Personally I prefer the internal antenna option, what do you prefer?

The second problem was that half of the sticky pads on the base are missing, that should have been something noticed when they packed it into the box.

The third problem was the quality on how badly the device sits in the cradle. Absolutely Shocking.

Will Steve be the one giving the press conference?
Most likely, Steve has been the main spokesperson for Apple for the iPhone 4.  Although it would be good for Apple for Steve to not be engulfed by the media, there’s really no other Apple person that could deliver this kind of press conference at Apple, so it’s extremely likely that Steve Jobs will both be in attendance and giving the press conference.

Will Apple admit to a problem with the antenna?
Yes, Apple are most likely to admit there is a problem.  They’ll also say that there’s a problem with every phone that doesn’t have an external pull up antenna.

Will Apple name other companies that also experience the same problem?
Although it might reduce the flack from the media that Apple are receiving and to deflect the media onto other companies, it also wouldn’t be good PR to publicly put down another company, although I’m sure if Apple had the chance and though it worth they might try to put down HTC as they’re producing most of the Android phones.  It’s likely though that Apple will point the finger at all phones having an antenna problem, they might show some video clips or images of other phones but not publicly name the manufacturers.

Have Apple fixed it?
Apple will admit that they got the algorithm wrong on the signal bars on iOS4 and will say that yesterday they pushed out an update to correct this on all affected iPhone 4′s and any iPhone 3G and 3GS running iOS4, this update was iOS 4.0.1.  They may or may not stipulate that the software fix has helped to fix it, but Apple will most likely say that you will be able to tell much more easily if you are in a low signal area.

Will Apple apportion the blame to others?
Quite likely Apple will apportion the blame to others.  They may say that there are a lot of external sources that can affect signal strength, like the proximity to the local network tower and whether you have anything in your vicinity that is  blocking or rebounding cell phone signals.  Likewise whether you are in a high cell phone usage area.  They might actively name AT&T but I suspect they won’t and they will just hammer this as a possible additional cause that when you are in a low signal area and you hold the phone in a particular way then you might experience some problems in losing calls or making or receiving calls.

Will Apple try to reduce the media coverage to saying that this is affecting a small percentage of iPhone 4′s?
Quite likely, Apple might suggest that the first batch of iPhone 4′s did have a problem that they have corrected or enhanced, and a selective swap out based on a serial number range might commence.

Will Apple offer a full on product recall?
Simply put, No!   Apple will say they have sold in the region of 3-4 million iPhone 4′s to date, and have received only complaints from a small percentage, e.g. 2% of customers coming into their support.  Apple will say that if they were to issue a product recall then every phone manufacturer that creates phones without a pull up antenna should do the same thing, and that would simply be a crazy thing to do (You can just hear Steve Jobs saying this now!).  Apple may say though that if anyone is massively experiencing this problem then they may offer a refund on a case by case basis.

How will Apple PR turn this around?
Apple PR and Steve will most likely say they’ve shipped close to 4 million iPhone 4′s to date, the percentage of people experiencing this problem is 1-2% or lower, that most phones in the market today have a similar problem depending on how you hold the phone and will say this is normal.  They will say that this is being over-hyped by the  media (but more likely their competitors) who want to put the iPhone 4 down, that they did get the signal attenuation bars wrong and they have moved quickly to fix this.  They are also listening to the media and customer comments, but the iPhone 4 is a truly amazing and ground breaking device from a technology stand point and most of their customers have said what a great device it is.

What about the iPhone 3G/3GS?
Not forgetting the iPhone 3G/3GS does have similar problems. Many people have complained about dropped calls on these phones. I myself frequently receive MSN’s or text messages from people saying “I’m trying to call you but it’s going to voicemail” and I’m on O2 in the UK and when I check the signal bar strength on the 3GS I have 3 or 4 bars. This happens a lot on iOS3 and iOS4.

So is this really a problem?
Yes it’s a problem, but this is not new. This happens on all previous iPhone’s, dropped calls, no network due to signal bar loss. It’s something that has plagued the iPhone range for some time and will continue to do so.

Although I can see this being a problem, most phone have blackspot areas. If you take a look at the video below, this shows that if you cover the top part of the HTC Evo Android phone that you get a similar loss of signal. The problem all stemmed from the design and want for perfectly looking symmetrical eye candy for phones. Consumers don’t want pull up or flip up antennas anymore, so antennas need to be built into the phone and have been for the last 3-4 years. The danger from this is that there’s more of an issue with signal loss depending on the design.

For me most of the time when I’m on the phone sitting in my office I try to use a hands-free speaker device (I use the Linx) that I reviewed here.

If I’m about and about I have no option other than to hold the phone, although if I wanted to use a Bluetooth headset then I could leave the phone in my pocket and that would be just as good as the Linx speaker I use at home for hands-free calls.

I think really people need to bring things into perspective a little. It’s not ideal to lose signal whilst talking but each phone does. Did Apple make a wise choice in placing the antenna into the outside metal bezel of the phone? In theory it sounds a very good choice and wow’d the media at WWDC, but in practice it might not have been the best choice. Although it’s ideal to put the antenna as far away from the head as possible when you’re talking, many companies still place the antenna at the top of the phone because in most cases they know that no object (e.g. hand) will obscure it in anyway whilst you’re talking.

