On Tuesday evening, in the leadup to the release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware update, TUAW ran a post that included wrong information. The post stated that first-generation iPhone owners would not be able to use the push notification feature of 3.0 and receive phone calls at the same time. This was incorrect with respect to the final 3.0 release.

Although the post was well-intentioned, the conclusions stated came from a source who had experienced a conflict between push notifications and incoming calls while testing a beta push-enabled application, and the source did not adequately confirm the issue with other iPhone developers or other push-enabled applications. Furthermore, the technical information in the post about how push notification works was not accurate.

As editors, we can blame the lateness of the hour and the excitement over the iPhone 3.0 OS release on not catching the mistakes pre-publication, but in truth, we made an error in judgement. Based on our confidence in the source, we didn't assign the same level of scrutiny to the post that our readers have come to expect (and that we have come to expect for ourselves), and for that we are sorry. Had the post been framed differently as "one user's story" rather than as a blanket technical explanation, that would have been a better choice; however, due to the NDA status of participants in the iPhone developer program, it was not possible to directly credit the source at that time; the 3.0 firmware had not yet been released.

Although we amended the post as soon as the mistake was realized and removed it from the front page within minutes, the nature of the Internet means that this misinformation is hard to erase. Our editorial policy dictates that we not "unpublish" or delete posts, once they appear on the site. Still, even removed from our front page, and even with our editor's note atop the post, we are aware that the post continues to be a point of confusion for readers.

TUAW's bloggers and editors strive to provide accurate information and to clearly distinguish conjecture or rumor from fact. In this instance, we got it wrong.

We are truly sorry for this situation. We understand that it reflects poorly on us as a site, to readers and to the community at large. As a result, we have strengthened our editorial resolve to do more vigorous checking of the technical details of posts, so that this sort of misinformation does not get published in the future.

As always, thank you for reading TUAW. Without your support, we wouldn't be here, and we are very much aware how important our credibility is to your continued readership and participation.

We look forward to continuing the conversation on this issue and responding to your questions and concerns. While comments on the initial post are closed, we welcome your feedback in comments here, via our tips line and on Twitter and Facebook.

We're not innocent of error, and on occasion we create our own dramatic bits of fail, but in this case we can help clarify things: If you are visiting an "official Apple site" that shows a release date of June 18 for the iPhone 3.0 software update, take a closer look at that URL before you start jumping up and down in panic.



Yes, that 'sg' does indeed signify that you are looking at the Singapore version of Apple's site, even if PC World mistakenly says that the US site has been updated with the "delayed" release date -- they are also linking to the incorrect URL. ComputerWorld has the correct info. Of course, Singapore is not on Pacific Time, but you can see here how the 10 am PT slot shows up around the globe. We're also getting links from folks mistakenly pointing to the Australia version of the site and saying "It's out now!!" Please, do yourself a solid and check in iTunes or in Terminal before engaging full freakout mode.

How did this spin out of control? A tweet sometime last night, from whom we do not yet know, with the Singapore link that got picked up and amplified over and over again. We did our best to squelch it, but it keeps coming back. The good news is, with any luck we'll all be on track with our watches very soon.

In the meantime, you can visit us on Twitter at our new Q&A address -- @ask_tuaw -- or, for some tunes to keep your mind off your anticipation, click through to the second half of this post for a custom TUAW's "Music To Wait For Upgrades By" playlist.

While this might not be news for everyone, reader Brad and I seemed to be having the same problem: Using Firefox 3, we would see the "unsupported browser" message pictured while trying to use me.com.

Obviously, Firefox 3 is a supported browser for MobileMe. A TUAW colleague gave it a try and found everything to work fine. Brad and I compared notes about what plugins we have in common, and found that Ubiquity was causing the problem.

It turned out to be related to the user-agent string: MobileMe uses the user-agent string to determine what browser you're using, and Ubiquity tacks on an extra bit at the end. For example, without Ubiquity installed, it shows Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5. With Ubiquity installed, it said Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120121 Firefox/3.0.5 Ubiquity/0.1.5. (Emphasis mine.)

Since MobileMe doesn't know what to do with the extra Ubiquity text at the end, it thinks you have an unsupported browser, and shows you that error.

The good news is that you can fix this, thanks to a simple technique from Tim Jarrett, and still use both Ubiquity and MobileMe. Read on to find out how.

Thanks, Brad!

For the past year when it comes to the iPhone, us Canadians have had to watch enviously as our American neighbors got to have all the fun. Well, no more! As of today I have joined the ranks of the enlightened -- at least, my wallet has been "lightened".

I am, like many of you, a software junkie. As such, one of things I am really excited about is the App Store. Imagine my surprise today when I tried to access it from my gleaming new device, only to run into an error message when I attempted to download my first app. The error stated "Your account is only valid for purchases in the Canadian iTunes Store." Huh?

My first thought was, "this darn thing has GPS on it, doesn't it know I'm in Canada?" So I went looking in the international settings on the phone, and sure enough the region format was set to United States. I dutifully changed it to Canada and tried again, to be met again with the same error.

