Tuesday 16 October 2012

Who is Steve Jobs ?

steve-jobs-photo
 
 
Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs was an American entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.
Born: February 24, 1955, San Francisco
Died: October 5, 2011, Palo Alto
Spouse: Laurene Powell (m. 1991–2011)
Children: Lisa Brennan-Jobs, Reed Jobs, Eve Jobs, Erin Siena Jobs
Education: Homestead High School (1972), Reed College, Cupertino Junior High School, Monta Loma Elementary School
Siblings: Mona Simpson
In the late 1970s, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak engineered one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC’s mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. By introducing the LaserWriter he enabled a revolution called desktop publishing.
After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher-education and business markets. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which was spun off as Pixar.  He was credited in Toy Story (1995) as an executive producer. He served as CEO and 50.1% majority shareholder until Disney bought Pixar in 2006. Jobs received 7% of Disney shares, and joined the Board of Directors as the largest individual shareholder. By 1996, Apple had failed to deliver a new operating system, Copland. Gil Amelio turned to NeXT Computer, and the NeXTSTEP platform became the foundation for the Mac OS X  Jobs returned to Apple as an advisor, and took control of the company as an interim CEO. Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998 
As the new CEO of the company, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and on the services side, the company’s Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. The success of these products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, and propelled Apple to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in 2011. The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history. 
In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned in August that year, and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of respiratory arrest related to his metastatic tumor on October 5, 2011.
Jobs has received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries. He has widely been referred to as “legendary”, a “futurist” or simply “visionary” and has been described as the “Father of the Digital Revolution”,a “master of innovation”,  and a “design perfectionist” 
Jobs’s birth parents met at the University of Wisconsin. Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, from Syria, taught there. Joanne Carole Schieble was his student; they were the same age because Jandali had “gotten his PhD really young.” Schieble had a career as a speech language pathologist. Jandali taught political science at the University of Nevada in the 1960s, and then made his career in the food and beverage industry, and since 2006, has been a vice president at a casino in Reno, Nevada.In December 1955, ten months after giving up their baby boy, Schieble and Jandali married. In 1957 they had a daughter, Mona. They divorced in 1962, and Jandali lost touch with his daughter. Her mother remarried and had Mona take the surname of her stepfather, so she became known as Mona Simpson.
In the 1980s, Jobs found his birth mother, Joanne Schieble Simpson, who told him he had a biological sister, Mona Simpson. They met for the first time in 1985 and became close friends. The siblings kept their relationship secret until 1986, when Mona introduced him at a party for her first book
After deciding to search for their father, Simpson found Jandali managing a coffee shop. Without knowing who his son had become, Jandali told Mona that he had previously managed a popular restaurant in the Silicon Valley where “Even Steve Jobs used to eat there. Yeah, he was a great tipper.” In a taped interview with his biographer Walter Isaacson, aired on 60 Minutes,Jobs said: “When I was looking for my biological mother, obviously, you know, I was looking for my biological father at the same time, and I learned a little bit about him and I didn’t like what I learned. I asked her to not tell him that we ever met…not tell him anything about me.”Jobs was in occasional touch with his mother Joanne Simpson,who lives in a nursing home in Los Angeles.When speaking about his biological parents, Jobs stated: “They were my sperm and egg bank. That’s not harsh, it’s just the way it was, a sperm bank thing, nothing more.”Jandali stated in an interview with the The Sun in August 2011, that his efforts to contact Jobs were unsuccessful. Jandali mailed in his medical history after Jobs’s pancreatic disorder was made public that year.

Thursday 11 October 2012

Why you need a Facebook page for your business?


Facebook is one of the most popular social networking website with 850+ million users. By creating a Fb fan page, you are helping your possible readers, client, customers to connect with you. Now, depending upon your social media skills, you can engage your Facebook fans into conversations and make your brand more prominent. In fact, many companies are using Facebook as an announcement channel. 

Facebook is one of the biggest marketing and branding tool if you use it wisely. Do you remember Vodafone ZooZoo’s which become very popular after the launch and Facebook played a major role for the same. If you have been ignoring Facebook till now for Marketing and Branding, you are losing a significant amount of readers and client for your blog and service. There are many other usage of Facebook and we will discus that in some other posts.

How to Create Facebook page ?


