If your iPhone battery is running low you can always use oranges to charge it. Unfortunately you need quite a few of them for a full battery. The video shows how many orange slices it would take to charge an iPhone. The answer is 2,380 segments or 595 oranges:
A new photo of the iPhone 4G had been published by gadget blog Engadget just in a few hours before the iPad presentation, and because of the latter it has been lingering for nearly a week undetected.
Due to authorized sources the device on the photo is a prototype of the handset that will hit the market in about five months. As Engadget says, this fairly distorted shot is all that they have at the moment.
So it seems that iPhone appears without its iconic aluminum bezel. It looks like it is surrounded by a black plastic or maybe it's just rubberized somehow. Also a whitish spot on the left of the earpiece grill points to a camera lens, but it may also be just a reflection from some other source.
As it was claimed by authorized sources from Apple, the new iPhone 4G will have a customized system-on-a-chip package (like an iPad has) and improved battery.
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.
As it was announced on Wednesday presentation, the iPad has a 1 GHz A4 chip that was developed by Apple. And now there is one thing that interests a lot of people: when this chip will make it to the iPhone?
The iPhone 3GS has an 833 MHz Samsung chip, which is underlocked to 600 MHz to increase battery life. This is better than the iPhone 3G’s 620 MHz CPU (also underlocked to 412 MHz). But there is still plenty of room for improvement, and analysts expect the latter will come either from the A4 chip or its lower-powered variant, specially designed for the smaller battery and screen, to the iPhone.
People who have already handled iPad say the device is pretty much faster than any iPod Touch or iPhone released so far. So it seems pretty likely the A4 chip will trickle down to Apple’s smaller mobile devices.
After the iPad presentation on Wednesday Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal journalist, had a conversation with Steve Jobs who revealed interesting information about the new product.
Books for the iPad were rumored to cost between $13 and $15, and Mossberg asked, why customers will purchase books on this price if Amazon charges only $9.99. Jobs answered: “The prices will be the same”.
Later Mossberg inquired Steve whether he can use Pages application to write his review and then send it to his editors in the Microsoft Word format, as his colleagues doesn't know anything about Pages. Jobs told that the mobile version of Pages allows saving files as Word documents.
The journalist also asked about battery life on the device, and Jobs answered that iPad offers 140 hours of music playback with the screen off or 10 hours of reading. It seems not so much in the comparison with e-books, but Jobs revealed that 10 hours is enough, as nobody reads for 10 hours, and plugging the device or docking it in the end is "not a big deal".
Apple's finally announced the iPad (Apple Tablet). It is perfect for tasks like browsing, email, photos, e-books and videos. It's a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds (680g), with a 9.7-inch capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD display and it's running a custom 1GHz Apple "A4" chip developed by the P.A. Semi team. The 10-hour battery life and a month of standby is quite exciting.
There will be devices with 16, 32 and 64GB. All iPads will get a 30-pin Dock connector, a speaker, a microphone, Bluetooth, 802.11n WiFi and optional 3G, as well as an accelerometer and a compass. There's also a keyboard dock, which connects underneath in the portrait orientation. iPad supports up to 1024x768 VGA out and 480p composite out through dock adapter cables. There is a camera attachment kit that lets you import photos from your camera over USB or directly through an SD reader.
The device is managed by iTunes, just like the iPhone and iPod Touch. iPad can run iPhone apps: either pixel-for-pixel in a window, or pixel-doubled fullscreen. Developers can also target the new screen size using the updated iPhone OS SDK, which is available today.
The 3G version runs on AT&T and comes with new data plans: 250MB for $14.99 and an unlimited plan for $29.99 a month contract-free. Activations are handled on the iPad, so you can activate and cancel whenever you want. Every iPad is unlocked (!) and comes with a GSM "micro-SIM".
The price starts at $499 for 16GB, 32GB for $599, and $699 64GB. Adding 3G costs a $130 per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829. The WiFi-only model will ship in 60 days, and the 3G models will come in 90.
