Didn’t pre-order the iPhone 4, but now want one. Here are a few handy ways to feed the iPhone 4 crave.

The Apple Store Online is a safe alternative, but it will take about 3 weeks according to the Apple Store Online. From my conversations with the Apple Retail Stores, they are saying that the reserving in store would be a shorter wait. Note, you do not need to walk in the Apple Retail Store to reserve, you can call; however, reserving means picking the device up in store within 24 hours of receiving the email.

Best buy stores are also an alternative to purchase the iPhone 4. But, from speaking with customers and employees, they do not have a time frame in which you would receive your device. Additionally, from talking to Radio Shack, they do not have the iPhone 4 in stock but can order one for you. But, even Radio Shack claims they do not know when the iPhone would arrive.

All in all, the choice on how you would like to reserve your device is up to you. Personally, I would choose an Apple Retail Store as they tend to have a higher priority on receiving the devices. If possible I would call multiple Apple Retail Stores in the area and reserve the iPhone 4 – it would help increase you chances on receiving the iPhone 4 sooner.

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So as I have officially finished my testing of the iPhone 4, I believe it is time for me to share details about big updates and a few tiny things that were added.  So let’s start.

• Overall Design
  

This iPhone is different how Apple broke off from their normal design.  They went to something that was completely out of the ordinary for them.  They used aluminum the outlining of the phone, which also serves as the antenna.  And before I continue, it is true that when you hold your phone the “wrong way” your signal decreases.  It is beautifully made, and feels a little different at first, because it is pretty boxy, but like with most Apple products you do seem to get used to it right away.

• Retina Screen

The Retina screen truly does make a difference.  It is like holding a high-def screen in your pocket, and when Apple said you can’t distinguish pixels they were right.  The screen I think has made the biggest difference to me with my iPhone usage so far.  It has made games that are updated amazing, and games that haven’t been updated yet, you can really tell they were made for an iPhone 3Gs.(Picture below)

• Camera

Next is the camera.  I have seen maybe the most changes in here. There is the edition of the flash on the back and an upgrade to 5 megapixel camera, as well as a VGA camera on the front for FaceTime.  The video quality is very clean and crisp and I will take a few shots and video to show you the quality.(Pictures at the end of entire article)  The camera is definitely to my liking now.  It shoots crisp video and pictures and no more of those trying to flip your camera around and take a picture.

• Audio

The speaker on the bottom of the iPhone has definitely been updated.  Now when I use the speaker for calls it is loud.  I have been testing it with music and now I only have to turn it up to about 75% for a good amount of sound.  For calls, however, I do find myself turning it all the way up if I am talking to someone who is a little bit quieter.

• Internal Changes

One of the best internal changes for me is the A4 chip.  It makes the iPhone process so quickly.  Now Guitar Hero doesn’t lag up and quit on me anymore.  I do find some of my application quitting at random moments still, but I believe that is the application or the OS not the A4 chip.(I will include an update at the bottom if I find the problem)  Another addition, is the gyroscope inside the iPhone. I have not seen many apps to take use of this as of yet, but hopefully there will be more as developers keep at it.  Of course there is also the standard accelerometer and the same sensors as before.  Another addition is a larger lithium-ion battery, but I will go more in depth in the battery section.

• Battery

The battery has increased time quite a bit.  I have noticed a much longer battery life and it has kept it’s charge so far.  I am hoping it will still do well after a couple hundred charges.  I have noticed when using the flash on my camera excessively, but that was sort of expected.

• Software and OS Changes

There are a lot of changes here so I will number the bigger ones:

1. Background- The background can now be changed on your home screen as well as your lock screen.
2. Folders- Group your favorite apps together or group games with games.  Folders also have a smart naming feature that help to automatically name the folder.
3. Multi-tasking- No longer shall you quit an application when you can run it in the background.  You can easily return to it by double clicking the home button and clicking on the icon, and it does not slow down your iPhone.
4. Mail- Now, all your inboxes are combined into one master inbox that includes all of your accounts.
5. Facetime- You can now video chat(as long as you are on wi-fi of course) using facetime.  You can either start it while in call, or while you are looking at your contacts you can click the facetime button with-in a person’s contact card.

You can find all of these with-in the new iPhone 4 and Apple’s new iOS 4.

Finally, the moment you have all been waiting for, those pictures I took, well here you go.

