Archive for October, 2011

Low battery life is one of the major issues for early iPhone 4S owners who constantly searching answers on Support Communities forum. Thus far Apple has remained silent about the matter. It appears that the problem is also affecting some iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, suggesting that it is rather a software defect than a hardware problem.

iDownloadBlog reports on interesting remedy that helped some users to improve the battery performance. The Setting Time Zone feature in iOS 5 appears to cause excess power consumption as the device repeatedly detect user location to set the time zone. To turn off this functionality, open Settings App, go to Location Services, System Services and disable the Setting Time Zone function.To make your iPhone last more, you may also want to switch off Diagnostics & Usage and Location-Based iAds in this menu.

Apple offers this advice to improve battery life of your iPhone:

“Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down)”.

Macworld’s mentions launching a system diagnostic app in order to pinpoint which unnecessary processes are running in the background and discover the cause of rapid battery drain.

The New York Times has published Steve Jobs’s biological sister, novelist  Mona Simpson’s eulogy. She shared her eulogy for her passed away brother, offering an intimate look at the last moments before he died, including his surprising last words.

"Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother," she wrote.

Jobs and Mona didn’t know each other until they were both adults. In 1985 a lawyer contacted Simpson to inform her about her brother, but he refused to call his name.

"When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif," she wrote.

Jobs and Simpson had a long walk. Jobs said that he was in computer business and was working on something “insanely beautiful" at that moment. Jobs wasn't ashamed of working hard even if "the results were failures." After his resignation from Apple, he was disappointed, especially when he wasn't invited to a meeting of 500 Silicon Valley leaders with the then U.S. president.

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Apple has already started work on the version 10.8 of Mac OS X. Just in July the company launched the version 10.7 of OS X Lion, which included many new features and was the first Mac OS X version to be sold through the Mac App Store.

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Macotakara reported that Apple is allegedly testing a new thin-and-light 15-inch MacBook to add it to its lineup in the near future. Apple now is finishing up a taste phase. According to Asian source, Apple already finished development of an LCD test component for the new laptop.

The next Apple’s notebook is believed to be a next-generation MacBook Pro without a built-in optical disc drive. That means that the new notebook will undergo significant changes in design in 2012. Moreover, earlier this year, there were some rumors about drastic redesign of the MacBook Pro line. Last week, ahead of the holiday buying season Apple quietly updated its MacBook Pro models, adding slightly faster Intel Sandy Bridge processors, as well as improved AMD Radeon graphics. The new MacBook Pro may boast about Intel's next-generation Ivy Bridge processors. Moreover, Intel has already begun production of new processors.

Airplay Mirroring demo on an iPad 2

Reportedly, iMessage and AirPlay Mirroring will be added to OS X Lion. AirPlay Mirroring was first launched on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. It enables you to wirelessly stream display content of your iPhone or iPad to the HDTV through Apple TV. Implementation of this feature on the Mac will reportedly be similar and will allow broadcasting whatever is on your desktop to your TV.

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UPDATE: use our Sn0wBreeze 2.8b10 tutorial here.

Using this tutorial you will be able to create a custom firmware, jailbreak and unlock iOS 5 running on iPhone 3GS. This tutorial uses Sn0wBreeze 2.8b8 for Windows.

If you have iPhone 3GS with an old bootrom version 359.3, the jailbreak is untethered. If your device has bootrom version 359.3.2 and higher, jailbreak will be tethered.

Sn0wBreeze will also preserve baseband version if you need carrier unlock.

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UPDATE: With the release of iOS 5.0.1, you might get troubles restoring to iOS 5.0. Don't worry, new sn0wbreeze is already available. Our tutorial for iOS 5.0.1 is available here.

Using this tutorial you will be able to create a custom firmware, tether jailbreak and unlock iOS 5 running on iPhone 4. This tutorial uses Sn0wBreeze 2.8b8 for Windows.

Sn0wBreeze will also preserve baseband version if you need carrier unlock.

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It seems that Apple indeed bought the 3D mapping company called C3 Technologies.

Sure enough, we have now learned Apple is now the owner of C3 Technologies. Sources say that C3 Technologies CEO Mattias Astrom , C3 Technologies CFO Kjell Cederstrand, and lead C3 Technologies Product Manager Ludvig Emgard are now working within Apple’s iOS division. The leading trio, along with most of the former C3 Technologies team, is still working as a team in Sweden (interestingly, the division is now called “Sputnik”), where the C3 Technologies company was located prior to the Apple acquisition.

In 2011 C3 Technologies began demoing its technology on both Android and iOS devices. The company is known to use formerly classified missile targeting technology to achieve its impressive 3D mapping effects. Apple is obviously interested in the technology because it previously depended on Google’s mapping technology for their iOS devices. Acquisition of the 3D mapping company may suggest that Apple has been working on its own mapping service.