At this point I should mention that I had, up until this point, not synchronized my iPhone with iTunes. I had not planned to, since my MacBook Pro is currently down for the count with a dead video card, and it will be a week before the Apple Store has one in stock to repair my machine.

Frustrated by my inability to download apps, I finally threw caution to the wind and synchronized my new iPhone with a newly downloaded copy of iTunes on the Windows desktop I am relegated to using while waiting for my laptop to be repaired. Unfortunately, I still had no luck.

Then it occurred to me to log into the iTunes Store in iTunes using my account. It was at this stage that iTunes informed me that I was viewing the wrong store, and transferred me over to the Canadian iTunes Store. One more synchronization of the iPhone was needed to transfer my iTunes Store credentials into the phone, and I was finally able to waste untold hours downloading applications.

I imagine this tip will apply to almost nobody, but here's hoping that if there's someone else out there that is so dazzled by the iPhone that they are unable to think coherently, as I was, that they will find in this post the help and understanding that they so desperately need. Or something like that.

Canada has many things going for it: maple trees everywhere, single-payer health care system and a one-of-a-kind Apple page. One of our readers just tipped us about an error on the MobileMe signup completion page for Canada. Apparently, Apple's designers left in some placeholder text on the signup "thank you" page. While Apple does (yes, they really do) make some mistakes, leaving greeked text on a webpage isn't usually one of them. [If you're saying "that looks like Latin, not Greek," see here. -Ed.]

You can see the Freudian slip by visiting Apple's Canadian MobileMe signup completion page.

Have you ever tried to empty the Trash on your Mac only to receive a dreaded message that said the trash couldn't be emptied because a file was in use? Well, "What's Keeping Me" hopes to solve this problem with it's advanced trash-error detection technology (we kid, it's really just magic).

If you encounter the message that the trash cannot be emptied, just click on What's Keeping Me to see what application or process is keeping the trash from being emptied. You can have What's Keeping Me quit the application or if need be kill (force-quit) the application.

You can download What's Keeping Me from HAMSoft Engineering; this application is freeware, however, donations are accepted.

Apple's flagship email client had me banging my head against a wall again when I finally dug up this tip on rebuilding Mail.app's 'Envelope Index' SQLite database at Hawk Wings (If you're wondering what that file is all about, check out Hawk Wing's "What's in your Mail folder?" post). Forcing Mail.app to rebuild this file is as simple as quitting the app, browsing to your ~/Library/Mail/ folder and dragging out the file called 'Envelope Index' to your desktop (I'd recommend making a backup of your Mail support folder before attempting this. Don't say we didn't warn you). Start Mail.app back up and it will give you a message about re-importing or re-indexing all of your messages (sorry, I forgot to screencap the message), and depending on how many you have it could take a couple minutes. I have over 13,000 emails and it didn't take my G4 PowerBook long at all.

My Envelope Index was over 300 MB before I started this, and after it was all said and done that file weighed in at less than 4 MB. Putting Mail.app on this kind of a weight loss program can seriously speed it up and generally improve its performance; no more clicking on a new message 10 minutes after Mail.app notified me about it only to be greeted by "this message has not been downloaded yet..." silliness.

It is also worth mentioning that this tip is probably more of a troubleshooting technique than something you should work into your regular maintenance tasks. A commenter on this tip at Hawk Wings pointed out that this rebuilding operation nullifies a couple of mailbox settings. If you have set any specific IMAP mailboxes to be used for trash or junk, Mail.app will forget those settings after this rebuild. Still, I think the performance gain and all-around less-schizophrenic behavior of Mail.app was worth having to reset a couple of preferences.

[UPDATE: Some commenters have pointed out that Mail also has a Rebuild option under the Mailbox menu (at least in Tiger). I tinkered with this on one of my 4 IMAP accounts and it seems to do the same trick with far less fuss. Thanks for the tip!]

I'm no software expert, but if you receive an error similar to the one I have pictured here when trying to install the iTunes 6.0.3 update that Dave Caolo just mentioned, I wouldn't recommend following through. I have no idea what this could mean or what could have caused it, but I think this is one time I'm going to shelve the early adopter in me. We'll post more details ASAP.

I recently set Mail on both of my Macs to chose a random signature. From time to time during a .Mac sync, I'll receive an obnoxious sync error claiming that a 'default' signature on one Mac is conflicting with the other. No matter which signature I choose to resolve the conflict, the sync process will lock into a loop, repeatedly offering me a sync error with new choices on either end for resolving the conflict. Obviously, this has lead to an increase of Advil in my regular diet.

If you're nodding your head right now, you'll be happy to know we all can cut back on the pain killers. For the first time in a while, I actually received a helpful message from Apple's email support that said something more than "try rebooting." Turns out that, unfortunately, if you enable Mail's random signature feature on one Mac, Mail can't be running on other registered Macs for the first sync after this new feature. I replied to the support rep's email to find out what is up with such an odd quirk, but I didn't receive a very useful answer.

Nevertheless, after getting back to square one by resetting my signature data on both Macs, I can verify that this fix works. Hopefully, this issue is on the list of updates coming in 10.4.4.