When the iPhone 4 was introduced at the WWDC, Apple especially noted the capabilities of the device, putting emphasis on its camera. The company said that, even though the iPhone 4 had only 5 megapixels, while 8 megapixels was beginning to be the norm for the latest smartphones, the iPhone 4 would have a far superior performance thanks to some special features that go far beyond the simple megapixel count.
Now the iPhone 4 is finally on the market, and so are samples of the new Droid X from Motoralla introduced on Wednesday. This made camera tests possible and this is what Macworld did in their series of tests aimed to compare 4 devices: the iPhone 4, it’s predecessor 3GS, the Droid X, the HTC EVO 4G, Samsung HZ35W and Galaxy, as well as basic Sony and Samsung point-and-shoot cameras. For the video test, the devices were also compared to the Flip Video M2120.
Good news from DevTeam. They just announced via twitter that unlock for firmwares 3.1.3 and 4.0 is ready:
RT @MuscleNerd: ultrasn0w tips: 1) Works for all basebands since 3.0 FW 2) Remember to disable 3G on T-Mobile USA
ultrasn0w 0.93 released! Cydia repo is repo666.ultrasn0w.com. Works with basebands 04.26.08 thru 05.13.04
This means, that all users with basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04 can use ultrasn0w 0.93.
There is no jailbreak for just released iOS4, so you need to wait a bit. Firmware 3.1.3 who need unlock can update ultrasn0w and use their iPhones with any carrier.
MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev-Team announced via twitter that an unlock for iPhone 3GS with 05.12.01 baseband from iPhone firmware 3.1.3 will be released soon:
@MuscleNerd will there be a unlock software coming out for the 3gs 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01 when the new iPhone 4g comes out??
@EmmanueGT yep..so don't sell or give away your 3GS (at same time, remember not to accept Apple FW upgrades in future)
According to a new report revealed by Silicon Alley Insider on Wednesday iPhone OS 4 may possibly have built-in integration with Facebook. The feature will probably be presented on June 7 at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference conducted by Apple.
An author of the report Dan Frommer says he doesn't have any details on how it works.
"...We also hear that Apple could be integrating Facebook Connect directly into its software developers kit so programmers can more easily add Facebook 'social' features to their apps".
There is also information about bringing Facebook messaging features to the upcoming versions of iPhone OS making it possible to send messages via Facebook Chat as easy as sending an SMS.
An idea of integration with Facebook was already implemented by Google in its OS Android 2.0. Windows Phone 7 is also expected to support strong Facebook connectivity.
The BlackSn0w Unlock utility by Geohot has been updated by MSFTGuy and PushFix to work with the latest firmware 3.1.3. However it works only with baseband 05.11.07 (!!!).
This modified version of BlackSn0w works for iPhones upgraded with PwnageTool or Sn0wbreeze, preserving the baseband version 05.11.07. Users who have updated to OS 3.1.3 by any other method have the 05.12.01 baseband so BlackSn0w and UltraSn0w will not work.
This new version of BlackSn0w will be very useful for iPhone 3GS OS 3.1.3 / Baseband 05.11.07 users who can’t downgrade to earlier versions but still need unlock.
According to iHackintosh, this new version also fixes a small bug making WiFi much more stable.
Blacksn0w RC2 will be available on ModMyi repo soon. If you don't want to wait just add the source http://cydia.pushfix.info/ to Cydia and install it now.
Important: Blacksn0w for 3.1.3 is still in RC stage and there may be some issues or bugs. This is not an official update performed by Geohot, who has clearly indicated that he will not be updating any tools for the 3.1.3 firmware.
A few days ago in an IRC channel the DevTeam and GeoHot discussed and summarized the state of the exploits found in the new baseband 05.12.01 in firmware 3.1.3. GeoHot explains that an exploit that had previously discovered and used in blacksn0w is still present in the new firmware released by Apple. It appears that both he and MuscleNerd are working on the same exploit, and if this were true, it would be a really good start to team up and release a new unlock tool.
Here is their discussion:
< visnet_ > What does geohot tweet mean?
< %geohot > its my bb exploit for safekeeping
< %Par4doX > geohot: did you turn that over to the dev team or are you doing something with it?
< %geohot > my days of turning things over are done
< %geohot > i hope its different from the one they have
< %geohot > but they prob already have it
< %geohot > its the one i orig wanted to release blacksn0w with
< %Par4doX > it’s still there in the new bb
< %geohot > yep, just checked
< %geohot > but then opted to use xemn since it was public
< Evan > Oo, it carries over from 05.11 to 05.12?
< %geohot > why wouldn’t it, apple doesn’t fix things proactivly
< @MuscleNerd > geohot we prob should figure out a way to know if we have same exploit double blind, otherwise we may release 2 different ones at same time
< %geohot > any suggestions?
< @MuscleNerd > not sure how to do that without making it easy to brute force tho
< %geohot > yea, i salted the hash
< @MuscleNerd > yeah
< @MuscleNerd > hmm maybe if we both hash the stack dump
< @Confucious > Can you two take this out of public sight?
