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[Blackhead]

Marty, you got me to get up and switch to my computer for posting this:

I don't think anyone thinks Apple is perfect, however they get much more scrutiny than is deserved, is it because of their past transgressions back in the 90's, or peoples fear in technological/social change, or is it just fun to gang up on the popular kid; I don't know, however unless you have read the Cocoa Touch/iOS 4 developer documentation I don't think you should be talking about 'flaws' that may or may not exist in the implementation.

So I right now am going to be posting some quotes from the Apple Developer Documentation website so that you can better educate yourself on the implementation; The website can be found here: https://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/BackgroundExecution/BackgroundExecution.html (Most likely requires a membership)



Now what that means is that the code that needs to be changed is to make sure it behaves like it used to prior to 4.0, otherwise apps would be limited to only running on 4.0, so most likely a developer would have to add a little bit of case logic to determine what OS it is running on. If it does not do that, it will only work for 4.0 and up.



This means that your app has to be willing to save at any second, because the OS may find it needed to kill it without user intervention.

In fact, if the app is linked against the 4.0 SDK and does not want to actually use the save states or any multitasking features it would get for free from the os the developer has to manually 'opt out'



Feel free to take a look at the documentation and see if you could have came up with a better implementation than Apple, because I think they did a pretty good job with very little compromise, and took most of the burden off of the developers.

*edit* Stupid me, I forgot to hit copy on the last quote.

What is Fast App Switching?

...That final point is key, especially because it contradicts everything I've said previously in this article. It turns out that in order to participate in multitasking and allow itself to be suspended, every app must be recompiled for iOS 4. An app that doesn't appear to behave any differently when you resume it on iOS 4 from how it behaved when you relaunched it on earlier versions of the system simply hasn't been recompiled yet. That, as a moment's reflection will show, would be the vast, vast majority of apps!

Clearly it will take some time for developers to recompile for iOS 4 and get their updates past Apple's App Store gatekeepers and onto your device. Until they do, you won't see all that much benefit from multitasking on iOS 4. Only Apple's own apps, and those few apps that have already been updated, are acting in a new way.

Moreover, recompiling for iOS 4 is non-trivial (as I just found out while doing it for the TidBITS News app - see "Free TidBITS News iPhone App," 4 January 2010), because it will also require some rewriting. The app instantly participates in multitasking with no changes in code, merely by virtue of linking to the iOS 4.0 frameworks instead of to an earlier version; but that doesn't make it a good multitasking citizen.

One major issue is that an iOS 4-native app is notified when it is suspended, but not when it is terminated. Thus, it must do all the things to save state when it is suspended that it used to when it was terminated, just in case it later is terminated. Another issue is that the app, as it is suspended, needs to stop doing things that might cause trouble later. It must explicitly reduce its memory use if it doesn't want to be a candidate for termination in the background. It must cease any network activity. It may have to cancel a modal state, such as an alert that might not make sense when the user resumes later (possibly days later).

Those are all things I had to worry about when updating the TidBITS News app for iOS 4.0. Basically I had to consider every state the app might be in at the moment the user comes along and suspends it. That turned out to be remarkably difficult - and the TidBITS News app is very simple and small! Imagine, then, how long it will probably take before your favorite third-party apps are updated...

Mind you, both Android and WebOS offer the suspend/'fast app switching' and they handle it differently.

 

[borghe]

Ok, not an i4 question but just an ios4 question in particular. I just got a Bluetooth car stereo (Sony bt3800u). With the stereo you have to start playing audio on the Bluetooth device first. No problem. However if I try starting the audio from the quick controls (double click home on the lock screen) the stereo will drop the A2DP connection. At this point I have to turn off BT on the stereo and turn it back on. Question basically is, is it the iphone or stereo that is dropping the A2DP connection? If other people aren't having this problem with their stereos oh well I guess. If this is am iPhone bug we should probably report it.

 

[Lord Error]

I wonder if the proximity sensor problem happes because the sensor now seems to be in a different place (above the speaker) so it's easier to keep it uncovered when the phone is next to an ear?

During my very first phone call on the iphone4 I inadvertently triggered the speaker phone button. I wish there was a setting that would auto-lock the screen when you're in a phonecall so you can't trigger these buttons.

