News tagged ‘SIM’

Apple is about to reach another great result: the 10 billion songs sold through iTunes. They set up a new page with a counter similar to the one for the first billion downloads in AppStore. Apple also created a contest with a prize of a $10,000 iTunes gift card.

According to the official contest rules, participants may make up to 25 entries per day either by purchasing/downloading songs from the iTunes Store or by filling out an entry form on Apple's web site.

The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through a song download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 9,999,999,999th song. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrant's chances of winning are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.

Apple has periodically offered similar contests in the past, such as its One Billion Song contest in 2006 and a One Billion App contest last year.

If you are an existing member of Apple's iPhone Developer Program, you can login on their site and download the new SDK, which includes an iPad simulator for testing apps that are under development.

There are also available new iPad Human Interface Guidelines and iPad Programming Guide that introduces new iPad features and how-to about their implementing in applications. New user interface guideline outlines ""how to effectively use the new views and controls available to you to deliver unforgettable applications to your customers".

Apple also launches a new Universal Application binary format for iPhone OS apps. It will allow developers to create an app that can take full advantage of the features of the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. So the iPad and iPhone code will be wrapped into one app package making distribution and management much easier.

ZoomIt is the first SD card reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This peripheral together with ZoomIt application gives iPhone users the ability to load photos, music, PowerPoint, PDF and other files directly from SD card.

ZoomIt is a great way to extend iPhone's storage or simply backup photos during vacation. It will be available in April for $50.

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H8sn0w has just released the new version of Sn0wbreeze 1.4. Sn0wbreeze is a jailbreak utility with functionality similar to PwnageTool. The new version supports firmware 3.1.3 jailbreak for the following devices:

• iPhone 2G
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS - old bootrom
• iPod Touch 1G
• iPod Touch 2G - non MC

Sn0wbreeze is a Windows application, so Mac users have to wait for the upcoming release of PwnageTool by the DevTeam. Alternatively, both Mac and Windows users can use Redsn0w to run jailbreak (no custom firmware though).

You can download the new version of sn0wbreeze here.

MuscleNerd continues to argue that we should not use sn0wbreeze. Especially users who have unlocked their iPhone with blacksn0w utility:

The new concept by Patrycjusz Brzezinski was released recently in the Internet. It is a docking station, which looks pretty similar to the bottom of an iMac. It would work good for the iPad, as with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard it could be used as a some kind of a touch enabled mini iMac.   And if you suddenly need to go somewhere, just undock the iPad and put it in your bag. That's convenient.

Patrycjusz Brzezinski is also known for his previous concepts. The concept of "MacView", a tablet with a pair of touch screens in a slider design, was one of the most resonant. It is presented on the pictures below.

Apple has improved their new iTunes Preview service by activating in-browser previews for iPod and iPhone applications.

iTunes Preview was launched by Apple in November. It worked for those iTunes links, which used to simply open the application. Before that your browser would open a blank page and prompt you to open the link with the iTunes application. Now you are also able to view screenshots, changelogs, descriptions and reviews for iPod Touch and iPhone applications.

Besides, last month Apple also started using QuickTime to offer 30 second song samples encoded in 44.1 AAC 300+ kbits/second.

SlideToPlay published several interesting videos where popular games are shown on the iPad in action. You can see games like Need for Speed Shift, Super Monkey Ball 2 and NOVA played on the big screen. Some of them are optimized for the bigger resolution, others are just a 2x bigger rendering of the exact same iPhone game you can buy now.

The titles of the first movie are Assassin's Creed, Sims 3, Tetris, and Paper Toss:

Here's the video of NOVA:

Read the rest of this entry »

Darren Beckett created a small table, comparing the entry-level iPad's cost and functions with popular e-readers like the Amazon Kindle DX, Fusion Garage JooJoo, Sony Reader and others.

While the iPad is as the most expensive on the list, it's fairly obvious if you need anything more than a simple e-reader, the iPad offers the most bang for your buck.

