Cult of Mac

The new iPhone 4S has a minor physical tweak that makes it difficult to fit into some cases. The culprit is the silent/ringer switch which has been moved down slightly towards the bottom of the phone. Since I’ve had a few reader queries about cases for the iPhone 4S I thought I’d share some information about cases I have on hand.

I have six iPhone 4 cases that I either purchased or received for review and  surprise a that a lot of them fit just fine for regular use.  Only one of them  wouldn’t fit at all.  If you have one of the other five you’ll be just fine when you upgrade to an iPhone 4S.

The big question about the iPhone 4S is whether it’s worth the upgrade.

The answer is yes, and that’s because of Siri, the talking personal assistant.

Siri is unbelievable; a paradigm shift. It’s new way of interacting with computers that’s as big a breakthrough as the original Macintosh with its mouse, windows and icons. In fact, it’s bigger. It’s a much more natural way to interact with machines. It’s a glimpse of the future of computing.

Like the first Mac, it’s far from perfect. We’re at the very beginning of this revolution. But if you want to join the party, you need the 4S.

Here’s the video to that “Steve Jobs” rap song that hit the Internets last month.

It’s got a few things that might not be safe for work – mainly rapper Supreme General  who wrote and performs the song in various states of undress with obligatory crotch grabbing and too many obscenities to count. (Not that I didn’t try to count the obscenities – I’m like that.)

Today Sprint announced that the iPhone’s launch on its network resulted in the carrier’s best day ever in sales. Apple announced its partnership with Sprint to offer the iPhone 4S and 8GB iPhone 4 last week.

After today’s launch day, the iPhone has given Sprint more sales than any product ever on its network.

Fared Adib, Sprint Product Chief:

“Sprint today reported its best ever day of sales in retail, web and telesales for a device family in Sprint history with the launch of iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. We reached this milestone at approximately noon CT/1pm ET. The response to this device by current and new customers has surpassed our expectations and validates our customers’ desire for a truly unlimited data pricing plan.”

Rumors suggested for months that Sprint and Apple would partner for the next iPhone launch leading up to last week’s announcement.

Sprint offers its customers the unique option of purchasing an unlimited data plan with the iPhone.

AT&T also announced a record number of iPhone activations for today’s iPhone 4S launch.

AT&T announced Friday, October 14 that it saw a record number of iPhone activations on its network. The iPhone 4S was made available to US customers on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint this morning.

The carrier confirmed to BGR:

“As of 4:30 pm ET today, AT&T had already activated a record number of iPhones on our network – and is on-track to double our previous record for activations on a single day.

These record volumes may produce slower activations for some customers, though our systems continue to run at record levels.”

Despite the fact that many were unable to activate their new iPhones on AT&T today, the carrier still calls the iPhone 4S its “most successful iPhone launch” to date.

AT&T alone was responsible for 200,000 of the 1 million worldwide pre-orders that were placed last Friday.

Although Apple has slashed international shipping times for many countries, eBay auctions may bring the iPhone 4S to early adopters before they can buy them in stores.

eBay currently lists a whopping 8,000 iPhone 4S for sale on its international circuit, in addition to individual country markets.

Some 22 European countries await the iPhone 4S launch on October 28, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to sell them now via the online marketplace.

Apple has been on a software rollout spree lately. iCloud and iOS 5 were both released to the public this past Wednesday alongside a slew of other app releases and updates.

Some of this week’s releases have also caused significant problems for many consumers. Certain iCloud customers have been experiencing faulty connectivity since the product’s launch two days ago. Luckily, Apple offers a way to check iCloud’s status from the web.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbPpeXP5GdE&

The folks at iFixyouri have put together a brief iPhone 4S teardown that shows you how to disassemble and repair your new smartphone. They also have a separate video that shows you how to replace the screen on the iPhone 4S.

iFixit recently did its own teardown of the 4S as well, and it was learned that the device has 512MB of RAM and a new 3G chipset (among other additions).

As 9to5Mac notes, you may want to have the mute switch ready when playing this video. Not sure what the makers were thinking with the song choice.

US carriers — specifically AT&T — have been buckling under the weight of hundreds of thousands iPhone 4S activation requests today. Since the 4S went on sale worldwide this morning, many customers have been trying to activate Apple’s newest handset to no avail.

While Sprint and Verizon activations seem to being going smoothly, AT&T has been failing all day.

If you can’t activate your iPhone 4S on AT&T, we’ve got a few tips to help get your 4S up and running.

After weeks of wild price swings, Apple’s stock closed today at its highest value ever, $420 a share. The previous high was about $413; many were expecting that value to fall tremendously when (my hero) Steve Jobs passed, but to much surprise Apple’s stock remained relatively unaffected by his passing.

The new high comes right before Apple’s Q4 FY11 earnings report and conference call next week (Tuesday, Oct. 18th). This will of course be their first earnings call since Steve Jobs’ passing, and though I think the report will be their usual “we made ALL the money we win” type, whatever success they have had will surely be sobered by the loss of their visionary CEO and friend Steve Jobs.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd7taHnHzcg

Jeff from iDownloadBlog is one of the lucky few to have not one, but three iPhone 4S’s running on all three US carriers.

The above video demonstrates the speed differences between AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint on the iPhone 4S. As you can tell, Sprint is painfully slow while AT&T and Verizon seem to have very similar speeds.