Facebook Fan Page helps you into Branding, Socializing and more over sending a message to all your Blog or service Fans. If you have now created a Facebook fan page for your blog, do it now and enjoy and take your brand to next level.
Selecting type of page:
Go to this create Facebook page link and select the type of business you are having. Selecting proper category, will help your brand to reach the right audience.
Selecting Facebook Page type

Selecting Facebook Page type
For example, you need a Fan page for your Website or Blog, select “Brand or Product” and select Websites from Drop-down.  Then, add your brand name. This is not vanity URL and you can add custom URL for your fan pagelater.
Facebook fan Page Website Category
Facebook fan Page Website Category
Click on Get started, and next step is to add an Avatar for your Fan page. I would suggest, use your official Gravatar and if you don’t have any Gravatar, you can always create a Pic for your Fan page and keep it close to your brand logo. Max size for your Faceboook Fan page profile pic is 180*540 Px. Once you done uploading picture to your newly created Facebook fan page, Facebook give you an option to invite your friends to Fan page. You can skip it for now and use this feature later. On next page add your Website details and click on Continue. Once done, you will have a page like this (Below) and you can hit like and recommend people and also edit page settings.

How to Edit Facebook page settings:

So once you have learned how to create Facebook fan page, it’s time to learn how to edit Fan page. Look at this screenshot and it will give you a great deal of idea about customization on Facebook fan page.
Facebook Fan Page Architect


 

How to Add Facebook Fan Page to Website ?



Very first step is to go to Facebook social plugins page and select Facebook like box for pages. Here is a direct link to that page. Apart from Like box, I would suggest also have a look into other Facebook social plugins which might be useful to make your Website more social.
So once, you are on Facebook like box page, change the URL with your Fan page URL. For reference, in this video tutorial, I have used Page URL as https://www.facebook.com/Egypt.Web.Solutions . Similarly, you can add your fan page. In case if you have not set up Custom URL for your fan page, do it right away.
Once you have added your URL, the preview tab will automtically start showing widget for your blog. You can make changes from settings, like specify a custom size for Facebook fan page widget. I usually, remove stream and header part as they add more into loading time. If you don’t want to show Facebook fan photo, you can hide that too from settings. Though, Facebook fan photo into your Facebook fan box, will add more personal touch  for new readers, as Facebook shows your friends photo when you browse a site using Facebook like box.

Once you have made all the settings, click on get code and you will get three code options to add the widget on your blog. Go to iFrame code and copy the code given. Now go to your WordPress or BlogSpot blog widget section and add a text widget and paste the code. If you have copied and pasted the code properly, in no time you will see your Fb fan page widget live on your blog.

Personally, I have realize Fan page widget works the best to grow your followers on Facebook and more important this way, you will get more loyal readers as people who would be subscribing to your page are those who liked your content. But, there is a down side of this widget and that is load time. I have seen a drift of atleast 0.8 sec after adding and removing this widget. Though I guess, you won’t mind comparimsing on the speed for getting more fans, as social media plays an important role in better ranking.

Samsung Galaxy S4 landing in Feb?


In news that’s unlikely to surprise anyone on nodding terms with prevailing trends in smartphone upgrades, Samsung’s new kit will purportedly pack a larger five-inch OLED screen – up from the S3’s 4.8-inches - and international 4G LTE support.
An unnamed deepthroat said: “Samsung wants to keep its one-year product schedule and the Galaxy S4 will be the first to match that strategy.
“The S4 will see some external changes but retain its popular rectangular shape with rounded corner concept.”
News of Samsung’s plans comes as it recently announced that the S3 has now sold some 20 million units, making it the company’s fastest-selling phone ever.
Source:
Korea Times

How to get an Approved AdSense Account


Today I’m going to list out 5 Tips to get an Approved AdSense Account. Lets start with the first one.

1. Produce Quality Content
2. Never Publish Copied Content
3. Fill up the Application Form Correctly
4. Make your Site Easily Navigable
5. Wait for 6 Months before Applying for AdSense

Finally, if none of the above 5 Tips seem to work for you, like it did for me then go to AdSense Revenue Sites like Indyarocks, YouTube, etc and apply from there. I would still recommend you keep working hard on your blog’s content rather than going for revenue sites.

 

 

 

Why Google’s Maps So Good ?

Google allows average citizens make corrections to Google’s maps as they find them.  
 