< @MuscleNerd > the stack itself, not the header before it or the registers after it
< Her > muscle: any notice about the exploits are the same ?
< %geohot > we are working on it
< %geohot > cryptography, perfect for people who don’t trust each other
We should not expect much for the firmware 3.1.3 since the rumors predict the firmware 3.2 for mid-March. However these news are really good for owners of locked devices.
It looks like Apple has started banning iPhone hackers from the iTunes App Store.
A few day ago Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer and hacker, tweeted that he had found an exploit in the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3, which could enable the unlock on 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G. Yesterday he has been banned by Apple for the so called "security reasons". It seems that Apple is quite angry! Here is what Sherif gets when he tries to access App Store from his iPhone:
Sherif Hashim’s Tweets:
"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons", that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry ))))
and guess what my apple ID was, "sherif_hashim@yahoo.com", what a fool was me not to notice )), can't help laughing, they are babies ))
Another iPhone hacker named iH8sn0w, the developer of Sn0wbreeze (PwnageTool alternative for Windows), tweeted saying he was also banned by Apple right after he released an exploit known as XEMN:
@sherif_hashim lol, they did that to my ih8sn0wyday[@t]googmail.com too. (right after I posted XEMN)…
For now Apple isn’t banning Jailbreakers - they’re banning people who actively work to find exploits in the iPhone software to create Jailbreaks for the rest of us.
Fuzzyband is an application that can downgrade the baseband for iPhone 3G. Recently it has been updated to include the support for firmware 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01. It works only with bootloader 05.08 (early iPhone 3G).
Why do users need to downgrade the baseband? The answer is simple: if they accidentally upgraded the new firmware and need to run unlock software (blacksn0w and ultrasn0w). Unlocked iPhones do not need Fuzzyband. iPhone 3GS users cannot downgrade baseband with Fuzzyband.
Fuzzyband is available for jailbreaked iPhones in Cydia (repository BigBoss, category "System" ).
Sherif Hashim has discovered an exploit which may allow unlock of the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3 baseband 05.12.01. Such unlock utilities for previous baseband versions were called blacksn0w, ultrasn0w и and yellowsn0w. MuscleNerd, the member of DevTeam, has already confirmed it is working. So the timing of the unlcok release is totally up to them right now.
Here is an official update from DevTeam:
"We’ve started to look at his crash but it’s a long road between any given crash and a fully working unlock, and we couldn’t put an ETA on it even if we wanted to. It’s not even guaranteed that an working unlock will come from this particular crash — it’s just too early to tell."
iPhone hacker Geohot, who created popular utilities blackra1n (jailbreak) and blacksn0w (unlock), posted a message on twitter about the new firmware 3.1.3 released by Apple:
Hopefully some vulnerability in the new firmware will be found.
So this is a minor update, which fixing only the accuracy of the 3GS battery meter and the stability of some third-party app launches. This update is avaliable via iTunes.
New firmware 3.1.3 also introduces a new version of the baseband, the 05.12.01. So if you need unlock do not update! DevTeam also warns us:
If you care about your jailbreak and unlock, don’t update your device - 3G and 3G(S) owners should pay particular attention to this warning.
PwnageTool and redsn0w are not yet compatible with 3.1.3
Experimenters show that the latest version of redsn0w 0.9.2 is able to jailbreak iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and iPod touch 1G. Just point it at the 3.1.2 IPSW (download here) after doing update or restore to firmware 3.1.3. Sounds like DevTeam will release an updated version of redsn0w that will handle firmware 3.1.3 officially. They say iPod touch 2G with firmware 3.1.3 is also jailbreakable.
Users report that unlock software, blacksn0w and ultrasn0w, doesn;t work with the new baseband.
The Unreal Engine 3 is a modern 3D gaming engine which powers games such as Bioshock, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3.
Anandtech spent some time with Mark Rein (Epic Games) last week and was shown a demo of the Unreal Engine 3 running on a 3rd Generation iPod Touch. The demo included a flythrough as well as a playable level from Unreal Tournament.
The game engine requires OpenGL 2.0 so this will restrict the game to 3rd generation iPod Touches and iPhone 3GSs only. Epic is planning on making the engine available to licensees at some point, opening the door eventually to Unreal-powered iPhone games. Epic tells Anand we're going to see Unreal running on another mobile platform at CES.
According to research conducted by Chitika, nearly 45% of users still have the old iPod Touch firmware 2.0 installed and have not upgraded to the 3.0.
The reasons are numerous and starts from the need to pay for the upgrade - $10 could be an issue. However the main reason is the lack of motivation for upgrading. Unless you want to play with copy/paste, the 3.0 update doesn’t bring much to the iPod Touch - Push notifications are useless on Wi-Fi and many games still run on 2.0.
Who knows, maybe Apple will decide to make the next update to version 4.0 free just to encourage upgrades. Updates are free for iPhone users nad wee see that almost 95% of users have updated to 3.x.
There were rumors, that iPhone 4G will have integrated RFID chip. The Wireless Dynamics company has already created iCarte, RFID reader accessory for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
With iCarte we can send and receive information via RFID or NFC. This could turn the iPhone into a real electronic wallet. Here are spec details: