iPhone 4S heat and battery issues
I am really enjoying my new iPhone 4S… let’s just get that out of the way… Not as much as when I got my 3G, or when I got my 3GS, but am loving how big of an upgrade it is.
Unfortunately I have been really, and I mean REALLY prevented from truly learning how amazing my new phone is, because I have had the same issue as many others found online, where we are experiencing VERY rapid battery drain, to the point where I measured my losing 2-3% charge [post-calibration] every 5 minutes at idle (no apps running, screen off), not to mention the extreme heat generated. I was even LOSING about 1% charge every 15 mins while plugged into an Apple 10W USB charger (the one that came with my iPad).
Being the methodical son-of-a-bitch that I am, I have been one-by-one disabling first groups of services, and then re-enabling parts of them in order to figure out how correct this distressing issue. I have after days of trial and error found that (at least in my case), that nothing really made a significant difference until I turned off contact sync for iCloud, with all other iCloud services left on using the defaults.
I have turned back on Siri, all push (email and otherwise), notification, and location services, WiFi, bluetooth, and have brightness set to a comfortable 50% with auto-brightness on, so essentially everything BUT iCloud contact sync. (FYI: My other 5 emails are all set up as Active Sync)
The results of working through this process of elimination, I have now reduced my battery consumption to less than 1% battery charge loss (at idle) every 30 minutes, and hope that it may help you as well.
Now I understand that everyone’s setup and experience will be different, but this has been 3 days of me initially freaking out and then finally getting down to methodical testing in order to avoid possibly having to return a faulty phone with extreme overheating and battery problems. I’m not sure what the issue may be, but hope that it’s just a bug, but until it’s all fixed, I can live without iCloud contact sync.
Tim
This morning I received an email from HBO like any other day that they are trying to push their merchandise my way, which is usually about once a week, and since I’ve actually bought something from them in the past, it’s not something that I have too much of an issue with. (This is called “Bacon” by the way… essentially spam that I’ve asked for) This time it had a link to a contest that they are running where you can win a replica of a prop from their latest new show, (a chest of stone “dragon’s eggs” from ‘Game of Thrones’), and I thought, “Why not… they’ve already got my info”.
I click on the link and it opens in my browser to a page that looks just like the normal HBO store… Well, other than the Game of Thrones swag that wasn’t there before of course. I think that it’s maybe where I clicked on the wrong link in the email, and head back to try it again. This time… Same result, so I look at the page and up at the top it says in slightly larger text, “Thank You, for your interest in the HBO shop and the Game of Thrones sweepstakes. Unfortunately the Game of Thrones sweepstakes is open to US entrants only”.
As per usual I think to myself how much I hate when they limit contests to the US (or other region) when sending out emails advertising said contest to people that are known to be out of region thanks to signing up for those emails when purchasing from the online store. It’s not a problem to take my money cross border, but to include in a contest… well THAT’S different. I do say this partly tongue in cheek, as I do know how contest rules can be, and having them cross legal jurisdictions is a nightmare, and the rules for Canadian contests can be more onerous than most US companies are willing to deal with.
But this time I thought differently about the situation. THIS time, I actually appreciated that the notice that I was excluded from the contest popped up… Why you may ask… Well this time, I wasn’t asked to enter in all of my personal information BEFORE being told that I wasn’t eligible. THIS time, I was told right up front, and wasn’t even presented with the entrant form. With out looking at the coding of the page, it’s safe to assume that HBO is using the same IP address Geolocation that is used to tell me that “This video is not available for viewing in your geographic region”, but this message I’m ok with, as it meant that I didn’t waste any time filling out a form, and getting my hopes up about a contest that I wouldn’t be able to enter, let alone win, AND fork over more personal information.
So in short, while disappointed that I’m yet again excluded from a nifty (albeit frivolous) contest, I applaud HBO’s way of managing it, and not just saying that the contest rules are somewhere on the site, if you look hard enough. Only to be told that it’s not available AFTER filling out the form, or being told that a part of the form wasn’t filled out correctly. I strongly believe that more companies should handle this the way HBO did… Unless you’re making open to my region, of course! 
T.
Sick day
Today’s got me thinking; What’s the point of having “sick days” if you are made to feel like you HAVE to come back to work before you’re well enough to not infect everyone when you get there? I see way too many sick people at work these days, and despite my best efforts of scrubbing down my desk with disinfecting wipes, frequently washing my hands, and using hand sanitizer after shaking hands, I still end up getting sick just as would anyone else working in a call center with shared seating.
Last year I took a total of 4 sick days [and that includes the day after I broke both of my wrists walking across the parking lot at work], and when I call in to say that I’m sick, I’m treated like I call in sick every other weekend. I was told that she would have to look into how many days I’ve taken off sick and if I have enough hours, that I’d be covered, but otherwise I’d be unpaid. I’ve only taken 2 sick days prior to today this year, and on both of those days I was asked [by the same supervisor] if it was my 3rd or 4th days that I had called in. I would expect this if I abused the system, but I’m the kind of person who lost some of my unused vacation time last year, because I apparently had too many hours to carry over.