It was really never needed before. The sensor worked pretty much perfectly, and in that case such button would only decrease usability.

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

Ok, not an i4 question but just an ios4 question in particular. I just got a Bluetooth car stereo (Sony bt3800u). With the stereo you have to start playing audio on the Bluetooth device first. No problem. However if I try starting the audio from the quick controls (double click home on the lock screen) the stereo will drop the A2DP connection. At this point I have to turn off BT on the stereo and turn it back on. Question basically is, is it the iphone or stereo that is dropping the A2DP connection? If other people aren't having this problem with their stereos oh well I guess. If this is am iPhone bug we should probably report it.

I have Bluetooth built into my MazdaSpeed3. It's factory but whenever I get in my car the car auto picks up my Bluetooth and I can start making calls instantly. Likewise my music kicks on instantly and starts playing from where it left off automatically. Not sure what is up with your Sony one.

 

[Odious Tea]

Just wait 'til tomorrow, dude

Do you know something we don't?

 

[borghe]

I have Bluetooth built into my MazdaSpeed3. It's factory but whenever I get in my car the car auto picks up my Bluetooth and I can start making calls instantly. Likewise my music kicks on instantly and starts playing from where it left off automatically. Not sure what is up with your Sony one.

Bluetooth kicks in right away and I can make calls right away also. I cannot start the music from nothing with the stereo upon pairing, but the manual does say that. You have to start the music on the BT device before you can AVRCP it with the deck.

My question is based on the premise that I lock my phone with a code. Without typing the code in you can bring up the quick music controls with a double click. With headphones I can hit play there and it will play my last played app (Pandora, Slacker, iPod, etc). On the radio it will drop the BT Audio connection (but keep the phone one) so I have to re-pair. If instead of the quick controls I start the music from the app, then everything is fine.

Hope that explains it better. I'm hoping this is an iPhone issue that can be fixed. Hmm...

 

[ant_]

I could honestly care less about all of the other iphone problems but the proximity sensor issue is by far the most annoying to me. I hung up due to accidentally cheek pressing stuff like mute or end call about 5 times in a 20 minute conversation this morning. It's just plain obnoxious. Hopefully apple takes care of it in the update coming this week. If you're not aware about the problem watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqdhdnXx7dk

Agreed. This issue is by far the worst for me. So far I have..

accidentally called someone while on the phone with someone else, bringing them into our conversation.

put the conversation on hold.

ended the call.

muted the call.

tried to facetime with someone i didn't want to facetime with

 

[the_painted_bird]

Do you know something we don't?

Thought they would release the break as early as tmw but I posted after that saying it wouldn't be anytime soon. Weeks, at least.

 

[KtSlime]

Charred Greyface, The article says exactly what I said except this author disagrees with what is and is not trivial. The app maker does not have to go through and really change any code except if they want some of the extra features, or if they want to ensure it's data persistence. No doubt all App developers should do that, because it could be quite jarring to the user to have the app open in a different state then was left due to termination by the OS.
Now to my understanding, this is because I number of app writers were using the fact that when the home button is pressed the app gets terminated, so they simply save their data file and let the OS remove it (the app, it's state, and associated variables) from memory. This was a reasonable assumption to have, and was easier than keeping track of messy malloc calls (because the version of Cocoa used in iOS does not support garbage collection). However this assumption is not safe to have when the OS instead of termination, freeze dries the apps variables/state when button is pushed. This simply means that apps that weren't meticulously deallocating unused variables at termination should be reprogrammed to do so, because if they do not they might get put higher on the 'next to terminate' list kept by the OS, or may get terminated by the watchdog for taking too long to return control back to user/OS. So yes, in many cases App authors may have to rewrite some code (especially if the app was a memory hog) and keep better track of the current state the app is in, this could be resolved possibly by SDK 5 if Apple decides to start adding some garbage collecting, however even that will require some code cleanup.

Mind you, I am not an iPhone app developer, but I have had my go around looking at it and it's APIs, and I have been infatuated with Cocoa from since back when it was called "OpenStep API", and I have done some Mac (Cocoa/ObjC) programming.

Marty, I can't tell you what actually happens, I can only speculate, because Apple does not give out the source code of it's library implementations. But in speculation, I would say that Apple is not simply freezing the entire block of memory because of time.

