How Your Smart Phone Is Made

Phone Story was available only a mere 3-hours before Apple pulled it from their App Store. One can only assume it hit a little too close to home...

iSpy?

"Your iPhone is keeping a record of everywhere you've been since June. This data is stored on your phone (or iPad) and computer, easily available to anyone who gets their hands on it. Why? Apple won't say. We're creeped out.

The enormous privacy startle, apparently enabled by June's iOS 4 release, was discovered by two security researchers, one of whom claims he was an Apple employee for five years. They're equally puzzled and disturbed by the location collection: "By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements," they explain. All it would take to crack the information out of your iOS device is an easy jailbreak. On your computer, the information can be opened as easily as JPEG.

The data itself is jarringly accurate. Even though it appears to rely on tower triangulation rather than GPS pinpointing (meaning you're not safe with location services switched off), the map I was able to generate with mapping software the security duo released visualizes my life since the day I bought my iPhone 4 in July. Everywhere I've been. Bus trips home. Train trips to visit family. Vacations. Places I'd forgotten I'd even gone. My entire personal and professional life—documented by a phone I didn't know was also a tracking device. It's all accessible—where I've been, and when. I don't want this information bouncing around in my pocket with me. Do you?"

Source: Gizmodo

Apple be climbing in your window...

iHaz iPhone 4! iPwn.

[Taken with the iPhone 4's swanky 5mpx camera =D]

After my failed attempt to get an iPhone 4 on launch day, I have finally managed to get my grubby little hands on one. And boy was it not without effort!

It all started one fine June morning, the twenty-fourth if I do recall correctly. Setting my alarm for stupid-o'clock (7:15am), I shot out the house and down to Tottenham Court Road as fast as my little legs could carry me. Using my iPhone 3G's GPS to try and find the 02 store, I end up taking a fifteen minute detour as the blasted contraption lead me in the opposite direction, only for the shop to be right on the main fucking street anyway. Yeah, and I wanted the upgrade of this . Anyhow, upon arriving at the scene I realised that a line several thousand deep in people more idiotic than I had been queueing for what looked like the whole night. Knowing that it would be futile to bother joining the back of the queue, I, thinking I was being smart, decided to go to a smaller branch in Liverpool Street, the same store I had attempted three times to get my old 3G from. Before continuing on my endeavour, I popped my head round the corner of Oxford Circus tube station to see an even more ridonkulous line at Apple's flagship London store. Idiots with more money than sense were actually going to buy the handset outright for around £400-£500.

So, self-assured in my tactical genius in thinking that Liverpool Street, an area full of business people with no time to be queueing for the shmexy iPhone 4, off I went. Balls. A large queue. Not thousands of like-minded idiots this time, albeit only hundreds. So, people were getting them before work eh? 'Where don't people work?' I thought to myself. Camden! Boom. Maybe a queue of fifty people moving an inch every half-hour. This would have to do. So there I stood, and there I made friends with like-minded Apple fan boys (and girls). Such was the jovial atmosphere that a woman in the group I was communicating with offered to go on a coffee run (I had a frappuccino), so long as we promised to save here place. Silly cow. No, we did. We weren't that cruel. So, we wait in line outside this 02 store, and right next door is a sorry looking empty T-Mobile shop. Oh how we snickered. I cancel my coming engagements for the day (I know, pathetic) as I stand there thinking to myself how sick this whole affair is that I'm being taken in by this mass-consumerism and how all these people are literally spending their entire day in a queue for something they don't even need. As I get my foot in the door of the store a rumour circulates the line; "Out of 32GB models". FFFFFFUUUUUU!

Suddenly, a head pops round the corner from the Phones4U shop adjacent to 02 saying they were expecting a shipment at 12:30. Yes, by this stage I had been in the iPhone 4 hunt for over five hours now. Apparently they would upgrade you even if you signed your contract at 02 (which was why everyone was only queueing at the 02 store, because they thought it had to be done there). After discussing briefly with the Phones4U dude at what time they would expect a delivery, and he had told me "within the next ninety minutes, mate", I parked my arse next door in Costa Coffee, and being the cheap bastard that I am, ordered only water. Fifty minutes go by before I decide to check. "Sorry, the deliveries have come already and we've sold them all...mate". FFFFFFUUUUU! How did I miss that?! I was right next door! Did you conspire to sneak them in via surreptitious methods? Bastards!