Google today announced the launch of its Nexus One smartphone. It is based on the Android 2.1 operating system and offers 800x480 screen, 5 megapixel camera with flash, Qualcomm's 1 GHz Snapdragon processor. The Nexus One offers 512 MB of Flash and 512 MB of RAM, and ships with a 4 GB Micro SD card with support for cards up to 32 GB.
Nexus One is initially available from the Google web store in the US without service for $529 or starting at $179 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile USA. In the near future, Verizon Wireless in the US and Vodafone in Europe plan to offer similar service plans.
Here is the full list of hardware and software features:
All iPhones are manufactured in China. Probably that's why users can find so many iPhone clones. Here is the latest arrival: iFhone 3GS - one of the best iPhone clones ever.
The device is identical, however there is no Apple logo. Take a look at these interesting features:
3.5-inch touchscreen
accelerometer
WAP, GPRS, Bluetooth, WiFi
230MB of memory expandable to 15GB with a memory card
VGA camera
Java for games and apps
Audio and Video support (MP3/3GP/MP4/JPG/TXT)
Built-in FM Radio Tuner
Voice recording
Even the interface of the springboard and the various applications is very similar to the original iPhone.
The box is identical, complete with Apple logo. Included: stylus, headphones, USB cable and an extra battery to attach to the dock. All this costs $123 without shipping charges.
Steven Troughton-Smith has released a new video about the next version of Stack 3.0 which will have a new function, the ability to run the scrolling within the stack. The application is really lightweight and does not need much RAM or battery. The app will be avaliable in Cydia.
Some users have already performed jailbeak for firmware 3.1 and faced problems with several Cydia applications. Some work with no problems, others send the iPhone to Safe Mode. Here is a list of compatible and non-compatible apps.
Applications NOT compatible with Firmware 3.1:
Winterboard
Backgrounder
Mobile Finder
ActivateMMS2G
Cycorder
PasteBoardStacker
Applications partially compatible with Firmware 3.1:
Cydia (apparently does not show the badge icon when there are updates available)
SBSettings (everything works except the button "Restart")
BossPrefs (everything works except the button "Respring")
Taiwan Economic News reports new rumors about Apple iTablet (MacBook Touch).
The tablet PC features a 9.6-inch screen, finger-touch function and built-in HSPDA (high speed download packet access) module, built-in 3G wireless connectivity, adopts a P.A. SEMI processor chip and long lasting battery pack. The expected price is between US$799 and US$999.
The report claims that DynaPack International Technology Corp. will make up to 300,000 'long lasting' battery for the Tablet per month. Wanshih Electronic Co., Ltd. will be supplying the mini coaxial cables. Layers Scientific-Technics Co., Ltd. and Wintek Corp. will be supplying the Power Chokes and the lovely 9.7 incher Touch Panel.
iTablet will probably appear some time in February 2010.
Geohot, the creator of purplera1n, has just released his own iPhone 3GS software unlock and named it purplesn0w. Who is purplesn0w for? If you own a jailbroken iPhone 3GS running firmware 3.0 and you want to unlock it to use it with another carrier (T-Mobile only in the USA), then purplesn0w is for you. Are you experiencing wifi/battery/other unlocking problems after using ultrasn0w? Then I highly recommend you try purplesn0w. Geohot says that it’s the best unlock out there.
purplesn0w doesn't run any deamon (resident app) on the iPhone, it just patches three files: CommCenter, lockdownd, and wildcard. You need an activated device in order to use purplesn0w, this is a minus.
Here is how to install purplesn0w:
Make sure you have an activated iPhone 3GS. If you have T-Mobile make sure you disable 3G in the settings.
Open Cydia, and add http://apt.geohot.com to your sources
Install the com.geohot.purplesn0w package
Watch for the success output in Cydia
Reboot your iPhone 3GS
Once you have followed the steps above, your iPhone 3GS should be unlocked.
Update: Geohot has also posted technical details of purplesn0w here along with the source code of purplesn0w. He plans to release an updated version of purplesn0w with hactivation support.
Here is a video that shows how to get fancy iPhone 3GS battery indicator on any iPhone. Your phone needs to be jailbroken. Why this wasn't already included in all 3.0 firmware for all iPhones is questionable.