TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that’s why we have them forums!). Today’s question comes from Brenden:

quick question – are you still hearing about widespread reception issues with the iPhone 3G? I bought one and took it back because of poor reception, but i’m considering getting one again if the reception issues are fixed ..

TiPb Answers, after the jump!

There hasn’t been nearly the outcry about reception problems, or network connectivity problems since Apple released firmware 2.1. Your carrier and the region you’re in, however, could play a roll in the ultimate equation.

Anyone else having reception problems under 2.1? If so, what carrier and area are you in? Please let us, and Brenden, know!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Answers: iPhone 3G Still Having Reception Problems?

While this might be iPhone 101 to some, Apple pretty much snuck this feature into their 2.0 firmware, and while we’re now at 2.1, not everyone may yet know that they can capture their iPhone screen contents with just the touch of a button — well, two buttons actually.

To take a screenshot with your iPhone or iPod Touch, just press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time. On 2.0, the screen will flash white, while with 2.1, you’ll also get the camera shutter sound, and your screen will be captured.

To access your screenshots go to Photos and on the iPhone, look in Camera Roll, while on the iPod Touch, check out Saved Photos. (see, poetically, screenshots after the jump!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

How To: Take a Screenshot With the iPhone

Reader Karl writes in to let us know his twelve year old son discovered a glitch in SMS security:

Being security conscious he turned on the passcode lock and disabled SMS Preview. [...] If a message is received during the passcode entry or while the screen is locked, a generic message of “New Text Message” appears, to prevent viewing of messages without unlocking the phone. [...] If however the phone is placed in emergency call mode, any incoming SMS messages are previewed instead of presented as the generic messages.

Next comes two issues concerning the implementation choices Apple made in the iPhone Mobile Mail client. According to Ars Technica, as disclosed by Aviv Raff, the first involves the way Mail truncates URLs for display on the iPhone. If a malicious URL is properly crafted by an attacker, the truncation can cause a fake URL to be non-obvious to the users, and thus more likely to result in phishing.

The second results from the lack of an option to display images in the full HTML Mobile Mail client. Since images are automatically displayed, spammers can gain confirmation that the email account that received it is active and ripe for spam attack.

As always, malicious attacks evolve and propagate at an alarming rate, and while we hope Apple fixes these immediately if not sooner, the onus is ultimately and always on we end users to pay attention and do everything we can to avoid them.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone 2.1 Bug Watch: SMS Security and Mail Phishing/Spamming

Since upgrading to iPhone firmware 2.1, from time to time my camera preview — and the pictures themselves — have taken to breaking apart and re-arranging themselves into something pretty much unusable (though likely to fetch a pretty penny at the snootier, more vacuous galleries, no doubt).

The above picture was of a plain surface, now broken into a patchwork of planes. Happens with faces, people, and just about everything. It’s not happening regularly enough, however, that I’m close to considering the nu-cu-lar option — full on restore.

Anyone else having this problem?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Got Camera Problems with iPhone 2.1?

Is it possible that web apps can return from the dead? It seems to me that the 2.0 firmware pretty much buried the poor web apps six feet under. Even if they are not used nearly as often since we have 3rd party apps along with the App store, it seems as if Apple are quietly tweaking the iPhone for them.

According to a reader over at AppleInsider.com:

One unpublicized feature introduced by Apple’s latest iPhone software updates is the ability save Web Apps to the home screen and have them launch in full-screen mode without the Safari wrapper, essentially mimicking the experience of a native app.

The reader also notes that the capability is “only present in Web applications specifically authored to include the full-screen code”. Pretty clever trick Apple. But is this enough for you to start using web apps again? Or have you never given up on them even though we have the App Store?

We here at TiPb are curious what you think, sound off in the comments!

[Via AppleInsider]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Return of the Web Apps?

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that’s why we have them forums!). Today’s question comes from Brandon:

I think it was universally acknowledged that September was when Apple promised is background notifications for the iPhone 2.x. September has come and gone and I don’t know about you guys but I still don’t have background notifications on my iPhone. Would be nice if you guys posted something busting apple’s 3@!!$ for missing the date and hoping we wouldn’t notice. I think alot of people like myself bought iPhones with the promise of these notifications in mind.

TiPb answers, after the jump!

We posted about the lack of push-notification when it disappeared from 2.1 Beta 4, and again when it didn’t show up in 2.2.

However, our take is that 2.0.x was so beset with bugs, that Apple had to focus on stability first, and then worry about new features later.