The iOS is all about giving control of computing back to the user, when I say control I don't mean settings, or silly options that a person only uses once every 500 launches. No, instead I mean responsiveness and *lack* of choice. The paradox of choice takes away a lot of choice by reallocating the users time from use/creation to deciding/nob-tuning. So one of the things Apple has done with returning control is by giving back responsiveness, with the first iteration of the OS it did this by the termination of the app when home button is pushed. From the second the user decides he wants to do something else, the app has to quickly and quietly as possible leave sight, control, and ram back to the OS, and what it doesn't get finished the OS purges. Some apps have gotten to use a lot of ram, now what computer OSes do when the user wants to work on another app is exactly what you describe think should be done, it saves a complete instance of itself and variables in ram, and the OS at the OS' leisure can copy this onto the hard disk into 'virtual memory' depending on a variety of parameters such as usage and available ram. Here is the problem, the virtual ram causes the OS to act as if it has unlimited ram, because with the cheapness of the hard disk space it can. Space on the iPhone is not cheap, writing time of the app, and it's constituent data/variables take way to long, and way to much space. 10 apps in the background can be using up to 2.5gb of flash storage using the 'virtual memory' method. And whenever you switch apps it may have to write 200mb to flash, and then read another 200mb back into memory. Apple considered it more reasonable to simply store the variables needed to reconstitute the save (think game genie codes). They are both smaller, and in fact faster to recalculate and execute the app to that point than load it from flash. Why they do this all comes down to giving control back to the user.

From Apples philosophy a basic suspend state was never an option, it is an old out-moded hack that computers have been using because when multitasking was created on the computer it had such little data it didn't matter, and the processor was slower than the reading/writing of memory. It never got fixed on the computer because they got faster, and storage was cheap, and 'it's always been done that way'. This is Apple's chance to do 'multi-tasking right'.

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

Bluetooth kicks in right away and I can make calls right away also. I cannot start the music from nothing with the stereo upon pairing, but the manual does say that. You have to start the music on the BT device before you can AVRCP it with the deck.

My question is based on the premise that I lock my phone with a code. Without typing the code in you can bring up the quick music controls with a double click. With headphones I can hit play there and it will play my last played app (Pandora, Slacker, iPod, etc). On the radio it will drop the BT Audio connection (but keep the phone one) so I have to re-pair. If instead of the quick controls I start the music from the app, then everything is fine.

Hope that explains it better. I'm hoping this is an iPhone issue that can be fixed. Hmm...

No clue..

:\

Soon as I get in my car my phone just stays in my pocket .. never take it out and it auto starts my music from where it left off.. Lock screen and all.. I can not touch my phone for 4 hrs and just jump in my car and it will auto start..

 

[Tobor]

Agreed. This issue is by far the worst for me. So far I have..

accidentally called someone while on the phone with someone else, bringing them into our conversation.

put the conversation on hold.

ended the call.

muted the call.

tried to facetime with someone i didn't want to facetime with

Unlike the reception issue, this sounds like a bad hardware problem. I can't reproduce this at all. Barring any additional info, I'd suggest getting a replacement.

 

[dorkimoe]

did anyone end up getting an extra one at the cheaper price ;P i dont know how much longer i can wait

also why dont you send your phone to apple and get it replaced if your proximity sensor is busted?

 

[bounchfx]

sigh. I'm not sure how I feel about this thing. I think I'll wait one more week to see what apple's solution is about the shitty connection.. otherwise I think I might return it and just get a 3GS... it's still an upgrade from the 3G. and I think I like the rounded back better

 

[jts]

Bluetooth kicks in right away and I can make calls right away also. I cannot start the music from nothing with the stereo upon pairing, but the manual does say that. You have to start the music on the BT device before you can AVRCP it with the deck.

My question is based on the premise that I lock my phone with a code. Without typing the code in you can bring up the quick music controls with a double click. With headphones I can hit play there and it will play my last played app (Pandora, Slacker, iPod, etc). On the radio it will drop the BT Audio connection (but keep the phone one) so I have to re-pair. If instead of the quick controls I start the music from the app, then everything is fine.

Hope that explains it better. I'm hoping this is an iPhone issue that can be fixed. Hmm...

