In an extraordinarily thorough review of the iPhone 4, Anandtech has gone into the reception issues of the iPhone 4’s antenna in the greatest depth yet.

Mapping the bar representation of the signal strength against the actual signal strength, Anandtech found that over 40% of the signal strength is represented by 5 bars. You need to love over 40dB of signal to go from five to four bars, but only 10db to go from four to three.

On average, the iPhone 4 loses 26.4dB of signal when tightly held in your hand, and 19.8dB of signal when held naturally… a significant jump over the 3GS when it comes to signal degradation when held, thanks to Apple’s decision to allow the iPhone 4’s antenna to come in direct contact with human skin. Since over 40dB of signal strength is measured in the fifth bar, that means that if you’re in an area of great AT&T service, you might not notice a drop at all… but it’s still happening. If you’re in an area of worse coverage, though, the signal drop will be dramatically visible.

The iPhone 4’s widely reported reception problems is the carcass, and the buzzards have been circling for awhile, but the first just dropped down for the feast: the first class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T has just been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and predictably, it focuses on the iPhone 4’s antenna.

The claims are that Apple and AT&T were guilty of general negligence when it comes to the iPhone 4’s reception issues, with Apple specifically guilty when it comes to a defect in the design, manufacture and assembly of the iPhone 4. Additionally, Apple is cited for a breach of warranty, while AT&T and Apple both are accused of deceptive trade practices, intentional and negligent misrepresentation and fraud by concealment.

The lawsuit was filed by Ward & Ward, PLLC and Charles A. Gilman, LLC. on behalf of Kevin McCaffrey, Linda Wrinn and a number of other iPhone 4 users… and it’s not likely to be the last one filed, since the same firm that sued Facebook and Zynga is said to be looking into their own suit.

This is one design decision that is turning into a major headache for Apple, whether the iPhone 4 has a design flaw or no.

I was still shooting JPG on my digital camera until a few months ago, but buying a new MacBook and being given a copy of Aperture gave me a chance to switch to shooting RAW.

That also meant a new workflow for managing and editing photos. I didn’t want my Aperture library to be filled up with crud, so I decided to import images to a folder and manually weed out the useless shots before transferring what remains to Aperture.

After doing this in a Finder window I realised I needed a better tool for the job, so I went looking for lightweight image browsers.

And what I found was Xee.

The Core77 design blog has scored a rare interview with Jonathan Ive, ostensibly about the iPhone 4, but really about the way a physical and emotional connection to raw materials can not be extracurricular to design.

“It is that direct experience, the hands-on, that is the key; like experiencing the iPhone 4 itself, it cannot be done without the physical connection. “It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it,” Ive explains, going on to add that years upon years of making his own models with his own hands is what gave him a deep understanding of the materials he’s worked. “And it’s important to develop that appetite to want to make something, to be inquisitive about the material world, to want to truly understand a material on that level.”

It’s a fantastic read: an uncommon glimpse into the mind of one of the most brilliant (and soft-spoken) visionaries in tech. Very much worth a read.

The upcoming release of Tron Legacy is going to be heralded by an glut of tie-in crap, but this Tron-branded iPod dock may be one of the better products of the bunch.

Designed to emulate the iconic, glowing identity disc / fatal frisbee of the Tron films, this dock is a collaboration between Disney and Monter, and it shows… at least in aesthetics. Features-wise, though, there doesn’t seem to be a lot separating this from your usual $100 dock, which makes the $249.99 asking price a bit hard to swallow. Fanboys only.

Firefox has just announced that their not-really-a-web-browser-so-Apple-can’t-reject-us app, Firefox Home, has just been sent off to the App Store for approval

Based upon Firefox Sync technology, Firefox Home allows iPhone users to always have access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs, as well as access to their “Awesome Bar,” which allows them to browse to a site with the minimum of typing fuss. Find what you want, and Firefox Home passes on any opened pages to Mobile Safari.

There shouldn’t be any hangups getting Firefox Home through the approval process, given the existence of other Safari-competitors on the App Store, like Opera Mini or the Atomic Browser. If you’re a major Firefox user and you want to take your sessions — but not your browser — on the road with you, you can set yourself up for Firefox Home here in wait for an official thumbs up.

It’s easy to extrapolate from the fact that Macs don’t have Blu-Ray drives already (even as an option) that, internally, Apple is banking on digital delivery as the future of high-definition content. Now, for the first time, Steve Jobs has confirmed it in one of his characteristic email exchanges with an Apple fan.

