Mobile Phone News

Apple has sold three million iPads in the first 80 days and it’s still going strong as ever. While the initial euphoria over the iPad’s stunning looks has now settled amongst the critical mass users, the iPad is now being touted as the “next big thing” in the enterprise segment.

Many analysts had questioned whether Apple would be able to maintain the momentum of iPad’s brisk opening sales over a longer duration. For some, the iPad may just be a flashy gadget to flaunt but its growing adoption in the enterprise is a testimony that the iPad is not just about the looks. It is a fantastic gadget that serves the needs of one and all - be it as an entertainment device for personal needs or an enterprise device for corporate needs.

Many big guns are buying the iPad in bulk for enterprise use. Wells Fargo, Mercedes-Benz, and SAP are amongst the early enterprise adopters of the iPad and the list is growing with every passing day. Wells Fargo has been using the iPad to demonstrate some of its financial products at investor conferences. Mercedes-Benz has used the iPad on its showroom floors to educate customers about various financing options for its cars. The iPad is a huge hit at SAP, the world’s largest business software developer. Most of the company’s senior management is now using the iPad instead of a laptop as it works very well as a “virtual paperless office”.

While some companies have distanced them from the iPad as they claim that it’s not best-suited for their enterprise needs. Many others are concerned with security issues surrounding the iPad’s Wi-Fi connectivity, lack of keyboard and limited ability for multitasking. However, the iPad’s popularity has been a blessing in disguise for the tablet industry in general and many manufacturers including HP, Samsung, Dell and LG are planning to release tablets in order to woo the enterprise customer.

Barclays predicts that the iPad sales will see an even bigger surge in 2011. The iPad is a true game changer and it’s no surprise that people want to use it everywhere, be it home or at work. Do you believe that the iPad can be the next big game changer in the enterprise? Share your opinion by leaving a comment below this post.

On Tuesday, Apple released an update for iTunes pushing the version number to 9.2.1. As you can reveal from the version number, this update is just for bug fixes.

According to the release note, iTunes 9.2.1 comes with the following bug fixes:

• Disables older versions of some incompatible third-party plug-ins
• Addresses minor issues with dragging and dropping items
• Addresses a performance issue when first syncing to some devices with iTunes 9.2
• Addresses an issue upgrading to iOS 4 on an iPhone or iPod touch with encrypted back-ups
• Addresses other issues that improve stability and performance

As usual, you can download the latest version of iTunes from Apple’s website or via software update.

If you are using jailbroken iPhone, it is safe to upgrade to this iTunes version. There should be no problem for your jailbroken iPhone to sync with the updated iTunes.

However, if you plan to use Spirit tool to jailbreak the iPhone, as advised by musclenerd, you better stay away from the upgrade.

Have you updated to iTunes 9.2.1? Do you encounter any problem with your jailbroken iPhone. Please feel free to share your experience by leaving comment below.

This is a good news for those international customers who want to buy an iPad. Apple has announced that iPad will be available in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore this Friday, July 23.

Both WiFi and 3G models of iPad will be available on the same day. You can purchase both models via Apple’s retail stores and its authorized resellers.

Apple does not mention about the official local pricing of iPad for each region in the press release. But base on my search, here are the local pricing of the respective countries for both iPad models:

Earlier, Apple has announced it sold over 3 million iPads in less than three months after its official launch in US. That means it is selling at a rate of roughly 1 million iPad per month. With the additional nine countries, Apple will soon hit the milestone of 5 million iPad sales.

The pricing information listed above is for your reference only. If you find anything incorrect and if you know the exact pricing for Mexico, please remember to leave me comment.

If you are not using an official SIM (say, the one from AT&T), you should be very familiar with the below message shown in iTunes when you connect the iPhone to your computer:

The SIM card inserted in this iPhone does not appear to be supported.

Apparently, you can use PwnageTool or Redsn0w to activate the iPhone (i.e. what so called hactivation). But no all iPhone users are comfortable with these jailbreak tools.

Sherif Hasim, the guy who found the exploit for unlocking iOS 4, has figured out an easy way to activate most models of iPhones including iPhone 3G/3GS, as well as, iPhone 4, without an official SIM. The trick is to make use of a Phonebook SIM card. As you’ll see in the video, you can simply insert a phonebook SIM into the iPhone. And, that’s it. The iPhone is automatically activated.

As mentioned by Sherif, all phonebook cards should work:

Use any phonebook sim card, they are there in radioshak, mobile phone shops or any mobile tech moles , any phone book simcard will do the trick, no need for programmable sims, all those phonebook sims used to save ur contacts and transfer them have a universal ICCIDs preprogrammed so they all work.

To learn more about how Sherif uses an phone book SIM card to activate an iPhone, check out his demo video:

I can say this is by far the easiest way to hacktivate an iPhone. If you’re interested to purchase a phonebook SIM, you can head to DITS’ website or buy one via EBay.

