Your Tech Weblog

Phone overheats when it, like, gets hot, duh

I was on a beach outing with my family and my loaner iPhone 3GS the other day when I glanced at the phone’s display and saw the ominous message embedded here.

It was the first time I had seen that scary-looking screen. But, as it happened, I had left the handset in direct sunlight on a superhot day.

So, my reaction was, “Like, duh, of course the iPhone just overheated. Be more careful from now on.”

I tucked the iPhone into one of my backpack’s outer pockets to cool down and, when I checked on the device a half hour later, it was working just fine – and has worked perfectly ever since.

I wasn’t surprised, therefore, when Apple this week released an iPhone advisory about this very issue.

However, this has since seemingly been misconstrued by some to be an Apple admission of an iPhone-overheating problem. Nonsense, says CNET, in a piece titled, “iPhone heat issue much ado about nothing.”

I agree.

Update: Are iPhones burning up in the infernos of processor overtaxation, or is it all a big misunderstanding? (Engadget)

iPhone 3GS killer feature: Far-better camera

I am delighted with Apple’s just-released third-generation iPhone, and especially with one of its marquee features: an upgraded still camera that also shoots video.

This makes the iPhone 3GS one of the big reasons to spend extra moolah for an Apple handset instead of going for a deal; a version of the second-generation 3G version of the iPhone is still being sold for $99. (Read my iPhone 3GS review.)

I’ve been snapping lots of pictures and videos with my 3GS loaner and I generally like the results, especially compared with the much-crappier photos I have taken with the 3G’s camera.

Resolution has been upped from 2 to 3 megapixels, and still imagery looks nicer overall. And in a twist, settings such as focus and white balance can be adjusted with touch-screen taps. If you want to focus on something in the foreground, just touch that part of the screen. There’s even a macro feature for up-close shooting.

As for video, I am thrilled to have the option of capturing moving pictures on a moment's notice, with the device that is already in my pocket at all times. The quality of my iPhone clips is surprisingly decent. Parents in the market for an Apple phone should definitely go 3GS; I’ve taken lots of shots of my kid already.

See above and below for examples of still and moving images I've recorded. I uploaded the videos to YouTube directly from the iPhone, which is a terrific trick. Uploading videos and photos to Apple’s MobileMe is another option. I'd like to see more options -- especially uploading to the popular Flickr and Facebook.

St. Paul tech expert finds DTV “dead spots”

Digital broadcast television is all about reception.

To get over-the-air channels in standard or high definition, you need a properly deployed antenna. Other factors, such as your geographical location and any physical obstructions in your vicinity, can affect your reception.

I’ve been lucky in this regard. In three locations in or near downtown St. Paul, I have been able to pull in most or all available digital channels using a low-cost indoor Radio Shack antenna hooked up to a low-cost digital-converter device or a plug-in computer tuner.

As a result, I’ve become a big fan of free high-def TV as an alternative to costly cable. (You can read about all my DTV adventures, among other DTV-transition topics, in articles and posts here or here.)

But not everyone sees such good results, as you would have gathered from this blog post and this related article. Some people may need fancier antennas and may still see issues, especially if they’re on the outer fringes of the Twin Cities.

Even in the heart of the Twin Cities, close to Shoreview television transmitters, many will have reception issues. This can be due to signals bouncing around in areas with lots of buildings close together. Those near hills can have reception interference, as well, with their direct line of sight to the transmitters blocked.

Stephen Margolis has seen this first-hand. The retired electrical engineer has spend a lot of time driving around with digital-television equipment in his trunk, just to see how DTV reception fairs in different places. I mentioned him in this article.

Margolis’ recent testing has revealed several problem areas in the east metro. He writes:

I suspect that the dead zones in St. Paul are:

Readers give me an earful on digi-TV issues

Hoo-boy. When I asked local antenna-TV users how they were coping with the digital-television transition, I got an earful.

These are all people with whom I’ve corresponded in the past about antennas, digital-converter boxes for old analog TVs, and the like.

The question I posed: Are you getting all your channels via over-the-air DTV since the June 12 transition occurred?

Many said they were having no problems. Many others said they were having issues.

