Archive for: icloud
Think the iPhone 4S’ battery life woes are made up or nothing more than the ramblings of a small few? Think again. According to a new report published by The Guardian, Apple acknowledges that there is an ongoing issue with the iPhone 4S and has even began to have engineers “reach out” and contact individuals reporting serious battery life problems. The engineers are reportedly asking a myriad of questions and then asking the user to install a specific monitoring app that tracks usage data and creates a file that can be downloaded and emailed back to Apple.
We here at GS have two iPhone 4S’ floating around and have noticed generally worse battery life than our old iPhone 4s. It was downright terrible the first couple of days but has since gotten better. Still, many people are having far worse problems, citing battery drains as bad as 10-15% per hour even in standby with little to no extra wireless/cellular/location services turned on.
We’ve seen a few claims by iOS devs on Twitter claiming iOS 5 beta and GM battery life was incredibly close to that of iOS 4.x on the iPhone 4, and that the official iOS 5 release that hit the iPhone 4 (and 3GS) is where the problem started — not entirely sure it’s just a 4S (read: hardware) issue.
The Guardian report states the Apple engineer who reputedly contacted the users in question said that a fix “wasn’t close”.
How’s your iPhone 4S battery life been?
It seems Apples streak of relatively unhindered iCloud service following MobileMe’s less than stellar track record is already getting off on the wrong foot. For several hours now users of Apple’s iCloud service have been unable to send any email with their @me addresses.
We first discovered the issue about 40 minutes ago when trying to set up iCloud (@Me) mail in the latest 1.4.1 Sparrow.app update which among other things, adds iCloud support. During setup we could not get past the smtp screen as it would error out and say it couldn’t contact the server.
As of writing Apple’s iCloud system status page still shows everything as 100% operational.
Drop a line in the comments if you’re seeing the same issue.
Update
We’re still seeing reports of sending mail still being down in iCloud — we’re also seeing reports saying it’s back up. Apple’s own status indicator (linked above) says <1% of iCloud mail and Notes users are affected by service interruptions right now. Time to buy a lottery ticket... We are the 1%... /bad jokes
Update 2
Everything seems to be working for us now. How’s your mileage fairing?
Update 3
Maybe not…
Depending on where you live, iCloud began trickling out late last night/early this morning. We’ve already logged in and played around with a few things. Though honestly not much has changed over the last several weeks. Nonetheless, iCloud is Apple’s second attempt at getting this cohesive cloud ecosystem off the ground. MobileMe was a good start but just wasn’t quite all there. Let’s hope iCloud can do it many times better and more reliably.
Head on over to iCloud.com and let us know how it goes for you.
- October 10, 2011 10:04 pm
iOS 5 and all its glory will be released upon the masses in less than two days. With it will come Apple’s revamped MobileMe service which sports a new name, “iCloud”. Where MobileMe failed (reliability, features, etc.) iCloud looks to sail above and beyond. While we could simply go on with life for another 36 hours or so until iCloud and iOS 5 hit the public arena for all kind of hands-on action, wouldn’t it be so much more fun to read the cheatsheets Apple employees are currently rehearsing? Yeah, we thought so too.
Cheat sheets after the break…
Today’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” just wrapped up with Apple unleashing a ton of new stuff. Hop past the break as we give you the most complete rundown of everything iOS 5/iPhone 4S/iCloud related…
- September 13, 2011 2:39 pm
Wow! Slack off for a few hours and the internet explodes with tech news. Such is the life…
Before we hop into all the new Windows 8 news, there are a few nuggets of information pertaining to iOS 5 and the iPhone 5 you may want to know. First and foremost: iOS 5. According to new rumors published by BGR, the last beta ( beta 8 ) will drop this Friday with the Golden Master (read: pretty much final copy) being sent out to manufacturers on September 23rd. The public release for iOS 5 will follow a couple weeks after on or near October 10th according to AppleInsider who cites “a person familiar with the matter” that claims their local Apple repair center is being told to “prepare for an eight-fold increase in call volume” beginning Monday, October 10th. The only logical explanation for such an increase would be a new product launch (ie: iOS 5). The same source also says iCloud will officially launch on the same day as iOS 5.
