Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Many cheap cell phones have had the ability to dial contacts by speaking their names for some time-the problem in is just that most of those voice systems don't work very well."

Voice control debuted with the iPhone 3GS, and if you are like me, you haven't really done much with it. It's not that I don't appreciate having that option, I just haven't embraced it yet. I'm thinking I will have to though, since on January 1st, 2010 in Oregon they will require you to use handsfree technology to make or receive calls when driving. And in danger of being called Captain Obvious, it certainly is safe using voice commands than trying to type in a number on your phone. So with that, here is a good primer on just how to use voice control on your iPhone.

"Is your iPhone movie-making prowess giving your viewers motion sickness? Are your carefully planned, in-your-face action sequences of your friends' skateboarding accidents or grandma's 80th birthday party antics not making it to Funniest Home Videos because of your inability to hold your iPhone still while you capture potential money-making footage."

While this is a bit bulkier than the ZGrip we told you about months ago, this grip from iSteady would do much more to steady your shot if you had too much coffee or just need that extra steady shot. This is priced at $99.95 USD, about $30.00 USD more than the ZGrip, and they expect to have it available for Christmas.

"Borrowing a line from Apple's (AAPL) "There's an app for that" TV ad campaign, Verizon (VZ) launched a high-profile attack on rival AT&T (T) last night in the middle of Monday Night Football's Viking-Packer game."

I have to admit, a clever take on the Apple ads, and to add some irony to the mix the person uploaded the commercial using his iPhone 3GS.

The claim: "The world’s thinnest rechargeable battery case for iPhone 3G & iPhone 3G S. Now available, the brand new mophie ‘juice pack air™’ is designed to virtually double the time you have to Rock, Talk, Surf and Send with your iPhone 3G or 3G S. The juice pack air™ is a rechargeable external battery concealed inside of a protective form-fitting case for the iPhone 3G & iPhone 3G S. It offers you the full protection of a hard-shell case while providing virtually twice the battery life of the iPhone alone; all in an ultra-thin, light-weight, low-profile design. The juice pack air™ is available exclusively through mophie.com and Apple stores world-wide. This is the first Apple certified “Works With iPhone 3G” attached battery in the world!"

The hardware: Packaged in a slim plastic shell, the Juicepack Air from Mophie offers protection and claims to double the battery life of the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but we all know how battery life claims work. Is this the one you should believe? Well, actually, I'm not telling you yet. Read on!

Read more...

"I don’t know about you, but there were only about 20 people waiting in line at the iPhone 3GS launch at the Apple Store in Atlantic City on June 19, 2009. Contrast that with this video of the iPhone 3GS launch in Singapore posted on the Apple 2.0 blog. Shot by a student named Satya who was number 10 in line, the line is estimated at 3,000 strong. Satya literally took the protective plastic off his new phone and shot a video of the line as he left the store."

No matter how you spin it, that's impressive. I know the twentieth model of the same BlackBerry with the same OS, same screen, same keyboard, and same trackball gets equal attention from people, but nonetheless, the iPhone 3GS launch seems to be quite successful in Singapore. That's quite a line. Reminds me of the original iPhone lines a few years ago.

Ahhh... The good old days...

"Back when iPhone 3.0 launched, we heard Wi-Fi was giving problems to some - primarily iPod touch - users. Various network resets or OS restores seem to have quieted that down, but now TUAW is reporting that the newly launched iPhone 3GS might be suffering Wi-Fi troubles as well."

It's no secret that Wi-Fi is, at best, flawed, in OS 3.0. My 3GS and 3G both have weaker signals than before. I'm not talking about one or two bars, either. I'm talking standing on top of the router and seeing one bar of signal strength and being in the bedroom (the other side of my apartment) and dropping down to one bar when I used to have a full signal. It never drops to 3G, though, which I find interesting.

I'll be curious to see if this is fixed in 3.1 (or 3.01) along with the battery drain issues others have been reporting.

"As my old 3G was still in use (it's now my wife's iPhone), I could conduct a test. Turning off Wi-Fi on both phones, I tracked their behavior. I confirmed that there were numerous occasions when the iPhone 3GS connected to EDGE while the iPhone 3G hooked up to a 3G network-even when the two devices were side-by-side. The reverse virtually never happened. Most of the time, the two iPhones connected to the same network, but a difference was definitely detectable."

