Archive for 2010

Yesterday Apple updated iTunes version to 9.0.3.

First of all, now the app can finally remember your password while you're making your purchases. Also some problems with syncing Podcasts and Smart Playlists with iPod were solved. An update contains some improvements in stability and performance. Also it fixes a few minor issues and bugs.

iTunes 9.0.3 is available now for update from the software update mechanism in Mac OS X and Windows or on the official site.

After the iPad announcement the pre-orders for the Joojoo went up, said Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan in an interview with SGEntrepreneurs. Though he did not reveal any actual numbers, Chandra did drop some interesting details. He hinted that his company will soon announce a partnership with a "major mobile phone player", which has a “significant” market share in Southeast Asia. This “player” will also probably take care of the Joojoo manufacturing cost. And yet there is no information about the shipment date for the Joojoo, which still stands 8-10 weeks.

The Joojoo is a Linux-based tablet PC designed for Web surfing by the TechCrunch resource. Some photos from the official site are listed below.

The question about the iPad's front camera is really a mystery. Several days ago some developer found an evidence in iPad's firmware 3.2. Today ispazio found a new confirmation - an image from the Apple's Keynote on January 27, when Steve takes the iPad and shows it to the public. At some point the screen reflects the light and you can clearly see that there is something that looks like the camera, but could be just the light sensor.

Here is a small collection of funny pictures and video about Apple iPad:

Read the rest of this entry »

The specialists from RedmondPie made a video showing how to turn the interface of the iPhone into that of an iPad. They used simple packages that are already available via Cydia (for jailbroken iPhone).

Everything is very simple, just follow these steps:

• Install Winterboard from Cydia.
• Install the Winterboard theme "Simple iPad Theme" from Cydia.
• Install MakeItMine from Cydia. This utility is needed to change the Carrier name to "iPad".
• Download the application Shrink to reduce the size of the icons.
• Install NYTimes, Classics and Kindle applications from AppStore.

The result is shown on the photo above!

Here is a full instructional video:

Read the rest of this entry »

Taking into consideration the lines of recent Apple products, including the iPad, the boys of iPhon.fr have created a concept of what could be the iPhone 4G.

It is made from aluminum, with a central black plastic, which is necessary to receive and transmit the signal. What do you think? Do you like it?

A few days ago Apple introduced the iPad, but obviously it is not the only device of its kind on the market. Gizmodo created a comparison table, where they are analyze different features of 8 devices:

• Apple iPad
• HP Slate
• Fusion Garage JooJoo
• Notion Ink Adam
• Dell Mini 5
• Archos 7 Android
• Lenovo IdeaPad U1
• Archos 9

Here is the table:

As you can see, these wonderful devices have different strengths and weaknesses, all users have to do is to choose which ones are more important, visit the store and... buy an iPad

Can you believe it? Stephen Colbert pulled out an iPad at the Grammy Awards to find his list of nominees for the Song of the Year:

"I'm sorry where's the list. Oh, I know! It's on my iPad. Jay-z, did you not get one of these in your gift bag? Am I cooler than you? Hunnie, Hunnie, does this make me look cool?"

Congratulations to Apple, that was cool! Take a look at the video:

Apple has finally opened an official YouTube Channel. Now all users can easily watch and embed official Apple videos.

There are total 5 videos avaliable right now - the iPad video and the entire Keynote split into 4 videos. All the videos are avaliable in high quality (HD 720p):

Introducing the iPad:

Read the rest of this entry »

Redsn0w is a cross-platform jailbreaking tool for iPhone and iPod Touch. New version redsn0w 0.9.2 supports the latest firmware 3.1.2.

redsn0w 0.9.2 supports:

• All iPhones and iPod touches
• Windows and Mac OSX (x86)
• Apple firmwares 3.0 and 3.1.2

We expect to see Linux version quite soon.

