6 Brilliantly Designed Mobile Sites

June 29, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, facebook, features, google, mashable by Ben Parr View Comments


This series is supported by Webtrends Mobile Analytics. Webtrends Mobile Analytics lets you monitor the adoption and usage of your mobile apps and mobile sites. To keep up with Webtrends Mobile, add their blog to your RSS reader.

It’s true: the mobile web is taking over the world, and by 2015, many predict it will be larger than desktop Internet use. It’s no wonder everybody’s racing to build mobile versions of their websites.

Some are simply better than others, though. While many companies just build stripped-down versions of their current sites with a few links and maybe an image, others have taken the time and energy to really think about the advantages of mobile and truly become destinations that can be accessed on any platform. These well-designed mobile sites provide a glimpse into what we can expect in the future.

For now though, here are six examples of brilliantly designed mobile sites, chosen from six different verticals. We couldn’t cover them all, so we encourage you to add your own favorites in the comments below.

1. Media: CBS.com

It took about 10 seconds for me to go from loading the homepage to watching a full episode of MacGuyver on CBS.com.

CBS is amazing to behold on a smartphone. It presents you with exactly what you want: TV shows. On both Android and the iPhone, it took only two clicks to play clips from hot shows such as NCIS or stream full episodes of classic shows such as Star Trek. There’s no way around it: it makes you want to keep coming back.

While NBC doesn’t boast full TV episodes, its video library is also easy to access via mobile.

2. Social: 0.Facebook.com

Facebook was presented with a dilemma in its neverending campaign of global expansion: how could it expand on mobile platforms internationally, when most nations charge an arm and a leg for wireless data?

The answer: Facebook Zero, a completely stripped-down version of the world’s largest social network. While it has almost all of the functionality of Facebook.com — status updates, news feeds, profiles, etc. — that’s not what makes it brilliant. What makes it brilliant is that use of 0.Facebook.com is free in 45 countries via over 50+ wireless operators through various deals the company has cut.

The result: a free and accessible version of Facebook for millions of people in emerging markets.

3. Productivity: m.dropbox.com

Dropbox has a great iPhone app and an Android app that’s just as good, but the mobile site version of the popular file-hosting service isn’t far behind.

It doesn’t matter what type of phone you have: you’re going to be able to access Dropbox. The website is smart enough to give you the right interface, providing you immediate access to your files, photos, and Dropbox activity history. The service’s ubiquity and usefulness across multiple platforms is what makes it brilliant.

4. Photography: m.Flickr.com

If you want simplicity and beauty in one package, then Flickr’s mobile interface is definitely a gold standard. Not only is it easy to navigate, but it places the focus on the only thing you probably care about: the photography.

Still, beyond the ability to browse, explore, and search for photography, Flickr’s mobile site lets you access your account, manage your albums, and view your activity stream. The only thing it can’t do: upload photos. You’re going to need an app for that.

5. Sports: ESPN.com

When it comes to being ahead of the technological curve, ESPN has consistently been setting the pace. The mobile versions of ESPN are no different.

The Disney-owned sports broadcasting company has versions optimized for nearly every mobile platform, and they all carry the most important sports stories of the day. However, ESPN’s mobile versions, especially the Android and iPhone versions, also contain video highlights, up-to-date sports scores, fantasy sports info, and a streamlined interface that lets you browse based on your favorite sport or team. It’s simply one of the best-built and easy-to-use mobile sites around.

6. Search: Google.com

You can’t have a list of brilliant mobile sites and not include Google.com. The search giant has managed to pack a ton of functionality into a tiny little package.

The familiar sparse interface of Google Search is still there, but through the mobile site, you can quickly pull up Google Maps, find local restaurants and destinations (if you phone has geolocation), watch YouTube videos, check Gmail, browse through your news feeds, translate on-the-fly, post updates to your Google Buzz account, and a great deal more.

Google for mobile is simply one of the best-engineered mobile interfaces around. It’s designed to do countless tasks while keeping the design simplistic. It succeeds in spades.

What’s Your Favorite Mobile Site?

It’s your turn: what mobile sites do you think are brilliant? Which ones catch your eye or stand out from the rest?

Let us know your answer in the comments.

