APPLE INVESTIGATING VERIZON iPAD 2 3G ISSUES

Having trouble hooking up your iPad 2 to Verizon's 3G network? Turns out you're not alone, and thankfully, Apple's well aware of this. In a statement to All Things Digital, Cupertino said it's investigating this CDMA connectivity issue as reported by "a small number of iPad 2 customers," and word has it that a software patch will be available soon.

WINDOWS PHONE 7 UPDATES ROLLING OUT TO MOST CARRIERS...EXCEPT AT&T

Last week, Microsoft released its much anticipated “NoDo” patch for Windows Phone 7 handsets… the patch that finally brings copy and paste and a host of other improvements to the WP7 world.

The only problem with the NoDo update? The carriers.

While Microsoft began rolling the patch out over-the-air to unbranded smartphones in Europe late last week, things are much more complicated in America, where it’s up to carrier discretion whether or not to roll out a mobile operating system update.

This is actually common in the American mobile world, where most phones run operating systems that have been bought off the shelf. In this world, Apple, Research in Motion and (up until recently) Nokia were some of the few makers who were in charge of their own software destinies, and who would take responsibility for an update if it failed on a phone. When a handset is made by one person, and it’s operating system another, both companies can point their figures at each other if things go wrong… leaving the carriers ultimately holding the bag on failed patches.

That’s why, in America, carriers test patches before they roll them out. It’s also why updates for Android and Windows Phone 7 can get held back for so long:

MICROSOFT SCREWS UP WINDOWS PHONE PATCH TO FIX THE UPDATE SCREW-UP

Earlier this week, Microsoft released a patch for the first Windows Phone 7 update to fix issues involving WP7 installs on Samsung handsets.

Why the patch? Easy: the earlier update was actually bricking some Samsung handsets, and failing to install on others Unfortunately, the updated update seemingly has its own issues, as some users are now reporting that it won’t install on their handsets..

To be fair, most devices are handling the update ably, even those that previously had failed to install the last, buggy update. Unfortunately, a minority of devices are still having issues, and it’s not entirely clear what the cause is, although some users are reporting that uninstalling some apps and freeing up disk space is resolving the issue.

NEW MACBOOK AIRS HAVE GRAPHIC ISSUES

Now that the talk of just how shiny and nice looking the new MacBook Air is has settled down, reality is hitting a few users who decided to invest in the first batch of hardware.

The video below gives you all the evidence required to realize there is a problem with either the graphics chip or the graphics driver in the MacBook Air, and it is apparently happening on both 11″ and 13″ models.

The description on that video reads as follows:

The Air suddenly froze, cutting Bluetooth connection to my Magic Mouse (even after I restarted…I had to re-connect manually), and the screen started flickering like crazy. The only thing I was doing at the time was reading MacRumors forum threads and looking at MBA sleeves to buy – no YouTube or anything was open at the time. Only iTunes was open in the background.

You can’t see it well, but the flickering consisted of tiny green/red/maybe blue lines, kinda like when an old TV gets static.


A forced shutdown with the power button seemed to resolve it; closing the lid to make it sleep failed.

A patch is already available from Apple for other issues (unresponsive system during iMovie use and wake from sleep), but the flickering screen is a new issue. When and what triggers it is unknown, it seems to be random.

If you are experiencing the problem with your MacBook Air, or want to know more about it, then there’s a discussion thread about it on the Apple forums. [Geek]