Here’s a Pioneer Press article that quotes some viewers, but I had more material than I could use for the story. Here’s some of those extra e-mails:

Penny: No I'm not and I'm really annoyed. I live in Cathedral Hill if that makes a difference. I bought a new TV, I bought a new antenna that needs to be plugged in. I followed your sage instructions to add a longer cable. Yet when I get the "No Signal" display for a station that I could get perfectly the night before, I'm doing the antenna dance around my condo to find stations. Reception seems to correlate to the weather conditions (really bad with rain).  As you mentioned, it's not unusual to be watching a show and the pixelation comes out of nowhere and then it's time to wave the antenna around searching (hoping) for a signal. My neighbor across the hall has the same complaints.

Quick test of iPhone 3GS-exclusive features

The big event known as “Jesus Phone: The Third Coming” is now over, and I have a handset to play with for a while.

As I used the iPhone 3GS today, I was particularly interested in features specific to the device since I have already put the new iPhone 3.0 software through its paces on an iPod Touch.

The 3GS-exclusive features include:

Internal compass. Big whoop. It’s pretty, and it works. Next! All kidding aside, I look forward to apps that put this compass capability to creative use.

Voice control. I was initially befuddled about how to access the new iPhone’s much-ballyhooed voice-recognition features; a friend reminded me that I have to press down the phone’s one physical “home” button for a few seconds.

I promptly ran into a problem; the phone wouldn’t respond to my voice prompts.

Turns out the earbuds I was using, Atomic Bass models from Radius Products, flat-out would not work with the iPhone 3GS (for calls or anything else). The basic buds that ship with the iPhone, as well as a pair of fancier Apple In-Ear Models, did function just fine.

The iPhone was pretty good at understanding my requests to call people in my address book, but tended to mangle Latino surnames.

Just for the record, my surname is not pronounced Oh-JAY-dah-ZAP-ah-tah, and that of my high-school chum Julio Sanjurjo is not pronounced San-JOOR-joe. Trust me on this, Apple.

The voice that reads back the names sounds vee-eery familiar; that’s right, I’ve heard her before.

Also, as the esteemed Chris Breen of Macworld points out, voice-controlling iPod items doesn't work very well. This is disappointing since Apple's touch-screen handhelds have always struck me as clunkier-to-use than the ones with physical click wheels. I had hoped the voice features would remedy this; seemingly no.

Video camera. The iPhone now shoots video, and even lets you edit it before sharing it online. Apple has made all of this drop-dead simple. I was shooting video with just a few taps, and could trim my recorded footage via a couple of touch-controlled sliders.

Uploading to YouTube was then a breeze, and didn’t take very long at all. My attempts to publish video via Apple’s own MobileMe didn’t go as well. Upload attempts seem to work as intended, but the footage never showed up online.

E-mailing the footage did go fine. This is going to be a hoot; brace yourself for gazillions of kid vids, Mom.

A quieter iPhone debut after two noisy ones

The first iPhone release two years ago caused near-hysteria at local Apple Stores.

The iPhone 3G release last year also had long lines, along with horrendous technical problems for those buying and trying to set up their second-generation handsets.

This year?

Lines were much, much shorter (due in large part to those who were able to order their iPhones online, I'm sure), and there were apparently few technical problems for those activating their shiny new Apple phones.

I had no trouble getting going with an iPhone 3GS loaner I picked up at the Mall of America's Apple Store.

Fewer than 100 queued up at the megamall, but I'm told 200 or more were lined up at the Rosedale Apple Store. My pal Mark Fawcett snapped the picture above.

I took this sample video with my iPhone, uploaded to YouTube from the handset with absolutely no trouble:

Here's a Texas report from my Houston Chronicle counterpart Dwight Silverman. (He's boycotting the space between "3G" and "S" and I'm joining his revolution. ¡Que viva la revolución, carajo!)

Here are tweets from iPhone buyers at various locations around the Twin Cities a bit earlier this morning:

dmesserly: I arrived at 6:45 - probably 200 here already? No rioting so far. Concierges serving coffee to people in line.

dmesserly: My 3GS is setup and synced. *NO* problems or hitches buying, activating or syncing.  Entire process = totally slick.  AMAZING

joshlewis: In and out of the AT&T store in 8 minutes with my new white 32GB iPhone. Who's got two thumbs and is a happy boy? This guy!!

joshlewis: New white iPhone 3G S, I dub thee "Kubrick." You shall replace my 2G iPhone "Monolith." Also, I wonder how long I can keep that trend up.