Series supported by Webtrends Mobile Analytics

This series is supported by Webtrends Mobile Analytics. Webtrends Mobile Analytics lets you monitor the adoption and usage of your mobile apps and mobile sites. It provides near limitless customization in terms of the data gathered and depth of analysis across iPhone, Android and Blackberry. And the data resides side-by-side with your website analytics. To keep up with Webtrends Mobile, add their blog to your RSS reader.

Reviews: Android, Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, Google, Google Buzz, Google Maps, Google search, Twitter, YouTube, blog

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5 Companies Reinventing the Way We Think About Mobile

June 28, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, features by Christina Warren View Comments

This Innovation Series is supported by Lexus.


Looking at the mobile computing landscape over the last five years, it is amazing to see how far we have come and how integral mobile devices have become to people all over the world. We’re constantly reporting on phones that are lighter, thinner and more powerful than anything to have come before — only to be usurped a few months (or weeks) later by the next big advancement.

As mobile computing moves beyond the mobile phone and into devices like the iPad and other tablet computers, we would like to take a look at five of the companies that are changing the future of mobile, and that have a strong hand in defining and shaping the devices we will be using in the future.

It would be easy to just list the big players — Apple, Google, RIM — but instead, we wanted to focus on five companies that are changing mobile that you may not know by name, but certainly benefit from their continued innovation.

1. Monotype Imaging

Monotype Imaging owns one of the largest collections of typefaces in the world and has been part of print and type since the 19th century. The latest iteration of the company, based in Massachusetts, focuses not just on typefaces and making them more accessible for the web, but also on text and imaging solutions for consumer electronics makers, including mobile phones.

A huge part of the modern-day mobile phone experience is the screen, but beyond the screen, readable and translatable text is of utmost importance. If you thought trying to figure out type on the web was tough, think about the complexities of creating type for mobile devices and mobile display. Now, add in the additional complexities of non-Latin characters.

These are the problems that Monotype is working to address every single day. In fact, earlier this month, the company announced that it had released the first production-quality open source font for the Symbian platform. This font, MYuppy, is a Chinese font that device manufacturers can use to bring better text and readability for the China market.

In Samsung’s flagship Android phone, the Galaxy S, Monotype has also included its FlipFont embedded application which lets users enhance their font experience in a mobile-optimized way.

2. Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass is a product by Corning, which has been engineered to be more scratch resistant and more durable than traditional glasses used in electronic devices. To achieve these qualities, the glass is chemically treated and strengthened.

Already in use in products like the Motorola Droid and the Dell Streak (and rumored to be the glass used in the iPhone 4), Gorilla Glass doesn’t make handheld touch devices shatter proof, but it does make them more durable.

Mobile devices are becoming increasingly important and being resilient to nature, water and clumsiness is an important part of shaping devices for the future.

3. ARM Architecture (Multiple licensees)

ARM is to the world of mobile devices what Intel is to microcomputers: Dominant. Virtually every phone, MP3 player, digital set-top box, embedded electronics device and advanced home router uses an ARM processor of some sort.

ARM Holdings licenses its instruction set to other manufacturers who then can add-on or make their own modifications to the core, branding it under different names like Apple A4 or Qualcomm Snapdragon. Regardless, the basic underpinnings for all of these processors is ARM.

ARM is ideal for mobile devices because the chips can be made to be extremely small and extremely thin, and the power consumption is extremely low. When you aid an ARM processor with a low-powered, high-performance graphics chip, the results are pretty amazing.

The fact that the phones we now carry in our pockets are, for all intents and purposes, more powerful than our high-end desktops from less than a decade ago and have the ability to run for hours at a time is just one of the reasons that many aspects of computing are moving to mobile. ARM is a big part of that transition.

4. Ericsson

Ericsson, not to be confused with the joint-venture Sony Ericsson, is one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world. While Ericsson has its fingers in lots of parts and has been a big part of the wireless industry from the start, the reason they are on this list is because of LTE.

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is one of the competing standards for the next evolution in wireless data and cellular networks. While not technically 4G (LTE Advanced is 4G), LTE-based networks will likely still be branded as such (just as most 2.5G networks were branded as 3G in the early 2000s).

LTE has the potential to do a number of things: First it can potentially have downlink speeds up to 100 Mbps. Second, Like WiMax, it can be implemented in a wide variety of locales, the “last mile” so-to-speak, which could more easily bring broadband access to more parts of the world, especially rural parts.