Google allows average citizens make corrections to Google’s maps as they find them.
Wow. Nothing makes you appreciate something like losing it.
Nobody ever raved about Google’s mapping app for phones until they saw how hard it was for Apple to come up with a rival. In my Times column today, I wrote about the challenges Apple has faced in replacing its iPhone GPS/mapping app, substituting its own data sources for Google’s. I noted that the new app is beautiful and will be really terrific someday — once it does a better job of incorporating all of its various data sources.
The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
In researching the story, I interviewed representatives from Apple and Google. At Google, I spoke with Manik Gupta, senior product manager for Google Maps, and Daniel Graf, director of Google Maps for Mobile.
What I realized is that mapping the world is a staggering, gigantic, vast, inconceivably huge and ambitious project. It represents years and years of hand-tuning and manual effort.
I was surprised to learn that, like Apple, Google began its efforts by licensing petabytes of data from outside geodata companies.

They include TomTom, the same company that Apple’s using. (The other big map vendor is NavTeq, which Nokia bought a few years ago; I guess that explains why Apple and Google aren’t using NavTeq’s data. Too bad — by all accounts, the map app on Nokia’s Windows Phone is pretty great; I’ll be trying it out shortly.)
But that’s just the basic data. “We start with licensed stuff, then expand and enhance it,” Mr. Gupta said. Google has supplemented it with years of additional data gathering, involving its Street View cars, satellite data and human labor.

And it shows. As of 2008, for example, onto those digital maps of the world Google had overlaid 13 million miles of turn-by-turn directions in 22 countries; today, it has 26 million miles of guidance in 187 countries.
“It’s fair to say that in the mapping world, you can’t just throw money at it and then you have it the next day. This takes time,” Mr. Gupta said. “It took a lot of time to get where we’re at.” He said that even now, Google is far from done; error reports still flow in by the thousands.

Many of them come from Google Map Maker, a Web site that is live in 200 countries (and just started in the United States) that lets average citizens make corrections to Google’s maps as they find them. You can, for example, draw a line to represent a new road.
Like Apple, Google also collects location and movement data (anonymously) from millions of smartphones as they’re driven around; from this information, Apple and Google can determine when, for example, a one-way street has been mislabeled in its data.

You may be familiar with Street View, a Google exclusive that lets you stand at a certain spot on the map and “look around.” You can see a photo of the address you seek, and use your mouse to turn right or left and actually move through the still photos. It’s an amazing way to see what it’s like to be at that spot.
Street View isn’t available for the entire world, but you’d be surprised at how many inhabited areas are covered: Google’s GPS- and camera-equipped Street View cars have, so far, driven five million miles through 3,000 cities in 40 countries.

What you may not realize, however, is that those photos are far more than just helpful references for you, the viewer. Google’s software analyzes what’s in those photos. Its image-recognition software can read the text on street signs, storefront signs, hotel names and so on. It can tell a major road from a minor one, a single-lane road from multilane and one-way streets from two-way streets. Street View, in other words, generates still more useful data for Google’s maps.
I asked Google why its satellite photos don’t seem to display the same jarring seams that are showing up on Apple’s — obvious borders between side-by-side tiles that were taken at different times of the year or in different weather.
“When you look at Google Earth,” I was told, “you can see that the globe is made from a mosaic of aerial and satellite photos, often taken in different lighting and weather. We license these photos from multiple providers, possibly the same ones that Apple uses; but we’ve had the time to come up with a smoothing algorithm. In January, we introduced a new way to render them, smooth them out, make them seamless. But by no means have we perfected this.”

On this call, Google pointed out a new feature that I hadn’t seen before: compass mode. On an Android phone, you can call up a location like Trafalgar Square in London. You hold the phone in front of you to see a Street View-like photo of the scene — and as you look left, right, up, down, or behind you, the view changes, as though you’re looking through a magic window at another place in the world. You can even use Compass mode to look around inside places — I tried Delfina, the San Francisco restaurant — to get a feel of the décor before you go there.

Can you imagine how powerful Compass mode will be once it covers most of the earth’s developed areas? It will give you a sort of instant teleportation, a way to travel without travel, a sense of a place without having to go there.

What I’ve learned from this deep dive into the making of map apps is that you can’t just license a bunch of data, bake at 350 degrees and come up with a useful tool. Gathering the data is only the starting point; from there, it takes years to reconcile it, correct it and make it useful. (This Atlantic article offers a good look at the kind of hand-tuning that Google’s minions do constantly.)

By the way, let me be clear: I have no doubt that Apple’s Maps app will get there. We’ve seen this movie before — remember MobileMe? It, too, was very rough when it made its debut. Today, its successor, iCloud, is smooth and sensationally useful. Maps will be, too.

