I suspect many people were very happy to see that the iPhone 4 was listed as having 802.11n. I know that I was. I have a dual-band network at home which separates 802.11n from 802.11b/g, and that's made a huge difference in transfer times. But there's also another benefit of 802.11n: it can use the 5GHz frequency band instead of the 2.4Ghz. Without going into too much detail, most (but certainly not all) of the benefit of 802.11n comes if you use 5Ghz, because it isn't cluttered with other devices like 2.4Ghz is.

So imagine my dismay when I went to the iPhone 4 technical specifications page and saw "802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only)" listed there. I wanted to double check my suspicion that this was bad news for people who want to avoid the interference issues that come with 802.11b/g.

When you have a question about Wi-Fi, especially in the Mac world, the guy to ask is TidBITS & Seattle Times columnist Glenn Fleishman. If you've ever read a great, informed (and informative) article on Wi-Fi that even a mere mortal could understand, chances are pretty good that Glenn wrote it. He wrote the most thorough analysis of the Wi-Fi woes at the iPhone 4 demo that I have seen anywhere.

I asked Glenn about this on Twitter, and he confirmed my fears that 802.11n in 2.4Ghz will suffer from the same interference that b/g devices do. This makes "802.11n" partly just a marketing bullet point for iPhone 4 instead of a truly beneficial feature. If you're currently running a 5GHz-only N network, your iPhone won't take advantage.

For 2.4GHz N networks, you will probably get some speed boost over G (Glenn estimated perhaps 1.5x when using an 802.11n base station). When copying a 940MB file over my home Wi-Fi network between a Mac desktop and laptop, 802.11n took 2 minutes, 14 seconds compared to 15 minutes 45 seconds on 802.11g. Then again, most people won't be doing large wireless file copies to/from their iPhones until/unless wireless synchronization comes along.

So yes, Apple can boast that the iPhone 4 has 802.11n and they're telling the truth, but don't expect much practical difference day-to-day. Glenn suspects that given the newer chip and more efficient use of the radio spectrum, we might get better battery life on N than on G -- but we won't know for sure until the iPhones arrive.

A good number of us at TUAW love Syntonetic's Moodagent app; it creates instant playlists around a mood you select, fitting the music to your state of mind. We reviewed it in December, and caught up with Syntonetic's president Richard French at Macworld who told me that the app had created profiles for over 30 million songs and has had over 1 billion songs requested.

I gave him a laundry list of feature requests. He told me that most if not all of my suggestions would be incorporated into the app in the next 3-6 months. True to his word, and right on schedule, Moodagent 2.0 is out including all my requests and a lot more. Richard seems to be passionate about listening to his user base and determined to give them what they want.

Moodagent creates genius mixes from your iPhone/iPod touch or iPad music libraries (it requires iPhone OS 3.0 or better). The mood is based on 4 sliders representing emotions (Sensual, Tender, Happy, Angry) and a fifth for Tempo. You move the sliders up or down depending upon your mood and an instant mix is generated either automatically, or based upon a "seed" song of your choosing.

Since Macworld, the number of songs requested has risen to well over 2 billion and counting. Moodagent is now 2 apps, a free one that in version 2.0 is supported by advertising, and a paid app (US $4.99), with the only difference being that the paid version doesn't have any advertising and allows you to see one more song on the screen. That's it.

Read on to find out about all the changes.

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San Francisco isn't the most dangerous city in the world, but like any major city it has its fair share of property crimes. When Chinese developer Stone (just the one name) came to San Francisco to attend WWDC at Apple's request (he worked on QQ, China's pick of IM clients for Tencent), I doubt he thought he would wind up getting mugged.

Last week, I saw my share of iPhones being used on the MUNI, but never an iPad. I guess we know why -- Stone pulled out his iPad on the bus and was promptly mugged. He wound up with a broken rib and some lumps on the head, plus a shattered iPad screen. Although the iPad still worked (don't forget, it is magical and revolutionary), the screen was pretty well demolished.

Stone went to the Apple Store and, upon hearing his plight, they gave him a shiny new one. The old one will be wiped and recycled, but before heading home the developer was treated to one of those trademark one-line Steve Jobs emails: "safe travels home." Stone still has to deal with the trauma of what happened, but it's nice to see Apple taking care of this guy. It's sad that he came all this way to be subjected to such violence.

[Via M.I.C Gadget]

As we wait for iOS4 to be released, I think it's important to try to help folks keep reasonable expectations for what iOS 4 will and won't do, especially as it relates to "multitasking." Apple has to take some of the blame for this hype, especially when it's listed as the #1 feature of iOS 4, saying "Now you can run your favorite third-party apps - and switch between them instantly - without slowing down the performance of the foreground app or draining the battery unnecessarily."¹

Did you notice that ¹? The big print giveth and the little print taketh away. Down at the bottom of the page, Apple tells you that multitasking is "available with apps that have been developed to work with iOS 4." That means that any app that isn't tweaked to be multitasking-aware simply won't play nice with the feature.

And even that isn't the whole truth.

Read on for more...