Well, when it comes down to BT (British Telecom) things get difficult. I have had 5, yes 5 failed Broadband Upgrades in the past week.

31-MAR-2010 – UPGRADE #1 – Order placed, Upgrade date given as 09-APR-2010
10-APR-2010 – UPGRADE #2 – Still no upgrade, phone BT, told that it will happen before midnight on 10th
11-APR-2010 – UPGRADE #3 – Still no upgrade, phone BT, told that don’t know why it failed, will happen by midnight on 12th
12-APR-2010 – UPGRADE #4 – Still no upgrade, will happen on Tuesday 13th by midnight
14-APR-2010 – UPGRADE #5 – Still no upgrade, will 100% happen on Thursday 15th WITHOUT FAIL
16-APR-2010 – Upgrade still failed!

So, now on UPGRADE #6 for 20th April 2010.

Do you honestly think anyone at BT know what on earth they’re doing? Do you honestly think they care?

I live 5 mins walk from the exchange. BT if you can’t get a dozy engineer to get off their backside and upgrade my line, just give me the relevant cables, I’ll go down to the exchange and do the work myself.

Complete and utter ineptitude on BT’s part! Part of the problem is obviously whenever I call BT I get routed to the call centre in India and for obvious reasons, nobody in India have a single clue as to what might be the problem. Likewise they can’t get to talk to the people on the ground on BT’s network who are actually doing the work. Just call up the telephone exchange, I’ll give you the number if you can’t find the number in your own system!

I’m really not holding my breath with BT, if this is how they treat a loyal customer for 15 years then I’m moving away from BT. You’ve had your chance at resolving and providing compensation!

Frigid temperatures followed snowfall, leaving roads and sidewalks treacherously icy, according to news reports. As of January 7, overnight temperatures had plunged to -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in isolated spots, with more widespread temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). The heavy snowfall downed power lines, leaving several thousand homes in southern England without electricity.  Click to enlarge the photo  below.

A contributor to the persistent cold and snow across much of the Northern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes in December 2009 and January 2010 could be the fact that the atmosphere was in an extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). The AO is a seesawing strengthening and weakening of semi-permanent areas of low and high atmospheric pressure in the Arctic and the mid-latitudes. One consequence of the oscillation’s negative phase is cold, snowy weather in Eurasia and North America during the winter months. The extreme negative dip of the Arctic Oscillation Index in December 2009 was the lowest monthly value observed for the past six decades.

More information can be found at Nasa Earth Observatory

This is allegedly the coldest winter for 30 years, possibly 50 years. It’s certainly the coldest I recall and for the longest duration.

Snow and ice has already been in Scotland and the north of England for two weeks, and the Weather forecasters say that there’s a good 1-2 weeks more of these freezing temperatures.

The current temperature in the day is well below Freezing (currently -5C) and at night is dropping up to -20C in some parts of the UK.

Let me set the background, I’m in the UK, I have been purchasing ebooks from eReader.com since the company started back in 2000 when they were called Palm Digital Media.  I have invested a huge some of money in eReader’s (now owned by Barnes and Noble) ebooks with their DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I like liked eReader, and have purchased 133 ebooks in my library.  At an average of $10 an ebook, that means I’ve spent around $1,330 to my collection, approx £1,000!  It has DRM which means you can’t share ebooks easily, as it uses your credit card number to unlock the book along with the name on your card, but I don’t mind that, providing I can install it onto multiple devices that I take with me, I don’t care.  I’m really not into sharing ebooks.

Nearly every book I now try to purchase from eReader.com comes back with  ”Warning: The eBook you just added to your cart has geographic rights restrictions“.

This message is unfortunately complete BS from eReader.com.  There are no geographic restrictions for most of these books, and I’ll tell you why.

Try to purchase  Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” outside of the US and you are greeted by the same message – GEOGRAPHICALLY RESTRICTED!

Okay, now let’s go to Audible.com, I can add Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” to my shopping cart and check out just fine.

Let’s go to the iTunes App Store, and I can purchase Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” just fine as an ebook, I can even download a free sampler of the ebook!

Now let’s go to Kindle on the iPhone, and I can purchase Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” here too, and like with iTunes, I can also download a sampler version of the ebook!

So unfortunately eReader.com are simply not telling the truth about the geographic restrictions on purchases. I’m not sure if this started happening since Fictionwise.com purchased eReader.com or since Barnes and Noble acquired eReader.com through Fictionwise.com.

I wanted to purchase around $80 of eBooks this Christmas from eReader.com but they won’t let me do so. So now I’m going to go and spend it with Amazon! At this point I’m not going to spend any more money with eReader.com, Fictionwise and Barnes and Noble and that includes the new purchase of the Nook that I was about to purchase. Really….What’s the point? I’m going to have the same geographic restrictions imposed on me by Barnes and Noble.

