Lonnie Knows Everything

Yesterday, we pointed to mention of “iWork for iPhone” in several of Apple’s international online stores, marking the second time that Apple’s own site has suggested that a scaled-down version of its iWork for iPad productivity suite might be making its way to the iPhone and iPod touch.

In a pair of posts today, 9 to 5 Mac shares a number of purported shots of Pages running on an iPod touch. While Pages has been unofficially ported from iPad to iPhone, the new screenshots, while blurry, exhibit none of the toolbar formatting issues seen on the tweaked iPad version and appear to offer a customized layout for the iPhone and iPod touch’s smaller screen size.

As the first report notes, the iPod touch on which Pages appears to be running currently carries only a 320 x 480 display, suggesting that an iWork for iPhone release may not be limited to the 640 x 960 “Retina” display of iPhone 4.

Meanwhile, WMPoweruser.com points to a new Microsoft job posting looking for a software engineer to work on bringing Office Mobile to Nokia smartphones, with “other leading Smartphone platforms” also being targeted, leading to speculation of Office for iOS devices. A Microsoft project manager noted in early February soon after the iPad’s introduction that the company was “looking at” the possibility of an iPad version of Office, but a company executive tempered expectations in mid-April by claiming that the company had “no current plans” to bring Office to the Apple’s tablet device. The company has not specifically addressed the possibility of Office for the even smaller iPhone and iPod touch screen size.

Update: 9 to 5 Mac is now posting actual screenshots of Pages for iPhone and iPod touch rather than photos of the screens. According to the new report, Pages and Numbers will be available as universal binaries to support iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. There is no word on whether Keynote will also be making the transition to the smaller screen.

As it has done on a monthly basis for the past several years, AdMob today released a new Mobile Metrics Report for May 2010. The report highlights worldwide trends in mobile requests to its ad network from over 23,000 mobile websites and applications.

This month’s report shows continued strength for the iPhone and other iOS devices during the lead-up to the iPhone 4 launch just last week. Google, AdMob’s parent company, is making strong inroads with its Android operating system, however, growing rapidly from a negligible share of the mobile ad request market only a year ago to approximately 25% today.

Android’s overall strength, however, results from its inclusion on a wide variety of smartphones from a variety of manufacturers. That is in contrast to Apple, which offers essentially only a single iPhone that currently leads the pack by a wide margin with nearly 40% of worldwide ad requests compared to only 6.8% for the second-place Motorola Droid.

AdMob’s data also offers an interesting glimpse into the geographic distribution of Apple’s “iOS” family of devices. Among the interesting pieces of data included in the report is a note that fewer than half of all iOS devices are located in North America, with 43% residing in the United States and 5% in Canada. When it comes to the iPad specifically, however, the U.S. sees a full 58% of the devices, an unsurprising result given that Apple is still working to roll the device out to its international markets.

In comparing iOS and Android devices, the report shows that Android is rapidly approaching the iPhone’s ad request share in the U.S., with 11.2 million unique iPhones registering there during May while 8.5 million Android devices appeared on the company’s network. As many have argued, however, Apple’s iPod touch and iPad also contribute significantly to the “iOS ecosystem” and, while not true smartphones, should be counted in some way as important players in the mobile web and application market. Adding in iPod touch and iPad data boosts iOS devices to 19.3 million in the U.S., giving iOS a 2-to-1 advantage over Android. Worldwide, the data leans even more strongly in Apple’s favor as Android has yet to catch on significantly in most international markets, with iOS devices out-numbering Android devices 3.5-to-1 on a global basis.

With today’s release AdMob also noted that its monthly metrics reports will be going on hiatus for at least the next several months as the company looks to rethink the best way of sharing information on the rapidly-growing mobile market with the public.

As noted by Engadget, Apple has been busy posting job listings for engineers to work on design and testing of antennas for the company’s iPhone and iPad. While Apple typically posts a number of new job listings each day, the fact that the company has posted a total of eight antenna-related positions over the past two weeks naturally leads to speculation that it is beefing up its staff to investigate and deal with signal issues being experienced by iPhone 4 users.

The eight job listings comprise three separate job titles, with the most relevant being three “Antenna Engineer – iPad/iPhone” positions. The three listings, all posted on June 23rd, are looking for individuals with a high level of qualification including 10+ years of experience in RF technology and a preference for PhD-level training.