So what good is a new OS without fancy new hardware? Yeah, the iPhone 4 we’ve been rockin’ iOS 5 betas on over the last couple of months is like a new phone. But we’re sure you understand the lust of a new gadget. With that said, French Telecom CEO Stéphane Richard is making some bold claims of his own. Specifically, Richard is saying France Telecom will launch the new iPhone 5 on October 15th. If true, this means the U.S. will almost certainly see a release one to many days before — October 14th? — which just so happens to align perfectly with continuing rumors pointing to an early to mid-October iPhone 5 release.
The above information isn’t set in stone, and as such should be taken rather lightly. Apple never comments on future product or service launches. iOS 5, iPhone 5, and iCloud are no different.
As for iOS 5 and the iPhone 5 dropping separately, it’s actually not impossible. The same scenario was used with previous iPhone launches — the new version of iOS launching earlier in the week so non-upgrades could get their updates downloaded, installed, and out of the way so that come Thursday/Friday, owners of newly launched iPhone hardware could properly activate and begin using their new devices.
Any iOS/iPhone fans starting to twitch with anticipation?
We know. You’re just as anxious as we are about upcoming iCloud and all of its features including a tweaked email service. But before you get too excited and go clicking on random links within iCloud setup emails, make sure the email is legitimate. According to Macnn, a new scam email is being sent out falsely labeled as being sent from “The Apple Store Team” and asking for credit card information so users can “sign up for iCloud”.
While you should always check the authenticity of emails asking for you to log in places and/or for credentials, this latest scam does have a few tall-tale signs that it is fake. For example, the word “button” is misspelled. On top of that, the email is signed by “The Apple Store Team” despite being allegedly sent by the MobileMe team — the two are not connected in any way.
Common sense works best in these situations. Never click on links within emails. If you receive an email asking you to log into a particular account, manually type in the address to the website in question and log in so you’re absolutely certain it is the real thing.
Anyone fallen victim (or want to admit they did) to the latest scam?
Several different sources of Apple ‘n Apps allegedly holding various positions within Apple have tipped off the Apple enthusiast site to Apple’s next-gen iPhone plans.
According to these sources, Apple is releasing a fully featured iPhone 5 that is thinner, faster and better than all previous iPhones — that’s a given. What’s interesting (and new) is that Apple will also be launching an “iCloud iPhone”. This cloud-centric iPhone 5 will come with less on board storage and use left over iPhone 4 parts to keep costs around $400 full price, and drop to $0 when signed with a new 2-year cellular contract.
We can certainly see an iCloud iPhone gaining popularity with a large swath of the population. While we as tech enthusiasts tend to hoard data of every type even on our mobile devices, the general populous isn’t nearly as demanding. Much of the digital content they carry could easily be stored in the cloud and streamed/transferred when they needed it.
Apple is expected to announce the new iPhone 5 in late August/early September with a public release following 3-4 weeks after. For now we’ll have to take the rumors above as we do the rest of them — with a grain of salt.
Would you buy an “iCloud iPhone”?
Apple has opened up me.com/move to aid in the transition of your MobileMe account to the upcoming iCloud release. As anything involved with iOS 5 and iCloud, this is strictly for developers at the moment. 9to5Mac has posted some screenshots of the entire process and it actually looks very simple to complete. After transferring your Mail, Contacts and Calendar info over to iCloud, Apple then lets you know that you can continue using the MobileMe services iWeb, iDisk and Photo Gallery until it June 30, 2012, even after the move to iCloud. It looks like Apple is doing away with Dock Items, Keychains, Mail Accounts and the ability to sync Mac Dashboard Widgets – among other services.
Something we’ve been hearing since the announcement of the iCloud service is what will MobileMe subscribers that have a base of 20gb of storage do when iClouds service is a base of 5gb? Well it seems that Apple is being nice and actually transferring those members over to the 20GB of store level and even including the extra base of 5gb. So users that are rocking 20gb of storage will actually beging their trip in the clouds with 25GBs without paying an extra fee. Apple hasn’t confirmed this however, so it may be possible we’ll see this expire in June of 2012. But users transferring over now have seen the 25gb level in action. From what we’ve been hearing the entire process is seamless.
Any readers out there make the transition? How do you think iCloud stacks up to it’s predecessor?
