TechMiso

Truly disappointing leak from Apple. Even worse than Steve Jobs’ “You’re holding it wrong”  remark.

Boy Genius reports on Apple’s leak:

1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.

a. The iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4’s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.
b. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.
c. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.
d. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.
e. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.

2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.
3. Don’t forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.
4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.
5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.

Potential upside to the iPhone 4 antenna debacle coming this Monday in the form of iOS 4.01?

Readers report that Apple’s tech support forums originally confirmed that a iOS 4.0.1 software fix addressing the issue would ship early next week (as early as Monday), before the comments were subsequently taken down along with all the other related discussion about the matter.–Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider.com

Cisco couldn’t have timed this announcement any better with the Apple iPad now flying off retailer shelves to the tune of 3 million in 80 days.

Cisco announced their plans to release an Android powered tablet computer that could shake up the iPad’s death grip on portable PC markets:

Cisco Cius is an ultra-portable device weighing just 1.15lbs (0.52kg) that extends the productivity benefits of Cisco collaboration applications to a highly secure mobile platform. In addition to full telepresence interoperability, Cisco Cius offers HD video streaming and real-time video, multi-party conferencing, email, messaging, browsing, and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored locally or centrally in the cloud.

The Cisco Cius includes specs missing on the first gen iPad such as an HD display port, USB ports and front-mounted 720p HD camera.

A couple of already obvious caveats: 1) the Cius’ planned launch date which isn’t until the first part of 2011 and 2) no target price range.

Could this be a machine for the masses, competing head-to-head with the iPad. Or, will Cisco roll out the Cius as an [expensive] business unified communications solution.

Speaking of desktop email clients, Mozilla just unleashed Thunderbird 3.1. The latest Mozilla email client is now based on the Gecko 1.9.2 platform providing improved performance, stability and web compatibility, among other nifty new features.

A new migration assistant wizard helps users move easily across from existing clients such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail, importing emails, address books, and settings into Thunderbird, whilst new tools including a timeline and filtering tools allow easy and efficient ways to find past emails.

And for those looking to expand their Thunderbird installation with new add-ons and extensions, it’s now easier than ever to install and download them – you can do it straight from the Add-ons Manager.

This looks to be one of the most solid Thunderbird releases to-date. The new account setup is magnitudes easier to use than in previous versions, hopefully facilitating an increased adoption rate for the less tech savvy users out there. There are a load of additional new features worth reading about as well.

In an interview conducted on June 10 with Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen, an antenna expert at Denmark’s Aalborg University, the brainiac described how the antenna design of the iPhone 4 could result in lackluster reception – a whole two weeks prior to the release of Apple’s latest masterpiece.

The human tissue will in any event have an inhibitory effect on the antenna. Touch means that a larger portion of antenna energy becomes heat and lost.

Sounds like a fair bit of epic fail for Apple. How could they possibly botch such a vital feature of a mobile phone?

Maybe Apple already knew of this issue and that is why they are selling Bumpers?

A fair number of users have found that after upgrading they iPhone 3G[S] to iOS 4 they were discontent with the results. In many cases iOS 4 has caused iPhone 3G’s to become extremely slow and even more unresponsive than prior to the ostensible upgrade. If you are unhappy with iOS 4, follow these simple instructions for downgrading from iOS 4 to iOS 3.1.3:

The process should work nearly the same on Windows and OS X, so unless we say otherwise, you can follow the same steps on each. The main difference between Windows and OS X is RecBoot, so Windows users, make sure you pay close attention to the RecBoot process before diving in. The same basic steps should likely work for iPhone 3GS, according to our 3GS-toting intern Adam Dachis, who’s used a similar method in the past. (Still, I haven’t been able to verify, so proceed at your own risk, and if you do, let us know how it worked in the comments.) Lastly, you should read through the entire guide before you dive in, just so you know what you’re getting into.

Was all of this part of Apple’s master plan to “force” people to upgrade to the iPhone 4? Somehow I doubt it, as that is just a little too far-fetched and conspiracy theory-ish.

While I have noticed a considerable slowdown in iOS 4 on my iPhone 3G I do not plan to downgrade. The upgrade is quite compelling even if somewhat slower than iOS 3.1.3, as I simply adore the unified inbox and folders, among the few other features iPhone 3G owners were offered.

What about you – are you noticing such a severe degradation in speed after the upgrade that you are considering downgrading?

Flock, the Mozilla-powered social browser, has recently released a new beta powered by Chromium, the same foundation Google Chrome is built upon. The result of ditching Mozilla in favor of Chromium has allowed Flock to see a huge increase in speed, bringing it on par with its WebKit-powered brethren.

