iH8sn0w is working on a new tool in its program iREB, that will save the ECID certificate for firmware 3.1 on your computer.

Using this ECID saved on your computer and a tool from Saurik, you will be able to perform a downgrade from one firmware to another (3.2 to 3.1)

Here is a video showing some details:

iPhone VM is a new tweak available in Cydia that allows to free some iPhone memory by creating a swap file. Keep everything in RAM rather than open apps all the time might increase the performance in terms of speed.

iPhoneVM can be installed in Cydia through this repository: http://repo.beyouriphone.com.

It looks like Google and Apple have been steadily moving from friends to enemies. Google created Android and CloudOS, Apple rejected Google Voice and Google Latitude, Google’s CEO left Apple.

So Back in July Apple stealthily acquired Placebase, a mapping company that provides a service similar to Google Maps, but with more robust customizations and set of APIs, called Pushpin.

The obvious interest Apple would have in the company would be the mapping content and expertise that they are currently relying on Google for in their iPhone maps application. Placebase, however, also offered additional functionality that is not currently available in Google's offerings that Apple could theoretically take advantage of.

Given that Apple wrote the iPhone Maps app themselves, and just used Google for the backend, a switch to Apple Maps might even be transparent to the end user.

Placebase CEO Jaron Waldman LinkedIn profile now listed his position as part of the "Geo Team" at Apple.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dropbox is a service similar to Apple's iDisk. It lets you store your files on a server and immediately share your pictures, documents or programs on different computers. It is quite popular on desktops. Now there is a version for the iPhone. The official free application is already avaliable in App Store.

So with iPhone you can download files, view them immediately, upload your own photos and videos to the Dropbox server, share links and sync it all with your computer.

It is a great service, especially because there is a "Basic" plan completely free of charge. With this plan you get 2GB of web space and it is absolutely free.

You can register and download the application for your desktop computer here (Windows, Mac, and Linux). Here is a link to application in AppStore.

Update: DropBox requires firmware 3.1

Want to know some more about Apple’s upcoming iTablet device? There are many rumor names (iTablet, iPad, MacBook Touch, etc), but not much details. Site ilounge claim to receive some new rumors from a reliable source:

1. Apple has created at least three separate prototypes of its tablet computer.
2. Version 1 was designed with a 7” screen, which was judged to be too small. The latest version has a 10.7” screen.
3. It runs iPhone OS.
4. There have been reports that it looks like an iPhone. They’re sort of true. It looks like an iPhone 3G, complete with a curved back.
5. It will come in two different variations: one with 3G networking capabilities, and one without 3G networking capabilities. Think of the 3G version as a bigscreen iPhone 3GS, and the non-3G version as a bigscreen iPod touch.
6. Screen resolutions will obviously jump considerably from the iPhone and iPod touch 480x320-pixel displays, enabling easy reading of full-sized book and magazine pages, plus cropped newspaper pages. Expect something like 5-6 times the resolution of an iPod touch or iPhone screen (720p or thereabouts) and 7 times the touchable surface area.
7. It is designed to expand the iPhone and iPod touch media concept to its next potential level: as a slate-like replacement for books and magazines, plus all of the media, gaming, app, and web functionality of the iPhone and iPod touch.
8. It is not meant to compete with netbooks. It’s an iPhone OS media player and light communication device.
9. Apple is currently planning to announce it on or before January 19, 2010, and to use an iPhone-like hype buildup period to start selling it in May or June.
10. It is apparently awaiting a final green light from Steve Jobs; chances of it appearing in the market are believed to be 80% at this point.

Not bad. But still this is unofficial..

What is the coolest brand? Austin Martin or iPhone?

Apple has taken three of the top five places in this year’s CoolBrands list, with the iPhone at top of the poll, Apple itself in third place and the iPod securing fourth place in the list. This list was led by Aston Martin for the last three years.

BlackBerry improved, made it to 7th place, while the BBC’s iPlayer was the only new entry to take a top 20 slot. Google’s YouTube was recognised as the number one online brand.

Here is the full list:

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple today announced that its App Store has surpassed two billion downloads. The company also noted that there are now over 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers, 85,000 applications on the App Store, and 125,000 registered iPhone developers. App Store is available in 77 countries. There are over 20 categories of applications to choose from.

via macrumors

Here is a very good quick video review of the fifth generation iPod Nano from CNet:

AdMob, a company that supplies advertising services for iPhone developers, says that between September 15th and 22nd only 23% of devices were updated to iPhone OS 3.1. This counts only devices that run apps with AdMob ads.

Some more statistics: 51% are still running OS 3.0, and 19% are still running v2.2.1, while 7% are still running v2.0 or earlier.

The reasons, as always, are very different. The update for the iPod Touch costs money, there are problems with internet tethering in 3.1, there is no firmware 3.1 jailbreak tool for Windows and it is impossible to jailbreak iPhone 3GS.

Have you perfomed the upgrade or not? Please, leave a comment why.

via iphonealley