I welcome any feedback from eReader.com, Fictionwise and Barnes and Noble on the topic of Geographic Restrictions on Purchases and why they are hiding behind this charade and not telling the truth to their customers.

[UPDATE]
More links on this subject…
Geographic Restrictions at Fictionwise
eReader.com Limits E-book Sales To US Citizens
eReader enforcing geographical restrictions

Here’s just a few errors I’ve seen lately when the store starts to creak or vent steam under load.

The iTunes store is a great place, but it does take a real knocking and a beating when it comes to people connecting and downloading. Many times I’ve connected recently to find the images for apps to not load fully, or even the screenshots within the app description not loading.

It’s probably unfair to blame the iTunes store on it’s own, I’ve also seen failures with other in-app iPhone services, so it’s not just Apple that are taking a hit, App Developers servers are too and also network providers like O2, AT&T etc.

There’s also the dreaded “something went wrong, just download it on your desktop computer” message that Apple enforce on you from time to time.

I guess it’s to be expected with the popularity of the iPhone and iPod Touch’s. Be prepared for a few glitches over the Christmas period with tons more iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s making it into the Santa sleigh this Christmas!

For the past few days it’s been snowing in various regions of the UK, most of the snow hasn’t settled down south luckily, although we had a dusting of snow over night. More snow is falling to the East of the country and making traffic and commuting difficult. As always with the UK, we’re never prepared for snow, so when we get even something as small as 1 inch of snow, the country will almost grind to a stand still.

In the UK we usually don’t get snow until January, or early February, that’s when we’re usually at our coldest. One thing to be sure of though, if snow is falling a week ahead of Christmas, we won’t be having a white Christmas in the UK

I think it’s time for some nice warm porridge, and a nice hot vanilla latte!

Sitting here, thinking that I only have 2 days of official work left, then I’m off on vacation, what will I do? I still have lots of present wrapping to start, let alone finish. There’s a large amount of apps and games I would like to check out on the iTunes App Store (although my iPhone is fastly approaching the limit of 11 screens of apps/games), there’s more christmas food shopping to do, and the list keeps on growing.

Thankfully I have a number of ToDo list applications on the iPhone which is making my life easier so I can ensure I have my lists with me at all times.

Hopefully I can manage to get away for a while, chill out, recharge the batteries and reflect on the year gone past. I’ll still be posting regular daily updates on the website here of course

Whilst surfing through hundreds, possibly thousands of websites I stumbled upon this gadget and thought…….WHY?

Why would anyone want to shower outside in their garden? This time of year isn’t the best time to be spending out in the cold, I’m sure this product is designed for the summer months more than the winter ones, otherwise you’ll be freezing in the shower, but it does beg the question why would anyone want to shower in the garden?

I suspect this would be a great gadget say at the beach, if you’re covered in sand and want a quick shower, than this would be ideal. However, most beaches tend to have proper showers and other facilities, so I really can’t place where this kind of product would go. I think it would be nice on a nice hot summer day just to go out into the garden and cool off a little, but most people just put the hose pipe on or sprinkler system

A lot of people are still perplexed as to why so many drivers using SatNav’s are directed through some small towns and villages. The answer is quite simple….

SatNav’s are programmed to go the Quickest or Shortest route most of the time, and most drivers use the Quickest or Fastest option. So this means if a driver gets lost, say takes the wrong turn, the SatNav application or product will try to guide the driver the quickest way to the destination entered. That can sometimes mean taking short cuts that most local drivers would not take who know the roads.

So why can’t these roads be marked as blocked on the SatNav? Well quite simply put it, if they were marked as blocked or no through road, then people with SatNav’s wouldn’t then be able to drive down them. Some SatNavs are becoming more intelligent and providing warnings to narrow roads ahead. The problem is that there are two main data providers for SatNav products. They are called NAVTEQ and TELEATLAS. So if they don’t have these features in their data, then all the SatNav products that use their data will equally have the same problem.

So if you know a road or village that always has problems, then for the time being put up a “Do not follow SatNav” sign or try to direct drivers away from this area until better data becomes available. In the long term, try to have your local council or road agency inform the data providers of these problems so they can be restricted in future SatNav products and data updates.

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When I’m aware from my desk or my normal Tablet PC workhorse (HP 2710P), I either have my iPhone with me, or for extended times away I usually carry my Acer Aspire Netbook. Although the Netbook genre have much slower processors, almost single tasking as opposed to multi tasking, it’s a great small netbook to be able to take with you at a moments notice. Quickly crack it open to access the web, check your email or even post blog updates! I really couldn’t be without my 8.9″ netbook!

As a power user, I couldn’t use it all day for a number of reasons.

1. The keyboard on an 8.9″ Netbook is just too small.  It’s fine for casual typing but after several hours use you’ll probably get cramp in your hands and fingers.
2. The screen isn’t large enough to use for long periods of time
3. The processing power is sluggish

That all might sound pretty negative, but what you have to understand is that netbooks are designed this way.  The pro’s are:-

1. They have better battery life
2. They’re small
3. They’re lightweight
4. Easy to carry around
5. Great for meetings and mobile use!

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