Daily Bits

Apple iPhone

Antenn-aid: The Band-Aid for Your iPhone

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It all started out as a joke. You know how some people respond to an irritatingly serious problem with humor? Well, these guys did just that.

We’ve all been hearing about the antenna problems of the iPhone 4, and even the press conference that Apple held has not really given concrete solutions. Instead of banging their heads against the wall (like some people you may know), Szymon Weglarski and Jon Dorfman decided to have some fun.

The two designers designed and created Band-Aid looking things that fit exactly onto the bottom left part of the iPhone 4. Dubbed, Antenn-aid, the product is being sold on Etsy, where the designers opened a store about a week ago. Little did they know how much of hit their product would be!

Since they opened the Etsy store, they have been swamped with orders. Indeed, if you check the store now, you will see that they have announcement to the effect that they are behind 4 to 5 days in delivering orders. It’s but understandable as they are not following a mass production set up.

So what is the Antenn-aid for, aside from an intended joke? The colorful bandages can actually improve the signal performance of your iPhone. In spite of its being the coolest most magical phone out there today, it seems that the only solution for now is to put the Antenn-aid at the bottom left. At least you have several color choices. 😉

Buy the Antenn-aid for $4.99 (6-pack).

Swype, Don’t Type

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One of the biggest drawbacks of touch screen phones is the fact that people have a difficult time adjusting to the virtual keyboard. While Apple has done a marvelous job with their on screen keyboard, there are still people out there who prefer to have a tactile keyboard to work with. And yet, if touch screen phones are what you want, you really have no choice.

Enter Swype, a piece of software that allows users to drag fingers from one letter to another instead of having to merely tap on each individual letter. It’s easy to see how much more convenient this technology is, and how much easier people can adjust to virtual keyboards.

Developed by a company based in Seattle, Swype was launched on a commercial phone in December. Now, the news is that the new Motorola Droid X is going to feature this technology. That spells good news for Swype, as Motorola is a huge player in the mobile phone industry.

Indeed, Swype says that they want to be in more mobile phones – not excluding the Apple iPhone! In fact, one of the engineers has already a version ready for the iPhone, even though there are no formal talks between them. Apple has not even seen the technology for themselves as of yet. I would think, though, that with the complaints people have about the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, Steve Jobs et al. would be interested in what Swype has to offer. For now, Droid users will have the advantage in this regard.

iPhone users: would you want something like this on your gadgets?

How the World’s Famous Tech Companies Fared in 2014

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The year just passed was both interesting and surprising. The iPhone 6 took the world by storm and privacy issues continued to hound Facebook and Google. Samsung had its first diminishing profit after three years and Bill Gates is still the richest man in the world.

Read on to learn how these five popular tech companies fared in 2014. [Read more…] about How the World’s Famous Tech Companies Fared in 2014