Friday 4 January 2013

iOS 6's Do Not Disturb feature mode not functioning

Image: Engadget
If you've got an iDevice (iPhone, iPad, iPod) and you've been using the new iOS 6 that Apple release late last year, you may have become familiar with a feature called Do Not Disturb.

When activated, a crescent moon appears in the notification bar up the top of the screen, indicating that it is activated. This mode silences all sounds and notifications, and prevents the screen from illuminating.

However since the turn of the year, many users have reported (myself included) that this feature doesn't work properly when you have it set to a schedule. Either it doesn't activate at the right time, or is doesn't come out of DND mode, meaning that until you manually turn it off, your device will remain silenced. As you can imagine, this is really annoying for some people who will have missed phone calls or messages because they didn't know their phone wasn't ringing.

Apple have acknowledged the problem, but instead of sending out a fix they've suggested to just use the mode manually until after January 7, where the problem is expected to resolve itself.

Symptoms
After January 1st, 2013, Do Not Disturb mode stays on past its scheduled end time.
Resolution
Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.
To turn off the scheduling feature, tap Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb and switch Scheduled to Off.
Apple has had problems in the past with New Year's bug's where alarm clocks set in the new year wouldn't sound off causing people to be late for work, miss flights etc. The company also promised at the time the problem would "resolve itself" by the first Monday of the year.

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Thursday 3 January 2013

Samsung Galaxy S3 "Sudden Death"

If you aren't already aware, there is a current issue plaguing Samsung's Flagship mobile phone product the Galaxy S 3 where after normal usage, or charging, that the phone becomes "bricked" or unusable.

There have been many widespread reports about this phone, but so far it seems that the international model - i.e. any country not from North America is the only one with the issue.

The shutting down for no apparent reason and not restarting thereafter, or “Sudden Death” issue has been reported on popular forums and on various tech news websites, and popular Android website XDA-Developers, which has more than 150 pages of posts where people have reported the same problem.

But there is some good news! A few hours ago a Dutch website Tweakers reported that a Samsung spokesperson has said: "The problem seems to be affect a “limited number of Galaxy S3 models with 16GB memory,” and it’s caused by a firmware bug."

A fix for this bug is luckily software related, but at time of writing the release date for the patch which resolves the issue is not available.

Samsung has admitted the fault is theirs, and with the upcoming patch to resolve the issue, we shouldn't see any more of this in the future. Rest assured if you are victim to this bug and  have a bricked S3, you should be able to organise a replacement or a fix through the warranty.

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