If you think you’ve seen a lot of teens with iPhones lately, that’s because the popular Apple device may be owned by nearly half of all U.S. teens, according to a new survey, the Los Angeles Times reports. Investment bank research firm PiperJaffray released its Taking Stock With Teens survey in which 48 percent of the teen respondents said they owned an iPhone. That’s up from last fall’s 40 percent. The report said the increase was driven by sales of iPhone 5, which hit stores last September. Apple’s smart phone was also the most preferred. According to the survey, 62 percent of teens planned on making the iPhone their next mobile device purchase. The results were compiled from classroom visits and electronic surveys and involved 5,200 teens…
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Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Report: Next Apple iPhone could land as soon as this summer
Apple’s next iPhone could land as soon as this summer, judging from a Wall Street Journal report April 2, the Washington Post reports. Sources tell the paper that Apple plans to start production of its latest iPhone during this quarter, which means it could be ready for the third quarter in the summer. Much like the iPhone 4S and 3GS, Apple will likely debut a slightly revamped “iPhone 5S” this year, which will share the same basic design of the iPhone 5…
…Read MoreApple says iPhones overstate signal strength
Apple Inc. said its iPhones overstate wireless network signal strength and promised to fix the glitch in the coming weeks, Reuters reports. Its admission follows customer complaints about the design of its phone antenna. Apple apologized to customers in an open letter on July 2 and said it was “stunned to find that the formula” it uses to calculate network strength “is totally wrong” and that the error has existed since its first iPhone. Apple, which has sold iPhones since 2007, said it would update its software in coming weeks using a formula recommended by AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. provider for iPhone. “Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars,” according to the letter. The company already has had to apologize for delays in online orders of its iPhone 4 and for a supply shortage in its stores since the device hit shelves June 24…
…Read MoreOn new iPhone, a mystery of dropped calls
Apple’s touch-screen smart phone has been a sensation since Day 1 three years ago, and many who own the device believe it to be almost perfect—if only it worked better as a phone. That might be the case with the new iPhone 4 as well, reports the New York Times. What surprised many of the new phone’s earliest adopters as they tested the phone after its June 24 launch: The precious little bars that signal network connections inexplicably disappeared when they cradled the phone in their hands a particular way. Sometimes, but not always, the cradling resulted in dropped calls. In the hours before Apple weighed in on the problem, iPhone fans turned to one another on the internet in a zealous exercise in crowd-sourcing for answers to the mystery. They were all the more baffled because the iPhone 4 was designed to have better reception. A metal band that wraps around the edges of the device is supposed to pull in a stronger signal; software is supposed to choose the section of the signal with the least congestion. Late on June 24, an Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, acknowledged that the issues experienced by users were real but played down their importance. “Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, depending on the placement of the antennas,” he said. “This is a fact of life for every wireless phone.”
…Read MoreSteve Jobs attacks Adobe Flash as unfit for iPhone
For iPhone users who’ve been wondering whether their devices will support Flash technology for web video and games anytime soon, the answer is finally here, straight from Steve Jobs, reports the Associated Press: No. In a detailed offensive against the technology owned by Adobe Systems Inc., Apple’s CEO wrote April 29 that Flash has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly, and is too oriented to personal computers to work on the iPhone and iPad. This is not the first time Jobs has publicly criticized Flash, but the statement was his clearest, most definitive—and longest—on the subject. In his 1,685-word “Thoughts on Flash,” Jobs laid out his reasons for excluding Flash—the most widely used vehicle for videos and games on the internet—from Apple’s blockbuster handheld devices. He cited “reliability, security, and performance,” and the fact that Flash was designed “for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers” as some of the reasons Apple will continue to keep the program off its devices. But he said the most important reason is Flash puts a third party between Apple and software developers. In other words, developers can take advantage of improvements from Apple only if Adobe upgrades its own software, Jobs wrote. Adobe representatives did not have an immediate comment. But in a March 23 conference call, President and CEO Shantanu Narayen said his company is “committed to bringing Flash to any platform on which there is a screen.”
…Read MoreiPhone soon to get long-sought multitasking
Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices soon will be able to run more than one program at a time, an ability that phones from Apple’s rivals already offer and that iPhone owners have long sought, reports the Associated Press. The changes are coming this summer to iPhones and this fall to iPads. Currently, users must return to Apple’s home screen, effectively quitting the open program, before starting a new task. “We weren’t the first to this party, but we’re going to be the best,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared April 8, as bloggers, software developers, and others in the audience greeted the news of such “multitasking” with applause. The iPhone already permits some multitasking, but that’s largely limited to Apple’s own programs. Apple had not given users ways to seamlessly switch among all the software “apps” available from outside software companies, the way phones from rivals Palm Inc. and Google Inc. already do. That will change with the updates known as iPhone OS 4. Apple generally makes such updates available for free, and often automatically, as a software download. Jobs said the company waited so long because it wanted to offer multitasking in a way that didn’t drain the iPhone’s battery or reduce the phone’s performance…
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