Japanese blog Macotakara reports that Apple’s contract manufacturers Pegatron Technology and Foxconn Electronics was commisioned to begin assembly of next iPads for a launch in early March.
On Tuesday Kodak has filed lawsuits against Apple and HTC claiming infringement of patent violations regarding the sharing of digital pictures between various electronic devices. The claim accuses Apple of violating four digital photography patents Kodak said it obtained after "concluding it would be desirable for people to easily share pictures" from digital cameras without having to first upload them to a central PC. Apple and HTC are likely to cooperate with each other over the Kodak suit, although the companies are suing each other.
Essentially, any Apple product with a camera is affected by the proposed suit, but specifically cited examples include the iPad 2, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and the iPod touch (4th generation).It is unclear whether software like Apple's Photo Stream, which allows digital images taken on one iDevice to be pushed to other devices through the company's iCloud, or other third-party apps that allow for image transfer over Bluetooth or WiFi are being targeted in the suit.
Apple has been long using graphics processing unit (GPU) manufactured by Imagination Technology in its iOS devices. Currently Apple is utilizing PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU in the A5 system-on-a-chip found in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.
Imagination has now revealed new details on the upcoming Series6 family, touting performance improvements of 20x or more for the G6400 and G6200, the first two members of the family.
9to5Mac has reported a couple of hours ago that has discovered something potentially major: Siri Dictation references inside the iOS 5.1 beta 3 released today. Sonny Dickson (9to5Mac’s tipster) was looking through the iOS 5.1 beta 3 settings application on the iPad and discovered a new section in the keyboard menu called “About Privacy and Dictation.” When he opened it, as shown above, the iPad provides the user with the standard legal literature and feature information for Siri Dictation.
Dictation is not actually functional on the iPad 2 running iOS 5.1 beta 3, so perhaps this will be an iOS 5.1 launch feature for the iPad, or it may be an iPad 3-exclusive feature; a similar process to the iPhone 4S exclusively gaining Siri and Siri Dictation support in iOS 5.0. We’re also hearing this link/document is also appearing on retina iPod touches as well.
Last week iLounge reported that the next-generation iPad would receive improved cameras and today the site has reported that it has viewed what appear to be at least prototype parts for the device, including the rear shell and front glass bezel. The parts seem to corroborate iLounge's earlier claims of an almost imperceptibly thicker body and an upgraded iPhone-like rear camera.
The new iPad’s body is so slightly thicker than the iPad 2 that the change is unnoticeable on first inspection; a roughly 1mm increase will barely be perceptible to users. We’ve heard that the only accessories that might have issues are cases, and then, only cases that were precisely contoured to fit the iPad 2’s back. On the rear, the camera in the upper left corner has become bigger—noticeably so when placed alongside the iPad 2, but not so huge that anyone would think they were different at a distance. The new camera hole is silver-ringed, and does in fact look the same size as the iPhone 4S’s much-improved rear camera system, minus the LED flash.
OnLive, video game streaming company, has introduced a virtual, streaming Microsoft Windows 7 Desktop app for iPad. The Desktop app, introduced at CES, will finally be available on other platforms including Apple’s Mac. The full-functional versions of Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint will be available to users soon after CloudOn released its Office solution for iPad.
It looks like iPad 2 and iPhone 4S untethered jailbreak will truly be a team effort. Recently another hacker Saurik joined the team and made "some major contributions" yesterday.
Last week Pod2g announced that Planetbeing, MuscleNerd, and P0sixninja joined his effort to release an untethered iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 (A5 CPU devices).
Today, MuscleNerd noted that the team has received some major contributions from saurik:
Upstream supply chain sources claim that Apple manufacturer Pegatron is believed to have received a "small volume" of orders for the third-generation iPad, which is rumored to launch in March. DigiTimes reported on Tuesday that this year Pegatron focuses on production of future generations of the iPad while Foxconn focuses on iPhone manufacturing. In that case, the company’s strategy is to decrease risk while improving the quality of its products.
"Pegatron Technology has reportedly already landed a small volume of orders for the upcoming "iPad 3" (generally called by supply chain players)," the report read, adding that Pegatron declined to comment on the rumor.
Pegatron is said to see a "significant increase" in orders when Apple will be ready to launch a so-called "iPad 4" in October with an initial volume of 7-10 million units.
Forrester Research issued its Global Tech Market Outlook for 2012 and 2013 on Friday where the research company argued that Apple will “reshape the computing equipment market.” The study cited the adoption of iPad and Macs among professionals as proof that Apple is “dramatically disrupting” the corporate market traditionally dominated by Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, and HP.