The technology can also co-exist with legacy cell towers, which is one reason why AT&T, Verizon, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute are all either already working towards migrating to LTE or evaluating it as the next standard for their networks.

Where does Ericsson fit it? It just so happens that in the uber-competitive field of LTE vendors (that is, companies that set-up the backbone for LTE networks), Ericsson is the leader in commercial deployment.

It’s already been contracted with AT&T, Verizon, MetroPCS, NTT DoCoMo in Japan and TeliaSonera in Sweden. Ericsson is one of the big players in rolling out and implementing what looks to be the next standard in cellular networks.

5. OmniVision

Camera phones no longer suck. Sure, they aren’t point-and-shoot equivalents — yet — but just take a look at the iPhone 4 or the Sprint HTC EVO 4G for an idea of where camera phones are going. Not only are images getting better but camera phones can now capture HD video that tops what you can get from a standalone camera, like the Flip.

One thing about the HTC EVO 4G and the iPhone 4 — they both have their CMOS (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensors, courtesy of OmniVision. Chipworks has done tear-down analysis of both the iPhone 4 and the EVO 4G and reverse-engineered a number of OmniVision CMOS designs, highlighting what makes its products stand-out in a very competitive landscape.

One thing that OmniVision is doing is called backside illumination (BSI). BSI lets the CMOS or CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor take in more light per pixel and use that light more effectively. More light means better photos and improved results, even with super-small sensors.

While some companies, like InVisage, are also attempting to solve this problem by replacing some of the silicon on top of the CMOS with quantum dots, BSI is on the market now and the results are already speaking for themselves.

Future of Mobile: Your Take

What do you think of the advancements made in mobility, mobile computing and mobile technology? Let us know!

Series supported by Lexus



This Innovation Series is supported by Lexus.

[img credit: Electric Images]

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Twitter

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Uh Oh: Verizon Slashes Microsoft Kin Prices Early

June 27, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Top Stories, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, mashable by Samuel Axon View Comments


Mobile phones from Microsoft’s socially-inclined Kin line are already getting big price cuts just a month after they hit the market. That’s good news for consumers, sure, but it might be indicative of poor sales for the handsets.

The Kin One will drop from $50 to $30, and the Kin Two will see a 50% cut from $100 to $50 as part of a broader Verizon price cut initiative, according to the The Boy Genius Report.

The Kin phones feature an innovative user interface that puts visual social activity feeds right on your home screen, and lets you share any item of interest with friends just by dragging it onto an ever-present social “Spot” icon. We were impressed with the design when we first saw it, and most everyone has probably noticed just how much marketing muscle has gone into the brand.

Unfortunately, clever design and marketing might not have been enough to compensate for poor positioning in Verizon’s phone lineup. Although Microsoft hasn’t made any announcements about sales figures, sharp price drops this early on usually mean a phone’s not selling well.

The Data Plans Are Too Steep

The phones themselves were actually attractively priced already; it’s the data plans that are the problem. We noted that when they first launched. Both Kin phones require smartphone-like data plans that put the minimum cost of ownership at nearly $70 per month — at least if you want to use those cool social features that the Kin brand is all about.

Once you’re paying that much for service, you might as well get a full-on smartphone like an iPhone or Android. You could even wait a few months and get a device running Microsoft’s own, more robust Windows Phone 7.

What do you think? Will these price drops help the Kin phones sell better despite their expensive data plans? Let us know in the comments.

[via Electronista]

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Phone 7, iPhone

More About: Kin, kin one, kin two, microsoft, News, price drop, verizon

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There’s No iPhone 4 Recall, No Matter What Twitter Says

June 27, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Social Media, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, mashable, trending, twitter by Samuel Axon View Comments


The Daily Mail reported this morning that an iPhone 4 recall is underway, but don’t believe it; the UK publication’s source was a tweet from a fake Steve Jobs Twitter account. Apple hasn’t announced any plans to recall its new phone.

The Twitter account @ceoSteveJobs is a parody account — it says so in the profile bio, and even if you don’t read the bio, it should be obvious from the tweets, which include lines like “Be careful not to leave your #iPhone4 at the Genius Bar on the way out of the store. Gizmodo might pick it up,” and “I heard the CEO of AT&T got married recently. The service was great but the reception was terrible.”

