotes that:

"The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone. The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it." Read More...

Tags: Appstore, 2 billion, download, Apps

Vodafone have just announced that they will also be selling the iPhone 3G and 3GS in the UK in early 2010, this could also be the date that Orange start selling the iPhone but no confirmation yet, O2's exclusivity deal ends on October 9th. So now in the UK the iPhone will be available on Vodafone, Orange and of course O2 but not yet T-mobile.
This does beg the question will T-mobile also offer the iPhone we will se soon enough. Read More...

Tags: vodafone, carrier

Looks like tweetie is getting a full on makeover with tweetie 2 heres what's new in tweetie 2. Check out the atebits website for more info.
For a start, Tweetie 2 is OS 3.x compatible only, it has the ability to remember where you were in the app so you don't lose your place if you get a call. It seems to be getting a all new offline mode that atebits, the tweetie developer, claims to be great and I'm sure it will live up to his claims. You will be able to block, favorite and follow someone in offline mode and all of those actions will be completed once you are back in online mode.
You now have a fancy draughts section that will even enable you to send your drafts to Birdhouse a tweetie drafts manager, you will be able to link twitter users with your address book, syncing there phone number, email addresses and more. The searches you make will be automatically sync with twitter.com also it supports landscape mode, and many, many more features. Atebits argues that it is even easier to use than tweetie 1.x.
All this for just $2.99, tweetie 2 will be a all new app not just an upgrade. Read More...

Tags: tweetie, tweetie 2, Apps

Currently the iPhone is only available locked to in britain but now, ITProPortal have reported this, it looks close to certain that the iPhone 3G and 3GS will both become available in the UK on Orange aswell as O2. I currently have no information on when the iPhone will become available on Orange but I can say that the exclusivity deal with O2 is due to end on October 9, so the most obvious date would be then.
I am here in the UK, but I cover manly US news, and I am not currently with O2 or orange I am unlocked to Vodafone, but this is still ground breaking news as this is as close as we have ever been to seeing a factory unlocked iPhone in the UK and the US also, if you ask me this is the biggest news since the 3.0 release. Not including that big deal over nothing with Google Voice.

Read More...

Tags: orange, uk, iphone, unlocked, carrier

Finally TomTom have announced the pricing and release date of their iPhone CarKit. TomTom will be released it sometime this october with a price tag of $119.95, it will be compatible with the iPhone 3G, 3GS and yes the 2G so turn-by-turn navigation will be possible on all versions of the iPhone now. It also provides you with GPS that will certainly be more reliable than the GPS chip in the iPhone a speaker and a mic so you will be able to take hand free calls also a input for playing music over your car stereo, all while charging your iPhone at the same time, but is it really worth $120, watch the video above for more info.

Read More...

Tags: tomtom, carkit, pricing, release date

Unfortunately MMS seems to have crashed and is no longer working, when you attempt to send a MMS you get a red exclamation mark and are prompted to try again.

This is most likely due to the large amount of bandwidth being transferred over At&t's network, they claimed that bandwidth would increase by 40% on september 25th, due to iphone users sending MMS. At&t's network simply can not cope with this amount of data all at once. When extremely large amounts of data are all being transferred at one moment in time, then the network will not be able cope and the service will crash this seems to of happened to At&t, but I have no official confirmation At&t may of just disabled MMS because they feared that it would bring the whole network to it's knees.

What's your situation leave a comment. Read More...

Tags: mms, at&t, crash, failure

On september 3rd At&t announced that, after what seems like a life time, they will finally be adding MMS support on the iPhone. Now, finally, september 25th has arrived, At&t worried that it would pull down there network, and that is still a major possibility, but still here it is in its full glory... MMS.
A carrier update is available through iTunes, in most parts of the USA, that will enable MMS on your iPhone. If you have a jailbroken iPhone then it is 100% safe to update, but if your still on 3.0 be careful not to update to 3.1.

Simply update the carrier settings when you get the above message and MMS should be enabled.



If you have the camera icon next to where you would usually type your message then it has been enabled.


I waited a long time to say this...ENJOY MMS ON YOUR IPHONE!

Read More...

Tags: at&t, mms, working

Engadget is reporting that the much awaited TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone made a brief appearance on Apple’s online store in the UK with a hefty price tag of £99.95 (about $160).
There is no evidence for this theory but we think it was removed from the store because people who owned the iphone app complained but i honestly can not see a reason for this.
Hopefully we will see the the carkit in the very near future but the price is very heavy.
Will you be buying the carkit leave a comment.

Read More...

Tags: tomtom, carkit

The long awaited 25th of september is here but will MMS arrive.
At&t have been reported to be very nervous building up to the MMS launch, but I still think that they will manage to get everything up and running sometime tonight.
Read More...

Tags: mms, at&t, september 25

After a long wait finally Google has introduced push email for the iPhone you can see at Googles mobile blog. This entire service is integrated in GoogleSync, a nice tool.

Before I say any more I'm just going to point out that google sync works using Microsoft exchange and you can only use Microsoft exchange account at a time and if you are using Microsoft exchange at work then this isn't going to work for you, also if your running 3.1 then this will only work on a 3GS as Microsoft exchange requires secure device encryption and only the 3GS has that.

Using Google Sync, you can now get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your phone. Google sync works directly with your mail app so you won't have to install anything extra. If you are not interested in contacts or calendar then you can very easily select to only sync mail. Read More...

