Archive for October, 2007

It looks like our friends “down under” may be blessed with the joys of the Apple iPhone in the near future. Market Watch is reporting that Apple is searching for a wireless partner to pick up the iconic iPhone in the outback. Specifically, Australia’s Telstra has been reported to be testing the iPhone on its network. Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo has confirmed these reports and is looking to bring the iPhone to Telstra’s Next G network next year.

According to Sol Trujillo, Telstra’s Next G network will require a specialized version of the iPhone working on the 850Mhz band. But, if this deal goes through, we could see the iPhone jump from Europe to Australia within a matter of months. We’ll keep you updated, stay tuned.

[Via: Macworld UK]

Our autobahn-cruising friends in Europe just got a bit of good news from Apple and T-Mobile. The duo has released official details on the rate plans that will be available for use with the iPhone when it’s released on November 9.

All three plans, sized from medium to large to extra large (what, no “small?”) will bring unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, and free T-Mobile HotSpot access. That’s right. German iPhone hopefuls can expect free WiFi access at T-Mobile’s 8,000 nationwide HotSpots.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with T-Mobile and can’t wait to start selling the iPhone in Germany in just a few short weeks,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Starting at just €49 per month, we think these three rate plans give customers the flexibility to experience all of iPhone’s revolutionary features at affordable and competitive prices.”

Check the chart below for pricing details for the German iPhone on T-Mobile.

[Via: Apple Insider]

How do you improve on the iPhone? Add 3G? GPS? Maybe some A2DP Bluetooth support?

Nope. Apparently, you encrust your Apple iPhone in about $40,000 worth of diamonds. Amosu’s gone and slathered the iPhone with 420 diamonds, totalling 5.65 carats and set in 18k white or yellow gold, with a choice of white, black or pink sapphires. They are pushing their Diamond iPhone as the “the first diamond Apple iPhone.” It was just a matter of time before the diamond-encursted-mobile-phone craze hit the iPhone.

If you just gotta have the latest and greatest, covered in diamonds and tackiness, rummage through your couch for some spare change - you’re going to need it. This sucker costs $41,225.

[Via: JustAMP]

Not sure which native iPhone apps you want to install on your iPhone? It can be a bit overwhelming, wading through all the third-party applications available through Nullriver’s Installer.app.

Well, App-a-day is here to make it easier on you. Download and install the App-a-day, um, app through Installer.app and you’ll have access to daily-updated lists of third-party iPhone applications. The first app on the list for November 1 is “Pumpkin.” Not sure how to get third-party applications/jailbreak on your iPhone? Check out the one-click jailbreak solution that will install Installer.app for you. It’s so simple you can’t screw it up - we call it idiot proof.

With the App-a-day application, we should have more than enough distraction until Apple releases the official iPhone SDK early next year.

Over at GeekTechnique, Mark Hoekstra prepared an interesting iPhone mod, bringing Apple’s handset back in the days of the “Think different” campaign. The end result is staggering — the black iPhone with the old technicolor Apple logo will certainly make your beloved device stand out from the crowd. Some people will think it’s Newton, but you’ll know it’s THE iPhone looking the way it should have looked.

Interested? Check out Mark’s step-by-step instructions from here.

[Via: Gizmodo]

We’ve come a long way, baby. From the initial iPhone v1.1.1 jailbreak to the more recent semi-automatic jailbreak, and now to the fully automatic, hassle-free AppSnapp jailbreak solution. If you’ve already make the jump to the v1.1.1 iPhone firmware and haven’t yet mustered the courage to hack your iPhone to accept third-party applications, well you no longer have any excuse.

AppSnapp doesn’t even require you to fuss with your Mac (or PC)- this nifty jailbreak solution will free your iPhone v1.1.1 straight from your iPhone. Just point your iPhone’s Safari browser to jailbreakme.com and confirm the jailbreak process. AppSnapp will jailbreak your iPhone and install Nullriver’s installer.app to allow you to install whatever third-party apps tickle your fancy. It’s really as easy as it sounds - there’s some serious point-and-click convenience going on here.

