from Kevin C. Tofel

I still do not have the Nexus One, and still trying to get my hands on Google’s phone, although I ‘could’ just go out and buy the bloody thing, but where is the sport in that? Plus, I’m not looking for a replacement phone… yet.  So again, anyone have a Nexus I can borrow or want to sell used, let me know.  Now on to the tip.

I read this on a site called jkontherun by By Kevin C. Tofel Since I do not have the device, I can only go by what he states and the comments that seem to back him up, but based on dealing with dropped calls with the iPhone, this fix makes sense.  What he did is go into the phones settings and have the phone ‘rediscover’ the towers in the area.  I remember doing this back in the day with my treo and once with the iphone when it first came out. Here are the steps.

From “Settings,” look  for the “Mobile Networks” option at the bottom of this listing. Tap on  “Network Operators” section. The Nexus One will search for compatible GSM networks in the area. When done, you should see choices of T-Mobile and/or AT&T. You’ll should also see ‘Select Automatically’ — tap it and your phone should say “Registered on network.”  Hopefully.  Its depends on what towers are in the area of course. Most of the comments tell of success but not when going from area to area.  So when you leave a cell grouping and go to another one, or you do a hard reset or whatever else could cause you to lose contact with the cell towers, you may need to perform this again.  Once I get my hands on one of these guys for a few days I’ll test this out.

Good luck!

AT&T is increasing the downlink capacity on its high-speed packet access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 Mb/s through software upgrades at the base station..

ok, good start…

“We’re adding second and even third carriers according to demand. We’re also in the early phases of an 850-MHz overlay.”

..even better..

Later this year, AT&T plans to start migrating its 3G networks to evolved-HSPA (or HSPA+), which would triple peak speeds.

Well, there have been some issues with HSPA+, but it seems like they may only impliment parts of it since it may be easier to leap to the 21mb/s codec. So it looks like AT&T is finally getting sick of hearing how poor their network is. A major complaint with AT&T is dead zones.. ok, my major complaint. I REALLY hoping going to 850-MHz will help.  The lower the freq, the better you can travel through objects.  It takes more power, but still, it may prove out to be cheaper then building more towers.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints about a television ad for the iPhone 3G which boasted of the gadget’s “really fast” performance.

The ad stated: “So what’s so great about 3G? It’s what helps you get the news, really fast. Find your way, really fast. And download pretty much anything, really fast. The new iPhone 3G. The internet, you guessed it, really fast.”

The ad showed a close-up of the handset being used to surf a news webpage, view the Google maps service and download a file, with the user waiting just a fraction of a second for each action.

Text on the screen said: “Network performance will vary by location.”.

The ASA said 17 viewers complained that the ad was misleading because it exaggerated the speed of the iPhone 3G.

It (ASA) upheld the complaints, ordering that the ad must not appear again in its current form.

THANK YOU!

Apple defends the advert saying its fast relative to the edge network.  Sure, when its working.  So if I was to calculate the number of times I had to use ‘Edge’ because 3G was not available, lets say 50% of the time, since its not normally worth even trying when I’m getting email, or checking twitter, and lets say 3G is 3x faster, then actual improved performance is only 1.5x.  So even relatively,  It’s NOT … “what helps you get the news, really fast. Find your way, really fast. And download pretty much anything, really fast. The new iPhone 3G. The internet, you guessed it, really fast.”

</rant>

I live on the edge of service so what I was looking for is a stronger and more stable 3G browsing experience. Well, first impression is that it’s the same.  I’m going to leave it on 3G all day tomorrow, take around Oakland and perhaps San Francisco and see how it performs.

On the plus side, CannonGame is finally working.  It crashed on the first try, but now it works.  That tells me they have improved some of the MANUAL memory management. Really guys, auto garbage collection, let’s get on it eh?

Here is the first odd bug.  I turn on the GPS and it has cycled between cell tower location, to GRP, back to tower, back to GPS and now we are in tower again.  Now, this happened as email started coming, in, so that could have caused the issue, but now its stuck in tower. … Still waiting…  Had to leave, open another app (force clear mem) then came back.  I now have GPS again. Cycles between a grey dot, which I guess means the GPS radio is in rest cycle and Blue Dot with perhaps 250′ radius.  This will be interesting.

I will update this post tomorrow…

Well, seems like we may get a fix … we may … someday.

from appleinsider..

“The most recent report on the problem arrived Thursday courtesy of BusinessWeek’s Peter Burrows, who cited “two well-placed sources” as saying the reception issues are tied to the iPhone’s Infineon chip and will be addressed via an upcoming software update — likely iPhone Software v2.1 — rather than through a more disruptive step, such as a product recall.” … “BusinessWeek added that the problems have been isolated to high density areas such as Boston, the San Francisco Bay area, and several locales overseas. The reason the problems are just now manifesting is due to the increasing number of activations with each additional day the iPhone 3G is on the market, the report claims.

