If you like me have been struggling to keep your passwords and notes in sync on your iPhone and your Mac, you will be pleased to hear that 1Password now supports DropBox for syncing data between iPhone, iPad and Mac computers.

“1Password 3.3 added tighter integration with Dropbox to enable automatic syncing between Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Windows. Also known as “syncing to the cloud”, this amazing feature allows you to keep your Macs, Windows, and iOS devices in sync at all times, even when they are running on different networks. To enable syncing, simply configure 1Password to store its data file in Dropbox.”
From 1Password 3.3 release notes

To enable syncing you need 1Password 3.3 for Mac, and 1Password Pro 3.5 for iOS. On the iPhone you need iOS 4.0.

Full details on how to configure 1Password DropBox synchronization

A while ago I reported that my iPhone 3G ran very very slowly after upgrading it to iOS 4.0. As a result I downgraded it to iPhone OS 3 and while it ran better in iPhone OS 3.1.3 than iOS 4.0 it still ran very slowly in iPhone OS 3.1.3, much slower than previously.

Today I came across the following tip and figured it might be worth a shot:

“I HAD DONE SEVERAL HARD RESETS BEFORE AND NONE HAD WORKED UNTIL I DID THIS:

When doing a hard reset hold both buttons until after it turns off and as the apple appears and it starts to load. When it starts to load after shutting off after the hard reset, WHILE YOU ARE STILL HOLDING DOWN BOTH BUTTONS, it will turn off again (this time for good).

That’s it. That’s what fixed what was an unusable iPhone 3g and turned it into something halfway between a 3G and a 3GS. =) =)”
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=10437858&postcount=34

I decided to try it myself and did as follows:

1. I pressed-and-held both buttons until the screen went black, Apple appeared, and screen went black again. I then booted the phone in iPhone OS 3.1.3.
2. In iTunes I choose to upgrade my phone to iOS 4.0.
3. Once the upgrade had completed and all data was restored I once more pressed-and-held both buttons until the screen went black, Apple appeared, and screen went black again.

And it worked!

Starting the Settings screen now takes around 6 seconds from cold start, and then less than 3 seconds on second start. My iPhone 3G is yet again usable! Give it a try and let me know how it works out for you!

Lovely translation of “Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4″ by John Gruber:

Apple: “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars.”

Translation: “We decided from the outset to set the formula for our bars-of-signal strength indicator to make the iPhone look good — to make it look as if it ‘gets more bars’. That decision has now bitten us on our ass.”

Read the full article

The official launch movie for the new Saab 9-5 iPhone and iPad applications was just released!

“Free download from App Store. Search for Saab.”

After an intense work period we at HiQ together with Saab and Valentin & Byhr launched the Saab 9-5 applications for the iPhone and the iPad. I worked in the project as a requirement coordinator, concept developer, software developer and quality assurance manager.

This was my first commercial iPad project, which will most probably be followed by many others this year. I really enjoyed working with Saab in this fun and engaging project – hopefully this application will help them gain brand awareness and interest of the new Saab 9-5.

My word of advice for anyone else planning to develop for the iPad: Don’t trust the iPad simulator. We experienced differences with XIB-file rendering, memory management (especially in low memory conditions) and Core Graphics behavior between real iPads and the iPad simulator. If you plan to develop an iPad application you really need to get a real device.

Download the Saab 9-5 iPhone application

Download the Saab 9-5 iPad application

If you are developing an interactive 2D application for the iPhone or the iPad I would like to recommend the graphics library Cocos 2D. We recently used it in the Saab 9-5 applications for iPhone and iPad, and Cocos 2D is easy to use, robust and has very high performance. Other well-known applications using Cocos 2D include FarmVille by Zynga and The Elements: A Visual Exploration.

The best thing about Cocos 2D however is that you can use it completely free of charge. All you need to do is to acknowledge that you have used it in your product. Check the about box when you’re placed in the Gallery section of the Saab 9-5 applications for iPhone and iPad and you’ll see it there as well.

Read more about Cocos 2D for iPhone and iPad

Here are two great tips for designing good looking web pages for iOS devices.

Targeting the iPhone 4 Retina Display with CSS3 Media Queries
All iPhone OS 4 devices report the same user agent. This article explains how you can detect the high resolution display on the iPhone 4 and adjust graphic detail as needed.

Targeting various iOS devices with media queries
This article explains how you can add separate icons for each iOS device for their home screens. Check it out if you want bookmarked pages to look good on the iPad and the iPhone 4.

Matt Neuburg, developer of the TidBITS News iPhone App, has put together a good description of how fast app switching works in iPhone OS 4, and explains why it might take some time for developers to add support for fast app switching to current applications.

“Basically I had to consider every state the app might be in at the moment the user comes along and suspends it. That turned out to be remarkably difficult – and the TidBITS News app is very simple and small! Imagine, then, how long it will probably take before your favorite third-party apps are updated.”

Read the full article

For me, iPhone OS 4.0 rendered my old iPhone 3G close to unusable. Applications ran slow, sliding the red button to answer phone calls could take 2-3 seconds, typing was slow, and general use of the device felt slow. It seems I am not the only one with these issues, and Flickr user Adrian Nier recently published a movie showing the differences between an iPhone 3G running OS 3.1.3 and an iPhone 3G running OS 4.0:

If you also experience these slowdown issues with your old iPhone 3G you can downgrade it back to OS 3.1.3 while waiting for Apple to patch up OS 4 so it’s usable on the older devices. iClarified has an excellent tutorial on how to downgrade your phone which I followed to downgrade my iPhone 3G this morning. The downgrade process is very straightforward, just take note that you cannot restore a backup from iPhone OS 4.0 to OS 3.1.3 so you might need to reinstall all applications and loose all your settings and data.

This interview with Danish professor Gert Frølund Pedersen from Aalborg University’s Department of Electronic Systems was posted two weeks ago, on June 10:

“The human tissue will in any event, have an inhibitory effect on the antenna. Touch means that a larger portion of the antenna energy turns into heat and lost. This makes the antenna less efficient to send and receive radio signals,” says Gert Frølund Pedersen.

Researchers at Aalborg University have demonstrated that touch will reduce mobile antenna efficiency to a great degree. Antenna effect may be reduced by more than 90 percent if you hold tight on your mobile phone where the antenna is located.

From the article Is the iPhone 4 born with antenna problems?

Users all over the world are now reporting up to 90% loss of antenna signal when holding their iPhone 4 devices, just as Professor Gert Frølund Pedersen predicted two weeks ago. Gizmodo has assembled a page where users send in movies of how their antenna signal drops when they hold it in their hands. Check the video below for just one sample movie.

To work around this issue you can buy one of the official Apple iPhone 4 bumpers that do just one thing – protect the antenna from being touched. My guess is that Apple know about this issue but had come too long into the design process to change the antenna design, and instead chose to release bumper plastic to cover the antenna from being touched.

**Update** After some testing Engadget posts that the issue occurs only when you hold your hand over both the WLAN/Bluetooth antenna and the 3G antenna in the bottom left corner of the device. The issue is 100% reproducible and using a bumper cover will prevent the issue from happening:

One iPhone 4 demonstrated the issue everytime it was held in our left hand (as a right-handed person is apt to do) so that our palm was essentially bridging the two antennas. If we had to guess, we’d say that our conductive skin was acting to detune the antenna — in fact, we’ve already managed to slowly kill two calls that way so it’s not just an issue with the software erroneously reporting an incorrect signal strength. That said, we had no issues when Apple’s $29 rubber bumper accessory (given to us free for standing in line) was attached, creating a buffer between our palm and the antennas.
From Engadget