But I suspect that Apple has just realized the same thing I have: that we may live on a small blue planet, but digitally representing every road, building and point of interest is a task of almost unimaginable difficulty. Let’s be grateful that another major player has just joined the attempt.

New iOS 6 Features

Apple is making iOS 6 available to anyone with a recent iPhone (3GS, 4, or 4S), iPod Touch (fourth generation) or iPad (2 or 3). It comes installed on the iPhone 5 and the new fifth-generation iPod Touch.
(Caution: Not all features are available on the older models. I’ve noted the biggest such exceptions below, but you should check here for full details.)
Apple's Maps app for iOS 6.  
Apple’s Maps app for iOS 6.

 
The challenge in creating a new operating system is always this: How do you add features without adding complexity?
On a tiny phone screen, that challenge becomes even more difficult. The answer, of course, is, you can’t — but few companies try harder to minimize the complexity than Apple. In iOS 6, for example, Apple counts more than 200 new features, but you wouldn’t know it with a quick glance.
Here’s the best of what’s new:
 
Maps. Apple, as you may have noticed, has been quietly dismantling its relationship with Google. In iOS 6, for example, there’s no longer a built-in YouTube app (Google owns YouTube); fortunately, YouTube offers a new app of its own.
And now Apple has replaced the iPhone’s longstanding Google Maps app. Apple says that Google had been steadily improving its Maps app — but only for Android phones, leaving the iPhone in the dust. For example, the iPhone app didn’t have spoken turn-by-turn directions. And on Android, the maps are composed of vector art—smooth lines generated by the computer — rather than the square tiles of pixels that you saw on the iPhone.
In any case, the new iOS Maps app offers those features — spoken navigation, vector maps — and more. You can just tell Siri where you want to go (“Give me directions to LaGuardia Airport”), and let the app start getting you there with one of the cleanest, least distracting navigation screens ever to appear on a GPS unit. The visual cues are big, bold and readable at a glance, and the spoken cues are timed perfectly so that you don’t miss a turn. You can even turn the screen off and let the voice alone guide you.
Real-time traffic and accident alerts are built in — no charge, courtesy of crowdsourced speed and position data from millions of other iPhone owners out driving.
Not all is rosy in Mapsland, though. Apple’s database of points of interest (stores, restaurants, and so on), powered by Yelp, is sparser than Google’s. There’s no built-in public-transportation guidance. For big cities, you get Flyover, a super-cool 3-D photographic model of the actual buildings — but losing Google’s Street View feature is a real shame.
During navigation guidance, you can’t rotate the map with your fingers or zoom in by more than a couple of degrees—to see your entire route, for example. Turns out you have to tap the screen and then tap Overview to access that more detailed, zoomable, rotatable map.
Flyover and the vector maps require a fast Internet connection, by the way. When you’re not in a 4G cellular area, it can take quite awhile for the blank canvas to fill in. (Navigation and Flyover don’t work on the iPhone 3GS or 4, the original iPad, or pre-2012 iPod Touches.)

Call smarts. These are some of my favorite new features. If you’re driving or in a meeting when a call comes in, you can flick upward on the screen to reveal two new buttons: Remind Me Later and Reply With Message. The first button offers choices like “In 1 hour” or “When I get home” (a message will remind you to call back); the second offers canned text messages, like “I’ll call you later” or a custom message, that let your caller know you can’t take the call now. Excellent.
Do Not Disturb is also incredibly useful. It’s like Airplane Mode — the phone won’t buzz, ring or light up — except that (a) it can turn itself on during certain hours, like your sleeping hours, and (b) it can allow certain people’s calls or texts through (people on your phone’s Favorites list, for example). You can sleep soundly, knowing that your boss or family can reach you in an emergency, but idiot telemarketers will go straight to voice mail.
(Similarly ingenious: The option called Repeated Calls. If someone calls you twice in three minutes — possibly someone who needs to reach you urgently — that call is allowed to ring during Do Not Disturb.)

Siri. Siri, the voice-activated servant, now understands questions about movies (“When is the next showtime of ‘Finding Nemo 3D?’” or “Who directed ‘Chinatown?’”), sports (“Who won the Yankees game yesterday?”) and restaurants (“Where’s the closest diner?”). In each case, Siri’s responses are visual and detailed—for restaurants, you can even make a reservation with one tap, courtesy of Open Table.
You can also speak Twitter or Facebook posts (“Tweet, ‘I just broke my shin on a poorly placed coffee table’”) and—hallelujah!—open apps by voice (“open Camera”). That’s a huge win.
Siri is also available in more languages and on more gadgets (the new iPod Touch; the iPad 3).