AppSnapp

There’s is no such thing as iPhone Nano — or at least we don’t know about it at this stage. We guess and hope Apple will make something like that, but in the meantime you should be aware of any such scams. The device on the image above does look real but it’s not the Mac OS that runs under the hood. It’s yet another clone/ripoff coming from China. When I’m on the subject, it’s worth nothing they (Chinese handset cloners) are getting better and better every day, and soon enough we’ll all have to be experts to realize which device is real and which the cheap clone…

[Via: Gizmodo]

Apparently what you just saw is Rogers Wireless’ ad for the iPhone. As you can see for yourself, Apple and Rogers will be rolling out the iPhone (most probably the 8GB model) on December 7th with pre-orders starting on November the 20th. Nothing is still confirmed, but I guess it’s about time to see Canadians getting a piece of the iPhone action. Not that we haven’t seen them crossing the border and unlocking iPhones, but this time it’s about to get official, hassle-free. In addition, the date is just right for both Rogers and Apple to benefit from the Christmas shopping season. Stay tuned…

[Via: Boy Genius Report]

Last time we checked we were still in America. But, apparently, once you step inside an Apple Store, you’re on Steve Jobs’ turf - and subject to his rules. In an effort to curb the seemingly rampant sales of unlocked iPhones through, say, eBay, Stevie has limited iPhone sales to 2 per person!

Just how does Apple intend to enforce this ruling? Well, in his infinite wisdom, Stevie has decreed that iPhones will henceforth only be sold to plastic customers - if you want an iPhone, you’d better warm up your credit or debit card, no cash will be accepted. Don’t have any plastic? You might be SOL.

You see, Apple has estimated that fully 250,000 of the 1.4 million iPhones sold thus far were summarily unlocked and sold for use outside of AT&T’s network. And, with Apple speculated to be making a couple hundred dollars per iPhone per year from their revenue sharing deal with AT&T, 250,000 unlocked iPhones represents millions in lost revenue. Apple only gets the kickback from iPhones using AT&T’s network - unlocked iPhones on other networks are outside the scope of that deal and essentially take money put of Apple’s healthy coffers.

So, if you’re planning on buying all your friends and loved ones an iPhone this holiday shopping season, you’d better distribute your iPhone allotment across multiple cards. Pre-paid debit cards anyone?

[Via: NYT]

Don’t jump for joy just yet. Apple has just launched the iPhone Dev Center as part of their Apple Developer Connection, but it isn’t some early iPhone SDK release. The new Apple iPhone Dev Center is concentrating on the iPhone web-app development environment for now.

The iPhone Dev Center offers tips, tricks, coding samples, and video from Apple’s iPhone Tech talks - but only as they relate to web-apps. We can’t wait for the iPhone Dev Center to actually include support for the full-fledged iPhone SDK that we’re still barely able to believe is on the way.

iPhone web-app developers can head on over to the iPhone Dev Center for more info on how to make those spiffy AJAX-powered apps play nice with the iPhone.

Source

And they just keep coming in. Remember when iFuntastic launched for the pre-v1.1.1 iPhone? Remember how easy it was to jailbreak and customize the iPhone’s UI? Well, good news, the latest hack/crack to return to the iPhone is iFuntastic 4.6.1. The iPhone hacking GUI brings custom ringtones, homescreen changer, custom system sounds, and point-and-click jailbreak back to the iPhone in the new iPhone v1.1.1-compatible iFuntastic 4.6.1.

Those of you that already took the v1.1.1-plunge will be glad to hear that the new iFuntastic 4.6.1 will even walk you through the downgrading process to turn the clock back to v1.0.2, jailbreak, and update to v1.1.1 so that all your favorite iPhone hacks will still work. Jailbreaking/cracking doesn’t get much easier than this, folks.

Unfortunately, the iPhone’s v1.1.1 firmware makes it a bit more difficult to get iFuntastic to play nice with the iPhone - there are manual restarts involved, but it’s not all that bad. Another downside is that the previously free iFuntastic platform has made the inevitable jump to the shareware camp - that means you’re gonna have to pony up $5 after 5 uses. Still, for a handful of bucks, it’s a good deal. Head on over to the iFuntastic website and download your own copy. Have fun, and happy jailbreaking!

