Today at Apple’s iPhone 4 press conference to address the iPhone 4 antenna problem, Steve Jobs announced that Apple will be giving away free Bumper cases and will be refunding those who have already purchased the $30 case.

Steve announced that because they simply can’t make enough Bumpers, iPhone 4 owners will be given the choice between a select amount of cases to receive free of charge.

Personally, this is what I was hoping for. It is good to see Apple finally recognizing the fact that  the iPhone is flawed and that they must do something about it. Would I rather see the phone be recalled? No.. That would screw things up not only because a recall would be very expensive, it would also bring back those long Apple Store lines that we saw on launch day.

What do you think? Is this the right thing for Apple to do? Should they have totally recalled the phone?

You can watch the full video from Apple’s press conference here.

Too tired to go out in the backyard and kick around that soccer ball? Well, now not only do you not even need to go outside, you don’t even need a soccer ball! ARSoccer for iPhone is another one of thoes augmented reality apps, the ones that make things appear through your iPhone’s camera that aren’t actually there in real life.

ARSoccer by LaanLabs sports two game modes and three difficulty levels. You can choose either Arcade Mode of Free Play. Arcade Mode keeps track of your stats, including “hits”, and how long you have been kicking around the virtual ball, whereas Free Play simply lets you brush up on your skills.

One bad thing about the app is the fact that your floor must be perfectly clean in order for the app to work right. Before playing for the first time, the app warns you of this and somehow meters how clean your floor is, not quite sure how it does this but whatever. I have noticed that only on some floors does the app register my kick. On some it will ignore my foot and the app simply won’t work. This would have to be the one and only problem I have with the app.

This app is great for showing to friends [If you can get it working right!] and costs only $0.90 in the Apple App Store.

Do I recommend this app? Yes!

Have you noticed this? Apple, the company known for their beautiful, high quality packaging seems to be skimping on the boxes for their flagship product, the iPhone. Let’s take a look.

Contents of the origional iPhone’s box:

• iPhone
• Stereo Headset
• Dock
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• USB Power Adapter
• Documentation
• Cleaning/polishing cloth
• SIM Ejector Tool

Here’s what’s in the iPhone 4′s box:

• iPhone 4
• Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic
• Dock Connector to USB Cable
• USB Power Adapter
• Documentation

What’s missing in the iPhone 4′s box?

• Dock (Now being sold for an extra $29.99)
• Cleaning/polishing cloth
• SIM Ejector tool

Why is Apple doing this? What’s going to be missing next year?

The iPhone 4 has to be one of the most popular products of the year, up there with the iPad. Today I’m going to both tell you about my buying experience and give you an un-biased review.

I woke up at about 5 a.m. the day of the iPhone 4′s launch and walked over to my neighborhood Apple Store. As I had already pre-ordered the phone, I didn’t expect there to be that long of a line. But boy, was I wrong. By 6:45 a.m. (before the store was even open) the line stretched way out of view of the store. I stood in line for a few hours. My dad called at about 8:45 to remind me that I had a 9 a.m. doctor’s appointment. I left the line that I had already waited in for two hours to go to my appointment. I got back at about 10 a.m. and got straight back in line. The line ended on the other side of the mall and the Apple Store employees warned us that there was a 4-5 hour wait. After about seven hours of standing around and listing to Leo Laporte’s “This Week In Tech” podcast I finally made it to the front of the line. I purchased the phone and got the heck out of that mall.

So that was a breif summary of my buying experience. Now, let’s start the review now, shall we?

Hardware

Unlike the 3G S, the iPhone 4 brings many new hardware features to the table including the new design with the metal band, the front facing camera, the A4 chip and the 5MP camera with flash. The iPhone 4 feels a lot sturdier and less fragile then the previous iPhones, the 3G and the 3G S. Also, the glass in the iPhone 4 is said to be less fragile than the glass in previous iPhones.

Camera

The camera in the iPhone 4 is stunning. It takes 5MP pictures and records 720p video. It absolutely blows away the cameras in the iPhone 3G and 3G S.