FaceTime over cellular. FaceTime is Apple’s video-chatting feature — and until today, it worked only in Wi-Fi hot spots. Now, at last, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and cellular iPad 3 owners can make video calls (to other iPhone, iPad, Touch and Mac owners) even when they’re out of Wi-Fi range, out in cellular land. When the signal is decent, the picture looks great. (AT&T doesn’t let you use FaceTime over cellular unless you have one of its complicated and expensive shared-data plans.)

Camera panoramas. You can now capture a 240-degree, ultra-wide-angle, 28-megapixel photo by swinging the phone around you in an arc. The phone creates the panorama in real time (you don’t have to line up the sections yourself). Available on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPod touch (5th generation), and very welcome.

Passbook. This app collects and consolidates barcodes: for airline boarding passes, movie tickets you bought online, electronic coupons and so on. The feature hasn’t gone live yet, so I couldn’t test it except with phony coupons and boarding passes supplied by Apple to reviewers. But the apps for Delta, American, Starbucks and Fandango will be Passbook-compatible almost immediately, and that should be a great time-saver—your boarding-pass barcode appears automatically when you arrive at the airport (thank you, GPS), even on the Lock screen.

Safari browser. You can now save a Web page to read later, when you don’t have an Internet connection, and in landscape mode, a full-screen browsing mode maximizes screen space by hiding toolbars. (I don’t think the third new Safari, feature, iCloud Tabs, will be as useful. It lets you open up whatever browser tabs you left open on your Mac or iPad—if, that is, they’re all signed into the same iCloud account.)

Shared photo streams. You can “publish” groups of photos to specified friends; they can view the pictures on their Apple gadgets or on a Web page. They can add comments or “like” them.

Mail. In Mail, you can indicate the most important people; they get their own folder in the Inbox, helping to lift them out of the clutter. And at long last, you can now attach photos to a Mail message you’re already writing, instead of having to start in the Photos app — better late than never, I guess.

Miscellaneous. The option to publish utterances, photos or other bits to Facebook pops up in a bunch of different apps. A new Privacy settings page gives you on/off switches for the kinds of data each app might request (access to your contacts, location and so on). Tweaks have been made to the App Store app, Reminders, Videos and other apps.
And you no longer have to enter your Apple password just to download an update to an app you already have. Hosannah.
In the end, iOS 6 is to software what the iPhone 5 is to hardware: a big collection of improvements, many of which are really clever and good, that don’t take us in any big new directions. Lots and lots of nips and tucks — that’s Apple’s motto lately.
Unlike the iPhone 5, however, upgrading to iOS 6 doesn’t cost anything. It’s free and available now. In general, you should go get it—and you sacrifice very little (a few Maps features) and gain a lot.

The iPhone 5 My First Impressions


Apple unveiled the new iPhone 5 today in San Francisco. As it turns out, most of the individual rumors about it were true — but even so, they didn’t describe the whole package.
The new phone is the same width as the old one, but taller and thinner, as though someone ran over the old iPhone with a steamroller. When held horizontally, the four-inch screen has 16:9 proportions, a perfect fit for HDTV shows and a better fit for movies. The added screen length gives the Home screen room for a fifth row of icons.
The band around the edges is still silver on the white iPhone — but on the black model, it’s black with a gleaming, reflective bezel. It looks awesome.
The back is aluminum now. The strips at the top and bottom of the back are made of glass, the better to allow the wireless signal through — but as a side benefit, you can now tell which way is front as you fish the thing out of your pocket.
The processor, with a new design, is twice as fast, according to Apple. And the iPhone has 4G LTE, meaning superfast Internet in select cities.
Not many rumor mills predicted the improvement in the camera. It’s an eight-megapixel model with an f/2.4 aperture, meaning that it lets in a lot of light. The panorama mode is the best you’ve ever seen: as you swing the camera in an arc in front of you, a preview screen shows you the resulting panorama growing in real time. I took only two panorama shots in my limited time with the iPhone 5, but they came out crazy good.
The camera takes 40 percent less time between shots, it can recognize up to 10 faces (for focus and exposure purposes) and it can take still photos even while you’re filming video.
The new phone also offers better battery life (eight hours of talk time or Web browsing), according to Apple (I haven’t tested it yet). It also has noise cancellation both for outgoing and incoming sound. The phone is also ready for wideband audio — your callers won’t have that tinny phone sound, but richer, more FM-radioish sound — but that requires the carrier to upgrade its network. The catch: no American carriers have announced plans to do that.
At first glance, there’s really only one cause for pause: Apple has replaced the 30-pin charging/syncing connector that’s been on every iPhone, iPad and iPod since 2003. According to Apple, it’s simply too big for its new, super-thin, super-packed gadgets.
So with the iPhone and the new iPod models also announced today, Apple is replacing that inch-wide connector with a new, far smaller one it’s calling Lightning.