“Two sources say Apple will likely issue a software update by the end of September—if not by the end of this month—to resolve the issues,” Burrows wrote. “Apple and Infineon are currently testing the fix, which will be included in a broader update of the iPhone’s software.”

There are other issues, but if the problem is a weak chip, then I wonder just how far they can take this fix? I would love to see the specs and how they are going to change it. Clearly lowering the discovered traffic availability is a help, but if a poor antenna is the problem, then yes you can re-tune to help, but I do not think you can set that in firmware. If this is going to come out in a month, then I would guess the specs will be out in two weeks… and I will be watching for it..

A few posts ago, I talked about the unhappy discovery that the car charger I have been using with my first iphone, does not work with the iphone3G. I placed a few links on replacements included the one in the image.

Here’s the deal folks. I ordered it a bit ago, got roped into buying a few ‘the bad plus’ CD’s but that is another post. Anyway, I bought this for under 5 bucks and it works. It has a cheap feel, but thats ok. What do you want for five bucks? Now I have not tried the cigarette lighter part yet, so I’ll up date when I do that.

{update} Grr… put the car adapter in and it charged…. for 1 sec! Then died. Well, I will try to get it replaced, else, time to crack it open and get the soldering pencil.

{update 2} Sigh, now the power supply is not tripping over to apply voltage.  I checked and its still putting out 5V, but the phone is not accepting the power. Hmmm… The cable still works, so its still worth the money. But this is getting odd.

{update 3} I was sent a package from the ‘MyNewDeals’. Everything seems to work great.  More here.

What I like about this package is that not only do you get the car charger, which you can use for anything else you need to recharge via USB, but an extra wall socket plug and the cable retracts. Basically, an overall great traveling compliment for the iphone.

Also for the perhaps 1 out 1,000,000 people who even think about these things, the cigarette lighter also accepts 24v which is useful if you plan to use those common off the shelf 12v solar panel rechargers. Really good for keep your car or bike charged if you do use it that often. I bicycle and walk a lot.

My phone is still running fine, however I’ve heard from a friend that his phone has become unstable. Basically he is getting random crashes using the phone during calls, playing games, using downloaded apps.  From what I gathered during a long email exchange, the problem SEEMS to be in how memory is moving as the phone performs a swap from one application focus to another or when messages are sent to the radio. The jury is still out on this.  I’d put my money on memory fail on application load and close.

3) Reinstall the OS update. (test).  If you perform a restore from backup and it gets stuck in a loop of re offering restore, use the ‘setup NEW iphone’ option.

4) Take it to the Apple store, yell, and get a new one, re-sync, re-install.

..iPhone 3G doesn’t support charging “via FireWire.” The thing is, there are lots of devices out there that don’t actually have a FireWire port, but are technically FireWire chargers because they’re sending power on the dock-connector pins that were used for power by the FireWire interface. There are a lot of reasons for this, chief among them the fact that the FireWire spec allows as much a 18 volts, while USB is a 5-volt connection. Since cars provide 12 volts of power, many if not most car-chargers used the FireWire method to send power.

Worse, the firewire line is spec’ed to take more power, thus shorted recharge times. The USB pin is only 500mA. On the other side of the coin, slower recharge is better for the battery.

Great. So now what? Well, we have a few options here. We can rewires this thing ourselves, but if you bought a cheap recharger, I can tell you right now its not worth the trouble.

The second option is to buy an adaptor. Here is a WAY overpriced one from Ridax.

the third and best option, buy a new adaptor. Here is one from Kensington, and another from Griffin. If you do not mind taking your chord or have an extra chord, you could try these guys who have an ebay story.

###### (Update) ##########

Found this charger on Amazon. Got a poor review, but for the price, I’m going to try it anyway. I’ll update here again once I get it and test it.

Here is a link to a blog with more information.

For those who want the geek details, go here

and here

Now the question that popped into my mind is… What about all those car manufacturers who made doc form factors for the ipod/iphone? If they used the firewire pin instead of the USB pin, then your car will not charge your iphone. Given that the 3G battery life is more like a 1/2 life, this can be an issue. Worse, some people will connect their new 3G’s into the car and not see the warning that it’s not charging.

The car companies are going to complain. BUT, will Apple listen? Apple vs. the car companies.. I will be watching this.

Another group of unhappy campers? Peoples who form fitting ipod/iphone players that had iphone adapters. If the manufacture did not follow the correct power pin placement, you will have to either play on battery or use a cable. Neither option is very good. I have an ipod/iphone desk clock radio at home. Should be interesting to see if it works. (UPDATE: it does.)

BTW, my car radio does not have an Aux in, but I still wanted to use it for hands free and playing my mp3’s from the iphone. Solution? Override the CD changer! Get an adaptor cable, try here and here.

Next, go to your apple store and buy the monster mic cable or something like it. 

There you go. You are now hands free. …. No, I do not like bluetooth, and FM transmitters? Com’on.