Chances are youve already heard about the iPhone 3G S and some of its cool new features and same goes for the iPhone OS 3.0 and its cool new features. What you might not have thought about, however, are the apps which many developers have slaved over for weeks that were entirely rendered obsolete by the new features the iPhone will include. Read on for a list of 15 apps whose days are coming to an end.

via 15 Apps Rendered Obsolete By The New iPhone 3GS : iSmashPhone.

Later in the day, when I returned, I turned my phone back on. It displayed the white apple logo for an unusually long time and then it showed the image of the USB cable with a note that the iPhone need to be restored. What? At least I have my iPhone backed up so other than the mild inconvenience, no worries. I tried to plug my iPhone into my Mac and start up iTunes to do a restore. After waiting a few minutes, I received an error message in iTunes stating: “iTunes cannot activate your iPhone because the SIM card is not inserted or a SIM PIN is required.” OK, this is a little more serious than I thought. Now what do I do. Part of what I do for a living involves troubleshooting technical issues. I am a good troubleshooter, I even enjoy troubleshooting problems. This however was new territory for me. First step, ‘google’ the error message and see if anyone else has run into this problem and find out what steps they took to resolve it. I found an entry on Apple’s support site that said I should use a paperclip and eject the SIM card and make sure there was no dust, etc. I tried that step twice with no resolution. I tried a reset of the iPhone by holding both the sleep and home buttons for more than 10 seconds until the phone reset and the Apple logo appeared. Keeping my fingers crossed and waiting rather impatiently by now, I watched as the same unfriendly screen came up showing the USB sync cable with a message saying I needed to restore. By now I was thinking my iPhone had gone bad. I didn’t consider that there was a problem with the SIM. It is just a piece of cardboard with a chip on it – no moving parts. I hopped online on my MacBook Pro and searched for the nearest Apple Store to Sebring. There was one in Brandon just outside of Tampa, one in Naples, several in Miami, but the closest one was in Orlando at the Florida Mall. I scheduled a reservation with an Apple Genius at 12:15 p.m. and for the first time since last August, I was iPhoneless. I kept trying the rest of the day to see if it would recover from this malady but each time I ended up with the same USB cable and message screen.

Saturday morning, after a run and haircut, I headed off to Orlando with Dad and Emilee to keep me company. We arrived at the Florida Mall with 5 minutes to spare. After a long walk, I found the Apple Store and moseyed up to the Genius Bar to wait my turn. The young Genius that assisted me was very good and helpful. He talked through the whole process of possible problems and fixes. He said that most of the time, it was in fact the SIM card that was the problem. The first thing he would do, was perform a factory reset and see if it recovered. He also used some compressed air to blow off both the SIM card and the compartment in the iPhone which held it. I learned something new at this point. The type of “factory reset” that he did involved the same steps I had taken with an additional step. He held both the sleep and home buttons until the phone turned off. Then he pressed the home button and held it until he plugged the iPhone into the Macbook he was using. This forced the iPhone to “completely” reset and restore. It took a while but eventually, my iPhone came back to life. I tried a few test calls and all seem to be in working order. When I got back home, I restored my iPhone with my latest backup. That process took about an hour or so. When finished, I had all of my applications, data, and iPod media back on the iPhone. The only lasting issue was that all of my application icons were now alphabetically arranged on 9 pages of iPhone screens. Rearranging them back to where I originally had them took a while longer, but at least I was back up and running.

I was surprised at how much this device had become an integrated part of my life. My email, calendar, todo list, Bible, as well as a bunch of other tools and references were tied up with this device. It makes me wonder what I might do if I was traveling to a place where I did not readily have an Apple Store available.

Meanwhile, a separate group of users complaining of greatly reduced battery life are reporting standby times of less than 10 hours, but not all users appear to be experiencing the problem. In addition, a user claiming to be an iPhone developer has responded in a separate 2.2 battery life thread, claiming that the problem may be related to an issue with Safari, in which the iPhone fails to properly close its network connection upon exit, causing the device to physically heat up, and also leading to reduced battery life. In this instance, both the developer and other users claim that quitting Safari by holding down the home button has successfully restored their battery life.

Read more here…