The latest news from Apple – they plan to open a new retail store in Covent Garden (London) on Aug 7th. Nice location, isn’t it?

As you remember, few weeks ago iTunes Store was hacked and the top list of the Books category had been filled with a bunch of obscure books. That was achieved by a number of unauthorized charges that were made on accounts of several iTunes users, who eventually lost few hundred dollars. In turn Apple deleted developers who were found to use the fraudulent purchases.

These days Apple added new layer of security which now require every user to enter the security code of their credit card each time they register a new device or computer with their account, according to Different District blog. So if earlier malicious user just needed to guess a password for the account in order to receive and/or resell the acquired information to fraudulent buyers, after Apple’s security innovation it will require more efforts to do that.

MuscleNerd tweeted today that the recent redsn0w utility is able to jailbreak the iOS 4.1 beta2 on iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G. This is useful for developers only, however good news for everyone.

Here’s some info from the DevTeam wiki page:

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This Friday iPhone 4 will become available in 17 more countries, but South Korea will not be among them. Steve Jobs explained why:

“It’s going to take us a little longer to get government approval there”.

Korean government and people were discomfited by these words. According to The Wall Street journal, there is nothing to approve yet.

“The main communications regulator said last week that neither Apple nor KT [local iPhone carrier] had yet submitted the iPhone 4 for approval here”.

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This week developers started receiving Microsoft’s test units, which will allow them to test the performance of their apps for WP7 instead of using an emulator. The test smartphones are produced by Samsung and LG and have a Technical Preview version of Windows Phone 7, and guys at NewsGeek decided to compare its browser speed with iPhone 3GS’ that runs on iOS 4.

Since the difference in speed is so huge it is noted that both of the phones used 3G network (not Wi-Fi) and iPhone 3GS is a completely finished product, while Samsung’s test unit is a prototype with an unfinished OS that is still in development.

Newsgeek also found Internet Explorer in the Windows Phone 7 to be “surprisingly competent and quick” though it was mostly built off of IE7’s desktop version.

Taiwan’s NMA News has posted a video animation of the iPhone 4 and antenna story:

This week Steve Jobs had been seen enjoying his vacation in Hawaii. According to Gawker.com, which in turn referred to some tipster, who actually saw Apple’s CEO, the latter had a lunch at Kona Village Resort with his family. The spy also heard that Jobs was explaining the positive uses of LCD to his kids, the subject which was described earlier in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

Though nobody else did not confirm this information, the news are certainly entertaining.

Today Taiwanese newspaper DigiTimes released another article which reveals that the producing of next-gen iPad will be started in the last quarter of 2010. New tablet will have 7-inch and 5.6-inch OLED displays supplied by Compal Electronics. Both of these small (compared to the current 9.7-inch model) devices will “target the e-book reader market, separating them from the 9.7-inch model, which mainly targets multimedia entertainment”.

Choosing the OLED panels is explained by the assumption that its costs will be dropped soon, as LG display and Samsung Electronics are currently devoting resources into its development.
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Apple released new video ads for iPhone 4. Let’s watch. The first one is called “Smile”:

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More news from Steve Jobs’ outbox: even due to the very high demand for the iPhone 4 in the U.S., the device launch won’t be delayed in Canada.

A customer has sent an e-mail to Steve Jobs, asking

Has the Canadian iPhone 4 release date been pushed back to august due to such high demand in the U.S.?

Steve Jobs’ laconic reply was negative.

Good news!

Although it was for the most part overshadowed by the hysteria over the new iPhone 4, Apple had another “new” launch last week – the $99 iPhone 3GS 8GB with iOS 4 support.

Well, obviously it’s “last year’s model”, but just a couple of days ago it was still the best iPhone in the world quite capable of competing with much newer devices. Now with the help of iOS 4 iPhone 3GS supports folders, multitasking, and other cool features, and it’s only for $99.

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A new application for the iPad, iPod and iPhone from US President himself has just been released: Organizing for America.

This is an ambitious plan to connect to the voters in this year’s election season and to reach out to those who were inspired by the elections in 2008. With the application you can always stay involved and up to date with the main political events no matter where you are. You can even find some local events and get in touch with OFA supporters in your area. With Organizing for America, you’ll have immediate access to the latest news, photos and video.

Organizing for America features:

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DevTeam released update to their PwnageTool jailbreak utility. New version 4.01 supports iOS 4 jailbreak for iPhone 3GS (old bootrom), iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G (non-MC).

You can download the latest version here.

We recommend to read DevTeam instructions here before you start.

Good news for those who thought that FaceTime feature may spend your carrier minutes. Yesterday Apple representative told BusinessInsider that it is not true:

“The voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects. The FaceTime call is over Wi-Fi so does not use carrier minutes.”

That really wasn’t so obvious because there was a possibility that voice call would keep running in the background in cases if Wi-Fi signal went out or video chat dropped.

The reason why FaceTime feature doesn’t work in 3G networks is that it is not decided how exactly such videocalls must be billed – as data toward monthly data caps or in some other way.

Good news from DevTeam. They just announced via twitter that unlock for firmwares 3.1.3 and 4.0 is ready:

RT @MuscleNerd: ultrasn0w tips: 1) Works for all basebands since 3.0 FW 2) Remember to disable 3G on T-Mobile USA

ultrasn0w 0.93 released! Cydia repo is repo666.ultrasn0w.com. Works with basebands 04.26.08 thru 05.13.04

This means, that all users with basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04 can use ultrasn0w 0.93.

There is no jailbreak for just released iOS4, so you need to wait a bit. Firmware 3.1.3 who need unlock can update ultrasn0w and use their iPhones with any carrier.

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