Flock is faster, simpler, and more friendly. Literally. It’s the only sleek, modern web browser with the built-in ability to keep you up-to-date with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

Share web pages, photos, and video. Update your status and make comments—from anywhere on the web!

Unlike previous incarnations of Flock, the new Chromium powered browser offers a minimal design utilizing a simplistic sidebar for the built-in social networking features. Flock uses this sidebar to present an activity stream from your accounts on popular social networking sites, combining Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and RSS feeds all in to one sexy display. The sidebar is entirely user configurable, allowing you to decide what information you want to see.

I have to say I am quite impressed. While I was always intrigued by the features Flock offered, I was never able to commit myself to using the browser. The GUI was chaotic and the implementation was lackluster, even though it sounded like a great idea. The new beta is a 180-degree reversal from the previous versions and may be a worthwhile switch.

Currently the new beta of Flock is only available for Windows although an OS X version is under active development. Although Chrome offers a number of extensions capable of performing many of the same tasks, Flock offers a far more fluid and intuitive design, simplifying the process and making it easier to combine all that data in to a single, usable stream.

If you are a hardcore social networker then Flock may be just the medicine you need!

Although I still truly believe desktop email clients are slowly becoming a dying breed, oddly I have been enamored with Postbox ever since it was released a few short years ago. Postbox offers a unique feature set not seen in any other desktop email clients, making it almost worthwhile. This uniqueness has its price as Postbox retails for US$40.

If you have been interested in playing around with Postbox long-term rather than through the mere 15-day trial period then look no further than Postbox Express.

Postbox Express 1.0 is a simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows and Mac. It’s based on the same platform as our premium version of Postbox, but contains a lighter-weight feature set that’s perfect for home use.

Best of all… Postbox Express is completely FREE!

The majority of the important Postbox features remain included in Postbox Express but to a smaller degree. Check out the feature comparison for more details on what is and is not included in Postbox Express.

There are quite a few features missing from Postbox Express but the whole point of the product is to whet your appetite just enough so you are willing to spend the mere US$40 on the premium version. I played with Postbox and enjoyed the client but ultimately opted against spending the cash because I did not think I would use it enough to warrant the expenditure.

Personally, I am quite pleased with Mailplane, even though I definitely see exceptional utility in Postbox. The latter offers both a Windows and OS X client whereas Mailplane is only available on OS X, so if you are a Windows user then Postbox may be your email client of choice.

If you are asking yourself why Postbox over Mozilla Thunderbird then check out the page explaining why Postbox definitely blows away Thunderbird!

A few months ago the programmer behind the minimal OS X text editor Smultron opted to stop development of the application. If you, like me, adored Smultron and used it as your text editor of choice this was sure to be worrisome; no updates to the many minor idiosyncrasies and no true Snow Leopard support.

Look no further as Fraise has taken over where Smultron left.

Fraise is a free text editor for Mac OS X Leopard 10.6 which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users. It should work perfectly for a whole variety of needs – like web programming, script editing, making a to do list and so on..

Fraise has all open documents in a list with beautiful Quick Look icons to your left just like e.g. iTunes so you can easily switch between many documents – you can also choose to display them as tabs if you prefer it that way.

It appears Fraise took the source code for Smultron, which was open source, forked it and developed a new product worthy of being considered a replacement. One of the long-standing Smultron bugs – the lack of ability to make the “line wrap text” option sticky – has finally been fixed!

I loved Smultron and have made the transition to Fraise – a beautiful and exceptional successor.

It’s said and done now, but really, shame on Twitter. These are just some painfully obvious and blatant information assurance mistakes. And to consider these security errors occurred on a massive lifestreaming site such as Twitter. Unthinkable.

The FTC:

According to the FTC’s complaint, Twitter was vulnerable to these attacks because it failed to take reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized administrative control of its system, including:

requiring employees to use hard-to-guess administrative passwords that are not used for other programs, websites, or networks;

prohibiting employees from storing administrative passwords in plain text within their personal e-mail accounts;

suspending or disabling administrative passwords after a reasonable number of unsuccessful login attempts;

providing an administrative login webpage that is made known only to authorized persons and is separate from the login page for users;

enforcing periodic changes of administrative passwords by, for example, setting them to expire every 90 days;

restricting access to administrative controls to employees whose jobs required it; and

imposing other reasonable restrictions on administrative access, such as by restricting access to specified IP addresses.

It’s easy to overlook information security basics such as what the FTC found Twitter had done. But seriously, these steps listed above are not that painstaking to take care of. This should be a lesson-learned for all folks attached to the IT industry.