We think Apple was humbled on July 11th, and they’ve chosen to take some extra time with Push Notification and get things right, rather than rush out new, likely buggy features just to make self-imposed deadlines. (Do we really want a Push Notification Service as broken as MobileMe was at launch? Hopefully not!)

Of course, TiPb would love us some working Notifications, so we really do hope we get them — stable and properly polished — in 2.2.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Answers: Should Apple Have Released Push Notification Services with iPhone 2.1?

As opposed to “push” style ActiveSynch, MobileMe, or Yahoo! iPhone mail, traditional POP or IMAP accounts, like Gmail or ISP mail, needs to “fetch”, or check the server on a certain schedule to see if there are new messages.

Reader Mike wrote in pointing us to a thread on the Apple Discussion Forums about “fetch” email being broken with iPhone 2.1. I only fetch mail from Gmail, and Gmail IMAP is a strange and buggy implementation which gives me considerable problems beyond the iPhone, so I can’t say whether anything is really broken or not in 2.1.

Reader Steffen, however, after thinking the problem could just be undocumented IMAP IDLE behavior, decided to run some tests:

Finally, I had some time to look into this thorougly. I dumped IP traffic all night to see what iPhone does. My iPhone is set to retrieve data every hour. Here’s when the iPhone actually connected to my IMAP server:

09:36 PM, 10:44 PM, 11:02 PM, 12:36 AM, 06:36 AM, 09:38 AM, 09:45 AM, 09:57 AM

Looks like everything but an hour to me… Oh yeah, forgot to mention… I’ve turned off everything except for GSM radio do be sure to get all traffic. The last three connections occurred when I started to play around with the iPhone this morning. So, the effect that lead me to the assumption of IMAP-IDLE on the iPhone seems to be something else. It appears that the iPhone will contact IMAP more often while using it and somehow random while idling… So, no IMAP at this time, but maybe interesting as well…

Definitely interesting! Thanks Steffen!

Any other readers out there got “fetch” problems? Wacky behavior? Please let us know!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Got “Fetch”? POP/IMAP Email Broken in iPhone 2.1?

Today on the forums we have a couple of newly started threads that you should enjoy. There has been a lot of talk about jailbreaking lately with the new QuickPwn’s released for both Mac and Windows. Have you given jailbreaking a try? Let us know in this thread.

Most everyone who has a iPhone has it protected in some way, shape or form… Rene wants to know, “To Case or Not to Case?”. What’s your style?

I really like having the auto correction feature on the iPhone. If it tries changing a word you just tap the “x” on that word and it goes away. Tap it 3 times and it will never predict that word again. Simple right? Well someone has started an online petition for Apple to disable auto-correction. Yes, you heard right… check it out.

Last we have a thread that revolves around the 2.1 firmware. The dust has now settled and I know what some of my favorite features are, how about you? Let us know!

As always, you can sign up for our forums here! It’s simple to register and it’s free!

See you on the forums!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Today on the Forums: Jailbreaking? Favorite Feature of 2.1?

About a month ago Dieter reported about a fairly large security flaw in firmware 2.0.2 that gave access to Safari, Email, and a frightening amount of personal data. Apple patched it in 2.1. Or did they?

This could be a flaw, or feature, but it turns out you still have the ability to make a phone call, to any number, while the iPhone is locked with a passcode. Wasn’t the “emergency” call feature meant to call “emergency” numbers such as 911 only?

Apple can you please put this on your “need to fix” list? Thank you!

(Via Macrumors, as discussed way back in 2.0.2 on the forums of iLounge.com)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Emergency Call Security Flaw Persists in iPhone 2.1

Today on the forums we have a few good topics we would encourage you to check out.

First up, is Apple giving us the run around regarding 3G signal strength in firmware 2.1?

Next up we have yet another thread that revolves around which future gadget or device can compete well with the iPhone 3G? We are seeing more and more devices emerge out of the woodwork every day. The latest one being the HTC Touch HD. That looks to be a impressive device to say the least. Competition is a good thing. Remember that.

Then we have a thread started by forum member cjvitek who wants to know how you surf the internet on your iPhone?

Lastly I would like to remind everyone about our Lightning Reviews, keep reviewing all the apps that are released on the App Store for your chance to win a coupon for the TiPb Store! Check them out and post your own!.

So join us in our growing community!

See you on the forums!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Today on the Forums: Got 3G Signal Strength? And How Do You Surf the Net?