The Daily Mail has pulled the original story, which began with a claim that a recall was coming and a quote from the fake Twitter account, and then continued to explain the issues users have had with signal loss when the iPhone 4 is held a certain way.

It’s hard to imagine that Apple didn’t know about the signal issue. The engineers at the company probably decided it was a worthwhile trade-off for otherwise improved reception, so don’t expect a recall for that reason.

Although you might be surprised that The Daily Mail ran a story based on a tweet from an account that is so obviously fake, it’s not the first time something like this has happened. That’s why Twitter implemented a system for verifying the accounts of important people and publications.

[via The Next Web]

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

More About: apple, cell phone, gadgets, iphone, iphone 4, Mobile 2.0, News, parody, recall, social media, steve jobs, the daily mail, trending, twitter

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35 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed

June 27, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, Social Media, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, business, facebook, twitter by Matt Silverman View Comments

Social Media Tabs

Chances are you’ve been waiting in line all week for the iPhone 4, which means you haven’t been keeping up on your social media resources. Tsk-tsk.

Put said device to good use, and scroll on down for your weekly cavalcade of hints, tips, insights and analysis.

This week’s list includes some great Google facts, web design inspiration, and a few ways to improve your social business model.

Go on, gorge yourself.

Social Media

Farmville Image

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

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For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

ATT LinkIn Image

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Internet, Mashable, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube

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White iPhone 4 Spotted in UK Apple Store [VIDEO]

June 26, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Top Stories, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, mashable, trending, video by Samuel Axon View Comments


Update: It’s been revealed that the individuals in this video were holding Telegraph’s white review unit, not one sold in the store. Sorry folks, but the public will still be waiting till July.

The white iPhone 4 didn’t make it out on launch day, much to some excited Apple fans’ chagrin — or did it?

This Sky News video report shows two people using the new white iPhone in a central London Apple store nearly a month before it’s expected to be available.

Although it didn’t offer pre-orders of the white iPhone 4, Apple waited until the day before the iPhone 4 launch to announce that no white iPhones would be available until the second half of July because they had “proven more challenging to manufacture than expected.”

The Sky News report embedded below focuses on general iPhone 4 mania, but the producer of the segment either didn’t know about the white iPhone delay or didn’t care to ask about it, so there’s no explanation.

Have you seen any white iPhone 4 devices in the wild?

[via 9 to 5 Mac, ConnorJack]

More About: apple, cell phone, gadgets, iphone, iphone 4, Mobile 2.0, trending, uk, White

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5 Cool Non-Profit Uses of Location-Based Tech

June 25, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, Social Media, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, features, foursquare by Geoff Livingston View Comments

Location Apps Image

Geoff Livingston co-founded Zoetica to focus on cause-related work, and released an award-winning book on new media Now is Gone in 2007.

The continuing evolution of location-based social networking has yielded creative solutions for advocacy, fundraising and crisis response. With the increased competition among services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Whrrl, non-profits are innovating even further.

Here are five cool uses of location-based technology for non-profit purposes.

1. Get the Jimi Hendrix Location Experience

Jimi Hendrix Whrrl Image

Imagine doing more than just going to a Jimi Hendrix rock museum. Imagine walking where the legend has been, and reliving his “Purple Haze” history. That’s exactly what Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project is seeking to do with Whrrl.

Whrrl is bringing over 125 stories at over 100 places to six cities around the nation, with more to come. The Jimi Hendrix experience is just one among the many music-themed societies on Whrrl. They include the Grunge, Prince, San Francisco Psychedelic Rock, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen and Max’s Kansas City societies. In all, more than 100 music venues are featured across the country.

2. Beyond Fundraising

Earlier this week, Larry King held a fundraiser to benefit the Gulf Coast, raising more than $1.7 million. But the effort was more than a simple TV program with phone banks. It also include location-based advocacy. Gowalla created a custom Larry King Live: Help the Gulf Pin for users’ passports.

To get the pin, users had to check-in at any spot in the “Park or Nature” category by Monday, June 21st. In addition to the pin, Gowalla provided a tip from one of the three organizations involved in the telethon — the National Wildlife Federation, United Way, and The Nature Conservancy — about how to support the people, wildlife and environment being affected by the spill. More than 9,000 people received the Larry King pin in three days and the message to watch the Larry King Live telethon (combined with a tip on how to help) was viewed over 22,000 times.