Update: Getting more reports from local iPhone buyers via tweets, DMs and e-mail. They report short lines, smooth transactions, painless activations.

Update: My friend Mark Fawcett told that he lamented how quickly and smoothly iPhone purchases went this year.

He liked the long lines and endless waiting of past years because he could hang out with his fellow Apple fanatics during their little "tech Woodstocks." He bought pizzas to share, and passed out decks of playing cards.

This year, he took along a little projector for use with his iPhone so he could have a movie showing. Alas, there was no time.

iPhone 3.0 software works well except for…

Like other Apple fiends, I pounced on today’s iPhone 3.0 update as soon as it became available. The software adds features to existing iPhones and phone-less iPod Touch devices; I am using one of the latter and the new OS works well on it.

Cut/copy/paste is a delight. Global searching works like a dream. The new, wider landscape keyboard in the mail program is a huge relief. A YouTube-app update finally gives me mobile access to my saved faves featuring Obama, Leo Laporte, sumo wrestlers, singing hamsters and dancing Thai girls (SFW).

But I quickly ran into several problems.

One new feature, mobile downloads of movies and TV shows via the iTunes app, didn’t work properly for me. I could never fully download Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino,” and repeated attempts to finish the transfer generated an error message. As someone who loves iTunes-purchased movies, I found this hugely frustrating.

I also wanted to try a find-my-device feature for pinpointing the location of a lost iPhone or iPod Touch over the Internet. This requires use of Apple’s MobileMe service, which has to be set up on the device. The gizmo is then registered with MobileMe on a computer. The hitch? I couldn’t get access to it on my MacBook.

Argh.

Well, this week’s rollout of new iPhone software does appear to be going more smoothly than last year’s rocky deployment. But some users are complaining about error messages that keep them from accessing Apple’s activation server.

Today’s iPhone-software update is a prelude to Friday’s release of the iPhone 3G S, which incorporates all the new software features along with several exclusive goodies such as voice-control features, an internal compass and an improved camera with camcorder capability. It’s supposed to be much, much faster, too.

Update: See more reports of iPhone 3.0-updating issues here, here and here.

Update: Here are tips for working through the activation issues (via Mashable).

Update: My incomplete "Gran Torino" download now won't even respond to retry-attempt taps; it's frozen. Argh.

Update: I finally got that Find my iPhone feature to work. Once my iPod Touch was duly registered with MobileMe, I could request a location update on my Mac. Imprecise at first, placing my device well to the west of my Pioneer Press desk (see first map below), it went through a location-refinement routine and eventually nailed my spot (second map). Nice.

I then was able to send the Touch a message (“Yo, Adrian!”) and even to use a Remote Wipe feature to erase the device and restore it to factory settings. This comes in handy if an iPhone or Touch is stolen.

Update: Uh oh, did Remote Wipe just brick my Touch? It won't turn on, except to flash the white Apple logo for a couple of seconds. Alarmed.

Update: Ah, this got me back in business.

Some Minnesotans are struggling with DTV

As expected, some Minnesotans aren’t too happy with the digital-TV transition.

For such people in and around the Twin Cities, reception is the key issue. They are trying to pull in all available digital channels using their antennas and digital converters hooked up to their older TVs, but having difficulties even after doing a required channel-rescan procedure.

Here are two such e-mails I’ve received since the DTV-transition late Friday night:

From Cindy: We were getting all the digital channels with our converter boxes prior to June 13th. Upon rescanning this weekend, we are unable to get KMSP at all. We are located between Somerset and Hudson, and have two different converters on two separate TVs, with two different antennas. Cannot get 9 now on either after the rescan.

We also rescanned my mother in laws, she got all the channels before. Now she cannot get nine on either of her TVs, one with digital converter, the other built in digital tuner. We also had trouble getting 11 to come in. She is in between Somerset and Osceola.

From Linda: I read your article in the Sunday Pioneer Press.  I'm wondering how many people you interviewed and where do these people live?