Here are some sample photos taken with the iPhone 4: (Click to enlarge)

A4 Chip

Even though the frequency of the new A4 Chip is still unknown, it sure does increase the speed and power of the new iPhone. As you can see here, the new processor makes the new iPhone 4 a lot snappier than the iPhone 3G.

Retina Display

One great new feature of the iPhone 4 is the Retina Display and the higher resolution. Steve Jobs pointed out at the announcement of the iPhone 4 that the pixel density of the new phone is so high the human eye can’t even recognize the pixels from the average viewing distance; however, there has been some debate as to weather or not this is true.

The Antenna Issue

As of today, June 29, 2010, the issue with the iPhone 4′s new antenna has still not been fixed. When holding the iPhone in the bottom left corner the cell signal drops dramatically. As of now, the only way to fix this is to use a case such as Apple’s Bumper case or to simply hold it differently.

Software

Multitasking (Fast App Switching)

One of the biggest features of iOS 4 (Previously known as iPhone OS 4) is multitasking. I think multitasking on the iPhone 4 is great; however, most iPhone apps in the App Store right now do not support it. Even though it works with out-of-the box apps and around a dozen third-party apps from the App Store, the fact that Apple gave developers little time to update their apps to support iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 really kills the feature. Overall, the feature has a lot of potential and could become quite useful once developers update their apps.

Mail: Unified Inbox

One of the downsides with the Mail application before iOS 4 was that you had to go back in the menus quite a bit to change inboxes. Now, just like Mac OS X’s Mail application, you can view e-mails from all your accounts in one inbox.

Folders

As Folders are not the biggest feature in iOS 4, they are still welcome. Folders are a great way to simply clean up your homescreen. Until iOS 4, there was no simple way to do this so people like me with over a hundred apps would have to scroll from page to page to find the app they wanted. Now, you can keep your homescreen nice and tidy with folders

Custom Homescreen Wallpaper

Finally, Apple lets you change your homescreen wallpaper! Jailbreakers have had this option for years, now Apple decides to catch on.

iMovie for iPhone

No, iMovie is not included in iOS 4, neither is it free. It costs $4.99 and it’s available in the App Store for iPhone 4 only. I downloaded it right after picking up my iPhone and I have to say, it’s not all that great. It’s basically a really, really skimmed down version of iMovie ’09 for Mac OS X. Unless you are BIG into movie editing on your iPhone 4 you might as well sync your iPhone with your computer and edit it on there.

Rating

Overall, I have to give the iPhone 4 a 4.25/5 stars because of the antenna issue. Once Apple fixes this, I will give the phone a perfect score, 5/5 stars.

What do you think? Do you have a iPhone 4? Are you getting an iPhone 4?

Extra extra, read all about it! The new iPhone is finally here! No, it’s not called the iPhone 4G nor is it called iPhone HD. It’s simply called.. iPhone 4. In this post I am going to be telling you what I think about the new iPhone and why I’m thinking about buying it.

This is big. Guys, when the first iPhone came out it was lacking so many features including 3G wireless networking, Multitasking, Cut, Copy, and paste, and a front facing camera. With iPhone 4 and iOS 4 most of the expectations are being met. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone has been a great phone from the start, It has just been lacking some features. Fortunately, most of those features have now made their way to the iPhone.

Two birds with one stone. Think about it. You take your iPhone everywhere, and unless you’re a serious photographer, you’re not going to be carrying a big, bulky camera around everywhere. iPhone 4 has a five megapixel camera and it records HD 720p video. Of course, only a few people have actually used the new iPhone’s camera, but if it’s as good as they say it is, this is a game changer. Even better, you will be able to fully edit your video right on your iPhone with the iMovie app that will be available for $4.99 in the App Store.

A4 processor + Multitasking. The reason that I’ve grouped theese two features together is because in my opinion, they go hand and hand. I’m excited to see how the A4 chip will make multitasking. How many apps will we be able to have open? If it’s as fast as the iPad, then it should work pretty well.

Will I buy one? YES! Yes! Yes! I really don’t think we’ve seen this amount of features in an iPhone update before. When Apple says that iPhone 4 is the best thing since the original iPhone, I don’t think they’re kidding.