Analysts have been predicting that cloud computing — specifically, infrastructure-as a service (IaaS) — will reshape the server and storage market… Actual adoption of IaaS remains limited…The biggest disruptive force in the computer equipment market thus is not IaaS, but Apple. This is a surprise, because Apple has not and does not directly address the corporate market, while turning a wide variety of consumer technology markets upside-down. But its rapid growth in the corporate market has been the big surprise of 2011, and it will be even more of a factor in 2012.
According to the survey, the business sector will buy $10 billion worth of iPads this year, up from $6 billion in 2011. IT departments are also projected to spend $9 billion on Macs in 2012, up from $6 billion in 2011. Mac and iPad spending will rise to $12 billion and $16 billion, respectively in 2013, according to the survey.
9to5Mac found evidence of support for quad-core processors that was hidden deep inside the latest iOS 5.1 beta. Apple leaving references to quad-core chips in the iOS 5.1 beta is notable because iOS 5.1 is the software currently being tested against the third-generation iPad.
Extremely reliable and knowledgeable people familiar with iOS’s inner workings explained to me that core references begin at “0.” For example: A single core device would be limited to ”/cores/core.0,” and a dual-core device would come in at ”/cores/core.1.” A “core.2″ (which is not referenced in iOS code) would be a triple-core processor according to this labeling method. iOS 5.1 beta 2 now includes core.3, a seemingly quad-core chip from Apple. Above, you can view a comparison between the pre-iOS 5.1 beta iOS core management software and the iOS 5.1 beta version. The dual-core A5 chip, on the bottom, has the “core.1,” and the quad-core chip, on top, supporting iOS 5.1 beta is marked with the “core.3.”
Analyst Michael Walkley with Canaccord Genuity expects that combined iPhone and iPad sales in calendar 2012 to reach more than 170 million in another record breaking 12-month span. He sees 2012 being another banner year for Apple, with sales of 116.4 million iPhones and 54.6 million iPads. Walkley believes that iOS mobile operating system share will reach 18 percent, and will take the second place behind only Google's Android with 51.9 percent on sales of 335.5 million handsets.
"We believe Apple sold through at least (12 million) iPhone units in the U.S. market during the December quarter," Walkley wrote. "With some channel inventory built for the new 4S, we believe the U.S. market could exceed (14 million) iPhones sold into the channel during the December quarter."
The iPhone Dev-Team has updated PwnageTool with support for the iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak. PwnageTool lets you easily create a custom ipsw for upgrading to iOS 5.0.1.
Unlockers can use custim firmware to preserve baseband version and unlock with ultrasn0w or gevey. Depending on your device you can also configure the ipsw with boot logos and Cydia packages.
PwnageTool 5.0.1 supports iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, Apple TV 2G, iPod Touch 3G, iPod Touch 4G.
You can download the new version of PwnageTool 5.0.1 from here.
UPDATE: Here are our step-by-step tutorials that will guide you through all the process of untethered jailbreaking iOS 5.0.1 with PwangeTool 5.0.1:
UPDATE: Apple released iOS 5.1 that is only tethered jailbreakable with redsn0w. Apple has stopped signing iOS 5.0.1, so you can NOT restore to 5.0.1 any more (both original and custom), unless you have saved your SHSH keys for 5.0.1. If you are on 5.0.1 you can jailbreak with redsn0w.
This is step-by-step instructions on how to perform untethered jailbreak of youriPhone 3GS on iOS 5.0.1 firmware using RedSn0w 0.9.10 for Windows.
Untethered jailbreak means that each time you restart your device you will NOT need to connect it to a computer and run utilities.
Important: If you need unlock and have 05.13 baseband or lower - do not update to Apple firmware, use RedSn0w or Sn0wBreeze to create custom firmware!
If you need unlock Redsn0w will provide you with choice of updating your baseband to 06.15. If you have new iPhone 3GS that was made after 35 week of 2011 upgrading modem will not help to unlock.
Pod2g has recently announced that Planetbeing, MuscleNerd, and P0sixninja have joined his effort to release an iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2.
@planetbeing, the legendary hacker behind iPhone Linux and lot of jailbreaks has joined the A5 research! The famous @MuscleNerd, the leader of the iPhone Dev Team, who did a lot of tests for Corona and whom integrated it and made it simple in redsn0w is willing to help also. And last, but not least @p0sixninja, the leader of the Chronic Dev Team, and my partner for years on iPhone security research has started to code and fuzz the Apple sandbox.
That means that we now have a dream team to create a public release of the A5 jailbreak.