Archive for August, 2009

Recentrly we've talked about Nokia and their willingness to enter into direct competition with the iPhone releasing new devices based on Linux. Now on the official Nokia website we can already pre-order the new mini tablet N900.

The operating system is the Maemo 5, that is based on Linux. It has an ARM Cortex A8 processor with 256MB of RAM for applications and other 768MB in virtual memory, so total is 1GB. So the multi-tasking is guaranteed. The graphics uses Open GL | ES 2.0, which is quite good.

The new operating system is much more flexible compared to Symbian. The Web browser is developed by Mozilla and is capable of playing Flash 9.4 movies and animations.

It looks like an iPhone but lacks the Home. It also has a sliding QWERTY keyboard. The screen resolution is 800 × 480 pixels (16:9). There are two cameras. The main has 5 MP with Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens and two LEDs for flash. The onboard memory is 32GB but can be expanded with microSD to additional 48GB.

The target price (tax excluded) is 500 euro. Nokia N900 will be available starting from October.

Here's a video that shows the Maemo interface in action:

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A new package called iPhoneDelivery is avaliable in Cydia. It is a little hack to enable delivery notification for SMS. In other words, we can now see a new popup screen when the recipient receives the message.

To install the package just run Cydia, add repository http://iphonedelivery.advinux.com/cydia and install package called iPhoneDelivery.

Next, go to Settings> Messages and turn on the last two switches that will enable the Services that show a new screen with the delivery status (last screenshot).

via ispazio

Playing with the latest beta software for iPhone, one of iH8sn0w employees (firmware 3.1 beta 3 jailbreak utility), found that the expiry date for latest firmware is September 18.

Firmware 3.1 will be probably released 1 or 2 days before the expiration of the beta. This means that Apple might perform a release during the Apple event in September. However this event is dedicated to the music, so we cannot be sure.

The only certain knowledge is that by the middle of next month we will see either 3.1 beta 4 or 3.1 release.

Gameloft has just released a new fantastic video trailer showing in-game graphics of the masterpiece called Modern Combat: Sandstorm.

The expected price is $9.99. The game will appear in AppStore soon.

via ispazio

This information is for those who are worried about not being able to run the iPhone Jailbreak with the new operating system Snow Leopard. Dev Team said that RedSn0w and PwnageTool works perfectly.

Looks like Apple didn't create any anti-jailbreak system. Good news.

China Unicom published a press release which officially announces that the company has come to an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in China:

On 28 August, the Company and Apple reached a three-year agreement for the Company to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with brand new communication and information experience.

The carrier will offer two different iPhones to its 141 million subscribers. Neither Apple nor China Unicom will reveal specs on the phones (WiFi?) or pricing.

via engadget

While most recent rumors have been swirling around Apple developing a 10" iTablet that would basically look like an oversized iPod touch, Gizmodo has a source, said to have been 100% reliable in the past, who’s telling them Apple is also planning 13" and 15" tablets, one of which… will run Mac OS X:

This source claims that the two touchscreen prototypes—made of aluminum, but on the shape of big iPhones—were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. One of them “was running Mac OS X 10.5.” When I asked, the source didn’t know if these were built for demonstration purposes, or if they were preproduction units. The company has a tight relation with Apple but “it’s not FoxConn.”

So maybe Apple is making small iPhone-like tablets and larger MacBook-like tablets.

via gizmodo theiphoneblog

Here are couple photos taken with Nokia N97 and iPhone 3GS:

The Nokia N97 takes 5MP photos while the iPhone 3GS takes 3MP photos. All the photos in this post are resized, click to enlarge.

iPhone 3GS photos are the left ones, Nokia N97 - right ones.

As for geotagging it was turned on for both devices. The iPhone 3GS successfully geotagged all 8 photos while the Nokia N97 was only able to geotag 2 of the 8 photos. The SIM card was in the Nokia N97, while the iPhone was in offline mode. A possible explanantion is that the GPS signal on the Nokia N97 is weak as discussed on Nokia’s forums.

Take a look at more photos:

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Anders Hejdenberg, the lead designer of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, released a trailer for his upcoming iPhone game today.

Dark Nebula is described as a "skill-based action game" which appears to be a much enhanced take on the ball-rolling games we've already seen for the iPhone. Anders writes:

“The iPhone has always intrigued me as a gaming platform, both in terms of how you can interact with it as well as what it is capable of technically. So I felt quite compelled to try it out and see what we could do with it. It was a lot of fun to come up with a new game concept with a control mechanic that feels great on the device.”

The game will be released as a series of episodes with the first being 10 levels for $0.99. The first episode is expected in September.

via toucharcade

According to a post on the Bing blog Microsoft has released the Bing iPhone SDK and Mac OS X SDK for developers:

The Bing iPhone and Mac SDK is available for download on CodePlex, open source under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

The SDK provides:

• The ability to easily query Bing from within Cocoa or Cocoa Touch application.
• Perform both synchronous and asynchronous queries.
• Search Bing for Web, Image, Video, News, and Phonebook results.

via iclarified

Vontge company is known to it's Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. Recently Vonage has submitted an iPhone application to Apple. The application's approval has been delayed by minor technical issues with the application.

"They submitted an application for review," said Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris told Tech Trader Daily. "There are some technical issues [with the code they submitted] that hopefully can be resolved." Kerris did not elaborate on the nature of the issues with Vonage's application.
In an update to the article, Vonage reported that it has fixed the issue and resubmitted the application to Apple for approval.

"We can confirm that one of our prospective applications is for the iPhone. They identified one issue stating that it is 'simple to fix.' The issue is cosmetic and relates to the labeling of an icon. We've made the requested change and resubmitted the application for approval earlier today."

Anyway this app will be restricted to Wi-Fi only for voip phone calls once it appears in the App Store.

via macrumors

Nokia owns half of the world's Symbian based phones market. However Nokia, in order to "compete with the iPhone", has decided to invest all the forces in a new system, replacing the classic Symbian: Linux.

Some sources have claimed that Nokia will present its first high-end phone based on Maemo, a version of Linux for mobile devices, at Nokia World next week in Stuttgart, Germany.

Officially, however, Nokia has decided not to submit any news or devices with this new system out soon.

via ispazio

The $10 Octopus USB Cable has 10 different tentacles (ignore the fact that octopi usually have eight) to charge pretty much any mobile device you could own—most probably at a rate of 1 at a time. Specifically, that mix includes:

- Nokia 2.06mm (or 2mm)
- Nokia 3.5mm
- Sony PSP
- Motorola (V3 series) & HTC and other phones using USB Mini 5 pin as a charging port
- Micro USB (for Motorola V8...)
- LG
- Samsung (20P (s))
- Samsung (20P (M))
- Sony Ericsson Fast Port
- iPhone / iPod (for charging and Data)

Now why you'd ever be carrying around all of these devices at once, we cannot explain.

via gizmodo and usbfever

The new ad called Top of the Line features actor Patrick Warburton who is best known for his portrayal of David Puddy from the Seinfeld sitcom. It focuses on potential viruses and other "headaches" that may affect PCs, but not Macs. A second ad called Surprise was also posted today delivering a similar message:

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Here is a great collection of wallpapers for iPhone. Today’s topic is Space:

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