I’ll grudgingly admit that the Lightning connector is a great design: it clicks nicely into place, but it can be yanked out quickly. It goes in either way — there’s no “right side up,” as there was with the old connector. And it’s tiny, which is Apple’s point.
The iPhone 5, right, connects to power cables, stereo docking stations and other peripherals using a smaller connector that is incompatible with previous models. 
Peter DaSilva for The New York Times The iPhone 5, right, connects to power cables, stereo docking stations and other peripherals using a smaller connector that is incompatible with previous models.
Still, think of all those charging cables, docks, chargers, car adapters, hotel-room alarm clocks, speakers and accessories—hundreds of millions of gadgets that will no longer fit the iPhone.
Apple will sell two adapters, a simple plug adapter for $30 or one with a six-inch cable for $40, to accommodate accessories that can’t handle the plug adapter.
That’s way, way too expensive. These adapters should not be a profit center for Apple; they should be a gesture of kindness to those of us who’ve bought accessories based on the old connector. There’s going to be a lot of grumpiness in iPhoneland, starting with me.
Overall, though, Apple seems to have put its focus on the important things you want in an app phone: size, shape, materials, sound quality, camera quality and speed (both operational and Internet data), and that’s good. I’ll have a full review once I’ve had some time to test the thing.
The new iPhone goes on sale on Sept. 21 for $200 with a two-year contract from Verizon, Sprint or AT&T. (That’s the 16-gigabyte model. You can get 32 gigs for $300 or 64 gigs for $400.)
If you’re content with last year’s technology — or 2010’s — you can also get the iPhone 4 free with a two-year contract, or the iPhone 4S (16 gigs) for $100 with contract.

iPhone 5 Problems


Apple has a new iPhone, which of course means it’s time to find problems to harp about.
It happens with every new iPhone. Remember Antennagate? How about the battery issues with iOS 5? This time around we’ve got nicked cases, lens flare and, of course, the disaster of Maps. But are these really problems, or are people making such a fuss because it’s, well, Apple?
A little of both, actually. There are legitimate beefs, but what company hasn’t had issues with new hardware or software? With the Samsung Galaxy S III, some owners reported battery drain issues with their new handsets in June. But this is Apple we’re talking about, and the expectation is just a little bit … higher.
“I do think that users have higher expectations when it comes to Apple,” Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told Wired via email. “I also think that there is a particular pleasure by many in finding something wrong almost to show that Apple is not perfect.”
And so we’re hearing no end of complaints and criticism now that pundits and the public are using their shiny new iPhone 5′s. Some of them are complete non-issues, but there are some actual problems. Lets break it down…

Scratches and chips

Shortly after iPhone 5′s started arriving in the mail, some noticed their svelte new handset was chipped right out of the box. Others found that the switch from a glass back plate to anodized aluminum made the iPhone — particularly the black model — more susceptible to unsightly scratches and blemishes.
Within a few short days of using my own iPhone 5, I too noticed some chips along its chamfers, the diagonal edges of the device. IHS analyst Kevin Keller, who covers teardown services, explained what’s going on here.
Apple has incorporated an aluminum unibody construction for the first time in the iPhone 5 — similar to what Apple has used in MacBooks and the iPad, that is, a single piece of aluminum hollowed out with a CNC machine.
“The issue, though, is that aluminum is a fairly soft metal,” Keller said.
The aluminum is anodized, a finishing process that is essentially an etch and dye process that gives it color, but there is no sort of protective finish on top of that. “It’s just bare aluminum. It scratches easily. You can scratch it with a key or anything.”
This isn’t a problem so much for iPads and MacBooks, but iPhones are often put in pockets along with keys. Whether or not this is actually an issue, though, is in the eye of the beholder.
“I actually like the idea of the metal wearing in over time and becoming unique,” iFixit’s Kyle Wiens told Wired. “So I don’t mind the scratching.”
As with a plurality of iPhone owners in the past, the threat of scratches may not be a problem for long. “If users care about their phone getting scratched, they’ll put a case on it, so ultimately it’s not really an issue,” Keller said. Personally, I’ve decided to put mine in a case anytime I put it in my backpack to provide added protection while walking around or biking.

