Want to pay as little as possible for the newest iPhone 4S? The cheapest place to buy the 4S is at Walmart, so head on over to your local Wally World and you can grab either the black or white iPhone 4S 16GB model for just $188. The deal is valid for either AT&T or Verizon with a two-year contract. The usual price of the iPhone 4S is $199 with a contract and $649 without, making $188 a reasonably decent deal.
A 5% discount is very unusual for a new Apple product, let alone the newest iPhone, which is generally always sold at full price, and as far as we know Walmart is the only retailer in the USA that is selling the iPhone 4S lower than the MSRP. The discounted price is only available in stores, despite the sale price being listed on their website, so unfortunately this means if your local store is sold out then you won’t get the discount until they get more in stock.
If you’re on a modern version of iOS you have easily accessible hourly weather updates on iPhone, but if your iPhone is running a much older version of system software it’s a bit different. Fortunately the weather app in iOS 5 has been improved to include quickly accessible hourly forecasts, in addition to the percentage chance of rain and severe weather, like thunder and snow storms.
Some users are indicating the iPhone 4S battery isn’t lasting as long as expected, this comes alongside separate reports of iOS 5 battery life draining quicker than usual. While some of the 4S battery life complaints could be attributed to the aforementioned iOS 5 issues (most of which are easy to fix by adjusting settings), there could be an even simpler explanation, the battery needs to be calibrated.
In a post comparing the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 battery life, MacRumors reports that calibrating the battery can make a substantial difference in battery life, as “some [iPhone 4S users] have found their battery gauge to be inaccurate until this is performed.”
That recommendation is in line with Apple’s official battery life tips, and they specifically suggest charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down at least once a month:
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
Apple also recommends turning off features within iOS that you don’t use, which we can confirm makes a substantial difference for all iOS devices, not just the 4S.
Of course there could also be some technical reasons that the 4S battery may not last quite as long. The iPhone 4S tech specs show a significantly faster processor and GPU unit, in addition to an improved battery. The added power of the CPU could be impacting battery life, but in real world tests performed by iLounge, the difference is not particularly significant. Specifically, they measured the iPhone 4 and 4S, and found that in many cases the iPhone 4 has slightly better battery life, although they caution that ultimately how long your battery lasts largely depends on how you use it.
Another aspect that could be impacting iPhone 4S battery is the lack of a manual 3G connectivity switch. This only affects some users, but for those in regions with a poor 3G reception, the cycling between 3G and Edge networks can diminish battery performance as the devices baseband attempts to connect to an optimal signal. Typically one can remedy this by disabling 3G within their iOS network settings, but this option is unavailable to 4S users in the current version of iOS 5.0.
Did calibrating the iPhone 4S battery resolve your issues?
The iPhone 5 is scheduled to debut at Apple’s Developer’s Conference in the summer of 2012, and is said to be the last major Apple project that Steve Jobs was deeply involved with. This is according to a report from CNET, who cites a research analyst in addition to their own source on the matter:
[iPhone 5] was the last project that Steve Jobs was intimately involved with from concept to final design. For that reason…this product will establish the high water mark for iPhone volumes,” Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, wrote in a research note this week. He expects the iPhone 5 to be a “cult classic” because of Jobs’ involvement.
The expected feature set falls in line with many of the past iPhone 5 rumors, suggesting the device is a complete redesign which include a slimmer profile, larger screen, and LTE 4G connectivity. CNET’s own source on the next iPhone claims it is:
“a very large project that Steve dedicated all of his time to. He was not that involved in the 4S because his time was limited.”
Even if it didn’t have the center of Steve’s focus or magic touch, the iPhone 4S has been a smash hit for Apple, blowing away the previous record launch of the iPhone 4 with over four million units sold in the first weekend alone.
Have you ever wanted to make the text size on a webpage bigger when you’re reading a web site on an iPhone? Some web pages are easy to read on iPhone, and some are not. If you find font or text sizes in Safari to be maddeningly small for some web pages when you’re reading them on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, you’ll likely appreciate this great tip which shows you how to increase the font size of webpages in Safari with Reader mode.
iOS Safari Reader Mode offers a simple way to increase the font size on just about any web site, web page, web article, or anything else you can see in Safari for iOS. This is a great iPhone and iPad feature for boosting the text size on webpages and it works with most versions of iOS system software as long as they have the Reader function in Safari.
Many users who have upgraded to iOS 5 have noticed decreased battery life, the problem seems to effect iPhone and iPad users the worst, but some iPod touch users have noticed battery reductions as well. Even without heavy usage and when a device is in standby mode, the battery seem to drain much quicker than usual, suggesting something running in the background is causing the battery to drain all the time. Nobody has found the exact problem yet, but we’ve compiled a variety of tips and suggestions that help the battery life issue quite a bit with any iOS 5 device. Try them out and let us know how it goes for you.