I live in Western Wisconsin along the Mississippi River, a little south of Red Wing, MN. The digital conversion has been a nightmare for us. We have one HDTV. It does not work very well. We bought a new antenna, added an amplifier and bought converter boxes for the remaining TV's in the house. If the wind blows at all, we get no reception. We cannot get Channel 4 at all….Yes, TV as we knew it is over. The good old days were a vast improvement over the current digital system.

Digital-TV transition: analogcalypse it’s not

Broadcast TV has gone all-digital in the metro area with scant pain, though stations and community organizers are reporting a surge in calls from those having a bit of trouble leaving the analog-TV era behind.

The end of analog broadcasts in the metro area around midnight Friday was part of a nationwide digital-television transition that has reportedly gone smoothly.

Still, several hundred calls came into sister stations KMSP, channel 9, and WFTC, channel 29, on Saturday morning as viewers sought help with digital tuning.

Some didn’t realize they had to rescan for channels on digital converters hooked to their old analog sets after a few local stations changed digital frequencies, said KMSP and WFTC general manager Carol Rueppel.

Others in the Twin Cities were having antenna problems. Digital tuning occurs on both the VHF band (with lower channel numbers, such as 4 and 5) and UHF band (with higher numbers, like 29). Some television viewers discovered their incomplete or damaged antennas couldn’t do both, said Jim du Bois of the Minnesota Broadcasters Association.

Call volume at other local stations was lower. WCCO, channel 4, received only a handful of calls and sent some staff home, said assignment editor Jordan Steward. KARE, channel 11, saw several dozen calls on Saturday morning, said Jeff Phillips, vice president of technology and operations.

The digital-TV transition in the Twin Cities was “not armageddonish in the least,” said du Bois.

Watch analog era end on WCCO and KARE

Here are two more looks at the end of regular analog-TV broadcasts in the Twin Cities around midnight last night.

My pal Mike Evangelist recorded these on two Macintosh computers using Elgato EyeTV tuners hooked up to two antennas (Mike, who lives in the east metro, works for Europe-based Elgato).

The KARE clip shows channel 11 going to static on schedule as part of the national transition to all-digital broadcast TV.

The WCCO clip shows channel 4 switching to DTV informational programming, one of two stations in this market to do so (the other is KSTP, channel 5).

Note the text crawls during both broadcasts as the seconds counted down to the DTV-transition deadline.

Thanks, Mike!

It's done: Analog TV is mostly no more here

Well, it's done. Analog TV is (nearly) no more in the Twin Cities.

Most metro channels, including KARE, channel 11, and KMSP, channel 9, have gone to static. WCCO, channel 4, and KSTP, channel 5, are keeping their analog signals alive for a while to provide DTV-education content for analog-TV laggards.

KSTP, though, had a bit of trouble tonight: The DTV-info visuals kicked in, but "According to Jim" remained audible for several minutes. The audio went dead momentarily, then the DTV-info audio finally, fully kicked in.

I’ll post video of this in a while.

Now I have to go do channel rescans on all the devices I use for digital reception (including an old tube TV with a converter box, and a couple of Macs with Elgato EyeTV tuners) since a bunch of local channels have changed frequencies.

Update: As expected, a number of local digital channels have disappeared when I try to access them with a converter box attached to an old analog TV. Stations that have changed digital frequencies include KSTP, KMSP, KARE and WFTC.

So I had my converter do a full channel rescan and (drum roll) all the channels are back. KARE reception is terrible, though; the others look fine.

Update: I just attempted a digital-channel rescan with an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid plugged into an Apple MacBook and had better luck. It pulled in all major local stations, including KARE. I’m very impressed, @eyetvevangelist.

Update: I shot this video as the digital transition happened in the Twin Cities, focused on on WCCO (channel 4), KSTP (channel 5) and KARE (channel 11).

Channels 4 and 5 were supposed to switch from normal analog broadcasts to DTV-education content, but KSTP had those audio issues while WCCO was a teeny bit late in making the switch. KARE went to static as planned.

DTV-info spot in grimace-inducing Spanish

If you are a native Spanish speaker, proceed with caution. Please vacate your mouth of any liquids, lest you splurt them all over your computer screen. You have been warned.