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Your wife loves chocolate, and you know she's been eying that 1.5+ lb. bar at the local Trader Joe's like a lion does a gazelle. She's also a massive Apple fan who's been dying for a shiny new iPad for months. Birthday time: the bar, or the iPad? If you're a cheap SOB, you get the bar and call it a day. If you're looking for an excuse to have an iPad in the house, you get the iPad. Or, you can do what this chap did and not only give her both, but fuse them together.

Not only did this guy encase the iPad gift in chocolate (after having carefully wrapped it in plastic first, thankfully), he had to have it shipped from London, England because they're not sold yet in South Africa, where she lives. I don't know about you, but I was cringing as I watched her slice away the chocolate with a knife from the precious prize within.

The sad part of this story, for me, is that my wife would be severely disappointed that she was shorted 1.5+ lbs. of chocolate for a piece of gadgetry goodness.

[via Engadget]

You love your Mac and you want to keep it happy and healthy. Regular updates are a means to that end, but only a part of what's necessary. Additional TLC that your Mac will find beneficial include clearing up space-hogging clutter like old cache files and unused binaries. Otherwise your hard drive will look like an episode of Hoarders.

You can also ditch unused language support, logs and more. For all of this, there's MacKeeper. I used it over the weekend and now my MacBook Pro is leaner and meaner (well, leaner). MacKeeper made the process easy and added a few unexpected, pleasant extras. Here's what I found.

User Interface

MacKeeper's UI should look familiar to anyone who's used iTunes, iPhoto or a slew of other popular Mac applications. That's a good thing, as you already know how to find your way around. The app's window has two main areas: The list of services on the left and the content browser on the right. To the far right is a collapsable "support area." It provides links to video tutorials of each of the app's features and access to 24/7 support via email, phone or live chat. I didn't expect that. What a nice touch.

The far-left area divides the app's functions into three sections, namely cleaners, tools and services.

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Remember applegirl002, the Korean girl who sang a song accompanied by her iPhone apps a while back? Turns out she's gone pro -- after 4.2 million views of her clip across the web, a South Korean record label has reportedly inked a deal to record her own songs and make some more professional videos. She's classically trained, and studied music at a small college near her home, but it's her iPhone playing and singing that have catapulted her to virtual stardom.

She's big in England, apparently -- over there, she's won a poll against Lady Gaga to see who Apple could pick up as the star of their next campaign. That might not happen (lately, Apple products have been starring in their own commercials), but the fact that she's got a chance to make music professionally after being seen so much on YouTube is pretty cool. Here's hoping she sticks with her roots and brings all of the iPhones into the recording studio. I'd love to hear a record made completely with apps from the App Store.

Boy Genius Report and a few other sites have heard that Apple is set to introduce a new official app tomorrow, one centered around visiting and shopping at the Apple Store. Supposedly, the app will be free, and will allow users to set up and check Genius Bar appointments, sign up for training, and check availability or even purchase Apple items. BGR says the icon will be blue and have just an apple on it. We have heard this rumor before, but apparently tomorrow is looking like release day for it.

TUAW has also heard from a trusted source that the app will be released tomorrow, in conjunction with iPhone 4 preorders. We've also heard that you will be able to purchase items directly from the app, as well as set up store reservations. So this is looking more and more like a sure bet. We'll of course keep an eye on the App Store tomorrow and let you know what we see.

Natalia Luckynova is half of Imangi Studios. Along with her husband Keith Shepherd, she makes iPhone and iPod games, including the popular Harbor Master and a few other titles. We got to meet up with her at WWDC last week, and she was able to show off their latest title, Max Adventure, due out for the App Store in just a few weeks' time. The game was heavily improved since I last saw it in action, and it's shaping up to be a quality dual stick shooter -- a little kiddy, but with a fun element of exploring a nice mix of environments and an actual story to follow.

You can see the game above, and once you've checked it out, be sure to head after the break, where Luckynova tells us how the company's first iPad game is doing, what they think of iPhone 4 and iOS 4.0, and how she learned what a Kraken is.

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Not all of the developers on the App Store are starting up gigantic companies or breaking new indie ground. A large number of them, like Darren Sillett and his wife Samantha of Mighty Mighty Good Games, are just experienced programmers who choose an idea and stick with it, iterating and testing to see what works and what doesn't on the App Store. Sillett's biggest app is one of a few versions of Sudoku on the iPhone, but since day one, he and his wife (former Microsoft developers -- Sillett actually worked on Windows Vista) have been playing with this idea of word games on the iPhone, and they've tested all of the tricks. They've released free versions, included ads, tried different pricing and versions, and so on. As a result, they've found success with over ten million downloads of their free apps and over 200k in paid-app sales.

Sillett told me that his next big step will be to bring some of his apps to the iPad, and he's planning on going universal. While there will be some extra stuff in the iPad version, he thinks that universal is the best choice for his customers, at least while he's testing the waters. We also talked at length about iAds; Sillett says that ads have proven more beneficial for him in just the last few months, as ad companies and customers have really started to move the market along.

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