Archive for March, 2010

A few days ago Opera Mini browser was sent to Apple for the review. While waiting anxiously for the Apple's decision we have found an interesting video from IntoMobile. It compares the speed of Safari and Opera Mini browsers. Which one do you think is faster?

Take a look at the video:

PadGadget did some research of the the iTunes database last night and found that Apple has already approved and listed several iPad apps in the AppStore. The names use HD (High Definition) in the title to signify the bigger 9.7 inch, 1024×768 pixel iPad display. Here is a quick list of what was found:

• Ammoin HD
• Azkend HD
• Flight Control HD
• Grind HD
• HD Recovery
• Labyrinth 2 HD
• NBA Hotshot HD
• Numba HD
• Plants vs. Zombie HD
• Sparkle HD
• Worms HD

You won’t find any of these iPad titles using your standard iTunes browser, you need to use Apple’s more recent web interface to find the new titles mixed in with the thousands of regular iPhone and Touch titles.

UPDATE: Apple has corrected the iTunes Preview site and HD iPad titles are no longer listed.

Geohot, the famous iPhone hacker and the creator of different jailbreak and unlock utilities (purplera1n, blackra1n and blacksn0w), is now working on a new jailbreak utility. It will support untethered jailbreak for all devices with the latest bootrom and the latest firmware. This includes iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G.

Here is what Geohot writes in his blog:

The jailbreak is all software based, and is as simple to use as blackra1n. It is completely untethered, works on all current tethered models(ipt2, 3gs, ipt3), and will probably work on iPad too.

Don't ask about a release date. You won't make it happen any sooner.

It is still unclear if he used one of the recent iPhone Safari hacks to gain control of the device or if this is something else.

Here is a teaser video:

This week Apple posted ten new vacancies on its site. They all are related to North Carolina Data Center. Currently Apple is looking for Engineers and Technicians, though the position of Chief Operation Engineer hasn't been filled since January.

Apple's new North Carolina Data Center is approximately 5 times bigger that existing 109,000 sq. foot Newark facility. It is supposed to be a key component of the company's cloud computing strategy. Apple is going to invest in this project $1 billion for the next 9 years and expects to hire at least fifty full-time employees.

The flyover of the North Carolina data center is under the cut.

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Recently MuscleNerd, the member of DevTeam, reported the presence of an interesting security bug in Safari for the iPhone. It will probably allow a quick remote jailbreak of iPhone or iPod Touch simply by connecting the device to an external website created for this purpose.

The bug was discovered by two hackers Ralph Phillip and Vincenzo Iozzo, who won the prize of $15 000 during CanSecWest. Their initial idea was to use a web portal to do the exploit of the SMS database and retrieve it's content.

Last week Alexander Vaughn from the AppAdvice.com resource had a chance to take a first look at the iBookStore. As you see from the screenshot above, late rumors about higher e-book prices for iPad are confirmed to be false. Moreover, 27 of the 32 books presented in the NYT's Bestseller section cost $9,99 which is exactly the same price as for Amazon Kindle versions.

To expand their market share Amazon chose a strategy of selling the most popular and newly released books at a loss. Now it seems that such a serious concession won't take a proper effect.

iBookStore is a platform for selling iPad e-Books. The working scheme is the same as for iPhone developers - publishers are free to set the prices they want, but Apple keeps 30% of it.

Sybase released another study based on the survey made by Zogby International. The company analyzed the opinions of 2,443 adults that have at least one mobile phone. Among them 770 have smartphones.

More than a half of respondents (52,3%) said they will most likely use an iPad or any other tablet device to do work. 36% claimed such a device will help them to be more productive at work. Every second person find iPad to be an excellent gadget for watching videos, but only every third person is going to play games on it.

"The study shows that consumers are looking for devices they can use both at home and work, with implications for the business being asked to support them. Further, findings show that while device functionality is important to satisfying people's desire for a personal and work-ready mobile experience that the experience is incomplete without greater access to data."