Pissed, I retire to my 'endz', and walk into my local Phones4U there. Apparently they had deliveries in the morning as well. I bet no one queued. I wouldn't have had to trek all over god damned London in search of it. Could have got up a bit later and been the first one in. Bah! So they took a deposit and promised to call me when they got stock. They didn't. So a week later I called them, and lo and behold, they saved one for me which I picked up today. Even though I had to spend the best part of an hour and a half in the shop while they were put on hold waiting to be connected to 02 HQ, just so they could verify my upgrade. Jeez. Also, I only paid £54 for the handset in the end, which was two-thirds cheaper than I expected. Huzzah!

And that, children, is the story of how Grand-papa got his iPhone 4. As you can see, it was a highly emotional experience, totally not fucking worth it.

iPhone 4

 

Look at her. Isn't she beautiful? Steve Jobs. Genius? Yes. No matter what you think of Apple you cannot deny that they have literally revolutionised the technology industry with their stylishly sexy user-friendly fashion accessories. The latest to be added to their line of sex was announced yesterday in the form of iPhone 4. There weren't many surprises regarding its features, given that some putz of an Apple employee managed to lose his pre-production model in a German beer-house somewhere in California. It mysteriously turned up in the Gizmondo offices for them to dissect and inform the world of its magical secrets. Nonetheless, it's final public unveiling still managed to cause the front of my t-shirt to be covered in drool.

Steve Jobs, modest as ever there. I really love how Americans are so excitable, whooping and cheering at the end of each utterance. But then, it's hard not to be excited about this product. The 3GS really didn't expand much on my current 3G, but the iPhone 4's new features are dazzling and I can already tell the difference will be huge. New to the iPhone 4 is:

FaceTime: Essentially video calling via WiFi. To be perfectly honest, it will probably be a feature I never use (I have no friends). But the fact that the technology is integrated in it is a massive plus. it is not a novel function, many past phones have had this, but I have never known anyone to use it. However, I believe that now, in an iPhone, this feature stands revolutionise phone calls and begin to make video-calling a more common function.
Retina Display: Apple claim to have made the iPhone 4's screen the "sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever" out of all the smart phones on the market. With a pixel density so high, it is apparently impossible for the human eye to focus on an individual pixel. Sharp, crystal-clear images is what we're getting folks. Nice.
Multitasking: Following in the footsteps of the iPad, the iPhone 4, which incidentally uses the same processor as the iPad, will allow you to run numerous apps simultaneously. You will be able to switch between those open applications at will without any negative effect on the battery. I can't tell you how many apps I wish to use while listening to music at the same time. A certain number of apps do allow this on the current iPhone, but a certain number also did not. This should make for a much more positive user experience.
HD Video Recording and Editing: This will be new to me, since I missed out on video recording with the 3GS. But the ability to record video in itself is something I can't wait for. I probably won't use the editing tools included on the phone given that I have an iMac I can do that on, but the option to piddle around with it if you're not near a computer if you so wish is nice.
5-Megapixel Camera with LED Flash: Yes! Fucking yes! Finally, a decent camera. I can't tell you how shit the current 1.3-Megapixel piece of crap on my current 3G is. It's probably the feature I'm most excited about. Now I'm no camera whore. I seldom take pictures. But this actually might encourage me to take more. And for those of you who cannot sit still and enjoy a moment without snapping something, at least now you won't have to have your pockets laden down with both a digital camera and a mobile phone, probably causing irreversible damage to your reproductive organs.

Those are the main features, and really are just the tip of the iceberg. From the tone of this post you've probably labelled me an Apple fan-boy. You're probably right. But I'm a recent convert. Sure, I've had an iPod like everyone else on the planet. But after recently getting my first iMac, and having used the iPhone for two years now, I have never looked back. I cannot begin to imagine using any other phone, or a regular desktop PC since my late arrival to the world of Apple.

For sake of balance however I must leave with a parting shot at the iPad. It is a piece of garbage. I still don't exactly understand what it's for. It's essentially an enlarged iPhone which can't make phone calls. So you want to read stuff on it? Get a Kindle. I watched a video the other week about some kid who had queued outside the Apple store in Oxford Street for 24hours so he could be the first to get one. IGN turned up and offered the child, no older than 17, the full £500 it would have cost to buy it. The tool refused. Why? Just why?! I hope he never breeds.

Anywayz, iPhone 4. I want.