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iPhone 4 reception

For the past two years, I got accustomed to not making phone calls while driving to or from work. It’s an 18 minute drive and in the middle of the drive, around 99 & 105th, my call would get dropped. Every single time. During those two years I used an original, 3G, and 3G S iPhone.

I picked up my iPhone 4 on June 24th. I used my phone a lot that day, calling via FaceTime and normal calls. During my drive home from work, I stayed connected all the way home, for the very first time.

A few days later, I was at a lecture at the Mountaineers on Sand Point Way. AT&T coverage there is meager at best. I experimented there with a SSH session to my home computer, and kept the connection up for almost an hour. That would never have worked with my older iPhones.

This last weekend I climbed Mt. Rainier again. Most of the climbers in our party left their phones in the truck at the trailhead. That is generally wise. Trying to use a mobile phone in the mountains is typically an exercise in frustration.

I had preloaded my iPhone with topo maps of the area and took it out every hour or so to capture waypoints. While pocketed, I had the iPhone in Airplane Mode, which disables all the radios (phone, GPS, wifi). To take waypoints, I’d toggle off Airplane Mode, let the GPS sync, take the waypoint, toggle Airplane Mode back on, and put the phone away.

The surprise was that nearly every time I turned off Airplane Mode, I had an AT&T signal. Getting a signal is one thing. Being able to use it is entirely another. None of us climbers believed it was usable reception until I was able to send out a SMS to each of our wives, letting them know we had gotten permits and were on the route we had hoped to climb.

I can replicate the signal meter issue that so many people have made a big deal about by holding it the wrong way. Then my reception is comparable to previous iPhones (a single bar of coverage in my downstairs). When I avoid holding it that way, I can get outstanding reception. I am quite pleased with the reception of my new iPhone.

bottomless pits

This morning Jen was in the kitchen pitting Rainier cherries. I’m in the dining room, stemming Rainier cherries. Lucas trotted into kitchen, saw mommy pitting cherries and started to help. Mommy swelled with pride at her little helper. When the last cherry was pitted and dropped into the bowl, a burst of laughter erupted as Jen realized exactly who Lucas was assisting.

Lucas pranced around the corner with his prize, a bowl of pitted Rainier cherries cradled against his chest, with one hand shoveling cherries from the bowl to the mouth. He placed the bowl at his place and climbed up into his chair, intent on consuming an entire cherry cobbler’s worth of cherries in a single go.

I think that boy and I may be related.

 

iPhone 4 early impressions

The good:

  • FaceTime. It works. It is easy. Video quality is surprisingly good. Audio quality is excellent. The audio quality I’ve experienced is better than an iPhone call, Skype, or iChat AV.
  • The video camera does remarkably well in changing lighting conditions. I can walk around the house while on a FaceTime call and my image remains clear and well exposed as the lighting change. It’s far more fun to FaceTime my sleeping babies to a friend with an iPhone than a laptop.
  • Phone voice quality is improved. Callers sound better and they report that I sound better too. My buddy Mike, 2,000 miles away in Michigan, reported that the quality was as if I was standing next to him.
  • The Retina Display is amazing. After getting the iPad, I had reduced my  reading on the iPhone to those times when I didn’t have a computer or iPad. I still prefer reading on the iPad, but I find myself reading more on the 4. While the iPad is in arms reach. I am continually surprised at the rendering and legibility of teeny tiny type.
  • Speed. The 3GS was a huge performance boost over the 3G. While the 3GS was no slouch, I still saw occasional pauses and delays in responsiveness. I have yet to see any lags or pauses on the iPhone 4.
  • Reception. My experience has been entirely positive. I was able to drive all the way home from work while holding a call. For the first time. I explained the reception issue to a friend, “Imagine you have an AT&T phone with poor reception (nearly all of them, including iPhones) and suddenly you get one with very good reception. Except when you have poor coverage and hold the phone wrong. Would you be disappointed?”
  • Battery life is greatly improved. I’ve had my 4 for a week and have charged it three times. Every previous iPhone had to be charged nightly. I suspect that when the novelty wears off and I’ve beaten all the levels in Angry Birds, I may get 3 days of ‘normal’ usage from a charge.

The Bad

  • I love how pocketable the 3G is. I carried the 3G and 3GS in my front pants pocket, vertically, with the glass against my leg and the curved plastic back facing out. The curved back nearly matched the profile of my leg, and that position protected the glass screen. I rarely noticed its presence. Being narrower, the 4 likes to  slide down and ride sideways. That produces a larger and less comfortable bulge, which I regularly correct. While the 4 is thinner, it often feels thicker while pocketed.
  • The 4 is glass on both sides. When I heard Apple describe the glass as 20 times stiffer and 30 times stronger than plastic, warning bells went off. While working in mechanical engineering departments, I enjoyed spending time in the prototype labs. Especially when that time ended by filling out forms with the words, “consumed in testing.” Whether plastic, metal, or glass, harder materials are more brittle. I do believe the 4 will be more scratch resistant. And possibly more impact resistant. But it’s still glass. If I’m out rock climbing and drop it while taking a picture, I believe the 4 is more likely to be significantly damaged. This will be the first iPhone I buy a case for.