Switch the toggle to silent before even unlocking it. Trust me, it might work. It does for me.

 

[VGChampion]

Just ordered three iPhones at the Apple Store. Didn't realize you got on a priority list if you go through them rather than the website. Should be here next week.

 

[sruckus]

I try to stay away from MacRumors, they are the most fanatical obsessives on the planet, and some of the shit they complain about is just mind-boggling.

Oh the mods are there, they just choose to give you instant warnings when heaven forbid, you call someone a nut. But a bunch of duplicate and random posts - nada. Retarded cesspool.

 

[borghe]

Ok, Bluetooth update. Might look further at pandora. Using slacker radio instead everything works great, and can even start the music just fine from the radio. Actually messed around with it for a bit and couldn't get it to do the same thing. Will mess with Pandora some more.

 

[Mr Jared]

I finally got a chance to try out the HD recording capabilities of the iPhone 4. I think I could have gotten this to look a bit better (lighting, I think I could have pressed to focus it a bit more?), but it still looks pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4auPvIpgc

 

[stldave2]

I finally got a chance to try out the HD recording capabilities of the iPhone 4. I think I could have gotten this to look a bit better (lighting, I think I could have pressed to focus it a bit more?), but it still looks pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4auPvIpgc

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2477266&tstart=15

You have to sync it to your computer and then upload from there to get the "true" HD, unfortunately.

 

[Gary Whitta]

I finally got a chance to try out the HD recording capabilities of the iPhone 4. I think I could have gotten this to look a bit better (lighting, I think I could have pressed to focus it a bit more?), but it still looks pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4auPvIpgc

Great vid in so many ways! :lol

 

[Odious Tea]

Thought they would release the break as early as tmw but I posted after that saying it wouldn't be anytime soon. Weeks, at least.

Welp. Boner-kill. :/

 

[Mr Jared]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2477266&tstart=15

You have to sync it to your computer and then upload from there to get the "true" HD, unfortunately.

I did exactly that. It's in HD, I just think I could have actually of made it better if I thought more about lighting.

 

[stldave2]

I did exactly that. It's in HD, I just think I could have actually of made it better if I thought more about lighting.

OK. I watched the video on my phone so I wasn't sure about the res at which I was viewing, but I figured I'd post the link just in case.

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2477266&tstart=15

You have to sync it to your computer and then upload from there to get the "true" HD, unfortunately.

Fail.

It is in HD.. hence the option. If you tried uploading straight from the iphone then it wouldn't have even given that option.

 

[stldave2]

Fail.

It is in HD.. hence the option. If you tried uploading straight from the iphone then it wouldn't have even given that option.

Like I said in the post above, I am on my iPhone right now and couldn't be sure what res the video was actually in... I wasn't calling him out or anything, I posted the info just in case.

 

[Technosteve]

I did exactly that. It's in HD, I just think I could have actually of made it better if I thought more about lighting.

youtube does very high compression, i think vimeo don't do as agressive compression

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

Yea all the vimeo videos ive seen from the iphone 4 are amazing.

 

[Blackhead]

Charred Greyface, The article says exactly what I said except this author disagrees with what is and is not trivial.

When you write stuff like this of course people are going to disagree with you:

they made it as simple as possible for the developer. The developer only has to take a few minutes to download the new sdk, hit recompile, then hit the submit button. If the developer can't be bothered to do that, why would you even want to continue using their apps?

they did a pretty good job with very little compromise, and took most of the burden off of the developers.

If you're going to give Apple a pass when they wait until they can get a feature "right" before it's implemented, then why are you lambasting developers who might want to do the same thing?