If you need a carrier unlock, redsn0w will handle iPhone 2G by itself (by installing the BootNeuter utility). For the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS use Cydia after you're jailbroken to install ultrasn0w (baseband 04.26) or blacksn0w (baseband 05.11).

If you have a late-model iPhone 3GS, or if you have an iPod touch 2G whose serial number begins with “MC” (newer than week 40 of last year), or any iPod touch 3G, you can use redsn0w to jailbreak but you are currently restricted to “tethered” rebooting. That means you need to connect your device to a computer each time you boot it - so just try no to reboot.

You can download redsn0w 0.9.2 here.

A month ago John Gruber, author of the Daring Fireball blog, posted on twitter: “Shouldn't the iPhone shoot 16:9 video? Who wants 4:3 video nowadays?”

Many people admit that they expect all screens to be closer to 16:9 aspect ratio. However from the first look it is obvious that iPad does not have 16:9 screen. We can see from the picture above the iPad screen is apparently equivalent in its aspect ratio to 2 iPhone screens, stacked in landscape mode, which is 4:3. It is primarily meant to be used in portrait mode, and it looks like a video playback is a secondary function. Indeed a 16:9 video looks a bit skinny on the iPad.

So will 4:3 video get back to business or it is just another feature of more comfortable e-book reading?

Telltale Games is a famous company that brought us new forms of retro games such as Sam & Max and Secret of Monkey Island. The rumors about Mac versions of their games are confirmed – they will release the whole catalog for OS X next month, just before the Macworld Expo. We may even see iPhone and iPad versions since most of the games use the same platform. This was expected as there are many Mac fans both in the customer base and in the team.

Telltale’s games are already available on other platforms (PC and consoles), but the company is known for putting fans first, so we can even expect some extra goodies to come.

On the next day after the iPad presentation Steve Jobs gave a conference at Town Hall. Among others the Google and Adobe subjects were discussed.

According to a person, who was not authorized to speak with the press by Apple, but was present on this event, Jobs didn’t mince his words in his speech. This is what he exactly said about Google:

- We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.

After this one of the journalists tried to discuss another subject, but Jobs continued his thought that caused audience to roar:

- I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.”

A few minutes  later Apple’s CEO also commented the situation with Adobe:

- They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not - it’s because of Flash.

Also Jobs added:

- No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.

As it was announced on Wednesday presentation, the iPad has a 1 GHz A4 chip that was developed by Apple. And now there is one thing that interests a lot of people: when this chip will make it to the iPhone?

The iPhone 3GS has an 833 MHz Samsung chip, which is underlocked to 600 MHz to increase battery life. This is better than the iPhone 3G’s 620 MHz CPU (also underlocked to 412 MHz). But there is still plenty of room for improvement, and analysts expect the latter will come either from the A4 chip or its lower-powered variant, specially designed for the smaller battery and screen, to the iPhone.

People who have already handled iPad say the device is pretty much faster than any iPod Touch or iPhone released so far. So it seems pretty likely the A4 chip will trickle down to Apple’s smaller mobile devices.

As the new A4 CPU is rumored to be the next CPU for the 4th generation of iPhones, MobileCrunch proposes four more features to transfer from iPad to iPhone:

1. Bluetooth Keyboard Support.

Apple iPad is claimed to support Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR that lets you connect Apple Wireless Keyboard, wireless headphones or other devices. This feature isn't supported yet in iPhones.

2. Desktop file syncing for third party applications

Now iPad allows you to drag-and-drop files from computer to the storage folders of third party applications. At one moment you're editing your document on a Mac, and at the second you're viewing it on your iPad.

3. Apps identify themselves as supporting their specific file types.

On the iPhone even if you have installed a specific application, you will need to find a way to get that file into the application's storage space. On the iPad you can open a file from the desktop or even from an email.

4. PDF Creation Support

There was always a problem of saving files that other people need to see in the friendly format. New iPad has built-in PDF creation functionality for iWork, which is very convenient.

With this improvements iPad can obviously be considered as a sign of innovations to come for the iPhone.