At least Steve Jobs didn't announce today he's taking the iPhone 4 to Miami. In his would-be blockbuster sequel to "The Decision," the Apple CEO today unveiled "The Solution": Apple's fix for antenna reception problems with the latest version of the company's iconic device. The announcement of free rubber bumpers for disgruntled iPhone 4 owners was almost as anticlimactic as LeBron James' massively hyped disclosure that he would switch allegiance from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat after a lengthy and media-saturated courtship of teams including the Knicks, Nets and Bulls.

QR codes, those little crossword-puzzle-like bar codes, have popped up in a lot of different places -- movie posters, bus stops, magazines and Web sites among them. But not usually the side of 25-ton New York City Sanitation trucks. That's where the city is putting QR codes as part of a broader campaign on TV and online to boost awareness about recycling.

The Pew Research Center last week released its annual report on how Americans are using their mobile phones. The study found six in 10 U.S. adults now access the Internet wirelessly by laptop or cell phone and that use of mobile data services including taking pictures, playing games, text messaging and playing music is on the rise.

Duct tape on the iPhone 4? That's the quick and dirty solution proposed by Consumer Reports to the device's reception problems in the much-publicized study blaming signal loss on the phone's external antenna design rather than a software glitch. Of course, such a suggestion would likely give Apple CEO Steve Jobs a heart attack -- the equivalent of throwing house paint on a Picasso or "fixing" the Venus De Milo with Elmer's Glue.

With the launch of its App Inventor tool for Android phones, Google is bringing YouTube's user-generated content model to creating apps. The company's new "do-it-yourself" kit promises to let anyone, not just professional developers, build basic programs tailored to their own needs or whims.

As we cross into the second half of 2010 amid a searing heat wave, it's time to take a cool-headed look back at the first half of the year to see where things are going for the rest of the year and beyond. Holding forth on mobile trends over the last six months in a new report is prominent industry consultant and seer Chetan Sharma. Here are some of the highlights of his overview:

As we had mentioned yesterday, if you are reading this, chances are you are not a typical mobile user (though you are not exactly burning up the switchboard with your tales of iAd experiences). It likely seems normal to you to access the Internet on a mobile device. And of those of you accessing this on a mobile device, probably somewhere around 30 percent are using an iPod. And all you smug iPaddies run the risk of losing touch with the man on the street, the average Joe with a Nokia and a dream. Lucky for you The Pew …

If you are an iPad or iPhone user, we'd like you, dear reader, to take the iAd Challenge. Now that the heralded units for all the i-devices have launched, tell us about your iAd experience, won't you? We can spend time here at MediaPost HQ, hunched over our communal iPad waiting for iAds to be served, but it seems more efficient to throw it out to all of you. "It will be hard to make a $1-10 million investment pay off," Aaron Goldman, managing partner, Connectual, told us back in May when Jobs made his announcemet, "iAd, albeit elegant, is …

Only a small percentage of U.S. mobile users are banking via mobile devices, but the practice appears to be picking up steam as consumers grow more comfortable transacting business via cell phones. New features in the latest version of Chase's iPhone application could help accelerate usage even more.

Silly games can turn into serious business on the iPhone. That's the lesson of Disney's acquisition of Tapulous, maker of the hit line of Tap Tap music games for the Apple device that kicked off with the flagship Tap Tap Revenge.