Maps

Yes, Maps is indeed a serious problem. Apple CEO Tim Cook actually issued a formal apology for the app, which was perhaps pushed out a bit prematurely.
Apple’s new Maps app is perhaps the most pervasive issue affecting iPhone 5 users. But being a feature of iOS 6, it is affecting other iDevice owners as well. Some of the problems include 3D and satellite images being buggy (like bridges looking wavy, or dropping off in the center); navigation directions sending people to incorrect locations; and out-of-date information on local businesses. The Maps app also lacks transit directions, which Google Maps has. It’s a large enough deal that some are even holding out upgrading until a better fix is in place.
“Maps is a huge problem,” iFixit’s Kyle Wiens told Wired. “I refuse to upgrade to iOS 6 until Google releases a maps app. I need transit directions too much.”
In the meantime, iOS 6 users can download one of a number of transit apps or map apps, or create a homescreen bookmark to Google Maps’ web app.

Purple Lens Flare

Under the right conditions, a purple flare can affect iPhone 5 photos with bright light in them. Photo: Christina Bonnington/Wired
You point your phone up at the sky to Instagram the bright afternoon sunlight catching the clouds, but then, gasp! The resulting image has a ghastly purple pallor cast around the sun’s powerful rays.
It’s an effect known as purple fringing, and it can be attributed to anything from stray UV or IR light, image processing issues, anti-reflective lens coatings, or overexposure. It’s something that plagues many digital cameras.
In the iPhone 5′s case, some postulate that because Apple removed the IR/Cut filter in the iPhone 5, its suffering from greater lens flare issues than the 4S. The phone’s new sapphire lens could also be to blame — this is what the photography folks at PetaPixel suspect is at issue. However, the process used to turn sapphire into a lens removes the telltale coloring you typically associate with the gemstone.
In some tests, the iPhone 5 does a better job of eliminating this issue than its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. But in others, like PCMag’s investigation, they found that among several major smartphones (the iPhone 5, 4S and 4; Samsung Galaxy S III and HTC One S), the iPhone 5 was the worst offender of this type of lens flare.
Should you be concerned? No. It may happen, it may not, but there is zero reason to rush back to the Apple Store and swap out your handset if you see a purple halo in a photo.

Light Leak on White Model

Light leakage on the iPhone 5. Image: BGR

Macrumors forum member Leotno wrote, “My phone has a streak of light leaking from in-between the glass panel and the structure; it is right under my lock button. Kinda makes the lock button look illuminated. Anyone else notice a problem like this?” Light leakage seems to be a fairly common issue for white handsets — iPhone 4S owners reported a similar thing last year. Others that noticed similar issues with light leaking on their iPhone 5′s took their handset to the Apple Store and were issued a replacement.
If you notice this defect and it bothers you, you can try swapping out your handset, or you can just learn to ignore it.

Screen glitching

One issue that I and others are experiencing is an odd screen glitching that usually happens when you’re putting in your Apple ID password. As you type, horizontal lines appear across the keyboard. I mostly saw this in the App Store app.
Videos documenting the issue have appeared on YouTube, if you haven’t noticed it yourself. But despite headlines like “BIG iPhone 5 Screen Issue,” the glitch is just a minor software problem that should be fixed in an upcoming iOS update. It doesn’t affect overall performance, and it’s not something you need to drag yourself to the Genius Bar about.
Even with early reviews pointing out some of these issues, it hasn’t affected iPhone sales momentum. Apple reportedly sold 5 million units during the iPhone 5′s opening weekend alone.

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter

Whether you’re trying to survive an intensive college schedule or just want to seem smarter in front of your friends, you can do a lot of things to both look and be smarter. Here are ten simple tricks for boosting your real (and perceived) brain power.

10. Read Faster and Better

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
Obviously, one of the best ways to boost your intelligence is to read more! You can read faster (and thus consume more knowledge) by getting your speech mechanism out of the equation. So give your mouth something to do, like eating, humming, or chewing gum to get through that stuff quickly. Then, take some time to absorb and reflect on what you read to keep it in your memory. Whether it’s War and Peace or just the Wikipedia Random button, you’ll be surprised by how much more you learn when you’re reading not just fast, but well. Photo by Zitona.