The iOS is all about giving control of computing back to the user, when I say control I don't mean settings, or silly options that a person only uses once every 500 launches. No, instead I mean responsiveness and *lack* of choice. The paradox of choice takes away a lot of choice by reallocating the users time from use/creation to deciding/nob-tuning. So one of the things Apple has done with returning control is by giving back responsiveness, with the first iteration of the OS it did this by the termination of the app when home button is pushed. From the second the user decides he wants to do something else, the app has to quickly and quietly as possible leave sight, control, and ram back to the OS, and what it doesn't get finished the OS purges. Some apps have gotten to use a lot of ram, now what computer OSes do when the user wants to work on another app is exactly what you describe think should be done, it saves a complete instance of itself and variables in ram, and the OS at the OS' leisure can copy this onto the hard disk into 'virtual memory' depending on a variety of parameters such as usage and available ram. Here is the problem, the virtual ram causes the OS to act as if it has unlimited ram, because with the cheapness of the hard disk space it can. Space on the iPhone is not cheap, writing time of the app, and it's constituent data/variables take way to long, and way to much space. 10 apps in the background can be using up to 2.5gb of flash storage using the 'virtual memory' method. And whenever you switch apps it may have to write 200mb to flash, and then read another 200mb back into memory. Apple considered it more reasonable to simply store the variables needed to reconstitute the save (think game genie codes). They are both smaller, and in fact faster to recalculate and execute the app to that point than load it from flash. Why they do this all comes down to giving control back to the user.

From Apples philosophy a basic suspend state was never an option, it is an old out-moded hack that computers have been using because when multitasking was created on the computer it had such little data it didn't matter, and the processor was slower than the reading/writing of memory. It never got fixed on the computer because they got faster, and storage was cheap, and 'it's always been done that way'. This is Apple's chance to do 'multi-tasking right'.

I've got to laugh at the sentence in bold. I've heard defenses of Apple's OS before but this must be the first time I've seen someone argue that Apple actually gives more control to the user by their design choices. Anyway, the iOS doesn't use virtual memory so I'm not sure where all that theorizing is leading you... unless they taught you different meanings of 'control' and 'virtual memory' in computer school that the rest of us uninitiated don't know. If so, please enlighten me.

I finally got a chance to try out the HD recording capabilities of the iPhone 4. I think I could have gotten this to look a bit better (lighting, I think I could have pressed to focus it a bit more?), but it still looks pretty good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg4auPvIpgc

:lol cute dog >>> cute cat

 

[Mr Jared]

youtube does very high compression, i think vimeo don't do as agressive compression

True. I just looked at the raw file again and its night and day. Strange as it sounds, I think that if I ran it through Adobe Media Encoder and reuploaded it, it'd look a lot better.

 

[Blackhead]

iPhone 4: Triumph of the design nerds

The creation of a consumer electronics product involves input from a wide range of people, including marketers, engineers and usability experts. The task of product leadership is to pick and choose among competing agendas to arrive at the best product.

It's difficult to do, because often there is no way to solve a design problem that pleases everyone.

The design priorities of the products we buy often reveal the internal power dynamics of the companies that built them. By understanding the design decisions a company faced, and looking at its choices, you can figure out which types of people are influential in the internal give-and-take leading up to a final product design, and which types are relatively powerless.

Why the iPhone 4 reveals designer power

The iPhone 4 is a marvel of industrial design. Form and function are united beautifully, and it's an incredibly useful phone. I bought one. I love it.

But three design decisions by Apple demonstrate a new boldness, a new level of power by hard-core designers inside Apple -- and a corresponding weakness by engineers and usability specialists.

In these three design areas, Apple was presented with a clear decision between design elegance and usability and chose design elegance every time.

1. The shape

Handset makers have universally understood for at least 10 years that the shape of a phone is more important than its size. The earliest PDAs and cell phones were clunky blocks with flat fronts and backs and relatively sharp edges. But handset makers quickly realized that if you make the edges thinner, with a curving back, the phone could actually be pretty thick in the middle, but it would "feel" like it was thinner. It would also look less obtrusive in a pocket than a thinner but uncurved phone.

A curved back also makes phones easier to handle. If the back of a phone is thicker in the middle, the center of the phone presses against the palm, making it harder to drop and easier to hold.

This handy bit of knowledge has been used in cell phones ever since, up to and including the iPhone 3G S.

The iPhone 4 is 24% thinner than the iPhone 3G S, but it's more awkward to hold. I hate to say it, but it's true.

I put my iPhone 4 in one pocket of my jeans, and my old 3G S in the other (with the curved back facing out), and you can't even tell the 3G S is in the pocket, whereas the iPhone 4 is clearly visible.

If you have both handsets, hold one in each hand, then put one in each of your front pockets. You'll see for yourself that Apple chose design elegance over usability.

