Doug McLean
Doug McLean holds the position of Staff Writer at TidBITS, before which he did testing for the New York Times Web site and oversaw Mac support at the Montserrat College of Art. Doug has an art degree from Cornell University and remains a working artist.
The New York Times reports on Apple's recent confirmation of connectivity issues with the iPhone 4's antenna. Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling acknowledged that handling the latest iPhone in certain ways can decrease the phone's signal reception, thus garbling or dropping calls. The issue has triggered a wave of concern, speculation, and solutions across the Web. Unfortunately, Apple's response merely claims the problem is a "fact of life" with wireless phones, and advises users to use a case or avoid touching the phone's lower left-hand corner.
Are you the sole member of your social circle with an iPhone 4? Pining to test the much-lauded video-chatting feature FaceTime? (The feature requires both callers to be using an iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi.) Engadget is reporting that users without iPhone 4-toting friends can explore FaceTime by calling Apple. Simply dial 1-888-FACETIME between 8 AM and 8 PM CDT, and an Apple employee will appear, ready to show you ins and outs of FaceTime. Be nice, eh?
While the iPhone 4 is just now starting to be available to early adopters, the initial reviews of the iPhone 4 from major publications have already appeared. Here's a look at what four journalists with early access to the iPhone have to say about Apple's latest release.
Addresses several security issues and prevents crashes in certain plug-ins from affecting Firefox itself. (Free, 17.6 MB)
Updates the browsing engine to increase support with Safari 5. (Free/€12 new, Standard/Pro, 1.9 MB)
Adds expanded drag-and-drop capabilities for email, expanded PDF support, and folder action scripts, in addition to a long list of other minor improvements and tweaks. (Pricing varies, 17.8/10.9 MB)
Adds support for Mac OS X 10.6.4, the latest versions of the major Mac-compatible Web browsers, and improves cache-clearing capabilities. ($14.95, free update, 2.0 MB)
Adds the capability to group frequently used characters together as Favorites, adds hotkey support for the character window, and fixes a handful of minor bugs. (€29.99 new, free upgrade for purchases made in the last 2 years, 2.1 MB)
Improves support for Safari 5, Transmit 4, and CSS 3 properties highlighting. ($99 new, free update, 20 MB)
Addresses 16 distinct security vulnerabilities related to printing, iChat, and maliciously crafted image and movie files. (Free for both Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Leopard Server, 222/380.29 MB)
Nearly a week before the recent WWDC keynote speech, Steve Jobs took another stage, at the Wall Street Journal's D8 Conference, to answer questions both big and small about Apple. Here's a glance at some of the more interesting responses that came out of that unscripted conversation.
The New York Times reports that a hacker group named Goatse Security has successfully exploited a hole in AT&T's Web site to access the email addresses of 114,000 iPad 3G users. AT&T has since patched the hole on its site, but the breach is a black eye for the company and could also harm the iPad's reputation, even though there's no indication that the problem was related directly to Apple.
Increases sync speeds, improves keyboard support for dialogs, and fixes a number of minor bugs. ($20 new, free update, 5.7 MB)
Fixes a pesky bug with closing program windows. ($149.99 new, free update, 8.8 MB)
Adds support for Safari 5, improves search default settings, and fixes a number of minor bugs. ($39.95 new, free update, 15.1 MB)