9. Speak Up (and Do It With Expression)

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
The more you can contribute to a conversation, a meeting, or other discourse, the smarter you’ll come off. Even if it means admitting ignorance or asking questions, you’ll still look better than if you stay silent—and you might actually learn something in the process. Expressive speech is key: you can boost your credibility a lot by simply making sure you speak with an engaging tone. Change your pitch and volume as necessary, and try to minimize the number of pauses as you speak. A little confidence goes a long way. Photo by MagneticNorth.

8. Don’t Fall Prey to BS

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
When someone’s trying to convince you of something, they can often resort to logical fallacies, appeals to your emotion, and other “workarounds”. Learn the most common forms of BS so you can detect them as they come up. By knowing what they are, you’ll also be able to avoid dishing out those same fallacies yourself, which can be a big hit to your credibility if someone catches you. Image remixed from Evan Vucci (AP) and Pablo Martinez Monsivals (AP).

7. Focus on What You Know

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
When engaged in a heated discussion with your friends, you’re bound to stumble upon a few holes in your knowledge. It’s okay to admit when you don’t know something, but if you’re feeling particularly self-conscious and want to keep up the appearance of intelligence, the key is emphasizing what you do know. If you’re in an argument, don’t stress disagreement so much as agreement—that way, you aren’t straying away from things you know about. You’re stressing the parts you do know while still taking part in the discussion. Photo remixed from originals by auremar and artenot (Shutterstock).

6. Get Some Exercise

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
A healthy body means a healthy brain. So, in between all the reading and mind-expanding, make sure you’re leading a healthy physical life, too. That means eating right and getting regular exercise. A number of studies. have shown links between regular activity and intellecual capacity, productivity, and creativity. Will spending all day at the gym make you smarter? Not quite, but sitting around all day will not only kill you, but hinder your brain from being at its absolute best.

5. Talk to Yourself

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
While mumbling to oneself is often looked at the behavior of a crazy person, a recent study showed that talking out loud to yourself can help give you a temporary cognitive boost when trying to find something. The theory behind it: when you give yourself verbal labels to a task you’re performing, you focus better on the task at hand at any given moment. So when you feel the need to open your mouth, don’t fight the urge—it might help you get things done faster. Photo by atomicjeep.

4. Learn a Second Language

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
People who know a second or third language are often perceived as smart by others, but research shows that it can actually make you smarter, too. If you know a second language, you’re able to adapt to and switch between certain mental tasks better than those that only know one, so if you want to give your brain a real boost, learning a new language is a real (and useful!) way to do so. It’s not actually hard to do, either: all you need is this simple four step method to learn in just a few months.

3. Do Things the Hard Way

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
Technology really has made our lives easier (after all, that’s what Lifehacker’s all about), but sometimes it’s worth doing things the hard way. Take GPS navigation, for example: it’s great that you can essentially never get lost, but if you rely on it too much, you’ll never truly learn your way around. Instead, wean yourself off your GPS dependency and actually learn your way around town, develop a sense of direction, and learn to navigate using your brain. Doing things the hard way can help keep your brain sharp, so don’t be afraid to forgo the easy stuff once in a while. Photo by Ramunas Geciauskas.

2. Know What Won’t Make You Smarter

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
There’s a lot of work going into researching what makes us smarter—much of which we’ve mentioned here—but it’s also important to know what won’t make you smarter. Check out our list of nine stubborn brain myths that just won’t die to see just a few examples, like “the internet is making us dumber” (it isn’t, if you use it properly), “listening to classical music makes children smarter” (unlikely), or that “brain games make you smarter” (don’t waste your time). The less time you spend on silly myths, the more time you can spend actually expanding your brain, so get these out of your system now. Photo by Igor Nazarenko (Shutterstock).

1. Just Believe You Can Be Smarter

Top 10 Ways to Make Yourself Look (and Be) Smarter 
The last step? Just believe you can be smarter. Studies have shown that this simple belief can actually make it true. That isn’t to say you should be pompous: you need to assume you aren’t that great yet, which will leave you open to learning new things and asking new questions—the exact sort of things that can make you smarter. But it’ll never happen if you believe your intelligence is somehow fixed, so once that roadblock is gone, you may find you’re much freer to pursue the level of intelligence you want. If you’re having trouble doing that, it may be time to recalibrate your reality—attitude is everything. Title image remixed from Alberto Zornetta (Shutterstock) and Petr84 (Shutterstock).