Like most of you out there, I upgraded my iPhone to iOS4 right when it came out. And like most, have hated the upgrade because my iPhone 3g ran like crap afterwords. It was so slow, I could hardly use it at all. Crashes, mega slow, and all sorts of crappy performance issues. Nothing seemed to work. After scouring the Internet, I finally found a couple posts and threads that addressed the issue. What I gathered was that the iOS4 update needs some loving from your iPhone hardware to work right. Basically, it seems it needs to “rebuild itself” on the software side. My first attempts were to turn the phone off and back on but this didn’t work. Turns out it needs a “hard reset”, not just a power off (one would think these were basically the same things, but nope). Here’s what I did and it fixed everything:

• Press and hold BOTH the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button
• You will see the shut off screen. KEEP HOLDING
• Wait for the Apple logo
• Release the buttons
• Wait a bit until it comes back up (mine took a couple minutes)

Bingo! It’s back to its old self with iOS4. Now I have my phone back and all is right in the world. Well… Except that I don’t have the iPhone 4 yet, but that’s another issue entirely. Hope this helps you out as well.

Edit: I guess there’s another way by doing a complete backup, reset to factory defaults and restore through iTunes, but who wants to do that? I guess if the previous method doesn’t work for you, give the old restore a try.

Have you experienced the same thing? How did you fix it? Please share!

Our friend and fellow reader John, writes:

So, I bought my iMac *maybe* 4 months ago. The day after I got it, the SuperDrive crapped out on me. I bought it refurbished, but they guaranteed it to be like new. Anyways, my question is this: I fixed it about 4 times after a disc kept getting stuck in there. It was a DVD. Brand new each time. I cannot afford to be without my Mac and cannot send it in. I have an external CD/DVD drive that was originally built for PC but it’s runs on my Mac. I would like to know what would be an affordable Mac friendly external drive that would play DVDs too. I don’t want to buy a SuperDrive for fear it will do the same thing again. Any help would be fantastic!

This one’s out of my league so I thought I’d throw it up the greater minds out on the tubes. Anyone out there got some advice for our pal John? I’m sure he as well as I and most likely many others will be eternally grateful. As always, I thank you in advance.

Brent

Fellow iBAM’er Jeff sent me an email recently and I thought it fitting to throw it on the table here to see if you guys can help find his solution. Here’s his email:

I bought the new Imac 20inch desktop, the 1st Apple I ever owned… Problem I have is a bit unknown possibly to most because I’m a disabled person that uses [Universal Access] “Sticky Keys” & “mousekeys” for my mouse over on the Numeric keypad to navigate and Click — and always before on [Windows] the [double click key] was the key — right of the [ 6 ] key which is [ + ] on Windows & Mac, left click key is Always the [ 5 ] key on the Numeric Keypad, Right click is [control] + [ 5 ] keys …when I click the [ + ] (double click) it opens up the Spotlight Search? …using Fire Fox browser clicking it brings up status bar [Find]?

I’ve searched and read anything and everything I could find, My problem remains unsolved,
I hope you can help me and other disabled persons that may have the same problem as I,

Respectively

–Jeff–

As always, thanks to all in advance

-Brent

Today, I received an email from “Laura” and it got me thinking. I have heard a lot of people talk about the “Spinning pinwheel of death” as Mac’s version of Windows’ “Blue screen of death”. Here’s her question:

Yesterday while using my mac, I got a busy wheel. my computer wont let me do anything else. fortunately, it ran out of battery so it just shut off. however today when i plugged it in to recharge and turn on, the busy wheel is still there, it wont let me do anything on the computer at all. any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Have you been in this situation and how did you fix it? Help Laura out and I know I would love to know, just in case…

Disclaimer: There may be a better way to do this, but this is how I worked it out.

One of my recent frustrations with my MacBook is that I either have to leave my Wireless Mighty Mouse on all the time and just keep pumping batteries in there all the time or save my batteries and go through the Bluetooth connect process every time I open up the cover. Both are a bit of a hassle and somewhat annoying so I began hunting to figure out a reasonable alternate solution. From what I gather, there’s no real simple way to do it. But there’s a semi easy fix that has made my life easier. [Continued]