Be Excellent To Each Other

Not that I know of, but I got it the other day and it's aces! I'm Jonarob if you want to initiate a game. I'd also like a list of folks to play with, though. Currently I'm playing my girlfriend, Romanista and a bunch of randoms. Also, I'm absolutely certain most of the randoms cheat, because some of the words they come out with don't really tally with their usernames, if you get what I mean. e.g. St4cy4LIFE coming up with XANTHAN or something.

I'm PenLlawen on Words With Friends, but after our chess game, Grim..., I'm not sure I want to play you

The only thing I'll say about Words with friends is that it's probably sensible not to start too many games at once.

There's a the brute force technique which I've used before now - sometimes you get lucky as the dictionary on the game is bizarre and there are some people who play almost entirely using just two or three letters at a time making up words.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/6/18/

According to an email I just got from Tesco, they've sold out. Presumably they sold out between 10 and 10:30 this morning, while I was merrily listening to engaged tones again.

I think I've learned that trying to buy an iphone in the week of its release is more hassle than it's worth.

It is if you wing it. If you plan ahead and reserve one as soon as you possibly can, like a proper nerd, you're fine.

Hitlers take on the new iphone signal problems

4.01 next week, possibly.

Also, another article on how the problem may partly lie in software, due to 3GS phones upgraded to 4.0 suffering from much worse reception: link.

I have failed as a nerd.

I never got the option of reserving with O2 though. I know you could with the Apple store, but am I right in thinking it was only off-contract? Not really up for paying £600 up-front.

No. It wasn't obvious from the order page, but the Apple stores were doing both upgrades and new contracts on Vodafone, O2, and Orange. It's interesting that O2 didn't allow online ordering; you'd think that would be easier for them to manage stock centrally.

Exactly my problem, being on O2. I suppose I could've taken Thursday off work and started queueing up outside my local O2 store at 2am, but the alternative of "leave it a couple of weeks once everyone has stopped being mental and just walk into a shop and buy one without any hassle" was far too enticing.

Ah, hadn't realised that - definite fail on my part then. Still, if I get a reasonably-priced 12-month contract, it'll all have worked out nicely. Eventually.

I wish I'd thought like you in the first place, rather than wasting three mornings in a row trying.

Yep, they offered pretty much everything. I wasn't aware of it until I read the O2 forums, but managed to reserve one straight away when I became aware.

O2 not allowing pre-ordering of any kind was all kinds of sloppy, though. There was no chance I was bothering to just turn up outside a store with no reservation.

It seemed to work out for quite a few people. I'd probably have one by now if I'd have settled for the 16GB.

Apparently there is another problem with the iphoNO SIM DETECTED

I called Carphone Warehouse yesterday and upgraded my girlfriends contract to an iPhone 4 32gb, which is going to arrive on Monday morning. Painfree, hassle free and quick. Easy Peasy!

Just upgraded via O2's customer services. 32gb black iPhone 4 ordered at 11.30 this morning and due to be delivered to Egg Towers tomorrow. Nice and easy. £155 trade in value for my 8gb 3G apparently, that'll help.

The camera on this astounds me in the right conditions. I've had worse from my DSLR at times.

Need to fucking upgrade.

Have to admit, that's a seriously good photo! Nice kitteh too, what's its name?

That's Millie. Fat cat is fat.

So, another mistake was believing O2 when they said (and are still saying on their site) that they're only selling iphone 4s at O2 shops until the end of July.

So did you just phone up and ask to upgrade, or is there some secret bit of their site that I've not found yet?

The Egg found stock of the iPhone on Vodaphone and called O2 for his PAC - it was the Retentions department that sorted him out.

So, any rave reviews of the '4, polo-neck fans?

The Guardian pointed out that nail varnish on the metal strips cures the phone reception problem.
It hadn't occurred to me that it might be uninsulated! No bloody wonder holding it detunes the antenna, what were they thinking.

Who the frig would want to slap nail polish all around their £500 phone?

Someone who just spent £500 on a phone and wants to make a phonecall.

1.7 million sold in three days in US, UK, France, Germany and Japan. By the end of July, will also be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Holy shitballs.

Ah. I called O2 for my PAC today and got offered 300 minutes for the price of 100 minutes (i.e. £30 a month for 18 months), with the phone delivered in 1-2 working days. Decided the data allowance (and contract length, so overall cost) was better with Tesco and turned it down.