What do you think? Will you be buying an iPhone 4? Why or why not?

Read my review of the iPhone 4 here!

There has been a lot of buzz over rumors that Apple will announce a new Apple TV at WWDC on June 7th. Engadget has posted that It has heard news from “a source very close to Apple” that an Apple TV update is coming. In this post I will be going over some of the featurtes of the rumored Apple TV as well as giving my opinion.

Some of the features of the rumored Apple TV update are:

• Smaller, iPhone like design.
• 1080p video.
• Cloud storage.
• Lower price point; $99.
• Runs on iPhone OS 4.
• Runs on Apple’s A4 CPU.

I find some of these new features really interesting. To start, It’s pretty weird how it will run on iPhone OS 4 as it’s a touchscreen operating system. How is this going to work on a TV? How is Apple going to add 1080p video to a device the size of an iPhone? I guess that’s why they’ll include the A4 chip.

One bad thing about the update it that it will only have 16 gigabytes of storage opposed to the 160GB in the previous model. I’m assuming that this is where the cloud storage comes in.

I’m excited to see what Apple announces at WWDC. We know that they’ll announce a new iPhone, but will they also announce a new Apple TV or will they wait for their iPod event?

What do you think? Will Apple refresh the Apple TV anytime soon? Will you buy one? Do you already own an Apple TV?

Yesterday Apple announced iPhone OS 4 at their headquarters in Cupertino Calif. This new OS update includes many great features including multitasking, enhanced mail, customizable home screen wallpaper, etc.. In this post I will be expressing my thoughts and opinions on OS 4.

Multitasking

This is big. Yes, I know, Apple isn’t the first to announce multitasking but this just could kill android and maybe even WebOS. Both theese operating systems are heavilly based on multitasking. Palm and Google are going to have to mix it up a bit before everyone moves over to iPhone when OS 4 comes.

Enhanced Mail

The way that Apple has upgraded mail is great. Now, instead of having to go back and switch between mailboxes to check mail, you can now go to one mailbox where all of your email is compiled. The new mail also supports multiple Exchange accounts.

iBooks

We’ve seen them on the iPad. In fact, we’ve downloaded 600,000 of them! iBooks are now going to be coming to the iPhone. I don’t have much to say about this, but I think it’s great how we can now easily purchase, download, and read iBooks from anywhere we go.

iAd

I have mixed thoughts on IAd. First of all, it’s pretty great how simple it is. Second, this sucks for AdMob. Third, i’d like to see what consumers and advertisers do with this.

Bluetooth Keyboards

This isn’t that big of a feature but I think it’s pretty sweet. This will be great for writing a blog post or email from the car, airplane, or practically anywhere else. I’m looking forward to using this feature.

Folders

This has to be one of the biggest and baddest features in OS 4. You can now take your apps and easily make folders to put them in. This is great for those appaholics (like me) out there.

What do you think? What are you looking forward to in OS 4?

As you may already know, Google has recently launched something called Google Buzz. In this post I will be telling you more about Google Buzz and I will also be sharing my opinions on the service.

How is Google Buzz different?

In my opinion, Buzz is not a copy of Facebook, nor is it a copy of Twittr. Buzz is simply in-between. It is not as complicated as facebook, but is also not as simple as twitter. What makes it different than Twitter is the fact that Buzz lets you comment on other peoples updates and it also lets you upload photos. You man say that Twitter does let you upload photos, but it doesn’t. Twitter only lets you post links to photos and has no native way to attach photos. The only way to post a photo in Twitter is to use a service like Twitic or yfrog. Also, Twitter does not let you comment on other people’s updates. The closest thing to commenting on an update is @replying somebody.  The bad thing about an @reply is that it is not connected to a specific tweet, so things can get a little confusing when you are receiving many @replies.

What does Buzz do?

I think Google does it best when describing Google Buzz. Here’s a short video about Buzz:

What do I think about Buzz?

Buzz will not replace Facebook and is far from replacing Twitter. I look forward to seeing how the community uses Buzz and what future changes Google will make to it in the future. After taking some time to use Google Buzz and testing it out, one of its biggest flaws is the fact that whenever somebody comments on your update, Google automatically Emails you. I hope that in the future, Google will give you the option to turn the Email updates off because after a while they get annoying.