To Be Determined

  • I was able to get 8 hours of backcountry GPS use out of the iPhone 3GS. That’s with the 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth disabled and occasional use of the camera. For comparison, my buddy has an Android phone that lasts 3 hours while using GPS. I’ll be trying out the 4 soon with the recently updated Motion GPS, updated for background use in iOS 4. It would be great if I can get a weekend of use from a single charge.

Flash stumbles again

In November 2009, Palm announced Flash support for WebOS in the first half of 2010. In February 2010, Palm released WebOS 1.4 with support for Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta, which would be available for download in the Palm App Catalog. On April 18th, Adobe’s CEO announced that Flash for Android and WebOS would be delayed until the second half of 2010.

Today, Palm announced that they don’t know why Flash for WebOS is not yet available. Perhaps, like Steve Jobs pointed out, after years of trying, Adobe still cannot deliver a version of Flash that runs well on any mobile phone. Look at how poorly Flash performs on the HTC EVO, a brand new phone with super-sized hardware specs.

Goodnight Flash. You will be remembered fondly as a relic of another time. Just like floppy disks, token ring networks, and Helen Thomas.

Daddy, can I use your nail polish?

Kayla: Daddy, may I use your nail polish?
Me: Why don’t you use mommies?
Kayla: It doesn’t match.
Me: Uh, okay.

Now Kayla has one hand that is purple and one that is pink. The toes on her left foot are blaze orange and the toes on her right are cherry red. In my view, her toe colors exactly match the colors of polish and/or duct tape I use to mark my climbing gear. In her view, having blaze orange toes on the left foot and cherry red toes on the right is a perfect match.

Using a standard SIM in an iPad

I tried this for several reasons: to share my iPhone data plan with my iPad, to see how difficult it was, and because I will likely want to swap SIMs between my dev iPhones, iPad, and my iPhone 4.

Also, soon I will be traveling internationally and plan to take only my iPad for computing. If trimming down a standard SIM is easy, I can plan to buy a prepaid SIM in each country. If micro SIMs are unavailable, I have a simple method for converting any standard SIM into an iPad/iPhone 4 compatible one.

Prerequisites: An iPad, a standard SIM from an iPhone or any other 3G GSM phone, a pair of sharp scissors, an x-acto knife, and a credit card (or unused SIM).

1. Create micro SIM adapter (skip a-d if using a spare SIM)

a. lay the iPhone SIM on top of the credit card.
b. using the tip of an x-acto knife or a fine marker, scratch the SIM outline onto the card.
c. cut out the new SIM adapter with scissors
d. Use a piece of sandpaper or the edge of the x-acto knife to scrape/sand the edges until the adapter fits into the iPhone SIM tray.

This next step is to position the micro SIM properly in the adapter. The micro SIM must be positioned so that the contacts of the micro SIM are aligned with the contacts of the SIM. I achieved this by flipping my SIM adapter and tray over, and aligning the contacts of the micro SIM in the tray slot. The net result is that my adapter has a border around 3 sides that is of identical size.

e. set the micro SIM on top of the adapter with the tabbed corners aligned
f. align the micro SIM so that it is centered horizontally and the bottom (non tabbed) border is the same width as the side borders.
g. mark the outline on the adapter with the x-acto
h. cut out with x-acto knife. Cut gently and accurately at first, and make subsequent passes to deepen the cut until you are through the material.
i. using the x-acto, scrape off adapter material until the micro SIM snaps into the slot

When you’re finished, is should look a lot like this:

micro SIM adapter

2. Test micro SIM adapter

Insert the micro SIM into the adapter, the adapter into the tray, and the tray into the iPhone. I did so with my iPad micro SIM which was not activated. Upon doing so, my iPhone 3GS detected the SIM, showed AT&T as the carrier, the 3G icon lit up, and I received the following notice, “Could not activate cellular data network: You are not subscribed to a cellular data service.”

Voila, my adapter allows a micro SIM to work in my iPhone. Phase 1 was successful!

3. Cut SIM down to micro SIM size

I was a bit hesitant to hack up my SIM card. If I erred and destroyed my SIM, it would require a trip to the Apple or AT&T store for a new SIM, as well as an $18 activation fee. But I couldn’t help myself.

Since the adapter was already built, this step was actually very straight forward.

a. set the adapter on top of the iPhone SIM
b. mark the cutout with the x-acto knife
c. trim off the edges of the SIM with scissors.
d. shave the edge of the trimmed SIM until it fits into the adapter

Notice the alignment of the contacts in the photo. When the SIM and adapter are aligned, the contacts will not be cut. I repeat, the contacts will not be cut.

