The week in mac news and reviews

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macnplay — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:55:27 +0000

This website is moving and will no longer be updated at this address please Visit us @ This week in mac news and reviews our new site is iphone friendly.

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Griffin RoadTrip FM Transmitter with SmartScan Review

macnplay — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:43:37 +0000

I was looking for a new cradle and FM transmitter for my iPhone to use in my Audi A6. I already have a belkin tunebase for my wife’s PT Cruiser which works great in her car. For some reason when I tried in my car it did not work so well, I had a hard time getting good clear sound no matter what station I tuned it to. So I started looking for a different brand for my car and came a cross a deal I could not pass up. It was a Griffin Roadtrip model 4040-RDTRPB for 14.99 on Amazon.com. Ordered it on thursday had it by tues and only paid 4.99 for shipping.

Iphone 3g tethering with os 3.0 on ATT no jailbreak required

macnplay — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:06:30 +0000

How would you like to be able to tether your Iphone 3g with out jail-breaking it. Apple has made this possible with the new Iphone 3.0 os. While at&t has not allowed apple to activate tethering yet it is still in the os here is what you need to do.

iPhone 3.0 is live! so we are going to repost our tethering tutorial with some big improvements. You now don’t have to do any downgrading or torrenting. Seems you can just run a little command in terminal (Make sure you are on OS 3.0 on a 3G iPhone and iTunes 8.2):

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

After that, the steps become a lot more simple.

1. Download this file (for AT&T) and mount the disk image (thanks Gizmodo) for other carriers, try here.

2. Option-click on “restore” in your iTunes with your iPhone attached. Browse to the opened disk image file and hit OK. It will update phone settings for a few seconds.

3. You have tethering. Now go into your iPhone/settings/general/network/Internet Tethering and turn it on.

Boom – 3 steps to tethering…

This works perfect on my Iphone 3G.

Dell Mini 9 Review Running OSX 10.5.6

macnplay — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:40:58 +0000

I recently bought a dell mini 9 from the Dell outlet store for 254.00. What did I get for that price, I got a refurbished dell min with a 16 gig ssd, 1 gig of ram and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. I have been looking for a ultra portable and cheap notebook that I could use anywhere and not have to worry about it so that left a Macbook out which was my first choice although bigger than I wanted. So I started looking at netbooks which Apple has yet to make

Buying AppleCare from Ebay. Should you or Shouldn’t you?

macnplay — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:58:18 +0000

Should you buy applecare from ebay or should you just buy it from an official Apple reseller? That is the question I was asking myself last week as my 1 year warranty was coming up on my Mac Pro. I compared prices from apple $249.00 and from other online retailers. Then I checked ebay and I found that I could buy applecare for $92.00 for my Mac Pro, that is a $157.00 savings. I thought wow that is great buy but how can they offer it so low and be legit. I can’t tell you how they can offer it so low but I can tell you that I went ahead and bought it off ebay from

Update Best skins ever review for iPhone 3g after 6 months

macnplay — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:46:13 +0000

This is an update from my best skins review in August. I have gone through 2 skins on my iphone, each one lasting about 3 months. I will be posting pictures of what it looks like after 3 months of wear and a short video showing how it comes off.

The best skin ever for the iphone does what it is supposed to do, it has kept my iphone looking like new with out a case. However,

Some my favorite free iPhone apps

macnplay — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:32:46 +0000

Here are some of my favorite free apps for the iPhone. What are your favorite free apps.

1. Simplify Media
2. WordPress
3. Box office
4. BJ run lite
5. Twitterrific
6. Facebook
7. Pandora

Belkin F8Z183 Tunebase for iPhone 3g review.

macnplay — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:46:15 +0000

I bought my belkin tunebase threw amazon.com which had a price of 69.99. You need to make sure you get model # F8Z183 it is the only model right now of tunebase that supports the iPhone. The box comes with instructions , several different ipod adapters from original to the new nano and touch. I found the Iphone adapter to be a bit snug for my 3g iphone, could be because I have a skin on it. I found the orginal ipod adapter to work

Read the rest of the review

iPhone 3G Connection Issues Related to Software and Hardware.

macnplay — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:32:57 +0000

Additional sources have corroborated an analyst’s claim that recent iPhone 3G connection issues are the result of issues with the Infineon chipset used to provide 3G connectivity in the iPhone. The sources indicate that Apple plans to address the issue through a software update rather than a hardware recall.

Two sources say Apple will likely issue a software update by the end of September—if not by the end of this month—to resolve the issues. Apple and Infineon are currently testing the fix, which will be included in a broader update of the iPhone’s software.

The exact problem with the Infineon chipset remains the subject of speculation, with one source claiming that the fault rests with the chipset struggling to keep up with the popularity and data consumption of the iPhone 3G. However, additional speculation suggests that Apple has been overly conservative with its software settings for determining whether the 3G signal and bandwidth is sufficient to support 3G functions at any given time.

Part of the role of the Infineon chip is to check whether there’s enough 3G bandwidth available in a given area. If 3G isn’t available or there isn’t enough bandwidth, the iPhone will be shifted to a slower network. One source says Apple programmed the Infineon chip to demand a more powerful 3G signal than the iPhone really requires. So if too many people try to make a call or go on the Internet in a given area, some of the devices will decide there’s insufficient power and switch to the slower network—even if there is enough 3G bandwidth available.

The source claims that this issue primarily arises in areas of high iPhone density such as “the San Francisco Bay area, Boston, and certain overseas locales.”

In contrast, however, an MSNBC.com article cites a report from Ny Teknik, a Swedish technical magazine, claiming that the issues are in fact hardware-related.

The report said the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier that captures very weak signals from the antenna. This could lead to poor 3G connectivity and slower data speeds.

Apple has not yet acknowledged the existence of 3G connection issues with the new iPhone and declined to comment for either article, leaving the details of the problem and Apple’s plans for addressing it uncertain and subject to speculation for the time being.

Lets hope the they are right an Apple is working on a software fix and lets hope the phones don’t have a problem with the chipset that cannot be fixed by software.

Best skins ever review for iPhone 3g

macnplay — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:02:09 +0000

Best skins ever review for iPhone 3g By Mike Ricci

This is a review of the best skins ever to the iPhone 3g. I ordered the skin on July 24th and received it on July 25th. I ordered 2 back one piece skins which came to $12.00 shipped much cheaper than invisible shield. What comes in the mail is just the skins no solution or card to take out bubbles.

Read the rest of the review