So you’ve got your iPhone 4 and you’re extremely impressed with it’s retina display, and you love it’s glass back and swish stainless steel corners and Apple’s fantastic new antenna system, what?

Wait?

Haven’t you heard that you’re gonna have some reception issues?

You see Apple have implemented this fantastic new antenna, they’re wrapped it around the outer edge of the phone.  It’s supposed to make the reception better, but alas in true Apple style it’s lacking a basic vital feature; the ability to stay connected to the Mobile Network.  The problem stems unbelievably from a design oversight by Apple which means as you can see in the picture below, you make a circuit with your hand with bridging that little gap, therefore rendering the signal to the network dead.

iPhone 4... Good? Maybe...

You’re bassically absorbing the cell signal with your hand.  This issue has been recognised by several leading antenna scientists but strangely Apple are not willing to recognise the fault.  They’ve been saying that there is no reception issue, that so brings me on to the two things you’ll need.

Firstly One of these:

Elastic Bands

Temporary fix, stops you from bridging the antenna.

Alternatively…

A bible...

You can get one of these and pray that Apple recognise the problem and attempt to fix it by whatever means they deem reasonable.

Basically if you have a mac and want to use specific programs which aren’t supported by you need a work around, and the simplest way I’ve found to this is to run Parallels Desktop.  It costs a bit of money to buy but it’s worth it.  The current cost direct from Parallels themselves is £59.99 which is very reasonable considering it’s power.

What I do is use the bootcamped partition of XP I have already installed and I can run all the programs in Coherence Mode – This bassically allows you to launch the windows as if they were running under well… Windows.  I’m still in my 14 day trial and I love it so much I will be buying it as soon as the trial comes to an end.

Get parallels, run windows, enjoy… that’s how easy it is to use.

I’ve made the leap into Mac’s and got myself a MacBook and she’s a beast.  Super fast, long battery life, excellent graphics and seemingly well built.

I have become an Apple fanboy.

I’m not entirely sure if that is a good thing as yet, but I do love it already.  It took me a day or so to get fully used to OSX Snow Leopard, but once you start using it you realise how much more intuitive than Windows it really is.

The system just works.  I’m very impressed with the thought that has gone into making everything right, from the dock to file structure to ease with which you can connect to a wifi network.

I shall keep you posted over the next few months, but for now I’m in love.

This week we saw the release of Apple’s New toy, the iPad.  While most industry pundits are telling us it’s the newest thing to have, I have to question the purpose of it.  Apple has a long history since Jobs’ return to the company of producing new and exciting tech which has revolutionised a particular sector.

The iPod is a case in point on that one; it helped develop a revolution of digital downloads and in conjunction with iTunes it’s become the program of choice for millions of users.  Same goes for the iPhone, but do we really need a whole new market, based around Apple’s device.

I would argue that we don’t.

I like Apple products; they are swish in design and inherently easy to use, but and there is always a but with Apple they always lack a vital function – most evident with the iPhone and glaringly evident with the iPad.  The lack of Multiple, background processing is a huge oversight on Apple’s part.

Personally, I know that the iPad will be huge, despite it’s shortcomings – people just love Apple stuff, and they will love it no matter what it does, even if it is just an oversized iPod touch.

Orange today have announced that they will launch the iPhone 3G and 3Gs on their network on 11th November 2009, while this might be great news for some I would be very wary of what they have to offer.  This morning along with when they would launch they put a link to the tariffs they will offer to new and upgrading customers; and for the most part they are strikingly similar to what O2 have – Frankly I really doubt that any one will be spurred on the get the iphone on Orange over O2.

After doing some more investigative work (I’m excellent at this, probably because I’m anal about reading the fine print in contracts, I enjoy it.) it seems that Orange will cap their ‘Unlimited’ internet access for iPhone users to just 720mb, something which O2 don’t do.  Of course there is a fair usage policy (FUP) on O2 but it’s set ridiculously high, I regularly download around a GB of data a month and that’s perfectly easy on the iPhone and O2 allow it.

Orange seem to have decided one of two things:

1. iPhone users will use their data and pay for it.

2. Our shareholders need more money, so we’ll charge the same as O2 and make more money, as a pose to cutting the cost to attract more users from O2.

A smart move?

Never, in business, yes you want to make money but an easy way of doing that is being competitive.  O2 are the UK’s largest mobile phone provider and they have a huge share of the market, Orange don’t, what I would do is competitively price the tariffs to attract as many customers as I could.  Orange have seemingly missed a trick.  Capping the data usage on the iPhone is laughable what with all those streaming apps and Facebook checks to made during the day you can easily go over your data allowance in a week let alone four.  750mb is just not enough.

But wait…

Vodafone haven’t announced what they will do about their tariffs when the iPhone launches on their network in the new year, it remains to be seen if they will undercut both companies, but alas, I fear that we may see the same tariffs with tiny differences when they launch.

The podcast is now available on iTunes!

See: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=332501823 It’s a proud-ish moment!