Archive for November, 2010

The Chinese Economy Daily News reports that the Apple's next generation iPad will add 5 distinct new features, including:

• Video phone
• Better mobility
• USB port
• New display technology
• 3-axis gyroscope

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Yesterday BusinessInsider revealed a top-10 list of tablet PCs that will compete with iPad in 2011. Here it is:

1. RIM's BlackBerry Playbook

Release Date: early 2011.



A 7-inch tablet is reported to be faster that iPad with its $500 price tag.

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CNet made a quick comparison between two tablets - Apple iPad 3G and Samsung Galaxy Tab. Let's find out who is the winner:

Apple has reportedly expanded its Cupertino campus in California with the purchase of a 98 acre former HP campus earlier this summer. The land had been used by HP for twenty years before they decided to sell it in order to consolidate all parts of the company nearby Palo Alto. The deal may have cost Apple as much as $300 million. So, now Apple is the largest landholder in the Cupertino city. They now occupy 57 buildings in the city and the company continues to grow. Apple has not announced any plans for the new land, and has only started to use some of the existing buildings on its former, 50 acre land purchase made in 2006. Apple has been locating in Cupertino since 1977, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set up the new company there.

Apple is rumored to plan to launch an all new MacBook Pro in April 2011 alongside an update to Final Cut Pro. The new design seems to be similar to the 2010 MacBook Air. The new MacBook Pros will have solid state storage and 512GB memory. Apple will remove the optical drive and pushed to market Light Peak optical cable interface. Apple is likely not to replace the traditional 13" MacBook Pro and leave only one legacy 15" design in the lineup. Prices will vary from $1,799 for the traditional model with upgrade options available to $1,999 for the new MacBook Pros and scale up according to configuration.

This week Acer revealed that it's going to ship two Android-based tablets in April 2011, and one Windows 7 tablet in February 2011.

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In iPad OS 4.2 'Orientation Lock' was changed to 'Mute Switch'. If you want to change it back there is an app for that.

NoMute, a jailbreak only application, switches the controversial mute switch from iPad 4.2 into its former (and more useful) orientation lock. The plugin is free and you can get it from the BigBoss repository on Cydia.

By the way you can lock screen orientation without jailbreaking through multitasking panel - just push Home button twice, slide to the left and hit lock icon.

These days NPD issued another "fact sheet" for the holiday consumer electronics buying season, which has some interesting facts on Apple's devices. Here are they:

• Last quarter became the most successful for iPad, as Apple reach a record figure of 4.19 million units sold over this three-month period.
• Those, who already bought an iPad at least two months ago, are using it 18 hours per week on the average.
• 58% of all the iPad buyers have Wi-Fi model, other 42% chose to purchase 3G-enabled model.


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Apple announced that 2 million songs have been sold since The Beatles recent iTunes launch. Additionally, 450,000 whole albums were downloaded by customers on iTunes.  The Beatles' best selling album on iTunes in the US was 1969's "Abbey Road," while the top selling song was that album's track, "Here Comes the Sun."

iOS 4.2 was released only a couple of days ago, but Apple is rumored to plane to release the next major update of its mobile operating system, iOS 4.3, this December. New update, as expected, will allow users to subscribe to content and address initial issues with AirPlay. Apple is reportedly planning to hold special media event on December 9 where they will announce the subscription plans. After the special event, on December 13, Apple should release iOS 4.3. As rumored, the reason for the launch of new iOS version is Apple’s massive data center in North Carolina, the purpose of which remains unknown. In addition to supporting of the new payment mechanism, 4.3 version will also include the capability to automatically push out fresh content to tablets.

According to the recent Wall Street Journal report, at least 5 RIM's former employees made a switch to Apple in the last year and a half and thus updated information in their resumes. Here are their names:

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Yesterday Marco Boglione, who is an Italian private collector and businessman, bought at Christie's auction house in London one of the Apple's first computers for $174,000. According to the Associated Press, the Apple I was in superb condition and Boglione will pay something like $210,000 after tax.

When Apple I was released in 1976, its price was $666.66. There were only 200 units made, and only from 30 to 50 are assumed to still exist. Earlier Christie's estimated that their Apple I computer will be bought for $160,000-$240,000. Now it will be shipped to its new owner in the original box and with a signed letter from Apple CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs.

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In addition to release of new iOS 4.2 Apple updated their software bundle iWork for iPad, which includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers. So, what is new in this version of iWork? The most significant changes include:

For all programs:

• Wireless printing with AirPrint using iOS 4.2;
• Support for iOS 4.2 multitasking;
• Localized in Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, and Traditional Chinese;
• Improved usability and reliability;
• Improved PDF export using iOS 4.2;

Pages

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DevTeam hacker MuscleNerd tweeted that they after releasing redsn0w jailbreak for 4.2 the team can start working on iPhone unlock. Users can expect the unlock for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS this week. The iPhone 4 unlock will take more time and no concrete info is available about that yet.

The ultrasn0w unlock will be released for iOS 4.1 firmware. So is you need unlock, do not update to iOS 4.2.1.

DevTeam worked hard for the last several hours and released jailbreak tool for iOS 4.2.1. It is redsn0w 0.9.6 b4.

As usual we remind all ultrasn0w unlockers please stay away from this official firmware. Wait for the ability to create custom 4.2.1 IPSWs that don’t update your baseband!

New redsn0w 0.9.6 b4 uses limera1n exploit and will successfully jailbreak all devices. The only problem is that it is a tethered jailbreak, which means you will have to plug it to a computer and rerun redsn0w on every reboot. This so called tethered or semi-tethered jailbreak. This condition applies to iPhone 3GS (new bootrom), iPhone 4, iPad, iPod touch 2G (MC model), iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G. Hackers are working hard to create untethered jailbreak for these devices. To use future untethered jailbreak you need to save SHSH keys for iOS 4.1 using TinyUmbrella utility or directly in Cydia.

Old devices like iPhone 3GS (old bootrom), iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G (non-MC model) can be jailbroken-untethered right now using this latest version of RedSn0w.

You can download RedSn0w 0.9.6 b4 here.