In case you missed it, iPhone 4 is a big deal. Running iOS 4, it’s packed with amazing features that blow any other smartphone out of the water. A powerful processor, high density screen resolution and display, video chat, HD video recording and editing, camera with flash, it’s all there.

iPhone 4 Availability

Supply is still struggling to keep up with demand, stores continue to sell out quickly. We’ll keep you updated on the latest availability information.

The following list applies to the USA demonstrating current iPhone 4 availability at stores:

• Apple Store: continues to sell strongly. Available at approximately 80% of Apple Stores, call to verify stock
• Apple Store Online: available for delivery 3 weeks after placing order
• AT&T: available in very limited quantities at AT&T stores, call your local store to verify current stock on hand, sells out quickly
• Best Buy: usually SOLD OUT
• Wal Mart: usually SOLD OUT
• RadioShack: usually SOLD OUT

iPhone 4 supplies will be replenished periodically at most Apple Stores and resellers throughout the summer months. Reports indicate that while additional shipments of iPhone 4 will be arriving, they too are expected to sell out.

iPhone 4 Availability Update on 9/17/2010:

Apple continues to cope with strong demand for iPhone 4 as the device remains a hot commodity, here’s the latest we know on availability :

• iPhone 4 continues to sell out at many Apple Stores, most Apple Stores have them in stock on a semi-regular basis now. Call or stop by a local store to find out for sure.
• iPhone 4 is often available at most AT&T stores
• All other resellers of iPhone 4 are sold out of existing stock
• You can still order iPhone 4 online from Apple or AT&T but the current estimated ship date is 3 weeks from the date of order
• White iPhone 4 has been delayed twice due to production challenges, there is no definitive release date for the white model
• Analysts predict Apple will not be able to keep up with continued summer demand for iPhone 4, supply constraints are actually limiting sales of iPhone 4 at this point and Apple is working with suppliers to meet demand
• Apple announced that over 1.7 million iPhone 4’s were sold in the first three days alone

For the USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Japan, iPhone 4 became available on the release date of June 24, all of the release date phones were quickly sold out. Pre-orders for iPhone 4 started June 15th and quickly sold out. Due to the immense pre-order demand, AT&T did not start selling iPhone 4 in stores until June 29.

Availability of White iPhone 4

Apple has again delayed the release of the White iPhone 4, due to challenging production constraints. Apple has confirmed that the white iPhone 4 will not be available until late July, due to production difficulties. Historically, the Black iPhone has sold out faster and been more popular than the white iPhone. Here is the press release from Apple, issued June 24, 2010:

White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

The newest press release, issued on July 23, 2010 regarding the delay of the white model specifies a date of ‘later this year’:

White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

iPhone 4 Availability by Country

• UK – SOLD OUT
• Japan – SOLD OUT

The 4th generation iPhone is being released at different dates throughout the year around the world. Here are the expected release months and accompanying countries.

June: USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan
July: Australia, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
September: Additional countries are expected to have iPhone 4 available by the end of September. Apple says 88 countries are planned to carry the device.

Stores Selling iPhone 4

Here are the current US resellers of iPhone 4. Not all resellers took pre-orders:

• Apple Store – iPhone 4 available to purchase at any official Apple Store, as well as the online store
• AT&T Store – stores are carrying the device, they began selling at a delayed release of June 29
• Best Buy – one of the few retailers who will sell iPhone 4
• Walmart – Walmart will sell iPhone 4 but did not take pre-orders
• RadioShack – the only other electronic reseller to have iPhone 4

iPhone 4 Pricing

iPhone 4 is is offered in two models and the pricing depends on the storage capacity.
* iPhone 4 16GB: $199 (requires renewing AT&T contract in USA)
* iPhone 4 32GB: $299 (requires new 2yr AT&T contract)
Both iPhone 4 models are available in black and white at the same price. You can get more information about iPhone 4 price structures, including data plans, upgrade prices, the price of iPhone 4 without a contract (it’s not cheap!), and more, at our iPhone 4 price guide.

I already own an iPhone in contract, how do I get iPhone 4?

If you already have an iPhone in contract and you want the newest model there are very reasonable options for you too. Check your iPhone 4 upgrade eligibility with AT&T and you likely won’t have to wait until your old contract expires. In most cases, you’ll be able to renew your contract and buy the new iPhone with a minimal (if any) fee, and this fee is usually waived for anyone whose contract expires in 2010.

Upgrading to iPhone 4 is easy and expected. Initial sales figures say that 77% of the initial wave of iPhone 4 purchases are upgrades from existing iPhone customers, Apple and AT&T are aware of this and intend to make upgrading to the new device a simple process.

What’s the difference between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4G?

We’ve had several emails asking us what the difference is between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4G – there is no difference. iPhone 4 is the proper name, but because it’s the 4th generation iPhone some people are referring to it as iPhone 4G, which is technically incorrect and is not the name of the product. Regardless of the naming convention, the device continues to run on the 3G network.

What store is most likely to carry iPhone 4?