Pictures outside in the courtyard:

Picture with flash:

Picture without flash:

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So, you may have noticed that Apple and Pixar are somewhat unofficially associated with one another. Well, that’s because they are. In a sense, they are brother companies. You see, they share a parent: Steve Jobs. After Jobs was booted out of Apple in the 90s, he founded Pixar Animation Studios. If you think about it, the two companies have a lot in common: Both are in the tech category; both have anticipated regular annual release dates (e.g. Apple’s annual iPod updated line, or Pixar’s annual Disney/Pixar major motion picture, such as this year’s Toy Story 3), both have a similar logo style with the white background and simple, familiar picture, both were founded by Jobs, both are highly successful, among many other things such as business styles, etc. Is Steve Jobs not only a tech genius, but also a business genius? I don’t know. But here are some solid examples of the Apple/Pixar love fest:
-Disney Pixar’s Wall-E: the robot’s charging sound is the same as the Mac startup sound
-Apple’s introductions of just about any product with video within the past year have showcased Disney/Pixar’s Up
-In Toy Story 3, the younger sister is shown with an iPod
-In Toy Story 3, the toys clearly use Safari browser on an iMac to map out a route on the Internet
-Many more. . . just search it in Google.

All in all, this whole deal raises the question of how each company benefits from such benefits, and did Jobs plan this? Apple has always had a way with the media. What do you think of this unofficial partnership? Leave a comment below.

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At the WWDC last Monday, in addition to iPhone 4, Apple released Safari 5. What’s different in Safari 5? At first, it appears that not much is new. . . visually. But, it turns out that Safari now includes some features that may determine the future of surfing the Internet. (By the way, notice how I capitalized the ‘I’ in Internet? That is because Internet is a proper noun, and thus, it is grammatically correct to capitalize it. Yes, it’s true. Weird, but true.) Anyway, what has been supposedly the world’s fastest browser just got faster. That’s one of the non-visual things in Safari 5. The other is better HTML 5 support including full-screen view/closed-captioning for video and geolocation.

Then there are a couple visual things. Let’s see, there is now a tab on Topsites that allows you to quickly switch to full history search mode. And the Google search bar in the upper right corner now works with Yahoo! and Bing as well. Oh, and they brought back to old blue loading bar, which kind of annoys me. But, perhaps most noticeably and importantly, there is a new feature called “Reader.” Reader allows the user to view a ‘quick-look-esque’ enlarged view of an article on a webpage without the clutter of ads and graphics. Safari 5 automatically detects when a webpage has an article and displays an icon in the address bar that says “reader.” If you click on it, you can read the article in a front-and-center view. It’s very nice. For a demonstration, visit the download page to download safari, then revisit this site and continue reading this article in Reader! The other nice thing about Reader is that you can download the article while in Reader mode with the click of a button. Could this type of viewing be the future of Internet surfing?

Well, to conclude, the reason I included a question mark in this article’s title is because I’m not sure if this updated version of Safari deserves its own number. Perhaps Safari 4.5 is more fitting. However it is a worthwhile update and I urge you to download it. After all, it’s free!

What do you think? Leave a comment.

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Though most hype today may revolve around the ability to pre-order the new iPhone 4, Apple also gave us a new present-a unibody Mac Mini. From comparing the specs of previous models to the newly released unibody Mac Mini, they crush the previous generations and give current line models such as the iMac a run for the money. With the new slick design of the Mac Mini, the model looks extremely stylish and finds it way home to the unibody MacBook Pro. Here are the specs:

2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM
320 GB hard drive
$699

or the “server class” Mac Mini:

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
Dual 500 GB hard drive
$999

Additionally, the new Mac Mini sports HDMI and an SD card. The new Mac Mini could fit comfortably instead of your current DVR. Could we expect HDMI to come in future updates? Also, unlike previous generations, the RAM is now more easily accessible. Twist the panel from the bottom of the Mac Mini and your good to go.

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Apple is now saying that their antenna issue on the iPhone 4 is only a software issue and will be fixed with a software update. Apple announced that the problem was not with the antenna placement, but by the formula used to calculate how many bars your iPhone really has. They said the miscalculation could show you have two extra bars. They are going to be switching over to AT&T’s formula to calculate the bars in the next update, which should be rolling out in the next few weeks. I’m guessing you can expect the update in two weeks, but this is only a guess.

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