Within minutes of the call ending I regretted it (based on them actually having it to deliver in a couple of days and the anti-hassle factor of not changing from O2. So called back, only to be told that a) that offer wasn't possible, as the only offers they (retentions) could make were the same as those on the website anyway, so it would be £35 a month, and b) they were out of stock across the whole of O2 and had been since before the weekend so no offers could be made until they were back in stock and I'd need to call back then. I asked to speak to the person who'd made the offer and was told that wasn't possible as she was in a different call centre and they couldn't dial direct (this is a communications company!). Getting slightly pissed off at being messed about, I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was extremely unhelpful and rude and sounded about 12 (I know that shouldn't matter, but he gave the impression of being a kid out of his depth). He did that customer services thing of not actually accusing me of lying about the offer, but very strongly implying it ("we have no record of that", "that offer is impossible", "you wouldn't have been told that") which did nothing to endear him to me.

Eventually I got the name and extension number of the person I first spoke to but was told again that they couldn't transfer me directly, but that I could keep going back into the queue in the hope of reaching the Preston Brook call centre at which point I could ask to speak to her. After talking to another three or four people, I eventually reached another person at PB who asked what the problem was. I expained and she said she'd check what she could offer me. She came back with the same original offer (300 minutes for the price of 100). At this point I made another stupid mistake and said "Oh I'm glad you said that because the manager said that wasn't possible". So I'm put on hold and then politely informed that she'd made a mistake. She then offered me the same as what's on the website. How long would that take? One moment... oh we're completely out of stock so you'll have to call back another time.

So in all about another hour of my time wasted getting nowhere. Great customer service there O2. Made me all the more determined to leave them (I know Tesco basically are O2, but it's a token gesture).

The Egg, I really hope they were wrong when they told me they'd been out of stock since before the weekend and that yours does actually turn up in a couple of days.

Tesco aren't really O2, they just use the network. You are depriving O2 of income by moving to Tesco.

The Egg's phone was delivered to his neighbour's address earlier, apparently. I think he's away on business though so I don't know if he has it yet.

I guess every little helps.


Ah good (although this does mean I was lied to by them again, so grr!). Top work as The Egg's official spokesman, btw.

Heh. Nokia's dig at the reception problems: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/06/ ... our-nokia/

Except.



Not to excuse Apple, but pot kettle an' all that.

Carcassone is £3, has a free iPad upgrade coming this year, is a slick implementation of the game, and supports network play for four people. Anyone want a game?

I have it. I'll have a game at some point.

Nada. O2 make more money if you go with Tesco.

Don't ask me.

I've got it. I'm shit. Send me an invite.

http://bit.ly/bvFRGY

Really quite credible short video shot and edited on an iPhone 4.

I'm really impressed by the iPhone 4's camera:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardgaywood/4743669722/

Beejive update is out, Doc.

Ooh - ta. Hurrah! Fast switching!

It's dull, but that's quite impressive for a phone (although they suggest the audio needed to use iTunes).
You can see the crane's reflection in the window near the end.

Is it only a housing? It seems to be literally an active part of the antenna, electrically conductive, which you can touch with your hand!

Have you ever seen any other mobile phone or >VHF handheld transmitter with a metal aerial sticking out that you could easily touch? Of course not, it's completely daft!

I remember my Dad's first carphone even had a sticker that was supposed to go near the antenna warning you not to touch it, and it wasn't for the good of the signal strength either, those things kicked out a good few watts.

Really a case of form over function I'm afraid, this one, even if the impact of it isn't huge, those antenna guys must have been pretty down on the idea and the style guys won out.

Nice post man.

I know we've crossed swords before (so I'm not going to kiss your ass for the fun of it ) but that's a fine piece of writing on the subject with some decent testing as well - about the best (on both counts) I've seen with regards to iP4 to date, in fact. Level headed with no histrionics.

I have a invitation to purchase a genuine unlocked UK iP4 locally for £600, which isn't bad considering they're £500 from Apple and a month away, but on this one I think I might wait for a hardware revision.

As much as I love my 3G as a gizmo, I do need it to work completely reliably as a phone as well for work and social requirements (I do 24/7 on-call one week in four, for example) - I don't think the iP4 ticks that box yet......

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/07/ip ... 3g-badass/



LOL.

I mean I dare say it's true if you're wearing gloves...

Could anyone with a Digg account go pimp me please? http://digg.com/apple/More_on_the_iPhone_4_signal_issue

Cheers dude. It's appreciated. It was a lot of work to write.

ENPIMPORED!