“Dear iPhone 4 Users,

The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Apple “

And so it continues. Geohot has returned with some help from hacking buddies chronic, posixninja, and pod2g with news that the same “24kpwn” exploit used to cracked open the iPod touch 2G will work on the iPhone 3GS. That means a jailbreak and unlock can be launched just as soon as the existing tools are updated for the iPhone 3GS (which won’t be long). As George Hotz laments,
“On a personal note, I’m sad. Apple, it took me a week to break through your new defenses. And to let us reuse an exploit like that; 24kpwn was so 5 months ago. Although I imagine it must have been painful watching the devices roll by on the assembly line, knowing they all had a hole in them and you couldn’t fix it.”

AdMob serves ads for more than 7,000 mobile Web sites and 2,500 applications around the world. AdMob stores and analyzes the data from every ad request, impression, and click and uses this to optimize ad matching in the network. This monthly report offers a snapshot of the data to provide insight into trends in the mobile ecosystem.

Five days after its launch, the iPhone OS 3.0 represented 44% of iPhone ad requests. In contrast, only 1% of iPod touch requests came from devices running the iPhone OS 3.0.

Worldwide, Apple iPhone’s share of smartphone traffic hit 49% in May 2009, up from 43% in April 2009:

In the U.S., Apple iPhone’s share of smartphone traffic hit 69% in May 2009, up from 59% in April 2009:

These numbers, of course, predate the release of Apple’s iPhone 3G S which was released on June 19, 2009.

Once again validating Dieter’s iPhone 3GS vs. Palm Pre web rendering smackdown, MacRumors reports on Medialets‘ latest Sunspider Javascript tests pitting the iPhone 3GS against the iPhone 3G (both on 3.0 and 2.2.1), Palm Pre, and Google Android G1.

As MacRumors points out, not only is iPhone 3GS’ clear, current speed advantage impressive, but the 3x improvement iPhone 3.0 gives the iPhone 3G is most impressive as well.

Here you have an extremely easy way to have tethering enable on your iPhone 3G and 3GS without having to pay the expensive AT&T, O2 or any other network since this method is accepted in many countries, just by visiting a site on your iPhone’s Safari. No jailbreaking needed. just type the following address in Safari:

http://help.benm.at/help.php

Then scroll down to the Tethering & Internet Settings, then choosing your country and provider. This works for both AT&T and T-Mobile, and will let you install the appropriate configuration.

Now go to your settings and enable tethering. Check the video walkthrough bellow to help you configure tethering.

1. Ensure you have upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0
2. Jailbreak your iPhone 3G using redsn0w or PwnageTool (this will also install Cydia/Icy)
3. Run Cydia or Icy
4. Please add the repo repo666.ultrasn0w.com to Cydia or Icy. That last “o” is actually the number zero “0”! If you use the letter “o” you’ll get an error.
5. Search for ‘ultrasn0w’ in cydia or icy and install ultrasn0w
6. Reboot your iPhone 3G
7. T-Mobile USA users should disable 3G before using ultrasn0w
8. Enjoy

“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”

With more than 12 million iPhone and iPod Touch users, Apple has been the choice for smart phones and mp3 players.

• Adjustable Song Scrolling Speed
• Special Characters In Messaging
• More Ways to Access Spotlight
• Quote Fragment Within Reply in Mail
• Remove Individual Texts from A Conversation
• Open Link In New Tab In Safari
• Force Quit Unresponsive Apps
• Shake Phone to Undo Typing
• Change App Store Account On The Fly
• Unlimited Number of Apps Can Be Installed

• New options for the “Home” button
• New spoken text control buttons
• Copy and paste retains style and formatting
• Copy and paste works in all kinds of places
• Spotlight search: OIne hell of a great app launcher
• The Search feature is, like, everywhere
• Contacts are now sharable
• Set your iPhone’s contents to self-destruct
• Battery life can now be expressed as a percentage
• The YouTube app no longer sucks!