The iPhone's design, up to and including the iPhone 3G, demonstrated a conspicuous balance between the various competing groups within Apple. Yes, it was elegantly designed with minimalist features, colors, materials and shapes. However, compromises to pure design elegance were made for the sake of usability. The contoured back. The rounded controls and buttons. The whole shape of previous generations of iPhones revealed smart usability people strongly influencing the design process.

The iPhone 4, however, demonstrates that the industrial design nerds inside Apple have gained so much power that they have deliberately sacrificed usability in order to achieve a higher level of industrial design elegance, represented by balance and symmetry.

In the case of the phone's shape, Apple has for the first time in the history of its phones clearly chosen form over function.

2. The antennas

The iPhone design is breathtakingly new in several respects. One of the most radical departures from how phones are normally designed is that the iPhone 4 has no internal plate. Usually, everything inside is bolted to one or more metal plates that give the phone its sturdiness. The iPhone 4 has instead a piece of metal surrounding the outside edge of the phone, which also happens to be the phone's antennas.

If you look at an iPhone's outside edge, you'll notice a thin black strip on the top, and one on either side near the bottom. The piece of metal that goes from the bottom strip on the right to the top is the antenna for voice phone calls. The one on the left handles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

This arrangement helps make the phone thinner. The lack of an internal plate frees up more space inside. And the dual use of frame structure and antennas frees up even more space, because separate antennas inside are unnecessary.

One small problem: If you hold the phone in a way that covers up much of the left antenna (easy to do when holding the phone with your left hand), as well as both lower black strips, you lose most or all of your signal-strength bars, and you could drop your call.

Not a big deal, says Apple. A few years ago, Apple ads encouraged customers to "think different." Now, its solution to iPhone 4 antenna problems is to "hold different," or buy a case.

To a usability expert's mind, the most important thing is for users to whip out their phones, hold them any way they like and make high-quality calls with or without a case.

But to a designer, the elegance of the outside-edge solution is huge, and any minor inconvenience to the user is small.

At Apple, the designers won this argument without compromise.

3. The glass on the back

Apple made the unprecedented decision to put glass on the back of the iPhone 4, just like the front. No, there's no screen or touch-pad on the back -- and no reason at all to put glass there.

Well, there's one reason. To an out-of-control designer, the sheer elegance and symmetry of identical materials front and back is beautiful. Never mind that glass breaks, scratches and weighs a lot.

I'm sure usability experts, engineers, marketing people, bean counters and others came up with dozens of reasons why the back of the iPhone 4 should be made of some material other than glass. But the designers wanted glass, Steve Jobs sided with them, and now we have a beautiful new phone that's heavy and fragile.

Don't get me wrong: The iPhone 4 is a great phone. For many, including myself, it's the best cell phone you can buy right now. And there's something to be said for adding more beauty and elegance to our lives with the products we buy.

But there's no question at all that Apple has made some unprecedented design decisions that reflect the growing power and dominance inside Apple of the pure-design people, and a reduced emphasis on practical usability.

Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. Contact Mike at mike.elgan@elgan.com, follow him on Twitter or his blog, The Raw Feed.

 

[ant_]

The great thing, for me, about the glass on front and back is not only the elegance - but the fact that the glass DOESN'T scratch.

 

[Odious Tea]

The great thing, for me, about the glass on front and back is not only the elegance - but the fact that the glass DOESN'T scratch.

Yes. Dear god, yes!

 

[Raistlin]

Unlike the reception issue, this sounds like a bad hardware problem. I can't reproduce this at all. Barring any additional info, I'd suggest getting a replacement.

That kind of sucks actually, since it seems like a decent amount of people have this problem. I was hoping it was a sensitivity issue that could be rectified in SW. meh

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

True. I just looked at the raw file again and its night and day. Strange as it sounds, I think that if I ran it through Adobe Media Encoder and reuploaded it, it'd look a lot better.

You should up it on vimeo so we can see a diff

 

[dark10x]

I'm having issues with bluetooth in my car as well. It works, but it takes a varying amount of time to connect. My previous phones (including iPhone 3GS) all would connect within a few seconds, but the i4 takes anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 full minutes. It's totally random and I don't understand.

Furthermore, I have to start the audio on the phone itself whereas the 3GS would start on its own.

