News tagged ‘Time’

As you may already know, this Thursday Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci resigned his office after the company's decision to reorganize itself in order to increase its share on the tablet market. The permanent successor should be found by the end of April.

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This week another lawsuit had been filed against Apple. This time H-W Technology LC accused the company of violating its patent No. 7,525,955, entitled "Internet Protocol (IP) Phone with Search and Advertising Capability".

The latter was filed in 2004, and granted in April of 2009 by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The invention describes a handset with the unique ability to "converge voice and data within a single terminal", which would allow users to "receive information and offers from merchants and to complete a transaction with one of said merchants without having to generate a voice call".

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Comex, famous iPhone hacker, tweeted today that the kernel exploit for jailbreak he had found long ago was closed by Apple in recent iOS 4.3.1. This exploit could be used to jailbreak iPad 2.

As noticed by @0naj, my kernel exploit was fixed in 4.3.1.

I try not to be paranoid, but it is really hard to explain this as anything but a leak.

The funny thing is that my "new" kernel exploit is actually the kernel exploit used by JailbreakMe 2.0. It was never properly fixed.

It stayed there from 4.0.2 through 4.3, but was magically found in time for 4.3.1. well, go go @MuscleNerd and @i0n1c I guess

This is not good news. However we have recently seen working untethered jailbreak video. There are other vulnerabilities in iOS 4.3.1.

Cydia lead developer Jay Freeman released Cydia 1.1.1. You can update it in Cydia. It became much faster and more stable.

Features of new Cydia will include:

• the ability to run and operate Activator, libstatusbar, and SimulatedKeyEvents while Cydia is running
• an overall speed improvement, including the “Loading Changes” dialog
• “much less” memory usage
• a more advanced search mechanism with a new relevancy algorithm
• better management of broken repositories

Here is a full changelog discussion from Saurik:

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TechCruch’s sources report that the release of iOS 5 was pushed back to fall. But the preview of software is expected to be introduced at the WWDC in June. The rumor is interesting because it breaks Apple’s usual release cycle. In last years Apple previewed a new version of iOS in March or April and released it by the WWDC. But not this time. The iOS 5 launch is also likely to coincide with the release of the iPad 3.

The forthcoming major revamp of iOS may bring the cloud-based operating system with rumored music “locker” service. There is also a fall launch aim for this, during Apple’s annual music-themed event. One of the new cloud service elements is likely a location service that focuses on finding friends and family members. iOS 5 is also rumored to introduce a new UI, a new notification system, direct OS X integration.

Apple seems really dislike everything that helps users to jailbreak their devices. This time Apple blocked access to the Cydia website via Wi-Fi network in Apple retail stores. If you try accessing Cydia on a device connected to one of Apple’s Wi-Fi hotspots, you’ll be surprised to see Apple’s website load instead. As far as we remember, last year federal regulators said that it was no longer illegal to hack or jailbreak an iPhone. However, Apple doesn’t care about that and continues its “war” with jailbroken devices.

Apple is continuing their new "if you don’t have an iPhone…" campaign, this time showcasing Apple’s iOS social gaming platform Game Center.

If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have the largest selection of games. And you don't have Game Center, that let's you play with your friends wherever they are.

Yesterday Apple’s Mac OS X celebrated its 10th birthday! Mac OS X 10.0 deputed on March 24, 2001 and had a codename “Cheetah”. That release changed future not only the Mac platform but also the whole company turning it into the second most valuable company in the world. The early days of the platform was far from perfect, but already at that stage Mac OS X was called “tremendous promising”. Ars Technica noted in its extensive review of Mac OS X 10.0.0:

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Digitimes claims that Apple is willing to pay more in order to have a constant flow of touch panel supply after Japanese earthquakes and tsunami that had bad impact on Japanese manufacturers of iPad 2 components. Apple may reconsider the amount of money for pre-production deals with companies in China and Taiwan. Recently appeared some report saying that Apple may be affected by the Japanese disaster and experiencing problems with tablet shipments from Asia manufactures. Apple is clearly looking ahead. Now company is taking 60% of the current touch panel market, and a deal to pay manufacturers more to ensure availability sound very reasonable.

According to Bloomberg, Apple has sued Amazon over the use of the name “App Store”.  Apple, in a complaint filed March 18, accused Amazon.com of trademark infringement and unfair competition and asks for a court order to prevent the company from using the “App Store” name. Amazon is planning to launch its own “Amazon Appstore” for Android devices, a marketplace to distribute and download apps. Apple claims to have contacted Amazon three times demanding that they change their name, but Amazon has yet to provide a "substantive response".

“Amazon has begun improperly using Apple's App Store mark in connection with Amazon's mobile software developer program," Apple said in the complaint. “We’ve asked Amazon not to copy the App Store name because it will confuse and mislead customers.”

iPad 2 microphones: 3G (top) vs. Wi-Fi (bottom)

iLounge found out that the microphones on Wi-Fi and 3G models of iPad 2 have differences in quality of sound.  The best sound quality was demonstrated by the Wi-Fi model.  It might be caused by the fact that the mic on the Wi-Fi model is on an aluminum surface while on 3G is on the black plastic. The differences are most noticeable when the iPad is held facing the user, for example, when using FaceTime or other video applications.

Perhaps due to this change in materials, the Wi-Fi model offers markedly cleaner audio than that of the 3G, which sounds slightly muffled and echo-prone as a result. Curiously, we found the GSM 3G model's audio to be slightly preferable to that of the CDMA model, which seemed to suffer the issues more severely.

In the previous model of iPad the microphone located next to the headphone jack on the top edge but in iPad 2 Apple decided to place it in the center. Though, it seems that such change does Apple more harm than good.

Apple has finally brought wireless tethering functionality with iOS 4.3. It is called Personal Hotspot and allows users to share iPhone’s cellular data connection with other devices over WiFi connection.

For instance, you can connect your iPad WiFi only model to the internet via iPhone. There's one less reason to pay additional $130 for a 3G iPad. There is another difference between iPad WiFi and iPad 3G - GPS. Well, it looks loke WiFi-only iPad inherits GPS positioning capabilities when you tether the tablet to an iPhone via the Personal Hotspot feature.

Kyle Carmitchel from TabletMonsters discovered this by accident and posted a video to prove it.

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This time the second iPad’s A5 processor has became an object of teardown, revealing that the chip is indeed being manufactured by Samsung.  Some recent rumors claimed that Apple is shifting production from Samsung to TSMC. Apple is said to be interested in switching from Samsung because the company competes with both the iPhone and the iPad with its own devices - the Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab tablet, respectively.

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After earthquake happened in Japan lots of people gathered around Apple Stores to use the internet connections. Using Skype and FaceTime, victims were able to contact family members.

Staff brought out surge protectors and extension cords with 10s of iOS device adapters so people could charge their phones & pads and contact their loved ones," the manager wrote, noting that the Apple retail stores are some of the only locations to offer free Wi-Fi in Japan. "Even after we finally had to close 10pm, crowds of people huddled in front of our stores to use the wifi into the night, as it was still the only way to get access to the outside world.

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In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine Bon Jovi said that he hates iTunes and thinks that Steve Jobs is responsible for killing the music business. Actually, according to Bon Jovi the man just took away the magic of buying physical records and firing up your walkman.

Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it. God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’. Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.