Apple touts the iPhone 4S as having HSDPA “4G” speeds on AT&T, but many have found that data speeds on AT&T are barely faster than Verizon’s network.

Also, if you can’t activate your 4S today, you’re not alone. AT&T specifically has been falling apart under the crushing weight of the 200,000 pre-orders that were delivered for its network today.

UPDATE: AT&T denies it has activation problems. A spokesperson just sent us the following statement:

We had our most successful iPhone launch with more than 200,000 preorders placed in the first 12 hours last week. As customers are receiving their devices – and more are buying in our stores – we’re seeing completed activations across our servers and are moving requests through as quickly as possible. We’re not seeing any widespread delays at this time, though customers may experience minor wait times as more devices are activated.

AT&T’s activation servers have melted down, according to a tip we just got from an Apple store employee.

What a difference a week makes. Last week I went to the San Francisco downtown Apple store to take pictures of the sad Steve Jobs memorial. This week it was a different world at the iPhone 4s launch. Business as usual. There was only one reminder of Steve, a single bouquet of flowers stashed in the corner of a window.

This isn’t the best way of showing the speed increases that come along with the iPhone 4S, but it is one of the ways that the iPhone 4S’ faster A5 chip will immediately be felt: in significantly shorter app launch times.

Apple released iOS 5 and iCloud this week and iOS 5 is the version of iOS designed to set your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch free with the help of iCloud. By free I mean that along with iCloud you no longer need to tie any of these devices to a computer. Now with the introduction of the free AirPort Utility app for iOS you could buy one of the three devices above and an Airport Extreme (or other Apple network appliance) to setup your own local area network to use with these devices.

In case you needed proof that dropping your iPhone 4S face down on the concrete from six feet up without a case was a bad idea.

[via iClarified]

Psst. Wanna buy Apple’s design for the iPhone 5? In the shadowy world of case manufacturing, leaks and rumors fuel a market worth more than $436 million annually. After one company lost a bet worth thousands of dollars on a supposed iPhone 4S design, competitors say guessing Apple’s next move can be an expensive gamble.

Here’s Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak getting two white iPhone 4s’s set up at the Los Gatos, California, Apple Store today, just eight minutes after the doors opened. Woz was first in line, after having waiting since noon the previous day.

The woman in the center is Woz’s wife, Janet Hill. It’s unknown whether one is his and the other is hers, or whether they’re both for Woz. He’s been known to carry two iPhones so he can surf the Internet on one while talking on the other.

That shiny thing on the table, by the way, is Woz’s bad-ass stainless steel business card.

Apple’s release of iOS5 caused “the highest ever traffic” over the UK broadband network, BT has confirmed.

We reported yesterday that demand for iOS5 caused “unprecendented” broadband traffic for some UK internet service providers – but today, BT (which manages the entire national broadband network as well as running its own ISP business, BT Retail) sent the following statement to Cult of Mac:

Over the last two nights, BT has experienced the highest ever traffic levels over the UK broadband network.

Here’s a great tip posted up by the guys over at AppAdvice: if you give Siri a voice command and it doesn’t quite get it right, you can just tap in the text of Siri’s transcription and edit the text. Perfect for the people who find that Siri just can’t stop telling them about Linda.

Cloud computing appears to be the future. But can every company afford their own version of Apple’s iCloud? Although Apple paid $1 billion in 2009 to acquire land for its North Carolina datacenter, that figure is only the ‘downpayment’ required for the tech giant to bring the cloud to millions of customers, according to a Friday report.

Hey, what a shock! The weak link in Apple’s iPhone 4S launch, for the fifth year running? AT&T? Reports abound on Twitter and in the blogosphere that AT&T’s servers are being hammered, preventing users from activating their devices. During this time, the iPhone 4S will return a message saying that “It may take up to 3 minutes to activate your iPhone”… a message which displays for over half an hour in some cases, then falls over.

We’re not seeing similar reports about Verizon or Sprint. Anyone having problems with those two carriers in activating their iPhone 4S? Let us know.

[image via iDownloadBlog]

Check out the amazing difference the iPhone 4S’ new camera makes compared to the iPhone 4’s. Not only are the colors richer and more vibrant, the brights brighter and the darks darker, but the image stabilization is just out of this world. If you rely on your iPhone’s camera a lot, this might be more important than Siri.

[via AppAdvice]

How long are the lines for the iPhone 4S outside of Apple’s iconic 5th Avenue Store? Not that long, actually… well, comparatively. They stretch around the block to FAO Schwartz, but they are nothing compared to the iPad 2’s launch lines: 75% shorter, in fact, TUAW estimates. Then again, the iPad 2 couldn’t be pre-ordered in nearly the abundance of the iPhone 4S: most of the people in line this morning are either there because they want to be, or there because they put off ordering one online for too long.

Apple and Samsung have been trading punches in courts around the globe, with Cupertino claiming that Samsung has ripped off almost every conceivable aspect of their iPhone and iPad intellectual property. Apple has made a strong case, even getting a sales injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, but it may be Samsung’s own lawyers who just delivered the K.O… to their own jaw.

How? Reuters is reporting that Samsung’s own lawyers told a US District judge that they couldn’t tell the difference between an iPad and a Galaxy Tab 10.1.