This is another question we get asked frequently. While supply of iPhone 4 continues to be limited, your best bet at getting your hands on the device is either to order online and wait until it ships, or to go to Apple and AT&T stores, since they are the official manufacturer and carriers. When demand eases, you should be able to visit any of the other resellers and pick up the device, but this could take weeks or even months.

Is there a central iPhone 4 availability checker?

No, there is no central database of iPhone 4 availability that is in the public hands, only Apple holds this data. That said, we do our best to update this page based on information we receive from users and our own inquiries. The only way to check if iPhone 4 is available at any particular store is to call to verify existing stock.

If you have a lot of albums by a single artist, it’s nice to be able to group all their music together by artist and by album.

To do so, you’ll want to sort iTunes Albums by the Artist rather than just the alphabetical title of all albums by all artists.

Doing this is easy, in iTunes list view, click on the ‘Album’ column header a few times until the text changes to “Album by Artist”.

In the midst of all the exciting news about iPhone OS iOS 4 and the new iPhone 4, Apple snuck in yet another bit of innovation in the release of Safari 5. With little surprise, the most advertised of new features are enhancements to the rendering of HTML 5. Of the HTML 5 improvements, full screen video support is of most intrigue due to the on going “war” (of sorts) between Apple and Adobe over video content delivery. The release notes also talk about how Safari’s Nitro Engine will run JavaScript 30% faster than Safari 4, 3% faster than Chrome and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6. Last but not least is the addition of Bing to the list of available search providers and (finally!) Safari now has support for Extensions, or as the rest of the web broswing world calls them, “Plugins”. Read on for a more complete list of features.
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Apple has renamed iPhone OS to iOS, which is appropriate considering the operating system runs on more devices than just the iPhone. iOS 4 encompasses the iPhone, iPad, the iPod Touch, and there are rumors that it will run on future versions of the Apple TV. With over 100 new features in iOS 4, it’s an exciting free software update.

iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod Touch Available Now

The iOS 4 software update for iPhone and iPod Touch is available now for download. Launch iTunes and plug in your device to see the download and update option.

iOS 4 Availability and Release Dates:

Availability and release dates depend on the device. iPad users will be waiting longer for iOS 4 update than those who own other devices.

• iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3G users can get the download for free now! iPhone OS 4 was made available on June 21st
• iPod Touch 2nd and 3rd generation users can get iOS 4 now, it was released June 21st
• iOS 4 for iPad is due out sometime in the Fall of 2010, there has not been a definitive date set for release

It is likely that iOS 4 on iPad has a delayed release because it will include features that are iPad specific, thus taking longer for Apple to develop.

Prominent features of iOS 4:

* Multitasking – run multiple applications at the same time
* Folders – organize apps into folders
* Improved Mail – multiple mail accounts in a single inbox, open attachments in 3rd party apps
* iBooks – browse, buy, and read eBooks
* Create iPod playlists – create playlists directly on your iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
* 5x Digital Zoom – the same digital zoom technology that’s included in digital cameras
* Tap to Focus Video – video will refocus to whatever you tap on screen, cool!
* Faces & Places in Photos – view photos based on where they were taken and who is in them
* Home Screen Wallpaper – change the background picture on your devices home screen (this feature is already on the iPad)
* Gift Apps – send apps as gifts to others
* Spell Checking – built-in spell checker for Mail, Notes, and other apps that access the function
* Wireless Keyboard Support – use a wireless keyboard on the iPhone (you can use a wireless bluetooth keyboard with the iPad right now)

iOS 4 compatibility:

iOS 4 will work with iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G, and newer iPod Touch 2nd and 3rd generation units, but the feature set degrades on older devices. For example, iPhone 3G can not use multitasking or change the background picture, and neither can the 2nd generation iPod Touch. It’s strongly speculated that the performance of iOS 4 will be best on iPhone 4 and iPad.

Have you ever wanted to know how you can check to see if your AT&T account is eligible for an iPhone upgrade? You can instantly check your AT&T iPhone upgrade eligibility by dialing a simple short code on your phone.

This is super easy, here is how you can check your iPhone upgrade eligibility with AT&T:
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Did you know that you can use a MacBook 13″ MagSafe power adapter on the 13″ MacBook Pro? Or a MBP 15″ adapter on the 13″ models? And the 11″ MacBook Air adapter with a 13″ MacBook Pro, and so forth? In most cases you can interchange power adapters, this also means the older white MagSafe adapters work just fine on the new 2010 MacBook Pro 13″ model, and vice versa. In other words, if you just upgraded to a new MacBook, don’t toss the old MagSafe adapters!

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Single Application Mode is an interesting feature of MacOS and Mac OS X that is often misunderstood, we’ll discuss what the feature is, how it works, and how to enable it on your Mac running nearly any version of Mac OS still in use, whether that’s macOS 12, 11, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, or newer.

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You may not know it, but OS X’s Mail.app has the ability to utilize plugins. Installing a plugin is not an overly difficult task. After the first install, the subsequent plugins become easier to get running. A lot of the plugins you download claim that installation is as easy as double clicking on the .mailbundle file, but my experience shows that it just wasn’t that simple! Thankfully, the work-around is simple and straightforward.