As far as we know, Siri is a voice recognition service that is available only for the iPhone 4S users. There were various attempts to port Siri to the iPod Touch and iPhone 4, but the early versions of these hacks simply got the user interface working on the iPhone 4. They were unable to actually use the voice recognition.

But tonight developers @stroughtonsmith and @chpwn have finally managed to port Siri on previous generation hardware so that the service works properly. That proves that Siri might be run by other processor, not only by A5 chip.

We've since spoken to @stroughtonsmith who told us that despite it working on the iPod Touch, it doesn't work entirely well due to the relatively poor performance of the microphone. "You have to be loud and close to it", he said. However, it does perform quite well on the iPhone 4 and works "just as fast as the 4S".

The developers are not going to release the hack in order to avoid legal issues that may be filled due to repackaging Apple’s code and distributing it.

Sources close to Microsoft revealed that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer allegedly blocked its former data center manager Kevin Timmons from joining Apple after reportedly being hired by the company in April to oversee iCloud operations. Microsoft even threatened legal action against Apple.

Timmons is said to offer Apple a plan to lower the operating cost of its existing data centers. Apple agreed to hire him, but Ballmer asked him to stay at Microsoft. Then a rumored call from Ballmer threatening legal action ended Timmons' would-be deal.

Earlier this year it was reported that Timmons had been hired by Apple in April and was thought to have been tapped to oversee Apple's iCloud at the company's North Carolina data center. But on October 12, when the service rolled out,  this position was occupied by  Scott Noteboom, Yahoo's former vice president of data center engineering. Timmons is said to take job as the new CTO of CyrusOne.

A couple of days ago we reported that Apple is unlikely to release updated Mac Pro line until 2012 and Intel's Sandy Bridge E processors should be implemented in new computers. Apple's current dual-processor Mac Pro lineup utilizes Intel's "Westmere" processor family, priced at $387, $996, and $1440 respectively.

Newly-released pricing information for processors of E5-2600 series allows us to make suggestion that  Apple will be able to use the $406 6-core 2.0 GHz E5-2620 in its low-end dual-processor configuration at or near the current $3499 pricing. At the mid range the 8-core 2.0 GHz E5-2650 that costs $1106.  But such price may be high, so Apple could released a limited number of this model with such processor. Apple is more likely will use a cheaper a 6-core chip running at 2.5 GHz E5-2640 that costs at $884. The high end of Mac Pro may be run by the 8-core 2.6 GHz E5-2670 processor coming in at $1552 or the 8-core 2.4 GHz E5-2665 processor, which is expected at $1440.

For the lower-end single-processor Mac Pro, Apple is likely to utilize Intel's E5-1600 series processor line. Pricing on those chips was revealed last month. So, for low- and mid-end single-processor Mac Pro Apple is likely to use the quad-core 3.6 GHz E5-1620 ($294) and 6-core 3.2 GHz E5-1650 ($583), the high end of the single-processor line -  the E5-1660 at $1080.

Chinese customers prefer to buy Apple’s iPhone than Nokia’s smartphones, according a report published by the investment bank Morgan Stanley. As more than a third of 2,050 surveyed urban Chinese mobile phone users express a preference for iPhone, twice that for Nokia's models.

Apple presence on Chinese smartphone market grew significantly in 2011. Not surprisingly that over fiscal 2011 the company managed to earned as many as $13 billion, comparing with $3 billion in fiscal year 2010. Morgan Stanley says it believes "China could surpass the US as Apple's largest market in about three years, adding nearly $30 billion more per year to the top-line along the way." The firm notes that sales of iPhones are also driving purchases of related Apple products, noting that Mac use is nearly four times higher among iPhone users, where Mac user share jumps to 35 percent from the standard 9 percent of the general population.

Morgan Stanley’s survey demonstrates that Apple increased its share by 6 percentage points to reach 34 percent of planned purchases in the region. Nokia dropped 8 percentage points to make up just 16 percent of the nation's planned purchases.

Check out this humorous Siri video made by LaughPong, 'Siri, Will You Marry Me?'.

Since the iPhone 4S launch, some users have complained about battery life issues. Apple actually reduced the battery life in a standby mode from 300 hours on previous iPhone model to 200 hours on the iPhone 4S, but battery life in active mode was considered to be the same or even better.

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Apple's online store in Sweden

Yesterday Apple launched the iPhone 4S in 22 additional countries, starting the second wave of launches for the new iPhone model. Last week the company began to take pre-orders ahead of the release planned for Austria, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Singapore, Norway, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Denmark, Belgium, Mexico, Luxembourg, Latvia, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Hungary, Estonia and Finland.

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