As the phonebook card does not available as micro SIM, for those using iPhone 4, you need to use some kinds of micro SIM cutter to convert the card into micro SIM.

So, if you’re counting calories—and who isn’t these days—you’ve probably seen the food and calorie trackers available for the iPhone; there are several. And although FoodScanner by DailyBurn was released in September, 2009, it recently went on sale and we thought now would be a great (meaning cheap) time to give it a whirl since we’ve heard many good things about it and its effectiveness.

In short, FoodScanner allows you to scan the barcodes of food packages, pulling up all the nutritional info you need to help you watch your caloric intake. Alternatively you can search for foods that won’t scan, or GASP!, don’t have barcodes. But you need to ask yourself, do you really want to eat something that doesn’t have a barcode? I don’t know, it’s a shaky issue; with no barcode how are we supposed to even know what it is, right? Moving on. You can scan or search for the foods you eat for every meal and FoodScanner will keep a running total of your calories for the day, along with other numbers like carbs, fat, protein, and more.

DailyBurn claims FoodScanner has a growing database of 200,000+ foods for reference, and they’re serious too because if you run across something that
FoodScanner doesn’t recognize, you can add the nutritional information yourself and it will be incorporated into the database.

FoodScanner couldn’t be easier to use. As soon as you bring it up you’re ready to begin tracking your food for the day. There’s a search bar along the top, or if you’re feeling lucky you can tap the little lightening bolt in the lower left corner (visible in the screenshot above), and that will bring up the UPC scanner which uses the iPhone’s built in camera and Occipital RedLaser technology to read the barcode and display the nutritional info in the database. From there you can choose the serving size you consumed (be honest!) and what meal it was for. FoodScanner does the rest!

Good thing I only had 4 of these today…

It doesn’t require an account with DailyBurn, but if you choose, you can sign up for a free account and get access to several other trackers available there. You can see charts and graphs breaking down your daily intake of fat or carbs. Or bugs. OK, not bugs, you shouldn’t eat bugs; I don’t want anybody walking away here saying I told you to eat bugs.

Anyway, the DailyBurn site is just crammed with all kinds of useful stuff to help you keep up with your health and weight, and even your exercise regimen. Like I said, you can opt for a free account which gives you limited access to DailyBurn’s useful tools, or if you’re really serious about your health you can sign up for one of their paid plans. But, fair warning, the plans seem to be on the expensive side in my opinion.

FoodScanner is presently on sale at the App Store for only $0.99 which is fantastic because the app does exactly what it says on the box and it does it pretty well. Used in conjunction with DailyBurn’s website, the app could be a powerful tool for the health conscious. (Do you feel a but coming up?)

But…

There’s one!!

So FoodScanner is a pretty cool app, it makes it easy to track your calories, and it has an impressive database of foods to pull from. I like it. But the limits placed on the free account at DailyBurn and the prices of the Pro plans kind of turned me off, especially given the functionality of the totally free site, SparkPeople, which also has an app for the iPhone (and it too is free). I haven’t done an in depth comparison of these services, but on the surface it seems that you can get as much or more for free from SparkPeople. You must decide for yourself.

If anyone has tried either service, feel free to share your opinion in the comments section; I could have totally underestimated DailyBurn, and if so, I’d love to hear about it.

Other than the update of iOS for iPhone, Apple also released an update for the iPad OS with a version number of 3.2.1. The update contains a number of bug fixes and improvement. Most notably, it fixes the WiFi connectivity issue that was reported by some iPad users.

Other than improving the WiFi connectivity, according to Apple’s release note, the iOS 3.2.1 for iPad also comes with the following bug fixes:

• Fixed an issue that could prevent copy and paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
• Addressed an issue that could cause video playback to freeze
• Improved reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter

The update also adds Microsoft’s Bing search engine as a new option. So, you can now switch the default search engine of your mobile Safari from Google to Bing, if you like.

The iOS 3.2.1 is now available via iTunes. But for those using jailbroken iPad, please stay away from iOS 3.2.1. Presently, the Spirit jailbreak tool does not support this iOS version. You’ll lose the jailbreak once you upgrade to the latest version of iOS for your iPad.

Today, Apple kicked off the special press conference to address the iPhone 4 antenna issue at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. Steve Jobs first admitted that they are not perfect and phones are not perfect, either. Despite the iPhone 4 is superior to the 3GS antenna, it is a fact that you can see signal drop when you hold iPhone 4 in a certain way. Also, the fact is this happens to all other smartphones including Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc.

Steve noted the signal/call drop problem should be experienced by a very small percentage of users. But in order to make every customer happy, they have to do something.

So, what are they going to do for the antenna issue?

As claimed by Consumer Reports, the iPhone bumper (or other third-party iPhone case) can alleviate the signal loss issue. Apple is now going to give away every iPhone 4 buyer an iPhone bumper (or other third-party iPhone cases). It is completely free. Even if you have already bought an iPhone bumper, you can get a refund.