Install a .mailbundle file
The first step is to navigate to your Home folder (command-shift-h) in the Finder. Open the Library folder and then open the Mail folder. Look for a “Bundles” folder. If it doesn’t exist, you should create it (command-shift-n). Now place a .mailbundle file in the directory. For an example, I suggest using letterbox. Letterbox will allow you to view your mail in a three column view.

Enable the use of mailbundles
After you have everything in place, we need to tell Mail to look for and use .mailbundle files. Open the Terminal and type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles 1
If you were using letterbox, the next time you fire up the Mail application you should see your inbox presented to you using three columns. Very cool.

Here’s an amusing comic breaking down web browsers. Thanks to Joseph B. for the submission.

Is this pretty accurate? Out of all the browsers I think Firefox is really too slow to be usable anymore, and I find myself in Safari and Chrome almost exclusively now. I haven’t touched Opera in ages, and the description as a tiny smart car cracks me up… but the dead horse for Internet Explorer for Mac is absolutely hilarious to me and takes the cake!

MacBook Pro’s are great machines, the only thing that makes them better is when you add an external display, and what better external monitor to drive than a 30″ Apple Cinema?

[ from Flickr ]

Updated: 2/13/2012 – You have by now seen that Apple sells an official iPad dock that includes a handy keyboard. If you read this site you have likely also seen that you can attach the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard to your iPad as well. Believe it or not there is a third option if you would like to use your Apple USB Keyboard in conjunction with your Apple iPad; using a wired USB keyboard. The method is a minor “hack” of sorts, but it does work as evidence shown in the video below. The hack involves obtaining the power necessary for the keyboard to operate from a powered usb hub. You can find a powered USB hub at all major (and minor) electronic stores, including Amazon.

Requirements
USB Powered Hub
iPad Camera Attachment (this is where you will get a USB input from)
Apple USB keyboard

Using a USB Keyboard with an iPad

Getting a USB keyboard to work with an iPad is surprisingly easy:
1) Plug the Camera Connector into the iPad.
2) Connect a USB cable into your powered hub and the iPad Camera Connector
3) Plug the USB Keyboard into your Hub

It really is that simple if you meet the hardware requirements, and soon your typing experience on the iPad will be greatly improved without having to buy the iPad keyboard dock to just have yet another keyboard laying around when it’s not in use.

If you have any troubles, see the video below for a walkthrough:

Happy iPading!

Earlier today apple unveiled its HTML 5 showcase. The showcase covers Video, Typography, Gallery, Transitions, Audio, 360 views and Virtual Reality examples. This marks a continued campaign against the current provider of most of these types of content, Adobe’s Flash. If you haven’t read Steve Jobs’ open letter to the community on the topic of Flash, check it out. It makes some interesting points.

Personally, it is my opinion that Flash is a dying commodity and that open standards are always going to prevail over closed technologies when it comes to the web. So it’s time to give a quick run down of HTML 5. I also threw in a good deal of opinion, as after all, this is a blog. Read on for more.

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So you just downloaded the awesome Xcode code completion plugin (or any other) and you need to get it working… easy. You can install any Xcode plugin by dropping the .pbplugin file into the following directory:

~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins
If you haven’t used plugins yet, the Plug-ins directory does not exist. In this case, all you need to do is create the directory. After you have dropped the plugin file into the folder, relaunch Xcode and the plugin will be loaded automatically. Uninstalling a plugin is just a matter of removing it from the Plug-ins folder.

The Mac OS X Application Switcher is a handy way to quickly cycle through open applications, but did you know you can quickly quit programs you aren’t using with the Application Switcher as well?

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One the gripes I’ve had with the Apple “App” store is that it can be hard to search such a large index of applications to find what you’re looking for. Looks like it’s Google to the rescue as they seem to be adding (it’s still not perfect!) the ability to search the iPhone/iPad store as well as the Android store. Great news for both platforms. Not only does this addition benefit the consumer, this will make life easier for developers as well. Now there is a bit of method to the madness and the chances are higher of connecting developers and consumers together in app purchasing harmony!

Google is rolling out a feature that allows you to change the background picture of Google.com to a user defined image. Here’s how to customize your Google.com landing page background image.

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Whether you are a new Apple developer or an experienced Cocoa engineer with roots in NeXTStep, you will understand the need to back up your hard work. Integrating Xcode with subversion not only allows you to back up your code, but it also enables you to keep a history of changes that you can revert back to or compare your code against. This is called version control. This article assumes that you already have your own subversion repository that you have read and write access to. If you want to setup a subversion server of your own, I suggest consulting the almighty google for a wide range of articles on how to accomplish this task. Read on for screenshots, details and lots of fun.
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As the release of iPhone OS 4 nears I thought it would be an opportune time to talk about why I’m personally excited for iPhone OS 4. As an amateur (up and coming!) developer and an avid user of the platform, I am more than ready for the unveiling of the latest incarnation of iPhone/iPad platform. Unfortunately iPad users will have to wait until this Fall before they can leverage a lot of the enhancements. It sounds like the wait will be well worth it!

Update: iPhone OS 4 has been announced, and it’s called iOS 4.

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