I like working [for the most part], and I hate being sick; and I hate having to call in sick even more. Telling someone on the other end that you are going to be leaving them short for coverage is not something that I feel good about doing, not the least of which for the reason that I get the accusatory tripe from the person on the other end. Apparently this supervisor doesn’t understand that the point of having sick days is to keep sick people out of the “general population” and not get everyone around them just as sick, but rather assumes that people are just trying to get a “free” day off.
I don’t want sick people breathing and coughing all over me when I’m trying to answer their question, and I imagine that the feeling is mutual from the other side. This is not the kind of treatment that I would expect from a company the size of this one.
Now I’m sitting here writing this after several failed attempts to get back to sleep, while on some pretty powerful drugs, with a runny nose, stuffed up sinuses, aches & pains, sore throat, cough, and can’t hear out of my right ear. But don’t worry supervisor team… even if I have to be high as a kite, and wearing a face mask, I’ll be back in tomorrow.
Apple got hacked a little while ago… Well not so much hacked as much as was exploited as the ultimate target of a likely spearfishing/brute-force password guessing attack. The purpose of this attack was to have a single individual’s app-store offerings take up 42 of the top 50 paid apps in the ebook category. While this in and of itself is fairly significant, especially since it involved so many people having their iTunes accounts compromised, and their money being used to fraudulently prop up a criminal’s attempt to get on top of a list.
So while this sucks all around… It has caused Apple to do what corporations do best, overreact.
This particular overreaction takes the form of having to sign in to download an app/song/video/book via iTunes, then get pulled out of the process to a page that has you once again sign in to re-verify your account information (specifically your credit card’s CCV2 number) then you get to go back to iTunes and restart your downloads, the whole process taking around 30-45 seconds. Oh, and you have to do this for updates, and FREE content as well. OH… Aaaaaand you have to do this EVERY time that you try to purchase anything on a different device. So far the only things that I have been able to download without this ridiculous dance have been podcasts.
Now I’m the prototypical media consumer/over-user and I have grown to love the polished Apple-bred super-consistent user experience that makes it waaaay too easy to get the apps/content you want, when you want it, wherever you are, and on whatever iTunes platform you happen to be carrying with you. While nearly all of my music/videos are from my CD collection or free video sources, (notably excepting the free tracks at Starbucks, and digital copies from DVD/Blu-Ray discs), it’s things like apps that take my fancy over-priced shiny toys and turn them into useful tools that do what I want, which are what I really want to be able to get at the moment when a particular need arises.
Since I use an iPhone, an iPad, and sync them both to a MacBook, I now find myself thinking “Now which one did I sign in with last?” before I even consider tapping on the store icon/app since this new policy has been implemented. I know that this is just another first-world problem, but I unapologetically live in the first-world, and hate when layers of frustration are added to any workflow, especially when it’s in my personal life; at least at work I get paid to deal with broken processes.
On the upside I have popped into the AppStore FAR less than I did before, only venturing in to check for app updates, or when I hear about an amazing new app. I have no desire to go-in, go-out, go-in, go-over, go out, then finally to wait for the download to complete and install. Those who know me and my recent predilection towards Cupertino designed devices may very well think of me as an Apple fanboy, I’d posit that I’m actually a fanboy for great user experience and few do the experience better than Apple. This is one of the reasons that I’m so disappointed with Apple with this “solution” for a problem that they could have done little to prevent.
What I would liked to have seen is similar to how you can only authorize your iTunes purchases on 5 computers at any given time. Why can’t we associate our IMEIs or WiFi MAC addresses to our accounts as a method to maintain persistent authentication on our mobile devices in order to prevent this? I can’t really say, maybe it will happen in the future, maybe it won’t. I just hope it gets fixed soon.
And this concludes my rant-casting day
Tim
Rogers iPad data plan
So Rogers being the wireless carrier that they are decided to pull the AWESOME, add to my existing data plan for $20, data plan that made me decide on the 3G iPad, and not only did they pull this, but they made a few other changes as well.
Since I couldn’t imagine limiting myself to 250MB in a month, I HAD to get the $35 5GB plan and even though I never come close hitting that 6GB that I’ve got for my iPhone, I’m determined to push it with this device. How would one determine their progress in this endeavor? Simple, get the Rogers My Account app, which is where things get interesting…
When I opened my Rogers app the first time on my shiny new iPad on Friday, it oddly didn’t show anything yet, so I figured I’d leave it for the weekend. When I checked it today I found something strange, in what it says about the “included” data amount. (see below)
Rogers appears to be thwarting my efforts once again… At least until they fix this presumptive “glitch”. (though I hope they make it permanent!)
