iPhone News Updated

Biz Break: Double trouble? Plus: Behind Apple’s iPhone 4 ‘death grip’

Biz Break: Double trouble? Plus: Behind Apple’s iPhone 4 ‘death grip’

Today: Are we headed for a double dip? Plus: Apple blames a software error for iPhone 4 signal-strength problems. Disney buys Tapulous.

The economy

Are we headed for a dreaded double dip? Today’s labor market report, at the very least, shows the economy is having trouble adding jobs as it recovers from the Great Recession.

The nation lost 125,000 payroll jobs last month, the U.S. Labor Department reported today. In particular, the U.S. Census Bureau ended 225,000 temporary positions. Private-sector employers added a relatively weak 83,000 payroll jobs.

“It could have been worse, but it wasn’t good,” IHS Global Insight chief U.S. economist Nigel Gault said, according to our friends at The Associated Press. “It’s adding to the evidence that growth has slowed.”

At a seasonally adjusted 9.5 percent, the unemployment rate edged down from 9.7 percent in May and was the same as a year earlier. The drop mostly reflected a greater number of people who have left the labor force (some because they’ve given up on finding a job).

As for a dreaded double dip, that’s what it’s called when the economy falls into another recession before completely recovering from the last one.

Robert Hall, a Stanford University economist and chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research, explains in an AP report: “The idea — hypothetical because it has yet to happen — is that activity might rise for a period, but not far enough to complete a cycle, then fall again, and finally rise above its original level, only then completing the cycle.”

Apple’s iPhone 4

We love our iPhone, but more as an awesome portable computer and music player than for its reliability as a phone.Responding today to reports of a “death grip” that blocked reception for owners of Apple’s new iPhone 4, the Cupertino maker of Mac computers and “i” devices said every iPhone — back to the original model launched in 2007 — has had a software glitch (D’oh!) that caused the device to overestimate AT&T signal strength.

“Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength,” Apple wrote in a letter posted on its website.

Apple now intends to rework its software to adopt wireless carrier AT&T’s “recently recommended formula” for calculating signal strength. Apple said it will issue a software update within a few weeks for owners of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

More tech headlines

Tapulous: The Palo Alto iPhone game upstart has been bought by Burbank media behemoth Disney. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Tapulous founders Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy and their staff will stay in Palo Alto, and their company will become a wholly owned subsidiary reporting to the Disney Interactive Media Group.

Tapulous is known for iPhone games including “Tap Tap Revenge.”

“Mobile gaming is seeing unprecedented growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our position in the mobile business,” Disney Interactive President Steve Wadsworth said in a statement yesterday announcing the deal.

“In a short time, Bart and Andrew have built Tapulous into a successful and accomplished mobile games developer that’s emerged as one of the most successful companies in the industry,” Wadsworth said.

Video games: Industry sales were down 5 percent in May after console makers Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo cut prices, researcher NPD Group reported yesterday evening.

According to an AP report, hardware sales were down 20 percent to $241.5 million, software sales increased 4 percent to $466.3 million, and accessory sales were up 3 percent to $115.7 million.

Programming note

Sunday is Independence Day, but the stock markets will be taking their holiday Monday — and so will the 60-Second Business Break. We’ll be back Tuesday with your usual tech-oriented business-news summary.

Today’s Silicon Valley tech stocks

Up: Oracle, Gilead Sciences.

Down: Apple, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, VMware, eBay, Yahoo.

The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 46.05, or 0.5 percent, to 9,686.48.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 9.57, or 0.5 percent, to 2,091.79.

And the widely watched Standard & Poor’s 500 index: Down 4.79, or 0.5 percent, to 1,022.58.

[Thanks: http://www.mercurynews.com]

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