Source

Apple’s been on a touchscreen kick recently. Following on their previous pressure-sensitive touchscreen patent application filings with the USPTO, Apple has again filed for another patent regarding a touchscreen interface.

The newest patent filing, titled “Keystroke tacility arrangement on a smooth touch surface,” reveals Apple’s interest in haptic touchscreen feedback - by which some physical feedback is used to confirm touchscreen inputs. LG and Samsung are using vibration-based haptic feedback systems in their newest handsets, but vibration-feedback is a compromise at best. Apple’s system proposes physical alterations to the touchscreen itself - raised, Braille-like bumps emerging from beneath the screen; or having actual keyboard keys rise up through the flexible touchscreen; or even placing depressed regions under the screen to represent keys - allowing the user to feel the keyboard key indents without physically seeing them.

We’ll have to wait and see where and if Apple implements such technologies - perhaps in conjunction with a pressure-sensitive touchscreen. It looks like Apple has not only spurred the touchscreen interface as the future, but is seriously looking to stay ahead of the competition with innovative new tech. Apple could turn haptic feedback on its head with any of these proposed ideas - and really pave the way for touchscreen tech to secure its position as the future of UI inputs. Keep ‘em coming, Apple.

[Via: Unwired View]

Why should Mac OS X users get all the fun? The recently released, Cocoa-based iNdependence gives Mac OS X-using iPhone v1.1.1 owners a quick(er) and (relatively) painless GUI jailbreak solution. It’d be nice if Windows PC users had the same convenience of a GUI-based jailbreak solution for the iPhone v1.1.1, wouldn’t it? Well, it would.

Enter iDemocracy. Windows XP and Windows Vista users can now enjoy the benefits of a semi-automatic jailbreak solution. We say “semi-automatic” because iDemocracy still requires a few manual restarts, and a downgrade of the firmware - but seeing as how it handles all the Terminal-command and SSH intricacies, we’d say this “semi-automatic” solution is pretty damn convenient.

Head on over to Google Code to pick up the Windows-based (iDemocracy is programmed in C# and requires Microsoft’s .NET Framework 2.0) iPhone v1.1.1 jailbreak GUI solution.

Update: It seems there’s a little bug in the iDemocracy software that results in your iPhone only showing 300MB capacity. Fear not, Windows user, there’s a fix on the way. 

Source

Somehow I don’t understand why would someone compare the Sony Ericsson K850i and the Apple iPhone. Yeah, with the former device you’ll certainly take better photos thanks to the 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash light. On the other hand, the iPhone offers much more, including the built-in WiFi, larger screen and more. Not to say that the K850i is a bad device — as a matter of fact, it rocks. It’s just strange to compare the two…

Anyway, check out more photos after the jump.

[Via: Daily Mobile] Thanks Daniel

Remember when Nullriver released their Installer.app application? Remember how it made accessing and installing third-party application on your jailbroken, pre-v1.1.1 iPhone easier than than a drunken sorority girl? Yea, well the newest release of Installer.app is bringing all that third-party app-goodness to the iPhone v1.1.1.

Nullriver has released Installer v3.0 beta for iPhone owners with the gusto to perform the lengthy jailbreak on their iPhone v1.1.1. The new Installer.app v3.0b revamps the UI - no more huge list of apps, they’re categorized in a WiFi iTunes Music Store-esque fashion. And, since the iPhone v1.1.1 and iPod Touch have been jailbroken, the Installer.app v3.0b will detect which device you’re using (and which firmware) to display only compatible applications.

As of right now, there’s no one-click (or even a several-click) automated process to jailbreak your iPhone v1.1.1. So if you’re planning on using the new Installer beta, you’d better roll up your sleeves and read up on the iPhone v1.1.1 jailbreak method.

Once jailbroken, run Installer.app from the /Applications directory and update the package. Installer.app will update itself to the new v3.0 beta and you’ll be on your way to simple third-party application access on your iPhone v1.1.1.