News from category ‘Official’

U.S. Patent Office has awarded Apple the patent on their application titled Touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics.

358 page patent application incorporates patent applications filed as far back as September 2006. The application details the implementation of Multi-Touch on the iPhone alongside numerous diagrams of the device itself. Steve Jobs is prominently listed amongst the inventors along with other notable individuals such as Scott Forstall and Wayne Westerman.

via macrumors

Here are the news from Apple’s Q1 conference call:

• 4.4 Million iPhones sold in Q4,
• 13.7 million sold in year (more than the 10 they predicted)
• AppStore: 15,000 apps, 500,000,000 downloads
• 70 countries
• 22.7 Million iPods sold
• 73% of MP3 player market, 70% in UK and Australia, 50% in Canada
• 28 billion in the bank
• Plan to open 25 stores in 2009, half internationally
• $199 iPhone a compelling value, nothing else like it in the market

via theiphoneblog

Apple released new firmware version 2.2. Here are the direct links to all firmwares, including 2.2.

What's new in 2.2:

• Enhancements to Maps
  • Google Street View - takes you on a virtual walking tour: Navigate street-level photographs of places you've located in Maps.
  • Public transit and walking directions - Get walking directions, find public transit schedules, check fares, and estimate your travel time.
  • Display address of dropped pins
  • Share location via email - Tap the Share Location button to send an email that includes a Google Maps URL.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple has seeded iPhone 2.2 Firmware Beta 2 and has fully enabled Google Street View. Beta 1 of iPhone 2.2 had hidden APIs related to the Street View for Google Maps, but was not enabled.

The seed notes also indicated that Line-in audio accessories are now supported in the SDK.

via theiphoneblog and macrumors

Handshake makes it easy to share your contact information and photos with people around you. Works across EDGE, WiFi, and 3g on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The app is free (AppStore link), but it involves advertising. You can buy Handshake Premium (AppStore link) for $2.99, which is advertisement-free.

Intel showed off a prototype handheld based on Moorestown, its upcoming Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform designed to enable a new generation of ultra-thin, touchscreen devices with extensive battery life.

Moorestown will consist of a system-on-a-chip (SOC), codenamed "Lincroft," which integrates a 45nm processor, graphics, memory controller and video encode/decode onto a single part. The platform will support a range of wireless technologies including 3G, WiMAX, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile TV.

The divice will be avaliable sometime in the 2009-2010 time. Here is a video with presentation from IDF:

Read the rest of this entry »

Apple added the Keynote, Spotlight Turns to Notebooks, to iTunes (link).

Among the enhancements in this release:

• Seamlessly plays the current song when creating a new Genius playlist.
• Improves syncing spoken menus to iPod nano.
• Addresses an issue of deleting HD TV episodes when downloading.
• Improves checking for updates from the App Store
• Improves accessibility with VoiceOver.
• Addresses problems syncing Genius results to iPod.

The new release is available through Software Update or Apple’s iTunes page.

This video is from Vladivostok, a big city in the east part of Russia. It is October 3rd there already. In Moscow and St.-Petersburg the sales will start in about 3.5 hours.

Update: the price was 33000 RUB, which is $1278 for an unlocked 16Gb iPhone.

Apple is now selling its iPhone 3G unlocked via its on-line Apple Store in Hong Kong. The 8GB model is HK$5,500 (about US$694) and 16GB is HK$6,200 (about $797). It is available since July 11th with a local Hutchison Telecommunications contract, but this is the first time that Apple has sold its device unlocked in Hong Kong.

"iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation."

Unfortunately for the 1 billion mainland Chinese, the terms and conditions limit sales to those in Hong Kong only.. But the gray market usually doesn't care about t&c's.

Apple published a kb for this case. Here it is:

Symptoms

After installing iTunes 8 for Windows, some users may see a blue screen error message when connecting iPhone or iPod to a Windows Vista computer. In some cases, the computer may immediately restart when connecting iPhone or iPod to the computer.

Products Affected

iPod, iPhone, iPod touch, Windows Vista, iPod touch (2nd generation), iTunes 8 for Windows, iPhone 3G

Resolution

Read the rest of this entry »

The iPhone 2.1 is out. It contains the following updates as listed by Apple:

- decrease in call set-up failures andcall drops
- significantly improve battery life for most users
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improve email reliability, notable fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- faster installation of 3rd party applications
- fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
- improved performance of text messaging
- faster loading and searching of contacts
- improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
- repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
- option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
- Genius playlist creation

The 2.1 firmware is build 5F136 (weighing in at 237.8MB) and can be directly downloaded through iTunes. The new firmware also contains a number of security fixes including the well publicized passcode flaw.

Jailbreak for 2.1 is not avaliable yet.

Apple announced that v2.1 firmware will be delivered this Friday. Change log is:

• lots of bugs fixed
• fewer dropped call
• big battery life improvements
• no crashes with Apps - hopefully the whole app install process is better.
• backing up to iTunes is faster
• great new performance enhancements

There is nothing said about push notification service, cut/copy/paste or turn-by-turn GPS.

As always, I strongly recommend no one update until the Dev Team releases an upated pwnage.