Tags: iPhone, google, email, gmail, push, gmail push App

Read More...

Tags: amazing, stunning, incredable, really easy, nice, really cool, keynote speech

• -Options for MMS are back on AT&T, but not sending or receiving;
• -Non-destructive video editing means trimming a clip no longer saves over the original video but gives you the option to “Save as copy…”;
• -Voice Control now works over Bluetooth;
• -iPhone vibrates when moving icons (does it ?)
• -Updated AT&T profile to 4.2
• -Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01
• -Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz
• -APIs to allow third party apps to access videos and edit them
• -You can now paste phone numbers into the phone app’s dialer. This wasn’t possible under 3.0
• -While pasting phone numbers, a neat feature is that it will convert alphanumeric phone numbers into a real phone number (e.g. 1-800-FLOWERS becomes 1-800-356-9377)
• -Calendar appointment popup notifications now display the “Location” field from the calendar entry,
• -Ability to save video attachments in emails to your camera roll
• -Ability to use genius with apps

Read More...

Tags: 3.1, iPhone, changelog,

After upgrading my iPhone to version 3.1 I have noticed a significant speed increase and improved battery life.
Recently I upgraded my iPhone 3G to version 3.1, jailbreaking it also with pwnagetool (guide for pwnagetool here) , and ever since when I open apps they open much, much faster, everything is snappier and more responsive, the battery life is noticably longer, i browsed the net for 20 minuets over wifi and still had 89% percent battery and I'm pretty sure the reboot time is quicker.
Tell me what you think, leave a comment or email me.


Read More...

Tags: 3.1, iPhone, speed, battery life

These days many people just wont dish the cash out for an iPhone dock at $40-$50 so over at "Draw me something" have created a dock entierly made out of of paper card the dock looks pretty good and is obviously free. Get the printout of the template here and then simply print it on to your card, then watch the video to learn how you do it.

Iphone Paper Dock / Stand from Dessine moi un objet on Vimeo.

Read More...

Tags: dock, iPhone, paper dock, template

If you are one of those people who have been longing for a physical keyboard on the iPhone, but really we know its never gonna happen, then iTwinge is the product for you. iTwinge is an accessory for the iPhone that plugs in to the charging socket at the bottom adding a physical key board but taking up half of the screen and only supporting portrait mode. Personally I would only ever use this if I was writing a very long email or something along those lines, my reason being that it is obviously not the kind of thing you want to be "slipping", or should i say tugging, on and off. From the reports I have received , when it is on, is does work seamlessly with both iPhone 3G and 3GS. iTwinge will begin shipping on November 12th at a price of $29.95 not including shipping.
As the product is not available to purchase yet I can not give it my full opinion but fir now I would not recommend buying it in the future.

Read More...

Tags: keyboard, iPhone, physical keyboard, itwinge

Two weeks ago Apple signed a ground breaking deal with China Unicom stating that the iPhone would be available in china via china unicom.
But as it is illigal to have a mobile phone exclusive to one network in China, Apple are continuing to disscuss deals with, China’s larger carrier, China Mobile. China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou confirmed that his company is disscussing contracts with Apple over the iPhone.
But if Apple were to have the iPhone available on China Mobile, they would need to modify the iPhone slightly so that China Mobile’s network would function correcly. Alternatively they could just leave the iPhone to run on the much slower 2G. Read More...

Bruce sewell, former intel right hand man, joins apple as the new vice president; as cooperfield retires. What could this mean?
It’s very promising seeing an intel expert join apple this Will hopefully mean new faster processes Read More...

Tags: Apple, vice president, apple, intel, Processor

It seems that some iPhone 3.1 users devices are performing random freezes and shutdowns it seems that not even a full restore will fix the problem. (Try jailbreaking your iPhone it may help. This is a major bug and i am sure Apple will be releasing a patch, 3.1.1, to fix it. Before you do anything drastic, like going to the Apple store, I would first recommend that you take these 3 steps: -
1. Reboot your iPhone.
2.Do a full restore, and remember to set up a new phone and not restore from a backup.

3. You must resort to taking it to your local apple store, or wait for apples next update.
Well it wouldn't be an iPhone update without a couple of bugs. Read More...

Tags: Freezing, bugs, 3.1.1, crashing, iPhone

A report from iSuppli recently stated that they predict that Apple will extend its exclusive deal with AT&T next year.  This is prior to the reports which indicate that Apple might add new iPhone carriers in the US within a year, thus ending AT&T’s three year exclusive deal for the iPhone in the US.


Read More...

Tags: iPhone, At&t, Exclusive, contract, Apple, iSuppli

The iPhone Dev Team has recently posted on their blog to inform iPhone the jailbreaking community that they are making progress, with this quote:
“We’re currently working on PwnageTool for 3.1, and will be sure to let you know when it’s available!”
In the 3.1 firmware update there are 2 changes that we need to address:1. The modem firmware update, from 04.26.08 to 05.11.07, which will prevent us from unlocking via ultrasn0w2. The firmware update, including all the new features
Ultrasn0w can only unlock iPhones running 04.26.08 modem firmware. So what PwnageTool does is allow you to update just your firmware and not your modem firmware so the ultasn0w unlock will still work; and of course jailbreaking your iPhone aswell.
I will post here as soon as pwnagetool for 3.1 is released

Read More...

Tags: jailbreak, dev team, pwnage tool