Reset Network Settings
Tap on “Settings” > Reset > Reset Network Settings
Disable Bluetooth
Settings > General > Bluetooth > “OFF”
Disable Notifications & Apps in Notification Center
Settings > Notifications > Turn OFF for anything you don’t need
Disable iCloud
Settings > General > iCloud > Turn everything to OFF
Disable Location Services
Settings > Location Services > Disable selectively for services you don’t use
Disable Time Zone Adjustment
Tap on “Settings” > “Location Services” > ‘System Services’ > Setting Time Zone to OFF
Disable Ping
Settings > General > Restrictions > Enable Restrictions > Ping > OFF
Disable Diagnostic & Usage Reports
Tap on “Settings” > General > About > Diagnostic & Usage > Don’t Send
Delete your email accounts by going to “Settings” > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Account Name > Delete Account
Now Reset Network Settings in “Settings > Reset > Reset Network Settings
Reboot the iOS device
Re-add email accounts back in “Settings” > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account
Nuclear Option: Backup & Restore
The nuclear approach is a full restore of your iPhone or iPad, as there are some indications that completely restoring the iOS device can recover battery life quite a bit. If you go this route, be sure to backup your device first, and you can either download iOS 5 IPSW to restore from manually or try the standard iTunes Restore method. Either way you’ll need to then manually restore from the backup you made beforehand after iOS 5 has been re-installed.
I had the most success with disabling bluetooth and resetting network settings and then selectively disabling notifications for things I don’t need, but your mileage may vary. Interestingly enough, the battery issues weren’t present in iOS 5 betas, suggesting that a minor software change caused the battery life to worsen in the final release of iOS 5. Until an official update and fix comes from Apple (iOS 5.0.1?), try these fixes to stop the battery draining, and let us know what works and what doesn’t for you.
Siri, the personal voice assistant that comes with iOS 5 on iPhone 4S, is being ported to both the iPad 2 and iPhone 4. This isn’t official from Apple though – at least not yet – it’s the work of several iOS developers.
First off, it doesn’t quite work yet, but considering the port has only been in progress for a day or two that’s not terribly surprising. Nonetheless, Siri’s UI elements have been successfully loaded onto iPad 2 and iPhone 4, indicating that it should run on both devices if the full port can be completed and some of the technical obstacles overcome.
Siri is most likely to first appear for iPad 2 since the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S share much of the same hardware, specifically the A5 CPU and GPU. You’ll almost certainly need a jailbreak in order to use this, which shouldn’t be challenging considering iOS 5 is jailbroken already, for one to transfer the Siri software over, and also to be able to spoof an iPhone 4S in order to access the Siri servers at Apple. Read more »
The lightly shaded large linen wallpaper from the OS X Lion developer previews didn’t end up being the final shipping version, instead a linen repeating pattern and tile came with the final release of OS X Lion and is still around in Mountain Lion and beyond. This linen tile appears everywhere in new versions of Mac OS X and iOS, whether it’s from Mission Control, to behind Safari windows, the background of Notifications Center on the Mac or NOtifications pulldown on iOS, LaunchPad, iOS folders, and a wide variety of other places. Linen is quite literally everywhere, and if you’d like to add it to even more places here’s how you can get your hands on the repeating tiles yourself. Read more »
This awesome reader-submitted Mac setup features a MacBook Pro 13″ connected to the rotated monitor to the right, the little screen below is a 7″ Mimo display, and the iPad to the left is running AirDisplay. But that’s not all, the 20″ display floating atop them all is hooked to a Mac Mini that rests below the MacBook Pro, and that Mini dual-boots between OS X Lion and Windows XP.
Thanks for sending this in Mike! Submit your own Mac & Apple gear setups to osxdailycom@gmail.com Read more »
Yet another great feature of iOS 5 is the instant camera access from your lock screen. This lets you quickly pull out your iPhone (or iPad and iPod touch of course) and take pictures without having to unlock the iPhone or clicking on the camera app.
Here’s how to use this quick camera access trick in iOS 5 from the lock screen of iPad or iPhone.
New to Mac OS X and iOS is the ability to hide purchases from appearing in the Mac App Store, iOS App Store, and the iTunes Store purchased items lists. This is great if you download tons of stuff but use only a fraction of apps, and you don’t want the other items clogging up your purchase history. It’s also really easy to unhide purchases from all the online stores, and we’ll cover that too.
We already know the iPhone 4S is significantly faster than the iPhone 4 just by looking at the tech specs, but sometimes the best way to see a speed boost is in real world activities like launching apps, browsing the web, and just tapping around in general.