Yesterday Patrick Steward gave an interview to PBS in its new broadcast premiere.

Sir Patrick Stewart, widely known for his roles of Charles Xavier in the X-Men films and Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek says he loves complexity. So Twitter with its 140 characters long messages is too simplistic to use. But then in his interview to Frontline’s Digital Nation he suddenly starts to talk about iPhone and dramatically describes an obsessive man-love for it as “An extension of who I am”.

It really looks like Jean-Luc Picard by himself arrived from the future to tell us about modern technology and the new way to understand it. Let's watch:

Enagdget reports that new facts about the 4th generation iPhone were discovered in iPad’s 3.2 SDK:

Buried way inside the platform simulator lies a set of folders dedicated to specific models of iPhone OS-ready devices, including the iPhone 3GS, second generation iPod touch, something called the "K48" (yep, the codename we were told was the internal name for the iPad), and... the "N89."

This "N89." is rumored to be the codename of the next iPhone. Previous versions of the iPhone were named the M68, N82 and N88.

They also have found a bit more than that:

Apple's just released firmware (3.1.3) also includes another new model, the "N80," which we're told will most likely be the next version of the iPod touch.

Rumors say that 4th generation iPod Touch is likely to ship this September, while the next iPhone is expected this June-July.

Along with a new firmware for iPhone and iPod Touch Apple released a new version of SDK - 3.1.3. It's a required update, otherwise Xcode will not recognize or work with your 3.1.3 device. You can download it at iPhone dev center.

As usual the iPhone SDK includes Xcode, the iPhone simulator, and other tools for developing applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. If you want to develop for the iPad, you'll need the SDK version 3.2 instead.

During the iPad demonstration when the iBooks was presented some of us could notice that it looks exactly like Delicious Library. And its developer Will Shipley noticed that too.

So in a few days later he gave an interview to The Washington Post, mainly to complain about the striking similarity:

- But the thing about iBooks is, it's a book-reader. So, of course they looked around, found the best interface for displaying books (Delicious Library's shelves), and said: "yup, this is what we're doing".

He said the he did not copyright the idea of wooden shelves and showing photo-realistic books on it. Because if he tried, it needed to be valued somehow, and then Apple would sent its lawyers and they would ask how much was the value and how it was determined.

But still it is flattering. He made something that has been acknowledged by a huge company known for their design potential. And Shipley say on that:

- But your [designs] aren't really yours. They have lives of their own. So when your designs do change the world, you have to accept it. You have to say, 'Ok, this was such a good idea, other people took it and ran with it. I win.'

Another rumors about Apple tablets started with TechCrunch article. Refering to them, Apple works on another larger tablet, that seems to be more like Mac than iPhone. It may be have a screen up to 15,4’’ size like one in MacBook Pro versions and run Mac OS X.

It seems strange, as previous ideas of Desktop-OS-on-Tablet weren’t so successful and didn’t gain any traction. TechCrunch claims this tablet can be launched in the next year. So now we can expect Apple to introduce some more multi-touch friendly changes to Mac OS X soon.

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 »

Apple iPad edition with 3G uses Micro-SIM standart. Steve Jobs never said a word about this feature on iPad presentation, which seems pretty strange. Micro-SIM, also known as 3FF or 3^rd generation SIM card, isn’t supported yet by any iPhone or other popular devices.

3FF SIMs were developed to fit into devices that are too small for a regular SIM. Regular SIM-card has a 15 mm x 25 mm size, while Micro-SIM measures 12 mm x 15 mm. It is still not presented in North America, but T-Mobile and AT&T inform that negotiations to get them are on their way since these companies support the iPad with different data plans.

But what is the reason of making Micro-SIM support in iPad? Maybe it is necessitated because of a lack of space in the device that already has a double size of an iPhone? Also it is very likely that Micro-SIM will be integrated into the 4^th generation iPhone, and then what would Apple do with all that extra space?