Responsibilities: Define and implement antenna system architecture to optimize the radiation performance for wireless portable devices. The candidate should be able to design antennas suitable for wireless handheld devices with excellent radiation performance, including TRP, TIS, SAR, and EMC. Work closely with other RF and antenna design engineers, mechanical and industrial designers, and EMC engineers to integrate the antenna design in our products.

Also posted on June 23rd were two listings for “iPhone OTA Wireless Systems Engineer” to focus on validation of antenna radiation performance. And just one week earlier, the company posted three listings for ” RF Systems Validation Engineer iPhone” positions also focused on testing the iPhone’s RF systems, noting that “as we add more and more capabilities to the iPhone, testing the radios becomes more and more complex.”

It is unclear exactly what role these new hires might play in addressing the current issues, as it typically takes some time for a hiring process to run its course and new employees to arrive and get up to speed. The job listings could suggest, however, that the company is looking to bring on additional hands to work on designs and testing for future models as some of the unit’s staff is absorbed in addressing issues with the current model.

UBM TechInisghts recently performed a teardown of the iPhone 4 and discovered that Apple may have originally planned on including a gyroscope in the iPad first. After examining the iPhone 4 motherboard, they found that the iPad also had an empty slot that accommodate a gyroscope chip (see above).

…UBM TechInsights, has found that the iPhone’s 3-axis digital gyroscope is likely slated for the next generation iPad as well. TechInsights senior analyst Steve Bitton said there’s an almost-perfect spot (4mm x 4mm); the exact size of the MEMS gyro) for it, located right beside the iPad’s accelerometer.

For whatever reason, Apple must have abandoned the plans in the final shipping version of the iPad, though it’s reasonable to believe that a gyroscope could make it into the next revision.

This differences between gyroscopes and accelerometers is detailed in this (rather dry) video:

The iPod Touch is the other likely device to get a gyroscope in the near future. The iPod Touch is expected to be revised in September. While there have been no rumors about the content of the update, the iPod Touch is likely to receive many of the improvements found in the iPhone 4.

Anandtech has managed to provide a detailed analysis of the iPhone 4′s potential antenna signal issue. Their analysis may shed some light on people’s experiences with the iPhone 4 and the drop-off in signal when the device is being held in hand.

The issue has generated a lot of press since the iPhone 4 launch due to a variety of user reports on the issue. Apple has maintained that a certain amount of signal loss is normal when mobile phones are held in hand. In a leaked support note, they have also insisted that the iPhone 4 antenna performance is better than that of the iPhone 3GS. Based on Anandtech’s analysis, it appears Apple is correct in this statement, though with some caveats.

First, Anandtech managed to hack together a way for the iPhone 4 to report actual signal strength instead of the usual 5 bar signal strength scale. As has been noted by many, this 5 bar scale can be a poor representation of the actual signal strength. As seen above, nearly 40% of the range of possible signal levels is reported as 5 bars. Because of this broad range, there could be a huge difference in actual signal strength despite the same “5 bars” being displayed.

They then ran several tests comparing the signal degradation from holding the iPhone 4 in hand in various positions:

As it turns out, the iPhone 4 does have a significantly greater drop-off in signal strength in all positions as compared to the iPhone 3GS which preceded it. Perhaps the most notable difference is in the “Holding Naturally” position which could theoretically “bottom out” a 4 bar signal or bring the low-end of the 5 bar signals down to 1 bar. Holding the iPhone 4 tightly, of course, accentuates the problem. All phones do exhibit the same behavior, though the iPhone 4′s external antenna presumably exaggerates the effect.

However, Anandtech points out that in their testing they found the iPhone 4 antenna is indeed improved over the 3GS — adding validity to Apple’s previous statements. In their testing, Anandtech found that at very low signal strengths (down to -113), the iPhone 4 would hold onto calls far better than the iPhone 3GS.

It’s amazing really to experience the difference in sensitivity the iPhone 4 brings compared to the 3GS, and issues from holding the phone aside, reception is absolutely definitely improved. I felt like I was going places no iPhone had ever gone before. There’s no doubt in my mind this iPhone gets the best cellular reception yet, even though measured signal is lower than the 3GS.

All in all, the findings may help to explain some seemingly discrepant statements and observations. While the iPhone 4 is likely to perform better at the same signal level as the iPhone 3GS, the signal of the iPhone 4 may be more greatly reduced by attenuation when being held in the same position. This could explain all but the most extreme issues depicted. In the end, Anandtech also suggests using a case may be best move and that with a bumper case, the iPhone 4 has the same attenuation performance as other other smartphones.