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The Street's analyst Jason Scwarz thinks that in June Apple will show a new version of iPhone, and it will have a smaller screen size. That will be a part of a new politics that will be focused on popularization of iPad.

Another analyst Ben Reitzes from Barclays Capital expects Apple to make another splash by new iPhone form factor:

“iPad yields should improve dramatically throughout the year even if the launch starts out capacity constrained. These developments support upside to consensus forecasts for the iPad, should demand materialize like we think it can. We estimate Apple will sell almost 5 million iPads for CY10; including 1.2 million in the June quarter – which could prove conservative.

… Also, we have increased confidence that Apple will make a big splash this summer with a new iPhone form factor. We believe that the new model will launch with considerable fanfare and expect unit expectations to rise in turn.”

MOTO Labs conducted a new touchscreen test with a number of the most popular smartphones: Apple iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One, Palm Pre and Blackberry Storm 2. The results were expected - iPhone has a first place and is followed by Google Nexus One.

The test was made by 7mm and 4mm robotic fingers for accordingly medium and light touch imitation. Moto Labs reports iPhone screen to have straight and accurate lines but with weaknesses at the edges of the panel. Nexus One with Droid Eris has a "solid performance". The results are almost the same because both of the devices are manufactured by HTC. As you remember, Apple filed a lawsuit about infringing their touchscreen-related patents earlier this month.

The results for the other smartphones can be seen on the picture below.

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Last week comScore released a poll of 2,176 consumers who were asked about how they will use their iPads. At least 37% of device owners will read books on it, and 34% will read magazines and newspapers. It is interesting, that only 26% of respondents reported that they will download apps from the App Store. So what will do another at least 8% of customers, who want to read books from the iBookstore that must be downloaded from the App Store (as it won't come preinstalled on the iPad)?

The poll also reveals that every customer who has already had an experience of working with Apple products, the so-called "iOwners", is more likely to purchase apps and newspapers than any other.

"These findings suggest that those who are already familiar and comfortable with making digital content purchases via iTunes may have a relatively higher receptivity to making similar purchases for the iPad".

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Here is an interesting video from CNN about iPad, Kindle and publishers:

Here's a link to youtube.

According to BusinessInsider, reviewers will receive iPads from Apple reportedly this week:

"We've heard from an industry source that Apple is either shipping iPads to reviewers this Thursday, or has already shipped them to be received this Thursday."

It is interesting, that there is no information whether Apple will send wifi or 3G versions of the device.

As iPad goes on sale April 3, reviewers will have approximately a week to test the device before they will publish their reviews.

As time goes by Apple CEO receives more e-mails and answers on some of it. If you analyze his behavior, you can see that it becomes a tradition to answer to company's customers before the announcement of a new device. So maybe we can expect something revolutionary again, but at this moment we can just take a look at what we have for today.

Two days ago a Macrumors reader mailed a letter to Steve Jobs. He was concerned about whether Apple will lose their vision on the MacBooks' department. The answer was:

"Not to worry."

Another TUAW reader asked if he will have an ability to transfer his Google Docs to the iPad through iDisk or iWork.com. Steve Jobs answered shortly again:

"Yes".

A man calling himself Julio R. was wondering, if we can expect a universal mailbox on the iPod Touch or iPhone. Jobs reply:

"Yep".

TheAppleLounge reader mailed this:

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A shop in Istanbul, Turkey has posted a video demonstration of how they perform a 'hardware unlock' on the iPhone 3G with firmware 3.1.3 and new baseband. The video shows ElektroPower performing a hardware teardown to reflash the Baseband to 04.26. Nice!

Today Apple began selling iPhones without AT&T plan. Apple's new policy is that anyone can walk into an Apple Store and pick up an iPhone 8GB for $499, 16GB for $599 and 32GB for $699. They allow one unit per customer per day, up to 10 iPhones.

The iPhones are still locked to AT&T's network. Of course, these devices will be sold with the latest baseband which is not yet unlockable; however, you can use RedSn0w to perform a tethered jailbreak.