The consensus is that the 3GS simply reports the network status more accurately. Not sure I buy that, but it is what it is, I guess.

I'm having a different issue. When the phone first wakes from sleep, my WiFi strength is one bar and that persists for quite a bit in areas where I know I have full signal because after a bit of run time, the signal strength moves to where it should be. I wonder if maybe these two issues are related and maybe the iPhone 3GS does simply report signal strength more accurately?

Anyone else who can do a direct comparison between the 3G and 3GS? Share your thoughts in the comments!

"In releasing its new speed-centric update to the iPhone, Apple has boasted that the 3GS is twice as fast as its predecessor, but the company has remained mum on the handset’s actual specifications. Thanks to T-Mobile of the Netherlands, though, we know with certainty that the 3GS sports a 600MHz processor and 256MB of RAM – this compared to the 400MHz processor and 128MB of RAM on the iPhone 3G. Based on the report released Wednesday from Medialets, a smartphone-based advertising and analytics platform, the iPhone 3GS spec bump far exceeds Apple’s “twice as fast” sales pitch in real-world tests."

That fourth bar is the 3GS (head over to the link below to see the full piece and a larger version of the graph). For my day to day iPhone usage, the speed bump is more than noticeable; it's downright huge. I noticed it most when I was demoing the Push Notifications of BeeJive two nights ago. Launching, closing, getting a notification, and relaunching the app took nowhere near as long as launching the app used to take on the 3G.

Another place I've noticed the speed difference is in Safari. Pages load much faster and tap to zoom and pinch are much faster. Obviously, I can't quantify my results, but luckily lots of people have done that for me already.

"As successful as Pure Digital has been with their Flip line of video cameras - selling $150 million worth of them last year - they face a new type of threat that they can't defeat. The video capable iPhone, and video mobile phones in general, will make them irrelevant in the next couple of years."

Mike Arrington has a way of making things sensational even when they're not really that big a deal. That's not to say the iPhone isn't a big deal, but the idea that it's going to start satisfying the market for the Flip cameras is a little silly. They satisfy different niches, and the Flip is good for people who don't want to commit to an iPhone or a monthly plan. At $189, you get very good video quality with no strings attached with a Flip cam.

You can logically argue that the quality is comparable between the Flip and an iPhone 3Gs, but comparable quality alone isn't going to steal market share away from a product that, at its core, is popular because it's easy. I don't think the Flip will suddenly be rendered irrelevant, but its relevancy will probably decrease among the crowd that owns an iPhone and wants quick videos for web purposes, but that by itself in no way renders the Flip irrelevant.

Let's face it, the iPhone 3GS is loaded with hype. There isn't one thing about it that hasn't been described as "great," "amazing," or "better," and so on. While it didn't get the revolutionary attention and wasn't as far a leap as the 3G and OS 2 was, expectations were high.

So how did it go down yesterday? Let's discuss. Read more...

See that guy above? That's who I'm waiting for. He has until 3:00pm to make me a happy person today. I imagine some of you are already hitting the lines since the Apple Store opened at 7:00am. Share your experience on the whole shebang (line experience, crowds, and the new toy itself) in the thread below!

Today is going to be a long day. I can feel it.

"Despite warnings from AT&T that claimed high demand for the new iPhone 3G S would prevent it from shipping pre-orders by the June 19 launch date, Apple is still promising to satisfy all web pre-orders with a Friday delivery. The Boy Genius Report cited internal sources at AT&T as saying that customers who had not ordered the new phone by June 15 would have to wait one to two weeks after the launch to receive their order or stand in line to buy one. While availability of the new iPhone at AT&T stores is still uncertain, there appears to be no shortage on Apple's side. The company's website continues to take pre-orders for the product without reservation, informing users that their new phone will be shipped to arrive on time on the 19th, with free shipping to boot."

Not that I doubted mine would make it here, but this is definitely reassuring. I always find it funny how, year after year, AT&T runs out of phones so quickly while Apple always has ample supply, to the point that they're even allowing online ordering this time around.

Anyway, what's your pre-order situation? Did you? From Apple or AT&T? Did you get your shipping confirmation yet?

I pre-ordered mine the day after WWDC from Apple, but I haven't gotten my "it's coming" e-mail yet.