3. Advertising Call to Action for Advocacy

Earth Justice Foursquare Ad

Playing to an already Foursquare friendly BART community, Earth Justice recently launched an ad campaign at Bay Area Rapid Transit stations for oil spill advocacy. The Earth Justice campaign was a direct reaction to the Deep Horizon accident. When riders check-in to the Earth Justice ad, a company donor provided $10 to the cause.

Earth Justice is seeking to use the money to fight unsafe oil drilling. The ads told riders “Use your cell phone to drill the oil industry.” The effort targeted younger audiences who don’t usually respond to ads.

4. LIVESTRONG Bracelets and Donations

LIVESTRONG and Gowalla now have a $1 badge program which was launched at the South By Southwest festival. By picking up and vaulting one of these, there will be a $1 donation made to the LiveStrong Foundation.

During the launch, everyone who checked-in at the Gowalla Tiki Room party during SXSW got a virtual LIVESTRONG bracelet item. When attendees added the bracelet to their collection, Gowalla donated $1 per bracelet to LIVESTRONG. LIVESTRONG also had a table at the party and free Gowalla t-shirts were given out for every in-person donation.

If you are a die-hard fan, you can track LIVESTRONG as a friend on Gowalla. LIVESTRONG is also promoting its Challenge series of events on the location-based network.

5. The Mass Celebration

Graduation Checkin Image

Nothing is more precious than the annual rite of Spring known as college graduation. Throughout America, family and friends gather for the passing of the diploma to the graduate and the post-graduate. St. Edwards University took it a step further this past May with the mass checkin graduation.

More than 180 students checked-in using Whrrl so they could upload photos and share their experiences. The graduation, achievements, congrats and photos were threaded into one Whrrl story to pass on to absent friends and family.

More Non-Profit Resources From Mashable:

- How Non-Profits Should Approach Making iPhone Apps
- Are Social Media Giving Contests Good for Non-Profits?
- HOW TO: Turn Slacktivists into Activists with Social Media
- 5 Ways Mega Charity Events Can Harness the Power of Social Media
- 5 Ways Non-Profits Can Increase Engagement With YouTube

Reviews: Foursquare, Gowalla

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The History of the iPhone [INFOGRAPHIC]

June 25, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, Top Stories, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, features by Shane Snow View Comments

It’s been an auspicious week for Apple and its much-touted wonder device. We thought it appropriate to take a look back at the history of the iPhone, its many iterations, and the cultural and economic contexts in which the various devices were introduced.

So take a stroll down this gadget-themed memory lane, and tell us about your fondest Apple recollections in the comments below.


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FaceTime: Video Calls Finally Become Cool

June 25, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World by Christina Warren View Comments


At WWDC, Apple formally announced FaceTime, its take on video calling and a feature that really highlights to dual-cameras on the iPhone 4. The big surprise with FaceTime is that it only works over Wi-Fi (for now) but will let you make free video-to-video calls to other iPhone 4 users all over the world.

While video calling is hardly new — technology and telephony companies have been trying to shove the stuff down our throats since at least the 1960s — the implementation certainly is. While it’s far too early to make any hard or fast predictions about FaceTime and video calling in general, we have to say, after spending some time with FaceTime, we’re impressed.

I had my first FaceTime call within about 15 minutes of getting home with my iPhone 4. I’ve had several subsequent chats throughout the afternoon and I have to say, each time, it seems less and less like a novelty and more and more like a really natural way to communicate.

Drop-Dead Simple to Use

While video chat over web cams using services like Skype or iChat or Windows Messenger is a pretty common activity, video calls from handsets remains a rarity. And not for lack of trying. I can think of at least half a dozen failed attempts at selling video calling to consumers at the retail level from the last decade, and that’s just off the top of my head.

While video calling has lots of hurdles, one of its biggest is ease of use. Making sure each party has matching or compatible handsets, confirming that the video stream is active, making sure the microphones are shielded so you don’t have echo and interference, and that’s before you even make the call.

FaceTime is extremely, extremely simple. Just click on a contact in your address book and make sure that you have their iPhone 4 phone number as one of the contact points. Then hit the FaceTime button on their entry. That’s it. The phone will make its connection over Wi-Fi and on the other end, your friend will receive a call and an alert that you are requesting a FaceTime chat. As soon as they accept, they are dropped right into the video interface.