KMSP-TV in the Twin Cities late tonight suspended regular programming on its analog-broadcast channel. It began looping the public-service message above in the final hours leading up to a complete analog switchoff (part of the national digital-television transition).

I'm not sure if KSMP produced this bilingual segment in-house or got it from another source but, lordy, I wish the content creator had picked its Spanish speakers a bit more carefully.

If you speak Spanish, you are now wincing, moaning or laughing uncontrollably. I warned you.

Note: The bad video quality is due to poor analog reception via an inexpensive indoor antenna (hooked up to my MacBook and Elgato EyeTV tuner for digital recording) and is not the fault of the content creator.

Update: KMSP (and WFTC, a Fox-owned sister station that also broadcast the DTV promo) is off the hook.

The bilingual video came from the Minnesota Broadcasters Association and made available to local stations, some of which used this earlier. For the Spanish, the MBA hired a couple of local narrators. Nice try, no cigar.

DTV transition sparks interest but not panic

Twin Cities Public Television braced for bedlam Friday morning when it turned off its analog broadcasts as part of a long-anticipated national transition to all-digital TV.

The flood of calls from frantic viewers never came. TPT received only about 20 between 9 a.m., when analog service ended, and 5 p.m., said Glenn Fisher, executive vice president of broadcast services.

“This tells me the majority of people who rely on over-the-air broadcasts” to get TPT shows “are prepared,” Fisher said. “As an event for us, this was sort of a nonevent.”

Demand for information about the transition did spike elsewhere on Friday, just prior to other metro-area stations halting traditional analog programming (most of the area broadcasters scheduled this between 9 p.m. and midnight).

Calls to a Best Buy digital-TV hotline spiked Friday after rising steadily over the course of the week, according to spokesman Justin Barber. “Phones have been ringing off the hook” with inquiries about digital prepareness, he said.

More than 500 people showed up at DTV-education event in Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park on Friday afternoon to learn about converter boxes that hook up to old analog TVs, and to get help ordering federal converter-box coupons, according to organizer Amalia Deloney of the Minneapolis-based Main Street Project.

DTV-assistance workers expect high demand for information and technical help today, when some with older TVs will see their screens reduced to static.

Update: Here are photos of the Powderhorn Park event, courtesy of the Main Street Project’s Facebook page. The group is also tweeting.

Twitter is a great way to keep track of the DTV transition; see links to several relevant Twitter searches at the bottom of this page.

TPT ends analog-TV era with classy sendoff

I just watched a a bit of television history.

Twin Cities Public Television’s analog channel 2 has just faded to static as part of a long-anticipated transition to all-digital broadcast television across the country.

TPT chose to end its analog broadcasts at 9 a.m. even though other stations in the metro area are doing so shortly before midnight.

It did so in a classy way, with a goodbye video narrated by Bill Schrankler, who was the the first person on air in 1957, on what was then known as KTCA. As a TPT staffer explained in an e-mail:

Bill Schrankler is a retired St. Paul Public School teacher who was the host of the first program aired on the very first day that Channel 2 began regularly scheduled programming in September of 1957. Bill taught the on-air course "Exploring Science" for two years, three days a week, with all shows live. 

I ran across Bill a few years back and remembered his connection to early Channel 2. In 2007 when we celebrated our station's 50th birthday we had him on Almanac.

When we were kicking around ideas for who to do the sign off on Friday, I instantly thought of him. Bill is a sweet, unassuming guy who dedicated his life to teaching kids science. When he retired he started his own company "Mad Science" that continued teaching kids. Along the way he became an unlikely TV pioneer.

See the Schrankler video at tpt.org.

Here's video I shot of the actual TPT analog signoff:

Here's the Schrankler video, ripped from a disc TPT gave me:

Update: TPT on Friday morning was not swamped with calls following the analog switchoff, receiving only about 20 calls by 5 p.m. (the station first told me it was 30 by noon, and later corrected itself). Most callers wondered why the switchoff had not occurred  at midnight, when other stations are turning off their analog transmissions. A few had questions about setting up converters and antennas, according to a spokesman.

Update: Wow, seriously flattered that the New York Times linked to this post.