It’s no secret that Apple is big in Japan. That everything is big in Japan is besides the point – Apple is really big in Japan, guys. The release of an Apple product is nothing short of a holiday, and the Japanese seemingly make Apple’s offerings a more standard way of life than we do, even here. Case in point – You’re looking at shots of ease, a cafe in Tokyo’s Marunouichi Building, which offers its patrons an iPad at every table. ‘So what?’ you scoff. ‘Best Buy has a ton of public iPads.’ And true enough, I’d reply. But be that as it may, not only do you get to sip your pretentious beverage while fingering your…

As Toby mentioned yesterday, Apple is pretty adamant that the signal problem isn’t their fault, citing in yesterday’s press conference that the problem is not only equally common to all phones, but that the iPhone 4 itself isn’t even experiencing much of an issue. This whole mess was just a result of overzealous bloggers jumping the gun. In short: ‘stop picking on us, guys.’ After all, why wouldn’t Apple spend a princely sum of money and an age of time testing the piss out of their products, right? To prove the stone-faced seriousness of their business, Apple has taken the time to provide some sexy…

This signal thing has gotten blown way out of proportion, yeah? Totally ridiculous. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done my part – people like me have made this problem far more a PR issue than a hardware one. But are you really gonna blame us? You want your free bumper, right? Then sit tight, and just let us poke Big Steve some more about this. Just a bit more. I swear, we’re almost done, then he’s all yours. Five more minutes. Actually, it seems everyone’s prodding may have worked. Apple has called a press conference tomorrow that will hopefully shed some real light on the issue, and what Steve &…

You may be reading this on an iPad. Take a moment, and step back, and look at that thing. Just for a moment. Really look at it. All chunky, and huge. iPad? More like… like, i…Big…dumb. iDumb. Yeah. Smart, attractive people who are in the know are waiting it out for the smaller, sleeker, sexier model, aren’t we, guys? Guys? According to Digitimes, Apple could be gearing up to expand its iPad line to include not only the standard 9.7-inch behemoth, but 5.6- and 7-inch models as well. And it could be doing so by Christmas 2G’s+10. The Digitmes source reported that Apple had “recently placed new…

Oh, hey there, wanna hear some more about The Signal Issue? Probably not, right? Old hat. Apparently, Apple doesn’t wanna hear any more about it, either – a bunch of threads about Consumer Reports’ recent findings have been deleted from Apple’s official support forum. What did Consumer Reports recently find? That they could not recommend the iPhone 4 until and unless the signal issue is fixed. Bummer. Utilizing a radio frequency isolation chamber, CR purchased three iPhones from three separate retailers and put them through the paces, emulating AT&T’s signals and stacking up the results…

Forget about HDTVs, PSPs, Macbooks, iPods, radios, cameras, camcorders, books, maps, and GPSs. We don’t need ‘em! We have everything our technology-loving hearts could ever desire in the palm of our hand — many call them smart phones, but they are far more than that. They are the makings of a technological revolution. However, it wasn’t always this way. For far too long we were constrained with devices that did one single thing: telephones ensured you would always stay connected with annoying family members, MP3 players enabled you to jam to Justin Timberlake, GPSs managed to get you…

The Great Signal Caper continues. Is it alright to call it a caper now? More things should be called capers. Anyway, Apple has responded to customers’ never-ending pleas for an end to the iPhone 4′s signal issue by offering an accessory previously unbethunkable: the iHand. Taking a more utilitarian approach to product design, the iHand is all about function. Simply slot your iPhone 4 into the iHand’s hand, hold the iHand’s hand in your hand, dial a number, and enjoy worry-free calls of the clearest crystal clarity! Truly, Cupertino’s been boiling midnight oil BP-style on this. The iHand is available…

You’re one of the five people in the civilized world who own a Zune, right? Well, good news – you may soon be able to sync it with iTunes. Seriously. This is a thing. In an attempt to save the world and all its inhabitants, three Mortal Kombatants have been chosen the European Union has drafted up a document it’s calling the Digital Agenda, the function of which is to serve the cause of interoperability, openness, and innovation in the tech world. I, for one, am precisely the opposite of not all for that. Behold, an excerpt: Since not all pervasive technologies are based on standards the benefits of interoperability…

Having acknowledged the now-infamous iPhone 4 ‘death grip’, Apple has rushed an update out the door that… well, it doesn’t really solve the problem at all. What the update does do is fix an apparent second problem that was displaying signal bars incorrectly. Apparently, your iPhone 4 has been lying to you, optimistically displaying four or five bars sometimes when it should be displaying one or two. Apple tells us it had something to do with the algorithm governing the definition of each level of strength. Great. So, in a nutshell, this means that my hypothetical iPhone 4 can now more accurately…

Hurrah – HP’s recently-acquired Palm unit has updated its webOS software, unleashing a whole new world of handheld gaming. Well, not quite, but with HP already saying it intends using its newly-acquired webOS to spark a whole new period in connected device development, then we’ll be watching the Palm OS for some time to come. In future expect printers and all manner of other digital devices to speak to each other using webOS. Beyond this, HP has also confirmed plans to unleash a whole new wave of webOS-powered netbooks and slates. And in a sign that it isn’t all going to be Apple versus Google…