Writing a disappointed Blu-Ray fan about the form’s absence in Apple’s line up, Jobs wrote: “Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.”

When his correspondent respond that high-end video formats had a higher uptake, citing the lack of DRM as a main driver behind Blu-Ray growth, Jobs shot down the idea.

No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.

I think you may be wrong – we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over.

I think Jobs is write that Blu-Ray is clearly an interim format, although I’m skeptical, right now, of iTunes’ dominant place in the high-definition video digital delivery ecosystem: iTunes isn’t really making the most impressive show when it comes to video compared to the likes of Netflix, and I don’t really think that’s likely to change until Apple starts taking the Apple TV more seriously than “just a hobby.” Apple needs a competitively priced and featured set-top box to really get their video strategy into play.

These guys were all unveiled at this year’s CES, but earphone-maker Etymotic doesn’t pop out products very often — their still-popular er6i earbuds have been around since 2004 — so when no less than four Etymotic goodies are hitting stores within the space of a month, we sit up and take notice.

It’s black, it’s hungry, and it gets along with almost anything. While that may sound like the monster-under-the-bed from childhood has found a good therapist, or maybe started smoking weed, it’s actually Seagate’s latest addition to their ultra-flexible GoFlex line of external drives, the 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk.

Seagate’s done a little math in their pr release, and says the drive will store 49,980 hours of music — which is almost six years of tunes, playing 24/7. That’s a lot of partying.

The drive will ship mid-July, with a tag of $249.

Apple released an update today to its MobileMe Gallery application for the iPhone & iPod Touch which brings it up to version 1.1.1.

The update features “various bug fixes” as well as the ability to download your photos in a higher resolution when using the iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi.

Despite these improvements, this little app still leaves much to be desired. Apple are yet to develop a way in which you can manage your photo galleries from your iPhone & iPod Touch. Currently you can only view or upload to galleries you have already created on you computer, and you cannot create or delete galleries from within the app.

As well as this, MobileMe Gallery is still not a universal application, so although it will run on the iPad as most iPhone apps will, it’s not yet been built for the iPad’s larger screen.

We start the last day of June with a couple items for your iPad and another deal on unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store. First is a velvet bag for your iPad for just $7. Next is a number of unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store, starting at $929 for a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo model. Finally is a simply holder to prop up your iPad for reading.

Along the way, we check out iPhone and iPod touch software, sleeves for your iPod nano and another iPad stand. As usual, details on these and many other bargains are at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Particularly in the Crayola colors, JayBird’s retro-styled Bluetooth headphones look quite attractive to me in a PlaySkool kind of way. They pair with your iPhone through a tiny little dongle and even feature side-mounted control buttons for cycling through your iPod’s music collection without digging it out of your purse, as well as an integrated mic perfect for making phone calls.

They’re a bit pricier than I want to spend on a pair of over-the-ear, foam-covered headphones at $99, but when all is said and done, I still like the style quite a bit.

This is something of a pro tip, but if you have an original 2007 iPhone dock, time to dust it off: DVICE has found that it actually works better than Apple’s new, custom-fit iPhone 4 dock.

The explanation is all about looseness: although the iPhone 4 dock perfectly fits the handset, it’s actually just a bit too tight, making the handset difficult to remove from the cradle with just one hand. The original iPhone dock has none of these problems.

Don’t have an original iPhone dock? Check the eBay listings to pick one up for a song?

Celluloid-worthy beauty Anna Chapman, arrested by the FBI for belonging to an Russian espionage network called “the illegals,” may also go down in history as the spy who loved Macs.

On January 25, the 28-year-old told her 175 Facebook friends: “My new Mac has been the buy of the year…Love it!”

It wasn’t an easy relationship, though. According to the FBI documents, her spy job was plagued by network problems that made transmitting her weekly Wednesday intelligence reports via a private wireless network at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble in New York a major hassle. Documents didn’t mention which Apple laptop she used.

It looks pretty official at this point that whatever measures Apple is going to take in fixing the iPhone 4’s reception problems, free bumper cases isn’t going to be one of them. Just in time, then, comes this quick and easy guide on how to use silicone modeling clay to make your own cheap bumper, which will not only protect it from a shattering fall, but also prevent the glass surface from getting scratched on tables and the like. Extend the sugru a little farther over the iPhone 4’s antenna danger spot at the lower left corner and that should help minimize dropped bars when you’re gripping your iPhone 4 as well.

If you’re hoping to get some sort of solution for your iPhone 4 antenna woes by calling up tech support, think again: Apple’s internal procedures when it comes to the iPhone 4’s reception have been leaked, and officially, there’s no problem with the iPhone 4 antenna unless there’s signal problems when you aren’t holding it.

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs furiously sent emails trying to knock down reports of antenna problems with the iPhone 4, the Cupertino, Calif. company apparently was busy looking for antenna experts. And little wonder the sense of urgency: the iPhone 4 could comprise half of the iPhones the company sells this year, according to a Wednesday report.

A day before the YouTube videos appeared of dropped calls due to holding the iPhone a certain way, Apple posted job notices seeking iPad and iPhone antenna engineers with at least 10 years experience. The engineers’ job is to “optimize the radiation performance for mobile devices,” according to the posting.

One analyst warned investors Wednesday an unconfirmed report that Verizon Wireless will get the iPhone in January 2011, may be just more dead-end speculation. “Similar speculation has emerged before, so barring independent confirmation or a press release from one of the parties, it’d be rash to pop the champagne,” Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner wrote.

Although the idea of Verizon gaining the iPhone makes many analysts salivate at the prospect, so far it has only been a parlor game. Apple has defended the exclusive U.S. carrier in the past, and AT&T has recently taken steps to improve its 3G service.

It’s only been about three weeks since Safari 5 was released, and with it support for Safari extensions.

Since then I’ve been exploring all the delights posted at the Safari Extensions Tumblr and finding some really great stuff, and lots of ideas.

A normal folder is simple; it’s a thing you store files in. You choose which files are there, you have complete manual control over what’s inside that folder.

A smart folder is one whose contents are partly or completely determined by a set of rules that you’ve created.

To set up a Smart Folder, make sure you’re in Finder and then select File -> New Smart Folder. You’ll see a Finder window appear, but it’s slightly different to normal ones.

What’s been rumor, speculation and a good way to fill blog space is now…well, still all of the above; but the rumors are beginning to sound more and more like hard fact — that Verizon has bagged the iPhone.

Just days after the iPhone arrived at Apple stores, and one day after on the same day it hit AT&T’s outlets, Bloomberg News says “two people familiar with the plans” claim that Verizon will begin selling iPhones next year in January. The two sources spoke anonymously; not surprisingly, neither Bloomberg News nor anyone else running the story has been able to get an official comment from either Apple or Verizon.

Apple has announced via their iOS Developer newsfeed that iOS apps that were developed and compiled for iOS 2.x will no longer be supported. Developers are being advised to re-build their apps in Xcode targeting iOS 3.x or later. Developers that continue to submit or have existing apps compiled against iOS 2.x will face removal of their app from the iTunes App Store.

In the same announcement Apple directed developers to their iOS 4 Readiness Checklist which includes a “wealth of technical resources” to help developers to take advantage of resources in iOS 4. Instructions and information about submitting iOS 4 apps to the App Store are also included.

Apple released iOS 4 as a free update for all iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and the 2nd and 3rd generation iPod touch devices. iOS is fully compatible with all of these devices with the exception of the iPhone 3G and 2nd generation iPod touch which do not support all of iOS 4’s features. Apple has uncharacteristically offered iPod touch owners a free update, since in the past they had to pay approximately $10 for an OS update.

If you are squeamish or faint of heart and love all things Apple you just might want to skip reading this post, but on the other hand if Freddy Krueger is your friend and all the gut wrenching destruction of his movies are for you then keep reading. We’ll take a look at three videos that show Apple’s latest gadget the iPhone 4 getting blended, microwaved, and shot.

We’ve received some comments from iPhone 3GS users that their battery life after the iOS 4 update has declined. This can in most cases be attributed to poorly written apps or apps that don’t support the multitasking feature introduced in iOS 4. Are you experiencing this problem? Have you identified an app or some other reason for the decline in battery life on your iPhone 3GS? Tells us all about it in the comments.

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Responding to a recent New York Times piece linking the horrific warfare in the Congo with the minerals used in our gadgets, Steve Jobs wrote a new iPhone 4 customer explaining Apple’s policy in dealing with mineral purchases:

We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.

That’s a refreshingly blunt admission of relative impotence: Apple’s doing what it can, but ultimately, their suppliers are in turn supplied by people who could well be lying about their source. Short of a way to independently verify where minerals are coming from, Apple’s got to take people at their words.