Five guaranteed iPhone 4 reception fails

Autodesk's new AutoCAD WS for iPad. Photo / Supplied

I have been trying to make my iPhone 4 drop connection, or even to drop a bar or two. I have come up with several ways to make this happen, which may give pause to anyone considering buying one.

1. "Look," I said to my teenager. "No bars at all! No reception, no indication, nothing!"

"And," she said sagely, "If you turn it on?"

2. In the bath: iPhone 4 does not work in the bath. And an internal dampness indicator will tell Apple you had it in the bath (or spa, pool or ocean), so you'll be sprung. So don't do it.

3. In space, no one can ... get you on your iPhone 4. If you go far enough away, anyway.

4. Kaueraunga Valley, Coromandel: iPhone 4 utterly refuses to get any reception there. Mind you, every other phone has the same problem. That's why I have a blissful holiday there every year. Ah, the freedom!

5. In your dreams. Yes, in your dreams, Apple haters. In your dreams the iPhone 4 drops calls. I hope you awaken refreshed.

OK, I will stop being flippant. But I have utterly failed to make my iPhone 4 drop any reception at all, or actually drop a call. I will keep testing. In fact, so far, it has considerably better reception than my 3GS. And the 3GS never dropped a call either.


Apps and goodies

Here's a cool app if you have an Epson printer - Epson iPrint lets you print from iPads and iPhones on wireless networks to supported Epson printers - it does not work with an Epson Stylus TX110 I have here, but it does with the newer Workforce 633 Multifunction inkjet, which is shared over my AirPort network.

There's a list of supported Epson printers list of a supported Epson printers online.


The Workforce 633 is a brand new copier/printer/fax/scanner with Ethernet, USB and wireless connectivity out of the box, the installers for Mac have been much improved and its costs just under $300, by the way - I recently reviewed it on mac-nz.com.

It's not a brilliant photo printer (it's four-colour) but it does have slots that take most camera cards - it's aimed at small businesses. The scanner's great, though, and it's a really fast printer and has an auto document feeder - plus it handles printing from iPads and iPhones, which works really well, as long as you get that free app for iPhone or iPad.

Another good app for iPhones or iPod touches with mics in the earbud cable is called Awareness. This is designed for those who insist (as, erm, I do) in having earbuds in when walking or cycling. Yeah, it's a bit dangerous cos you can't hear anything except music. Podcasts and audiobooks can be even worse - they're very absorbing.

The Awareness! App has been designed to work in the background of iOS 4 devices. It uses the microphone to track ambient noise levels. When you first load up the app, you are presented with a meter. Awareness! measures the surrounding noise and sets a default level for the environment you are in.

When you are walking down the street and a loud noise occurs above the standard level, such as a truck passing or a car horn, the application lets the noise through to the earphones so you can hear the external noise.

For those walking around listening to music this is an ideal safety measure to keep you aware of your surroundings. It also works in games - think about plains and trains, too - it'll leave out the ambient rumble or hiss but announcements through.

It has a few options, like a Ducking mode that actually lowers the volume of your music when noise levels increase. But you may as well leave that off - it doesn't work at the moment due to a bug in iOS.

Apple is apparently aware of this bug and as soon as a patch is released the ducking feature will work.

If you'd like more info, watch this video.

Awareness! is currently $4.19 but the price is going up on October 4th.

Meanwhile, over on iPad ...

AutoCAD WS is a free app that lets you view, edit (with your finger, in snap or auto modes) and share DWG files no matter where you are.

The app could revolutionise the way architects and engineers work in the field - no more papers getting blown away in the wind, for example.

There's an iPod touch/iPhone version, too.

A news reader with a difference is Flipboard - it uses Twitter feeds to display news and other stories very fast, in an innovative way. Install it, look at a feed, then rotate your iPad and you'll see what I mean. It's also free.


While we're on iPad, check out the Sonos Controller app - it's been out for iPhone for a while, but the iPAd version just got released. It's free, too.

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com