issues

Many users are displeased with the apparent difference in sound quality after upgrading to iTunes 10 on their Macs. A growing thread in the Apple Support Discussions forums sheds light on the issue that seems to be affecting many Mac users' listening experience.

ASD forum user Adrian Whitfield posted:

"After upgrading to iTunes 10, I noticed when playing music from my library that the audio quality is significantly lower than previously with iTunes 9.x. The audio quality sounds muffled and distorted.

I found this thread in the Windows section, but wondered if other Mac users were experiencing the … Read more

Just after the big news of the iPhone coming to Verizon, Apple released a beta to developers for iOS 4.3 and it looks like it will add some big changes from previous versions--especially on the iPad.

New multitouch gestures will make it possible to close apps or just switch to another open app without having to press the Home button. You'll also now have the option to make the iPad switch on the side of the device either a mute or lock rotation switch--apparently, many iPad users complained of the previous version change to turn it into a mute button like the iPhone.

If you want to see some of the new enhancements in action, check out our First Look at iOS 4.3 video with Brian Tong.

This week's apps include a newsreader that lets you view actual newspapers and a motocross game that's both fun and extremely challenging.… Read more

Some iPhone users have been reporting problems with their Home Button not registering their clicks properly. For example, a double-click only registers as a single-click and a single-click is not recognized at all.

I have actually been dealing with this very issue for the last couple weeks on my iPhone 4. I thought maybe I wasn't pressing the button firmly enough, but that had never been an issue before. I then thought it could be that the button had some debris or other gunk under it. Essentially, I figured it was something caused by my own doing.

After this report from TiPb, … Read more

Over the last couple of weeks we've been writing about how all the e-reader manufacturers have been talking up their robust holiday sales.

Well, there can be some downsides to success, as Barnes & Noble's servers apparently couldn't handle the influx of new users on Christmas Day and continued to experience trouble into Sunday. This is the second year in a row that Barnes & Noble's server issues have kept new Nook owners from buying e-books on Christmas Day.

Across the Web and on Twitter, people were complaining about the problems. For instance, CNET user Ridermom … Read more

Popular microblogging platform Tumblr is still suffering from an outage that started yesterday.

"We're working quickly to recover from a major issue in one of our database clusters," Tumblr wrote on its Twitter page about 21 hours ago. "We're incredibly sorry for the inconvenience."

Tumblr hasn't provided any information about how the company's database cluster was affected, and has only promised to "be back shortly." In a follow-up tweet released earlier today, Tumblr said that it is working through "a slow and painful recovery." It promised to share … Read more

Users in a growing Apple Support Discussions forum thread are expressing their concerns over what appears to be a hardware-related sound issue with Apple's 27-inch Cinema Displays. The main issue seems to be that sound will randomly cut out, ceasing to work until a system restart is applied.

Jerky video presentation with no or distorted sound is another symptom these users have noted, along with a delay when pressing the volume keys up or down to when the volume graphic is displayed onscreen.

Though a definitive solution does not appear to be available from Apple or users on the … Read more

In tests performed by TiPb using the iOS 4.2 Gold Master release of Apple's forthcoming mobile operating system, iPhone 3G performance has taken another positive step, one that may help customers forget some of the early issues with iOS 4 on iPhone 3G units.

Appeasing its older customers may have jumped up the priority list a bit after a California class action lawsuit was filed against Apple citing its alleged "unsavory, dishonest, and deceptive business practices" while launching iOS 4, an update many felt disabled their iPhone 3G this summer.

The video of the test is … Read more

Some misguided souls in the Internet publishing world still consider all online material as being in the public domain. A recent example of this cluelessness is the editor of a food journal who stole an article that included a recipe for apple pie and then claimed to be doing the article's author a favor by reprinting it without the author's permission or any remuneration, as described by Helen A.S. Popkin on the MSNBC.com TechnoLog.

(See a related blog by CNET contributor Lance Whitney for more on the story.)

For the record, copyrights do indeed extend to … Read more

Microsoft held a meeting with employees today, letting them know that the company plans to make changes to its health care plan, requiring workers to eventually start paying a portion of the insurance costs.

The software maker will continue to pay the full costs for worker health insurance for the next two years, before making workers start to contribute in 2013.

"We can confirm that Microsoft has begun to evolve its employee health care benefit," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said in a statement. "There will be no changes for the next two years, but in 2013, employees … Read more