You can follow me on Buzz here. You can also read Google’s blog post on Google Buzz here.

What do you think?

What do you think about Google Buzz? Have you gotten the chance to try it out yet? If so, do you like it?

Do you have an iPhone? iPod touch? Today, I will be telling you about ten iPhone apps that you NEED to have on your iPhone (or iPod Touch).

Tweetie (Website) (Review)
Do you tweet? Have an iPhone? Why not tweet on your iPhone? Tweetie is a great app for doing this and it’s also my primary Twitter client for the iPhone. It is  clean, simple, and quite useful. The app supports the new version of ReTweets, and GeoTagging as well.

AutoStitch (Website) (Review)
Ever wanted to make your pictures bigger and wider? Can’t fit all the objects you want into the photo? AutoStitch For iPhone lets you quickly and easily “stitch” your photos together, creating one big photo.

Cube Runner (Website)
Bored? Cube Runner is a free and simple game for your iPhone that is a great time-waster. The objective of the game is to run through the land of cubes without hitting them. The further you get in the land of cubes, the more points you get.

Dropbox (Website) (Review)
So, you want to transfer your photos from your iPhone without syncing in iTunes, or having to Email the photos to yourself. If this applies to you, you NEED Dropbox! There is also a Dropbox application for your Mac or PC that looks like a folder on your hard drive, but is actually syncing across all your computers, your iPhone , and the Drobox website. The basic, free version of Dropbox includes two free gigabytes of storage space but if you click here, you can get 250MB of extra space to store your files!

Paper Toss (Website)
Like Cube Runner, Paper Toss is a great app for if you’re bored. The objective of the simple game is to flick the paper into the trash can for as many times in a row as possible.

Pandora (Website)
Want to find new music for your iPod/iPhone? Pandora, in my opinion, the best online music service (besides iTunes), has an iPhone app! Now you can listen to Pandora while on the go, in a place where your computer is not.

iCam (Website)
Want to keep an eye on your home or office? iCam, along with the iCam application for Mac or PC, lets you use your webcam as a surveillance camera and watch it from your iPhone or iPod Touch. iCam is completely free but you can purchase an add on that enables you to have the option of being notified every time motion is sensed. You can also set it so that it records on motion.

Logitech TouchMouse (Website)
There are two uses for the Logitech TouchMouse iPhone app; a)to play a trick on your family members and b) to use your iPhone as a mouse/keyboard for your Mac or PC.

Ustream Brodcaster (Website)
Ustream, the popular (but far from perfect) live streaming service now has an iPhone app that lets you broadcast live from your iPhone over 3G and WiFi.

Yelp (Website)
Yelp for iPhone is perfect for thoes times when you just need to find a place to get a bite to eat. It is free and really useful.

What do you think? What are your favorite iPhone apps? What apps do you use on a regular basis?

Sick of not being able to tweak your iPhone? Want more features? In this post I will be telling you how to easily Jailbreak and install Cydia on your iPhone or iPod Touch with Blackra1n.

[NOTE: Currently, Blackra1n does not work with iPhone OS 3.1.3]

Steps:

1. Download Blackra1n by clicking HERE.
2. Once Blackra1n is installed and opened, plug in your iPhone or iPod Touch to your computer.
3. Click the “Make it rain” button in Blackra1n.
4. Wait for your iPhone or iTouch to restart.
5. Once your device restarts, there should be an app on the home screen called Blackra1n, open it.
6. Once opened, you should be given the option to download Cydia, Rock, etc.

That should do it! Once you have Cydia and/or rock installed, you can download apps, themes and tweaks to make your device your own! If you run into any problems Jailbreaking your iPhone or iTouch, simply restore your device in iTunes.

I plan to do a few more posts in the near future giving you some tips for Jailbreaking and telling you what I think  you should download from Cydia/Rock.

I hope this helped you Jailbreak your iPhone! If you have any questions, Email me at colby@cpaleytech.com!