4. Test SIM in iPad and iPhone

a. stick the newly minted micro SIM into the adapter and the iPhone and verify functionality.
b. point your iPad (w/o SIM) web browser at www.unlockit.co.nz and install a custom IPN for your carrier
c. move the new micro SIM from the iPhone to the iPad
d. turn off the iPad wifi and test 3G connection

I called my iPhone number while the SIM was inserted into the iPad. I was hoping I’d get dumped into voice mail, but instead I get an AT&T error message stating that calling feature wasn’t available from my number. I suggest setting your iPhone call forwarding before and after using an iPhone SIM in an iPad.

Alan Mulally, american hero?

When I test drove a Chevy Malibu I was distinctly unimpressed. When I drove the Nissan Altima I was impressed. The Camry, Accord, and Jetta TDI all met my expectations. But when I drove the 2009 Fusion, I was surprisingly impressed, no doubt because I had such low expectations of domestic vehicles.

The Fusion was a pleasant surprise on many levels. Not since my 1989 SHO have I been so impressed by a domestic auto. With such a surprising change of course, I looked to see who was behind it, and his name is Alan Mulally.

Turning around Ford before it was imperiled like its other motor town brethren was prescient, but not heroic. To achieve that status of hero one must go further than just doing his job. It would take something amazing, such as releasing a new car that bests my legendary 1989 SHO in every possible way. I plan to test drive the new 2010 SHO, and I hope to be impressed.

BSD, how I love thee

Gordon called this morning. I always like hearing from Gordon, and today was no exception. Even when “the pooh has struck the rotary oscillator,” Gordon is polite and amiable. Since Gordon manages a slew of networks, the best way to keep in touch with him is to break one of his servers.

To make sure he doesn’t forget about me, I wrote a program to do this automatically. I’m quite clever about it. The breakages coincides with power outages, lightning strikes, and other such events so my tracks are always covered. Gordon has to call me at least once every year or two.

After a manual fsck, his server back came back online but wasn’t working. We figured out that he’d changed the default gateway of the network since the machine was last rebooted. We updated the routing table on the machine and all was well. Since it had been 14 months since the box was last touched, we decided I should do some updates.

Partway though, I filled up /var. Oh, the partition is only 256MB. That’s a tad on the small side, I thought. Then I looked at the disk size: 16GB. RAID 5. Seriously? 9GB disks. And 256MB of RAM. The Pentium III processor dates the machine to circa 1999. And I just upgraded the OS to current. Amazing.

iPad 3G and iPhone data plan

I picked the 3G iPad for 2 reasons: I want the 3G data while traveling, and I want the GPS because so many mobile apps make good use of it. I didn’t like the wait but it was worth it. Even without a 3G data plan active, the built in GPS is useful when coupled with a GPS app like Motion GPS, which has support for map caching. I have maps for the entire Greater Seattle area (street and topo) cached on my iPad.

For the car, I find the iPad to be a better car GPS than a mobile phone for two reasons. Because of the larger screen, I can nearly always see what I need in a single glance. The distraction time is less than with a mobile phone where the need to scroll, swipe, and tap little buttons is greater. The other reason the iPad beats a mobile phone for GPS is raw speed. Pressing a button results in instant changes, so there’s very little time spent glancing at the device to see if the desired data is displayed yet.

The best 3G iPad feature is being able to drop my iPhone SIM into the iPad and use the 3G data plan I already pay for. The ability to do so is limited by only two things: the carrier profile on the iPad needs to be set appropriately, and the iPhone SIM cards physical size. The iPad is not carrier locked so setting the carrier profile is a snap. That leaves dealing with the SIM cards physical size.

Some people have speculated that Apple chose the micro SIM format as a concession to AT&T. While that may be the case, I believe that Apple is leading the industry towards adoption of the micro SIM format and the soon to be released iPhone will also use the smaller SIM card.

I wanted to use the iPad with my existing 3G iPhone. An old credit card (for adapter material), a pair of kitchen shears, an x-acto knife, and a bit of careful trimming yielded me an adapter and a micro SIM I can use in both devices.

To 3D or not to 3D?

I’m still not sure I prefer 3D movies. We watched Avatar in 3D when it came out, at the really big IMAX (we have 3 in the area). Movie aficionados tell us that’s the only one to consider. Jen enjoyed the 3D experience where I just found it jarring. I kept finding myself thinking about the plot (or lack thereof) and the effects rather then being engaged and immersed.

Perhaps it is something in my head. I am rarely able to see the 3D stereograms that so many people enjoy.

I have been looking forward to seeing Avatar in 2D. Tonight we watched it on the 96″ HD screen in the living room. The planet of Pandora is smaller and less impressive in 2D. Or perhaps, that’s the difference between watching on a screen several stories tall versus one 4′ tall. Dropping off the side of a cliff on a banshee is less exhilarating. But I enjoyed the movie more. I was able to stay engaged.

Jen prefers the 3D version. And we both think the score was sorely lacking. But the movie is good enough to watch several times.