Still not good enough? If you dislike the iPhone 4, Steve noted that you are welcome to return it within the first 30 days of purchase and you’ll get a full refund.

So, are you happy with these arrangement? Are you still going to purchase the iPhone 4? Feel free to leave comment and share your thought.

For full coverage of the press conference, you can further check out Engadget’s live blog.

Two weeks ago, Apple has promised to release a new version of iOS to fix the reception issue of iPhone 4. Today, the company pushes out iOS 4.0.1 to all iPhone users including iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

With the debut of iPhone 4, it is widely reported that the new iPhone shows a dramatic decrease in the signal strength when you hold the device in your hands while touching the external antenna. The issue is known as the “Death Grip”. In the earlier press release, Apple claimed the reception problem is due to a software bug in calculating the signal strength as indicated by the signal bars.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

The iOS 4.0.1 release is intended to fix this issue. Anandtech has published an in-depth analysis to cover the signal fix.

This is the only fix for this iOS update. So, if you are not using iPhone 4 and already happy with iOS 4.0, there is no need to hurry for the upgrade.

For iPhone jailbreaker, I suggest you to stay with iOS 4.0 and do not upgrade to iOS 4.0.1.

To upgrade to iOS 4.0.1, you can simply connect your iPhone to your computer and upgrade it via iTunes automatically.

The ‘iPod Out’ has been the least popular feature amongst the new iOS4 APIs and that’s because people just didn’t know enough about it till now. However, that is set to change for good as BMW & Mini have joined hands with Apple to integrate the iPhone’s iOS 4 “iPod Out” feature into cars by the end of next year.

The ‘iPod Out’ feature lets iPhones and iPods show the iPod interface on an external display like the car dashboard. With BMW’s latest announcement, the iPhone 4 and future Apple devices running on iOS4 could be transformed into high-end “in-car” entertainment/ infotainment systems. Watch out for the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ from BMW featuring the iPhone’s iOS 4 “iPod Out” functionality.

While there are several third-party iPhone & iPod integration systems already available, most of them are pathetic. Either they work with specific handset models (like iPhone 3GS but not with iPhone 3G) or the integration is so poor that you just don’t like feel like going through the hassles of setting up your iPhone as an ‘in-car’ system. Thankfully, BMW realizes that iOS4 ‘iPod Out’ feature has tremendous market potential and it plans to use it to build a brand new, standardized iPod interface for use with in-car displays.

In fact, BMW already offers a factory-installed option to connect your iPhone or iPod to the car and play all your stored music through the car’s audio system. However, the current interface is far from perfect and has clearly outlived its expected lifetime. The USP of iPod Out is that it allows the driver to control the music through a simple, easy to use and intuitive interface. What’s more, car owners can use the iTunes Genius interface to create and manage custom playlists.

Here’s a YouTube video which explains how BMW plans to use the iOS4 iPod Out feature to build world-class car infotainment systems.

The iPod Out feature will be used in BMW models using BMW ConnectedDrive and Mini models using Mini Connected. So, be prepared for the musical joyride in BMW cars from next year onwards!

A couple months ago, I wrote a tutorial article that showed you how to view PDF file on iBooks app. In brief, it requires you to convert PDF file into ePub format before you can sync and view the PDF on iBooks.

With the release of iBooks 1.1 and iTunes 9.2, my guide becomes obsolete. The new version of iBooks app provides native support for PDF files. It is not required to go through a conversion process to transform a PDF file into an ePub file so as to read the file on iBooks. Reading PDF file on iBooks 1.1 is very straightforward. In this post, I will walk through with you the procedures to view and sync PDF files on iBooks. The procedures should apply for both iPhone and iPad.

1. First, make sure you have installed iBooks 1.1 (or up) on your device. You should also upgrade the iTunes to v9.2 if you haven’t done so.

2. Once you have all the applications in place. Launch iTunes. In the menu bar, click “File” -> “Add to Library…”.

3. Select the PDF file you would like to import into iTunes and click “Open”.

4. Here it is… The PDF file is automatically imported into iTunes library under the books section.

5. (Optional) In case you want to change the title, author and other detailed information of the PDF document, you can simply right-click on the document and select “Get Info”.

6. (Optional) You can fill in whatever information you want for the PDF document. Once done, click “OK” to save the info.

7. Next, it’s time to sync the PDF document to your iPhone/iPad. In iTunes, select your device.

8. Select the “Books” tab and make sure the “Sync Books” checkbox is checked. iTunes provide two options for book synchronization. Either to sync all books or part of them. Both options should work. But if you select to sync only those selected books, make sure you select the PDF document you have just imported.

9. Next, click the “Apply” button to start the sync. Once the sync process completes, you should be able to find the PDF document via the iBooks app on your device.

This should be easy, right? But in case you hit any problem, feel free to leave us comment.