They obviously made some changes here that my car doesn't like. :\

 

[Raistlin]

"get a new car"

 

[SuperPac]

I'm having issues with bluetooth in my car as well. It works, but it takes a varying amount of time to connect. My previous phones (including iPhone 3GS) all would connect within a few seconds, but the i4 takes anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 full minutes. It's totally random and I don't understand.

Furthermore, I have to start the audio on the phone itself whereas the 3GS would start on its own.

They obviously made some changes here that my car doesn't like. :\

I've got a similar sort of situation with plugging it into my car's USB audio interface. Sometimes it connects right away, other times it sits there blank. There does not appear to be a rhyme or reason to it. It's very annoying.

 

[Buckethead]

I bought iMovie although I haven't used the app yet. What a zombie I am.
Just because I needed to fill up my new homescreen. :lol

The only thing that I hate about iOS4 is the "hold to remove multi-task apps" thing. Needs to be quicker somehow.

 

[neojubei]

I bought iMovie although I haven't used the app yet. What a zombie I am.
Just because I needed to fill up my new homescreen. :lol

The only thing that I hate about iOS4 is the "hold to remove multi-task apps" thing. Needs to be quicker somehow.

Yeah, Apple should just have the user swipe the app away off screen.

 

[giga]

You shouldn’t be terminating apps on the app switcher unless you absolutely need/want to kill an app that’s using a background process such as music/gps/voip/task completion.

Memory management is handled by the OS automatically.

 

[SuperPac]

I bought iMovie although I haven't used the app yet. What a zombie I am.
Just because I needed to fill up my new homescreen. :lol

The only thing that I hate about iOS4 is the "hold to remove multi-task apps" thing. Needs to be quicker somehow.

I've had to remove a multi-task app *once*, and that was only because it froze. But that's it. I think under normal conditions I would never manually do it - a multitasking app gets pitched from memory after a period of being inactive and once the OS needs that memory for something else. So it doesn't really hurt to just leave everything in that list.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Does anybody elses battery life suck?

I'm beginning to get a little concerned.

 

[Naka]

I can't tell what I think of the battery life on this phone yet. Maybe I'm using it more than I was my 3g or maybe now that I have a percentage meter I keep a closer eye on it. But I swear this thing feels like its draining pretty quick. I went down to 89% in an hour after a full charge with just doing some moderate texting in that hour.

 

[reggieandTFE]

Quick Question. Am I going to be able to activate my phone tonight? I was out of town on vacation until today and just starting syncing my iPhone 4 from my 3G backup. However, I got this e-mail from ATT Premier that says something about activating it by calling a number during business hours. Can't I just do this online?

 

[ant_]

Does anybody elses battery life suck?

I'm beginning to get a little concerned.

Nope, mine is great.

 

[bionic77]

Does anybody elses battery life suck?

I'm beginning to get a little concerned.

More details please.

Mine is so far ahead of my 3G in battery life. With light to moderate usage I easily get two days and with heavy usuage I still make it through a normal workday.

 

[Odious Tea]

Does anybody elses battery life suck?

I'm beginning to get a little concerned.

What do you define as suck? I can make it through an entire day of a fair amount of usage and it'll be 40-45% by the time I'm back home.

That's mostly browsing GAF, checking RSS feeds, using various apps, and texting. A call here an there too.

 

[giga]

Does anybody elses battery life suck?

I'm beginning to get a little concerned.

Check what apps you use to see if any of them abuse task completion. I know Colloquy has started this trend of keeping a constant internet connection open at 10 minute intervals which can definitely drain the battery quickly.

 

[Naka]

I'm pretty much just texting and using facebook myself. I'm not thrilled with my battery life at all honestly. I don't feel like I'm using it any differently than I did my 3G and it seems like its going down WAY fater.

 

[Mr Jared]

My battery life has been crazy awesome. Yesterday I streamed music from Last.fm while on a road trip for about 3 hours. Used my phone pretty consistently throughout the day to make calls, texts, check twitter, facebook and email, take pictures, record videos.. still had 50% of my battery left by the time I got home.

This morning I went out and took a ton of pictures for a research project, took that video of my dog and when I came home and synced it to my laptop, the battery icon was still full.

So in my experience, the battery life is freaking magical compared to my old 3GS.