That’s it.

From that point, you can talk directly to your screen, where you will see the person on the other line, as well as a small image of your own camera. One of the coolest features it that you can seamlessly switch to the higher resolution camera on the back of your phone to take someone on a video tour or show them what you are looking at. You can also rotate the phone and have the video image update itself automatically.

This is the way video calling should be. No messing with settings, no worrying about making sure the camera is on or active, just choose FaceTime from your contact’s page. If you’re already on a voice call with someone on their iPhone 4, you can switch to a FaceTime chat mid-call and you won’t even use any of your voice minutes.

But How’s the Quality?

Another issue that other video phone solutions have had is overall quality of audio and video streams. While video from the front camera isn’t high definition, it is easy to see, of decent quality, and most importantly, in sync with the person’s voice.

Voice quality was actually what I was most surprised about. I didn’t have any headphones on and my volume for the phone speaker was at the default volume, yet I had no problem hearing my friends and they had no problem hearing me.

What really impressed me was how good the quality was, even overseas. When I spoke with my friend Nik Fletcher all the way over in the United Kingdom, the call and video quality totally held up. Likewise, my friend Sang Tang in San Diego came in clear and his voice quality was tremendous.

Will This Work?

No matter how cool and how easy FaceTime is to use, it’s still a gamble. However, as a long-time skeptic of video calling, I think that FaceTime has the chance to really re-ignite the video telephony world for a a few reasons:

  • The experience feels natural. I was expecting the fact that I would have to hold my phone up and talk directly into the mic to be distracting and cumbersome. On the contrary, I found myself getting completely engrossed in my conversations that I wasn’t even thinking about how I was holding the phone.
  • Wi-Fi means better connections and free international calls. Frankly, the Wi-Fi-only factor actually works to FaceTime’s advantage because it raises the odds of having a strong connection on both sides. International calling for free is what has made Skype such a success. Having an iPhone-drieven version of that is very compelling.
  • Camera switching is a grandparent’s dream. I’m not a parent (and I have no plans to be one), but I couldn’t help but think of how great it would have been if my mom could have talked to her parents via FaceTime when my older sister and I were growing up. The ability to share the other half of the camera literally means you can make real-time home movie video calls with very little effort.

Areas for Improvement

While I haven’t had any technical problems with FaceTime, there are always places for improvement. Apple has said it is opening up its FaceTime API for other services — and we hope that means that other applications or other platforms can get in on the fun.

Additionally, because there are so many great opportunities for cool things to happen over FaceTime, it would be nice if there was a way to record the video stream or conversation that you are having. This might be too hardware intensive for current cell phones, but how great would it be for grandma and grandpa to be able to save that call from their grandchildren to watch back later?

Your Thoughts

What do you think of FaceTime or video calling in general? Let us know!

For more Apple coverage:

Reviews: Facebook, Skype, Twitter

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Steve Jobs to iPhone 4 Owners: Stop Holding the Phone Wrong

June 24, 2010 in Making it Count, Mobile 2.0, News, Writing on Life: Social Media and the World, trending by Barb Dybwad View Comments


Apple has responded to concerns some new iPhone 4 owners are having with poor reception issues, and the gist is essentially either “stop holding the phone that way” or “buy a case.”

Engadget reports that not only have company spokespeople issued a statement advising users to “avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases,” but head honcho Steve Jobs himself responded similarly in one of his increasingly spontaneous e-mail answers: “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

The remainder of Apple’s statement stresses that antenna placement can potentially pose a reception issue in any cell phone, not just the iPhone 4: “Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas.” The specific positioning of the new iPhone’s antennas in the lower left-hand corner of the device is of particular annoyance for left-handed users, who naturally cup the phone in that area.

Apple sells a $29 rubber bumper that creates a barrier between the hand and the phone’s antennas, which many users report solves the reception problem. The existence of said bumper essentially begs the question, though — does it indicate that Apple already knew about the potential reception issues with the phone? And if so, should users really have to shell out $29 to restore the reception that’s knocked out by holding the phone in an arguably natural way?

What do you think: Is Apple’s solution to iPhone 4 reception problems acceptable?

More About: apple, iphone, iphone 4, Mobile 2.0, reception, steve jobs, trending

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