This video shows the two devices side by side doing just that. Everything is quicker, but what really surprised me was how much faster websites load in Safari on the 4S, they appear almost instantaneously.
This reminds me a lot of when the iPhone 3GS came out, and users of the iPhone 3G felt like they had a fast phone… until they saw and used the 3GS, which then became the must-have upgrade. Very tempting upgrade for those who want the quickest iPhone out there.
Update: More videos below, here are 3G speed tests on AT&T with iPhone 4S vs iPhone 4, as well as more wi-fi tests. The 4S is much faster in both cases: Read more »
The hoards of people attempting to activate their brand new iPhone 4S have overloaded AT&T’s activation servers, resulting in some users receiving error messages saying “Could Not Activate iPhone”, followed by the message details:
“Your activation is still pending. You will receive an email notification once your activation is complete.
We’re sorry. There was a problem connecting to the server. Please try again later.”
Making it beyond that, many users are stuck at a screen that simply says “Activation” with the spinning wait cursor, alongside a message of “It may take up to 3 minutes to activate your iPhone.” In some cases, users have reported seeing that message for hours, not just minutes. Even attempting to activate through iTunes can result in the error message.
Possible solutions to “Could Not Activate” iPhone error:
Using your prior iPhone, dial AT&T’s 611 hotline and talk to a human for manual activation
Email AT&T Customer Care directly: attcustomercare@att.com with your account number and contact number and request direct activation
Tweet AT&T Customer Care at @attcustomercare (they will probably tell you to email them)
Simply wait it out and try again later when AT&T’s servers catch up to demand
The activation trouble is reasonably widespread in the USA, and there are multiple growing forum threads on the matter already. Currently, CDMA providers such as Sprint and Verizon do not seem to be undergoing any problems activating phones.
This is the second hiccup this week due to immense demand of Apple’s latest and greatest releases. The first was a series of “internal error” messages related to installing iOS 5, the most prominent being Error 3200 and 3002.
Those who have upgraded to iOS 5 have probably noticed that little Newsstand icon is unable to be moved to a folder, and like all other Apple iOS apps, it can’t be deleted. Well, a little tip from The Coding Massacre has made the rounds that shows us how we can force the Newsstand app into a folder under iOS 5, thanks to a bug in iOS. The downside is that if you then try to access Newsstand, springboard will usually crash.
Due to the buggy nature of this tip, if you have any plans on using Newsstand to read magazines or newspapers on your iPhone or iPad, this is not recommended. Also, you have to be quick.
Grab any two apps and create a new folder, this is where you’ll be storing Newsstand
The moment the apps are moved to the folder and the new folder animation is activated, drag Newsstand into the folder
Assuming you were quick enough, Newsstand will now be in that folder. As previously mentioned, this can often cause unstable behavior when accessing that folder and Newsstand, so don’t be surprised if Springboard (the iOS dashboard) starts crashing afterwards.
It’s a fairly safe bet that iOS 5.1 will fix this bug and allow Newsstand to be moved around without resorting to such tricks.
You probably know by now that pre-orders for iPhone 4S sold out for Apple and all the carriers, meaning there is a several week delay before an order placed online will be delivered to you. But you can still get one if you got to a local retailer…
Your best bet if you want an iPhone 4S right away is by going to a local store. Every past iPhone and iPad launch has resulted in huge lines and sold out inventory, straining the availability until supply finally catches up, with the case of the iPad 2 this took several months. Supply between stores is often inconsistent, but the price of iPhone 4S is the same at every launch partner, all require subsidies at this point as the unlocked version isn’t available until November.
Here’s where you can buy an iPhone 4S, but if you want to get your iPhone 4S, be prepared, and know where to shop! Read more »
By far one of the best features of iOS is wireless syncing and backing up, as the name implies it allows you to wirelessly transfer apps, music, books, contacts, calendars, movies, photos, everything you had to use a wired sync for, but it’s done through the air.
As long as your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is even vaguely new, it will support wi-fi syncing, but you do have to set it up and enable the feature.
If you’ve installed a modern version of OS X and rebooted or ended up at the lock screen, you may have noticed that a new “Guest User” account appears at the login screen.
This is not a full guest user account, if you select the Guest User option at login, the Mac will restart to a secured Safari-only version of the OS with access to the internet. So what’s the point of this? It turns out this is part of setting up iCloud in Mac OS X, specifically the “Find My Mac” feature. The Safari Guest User allows someone to get online so the Mac can be located, but prevents the Safari user from accessing your files and applications.
We’re going to highly recommend keeping the Guest User Safari account enabled so that if you happen to lose your Mac, or if it’s stolen, it could easily be tracked down. Nonetheless, here’s how to turn this off if you don’t need it for some reason. Read more »
The lightly shaded 
