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iOS 4.2 helps the iPhone be a better phone

| Latest News | December 2, 2010

Nokia 6310i: A brick, but better at phone calls

Nokia 6310i: A brick, but better at phone calls

The update to iOS 4.2 has brought support for a mobile phone technology that helps reduce battery usage and mobile network usage.

The Nokia Siemens Networks technology - Network Controlled Fast Dormancy - helps to reduce congestion on mobile phone networks by keeping mobile phones in a halfway house 'intermediate' state between being completely idle or always being in connection with the network.

According to AppleInsider Nokia Siemens have conducted tests on an iPhone that it believes shows that iOS 4.2 is taking advantage of this feature.

The report states that the tests where carried out on the US AT&T mobile network. It's been reported that smartphones on Middle Eastern mobile networks using this have been able to double battery life.

It is not know how much of this technology is in place on US networks or whether our own here in the UK utilise it, but it does back up previous reports that Apple engineers have been on 'crash courses' on how to implement mobile phone networking.

Let's hope these improvements can make it over the pond to our networks here in blighty. As amazing as a mobile device the iPhone has been, its ability to actually be a phone has lot a left to be desired.

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Our favourite App in the World RIGHT NOW: Find My iPhone

| Reviews | November 25, 2010

Find My Ipad: But don't track me down

The Find My iPhone functionality of Mobile Me has been made free in iOS 4.2 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

So what's the catch? Well there is one: only iPhone 4 users benefit from this freebie.

Never the less this is must do if you have compatible devices. I've just set it up on our iPad and it's very straightforward, even if you do not already have a Mobile Me account (the chances of which are slim. We don't even have one. Why bother when Google Sync and Dropbox is free).

You simply need to set up a Mobile Me account on your device under the 'Mail, Contacts, Calenders' section of settings. Select Mobile Me, then simply add your Apple ID and password (that's the one you use to buy from the iTunes Store with). You may need to agree to a change in the Apple Store T&C's.

Once that's done you can pop along to me.com and voila:

Find My Ipad: But don't track me down

Amazing isn't it. And I can assure you (without revealing my address) that even without GPS, the location by Wifi was spot on. As soon as we add a 3G SIM to our iPad we will check out the accuracy from mobile network triangulation.

So what can you do once you found the location of your device online? Well here's the really cool bit. You can send it a message:

Find My iPad: Display a Message

Which then magically appears on the device!

Find my iPad: The Message on the iPad

It will also send you an email to confirm that a message has been sent to it.

Ok so that may not do the trick. Even worse is you may of not put a Lock on your home screen. Luckily though Mobile Me has thought of that:

Find my iPad: Set a Home Screen lock

But what about your precious data? Those 'private' pictures of your girlfriend? Your Home Office emails? Yep you've guessed it:

Find my iPad: Wipe it clean

A scary looking box. Which is exactly what you want if your worried about someone else getting hold of your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone 4. Even if you think your mate is about to Twitter jack you you might as well lock it to stop them.

So do not hang about with this. Follow Apple's easy illustrated instructions here

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Still no iOS 4.2 but it may be worth the wait for old iPhones

| Latest News, The UsedMac Blog | November 9, 2010

Steve: Can we call him just by his first name? Oh. No. Steve Jobs.

Ah well. Sometimes when you make a prediction you have to be ready for it to not happen.

And in the case of our iOS 4.2 prediction it hasn't. We had took a punt on it turning up late on Sunday evening so that America would stand a chance at not suffering the Daytime Saving alarms bug.

It seems Apple have decided to give the Land of the Free an unwelcome lie in though. So no fix for the annoying Alarm issue (where repeat Alarms fail to alert at the correct time after your iDevice automatically adjusts its time for Daylight Saving changes).

The word on the blogosphere now is that we could see the update sometime 'this week'. Given that this is so vague, we'll go with it to save face.

That's enough dry wit for this post though. Remember we surmised that this update would be a big deal mostly for iPad users? Well there may be something for those of us with creaking old steam driven iPhone 3G's.

Rene Ritche (a name that just reminds me of Allo Allo) got hold of the 'Gold Master' beta build of iOS 4.2 and has tried it on an iPhone 3G. And filmed the results. It seems that 'lagginess' is improved and overall performance is better.

Now lets be honest: iOS 4.1 has helped performance on the iPhone 3G, but it was a damn good job given just how much of a dog 4.0 was. (I even rolled back to iPhone 3.1.2 and it felt like I'd got an iPhone 4). Still today I get frustrated with how just slow even simple tasks like Text Messaging, opening Notes and entering Settings (just think how often you switch off your 3G and Location Services to save some battery on a Friday night out).

Ok I'll be fair to Apple. Compared to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3G has a quarter of the RAM and a slower processor. This we know. So its understandable that it gets left out when it comes to Multitasking and Wallpapers. It shouldn’t get slower though. If Vista can speed up with a Service Pack, then I’d hope Apple to be able to improve my iPhone 3G. I don't expect to get big advances, but I do expect it to run as quickly as it did when I first got it. Updates should bring performance benefits, or at least maintain them. I'll happily sacrifice Wallpapers and folders for it too.

So we'll keep waiting not only excited at the prospect of updating our iPad, but also our long in the tooth iPhone 3G.

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The countdown to iOS 4.2

| Latest News | November 7, 2010

Steve: Can we call him just by his first name? Oh. No. Steve Jobs.

Well all rumours suggest that the latest update to iOS: 4.2 should be with us today.

Most of the updates benefits will showered on iPad users, however this iPhone user along with many others will be looking forward to a fix for the Daylight Saving changes bug.

It is this clock change issue that has given us our strongest hint that iOS 4.2 will drop today. Earlier in the week Apple stated that a fix for the issue, which has led to alarms going off late in the UK after the change from BST to GMT and some rather annoyed people getting into work an hour late, would be 'available by the 7th November'. We can safely presume that they won't just patch this single issue with a 4.1.1 update but roll it out as part of iOS 4.2.

So why do these updates matter? Well aside from bug fixes they bring us nice presents in the form of new features.

iOS 4.2 will be a huge leap for iPad users making it the most compelling update for the iPad yet. It will bring Multitasking, Folders for Apps amongst other features. The multitasking alone could significantly change the ability of device. It will be interesting to find out whether these added features change the way people use their iPad’s. Will it help make it more of a laptop replacement rather than a companion device?

Also exciting will be the appearance of AirPlay. This is a very exciting development of one of our favourite features: AirTunes. Soon you will be able to stream video and audio on your iOS devices directly to your Apple TV or AirTunes enabled Airport Express. Surely we'll need to see some updates to the Airport Utility as well in order to activate features in the Airport Express.

We'll have details on the changes when it drops. In the mean time we are impatiently clicking 'Update' on iTunes with our iPhone plugged into the MacBook....

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Turn your iPad into a Netbook in time for iOS 4.2

| Latest News | September 1, 2010

Bet you expected something useful here, didn't you?
Bet you expected something useful here, didn't you?

Fingering: It's better on keys than a Touchscreen

Just one nifty looking case required

I like the look of this. It reinforces my view that the iPad is more than capable of doing the job of a Netbook. It's not just for consumption and don't let anyone tell you that.

Multitasking with iOS 4.2 is really going to show the devices potential.

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