iOS Devices

As we reported a few weeks ago Sirius is now on the iPhone and iPod touch.  You can get the the App for free and sign up for a free 7 day trial if you aren’t already a member.  The music is streamed over the net, not via satellite, obviously.  It also works over 3G (thanks commenters).

Update: the $3/monh doesn’t get you any Sirius premium content like Howard Stern, MLB, NFL and our beloved NASCAR, which is available separately…so this isn’t something to get too excited about. 

If you hit the software update button, you’ll see some new software wating for you. Question is: Does that new Bluetooth kill our precious tethering?

Update:  Not only does it not kill tethering, it helps it out on the MacBook Air.  W00t

It looks like AT&T might be using the 802.21 protocol to relax the pressure put on their 3G network by the iPhone.  The new iPhone 3.0 OS software contains the ability for iPhones to autoswitch from 3G to Wifi when an AT&T Wifi network is in range, without user intervention.  

Today AT&T made a statement saying they would allow "seamless transition from their 3G network to any one of their 20,000 Wifi wireless hotspots".  While the IEEE protocol wasn’t stated, it is likely the way that the iPhones will switch back and forth between 3G and Wifi. 

There is always the possibility that they are doing "dumb handoffs" as well which would just be like when a normal iPhone enters an area which a recognized network is present.  The iPhone finds the network, knows the password and switches over.

802.21 is an IEEE emerging standard. The standard supports algorithms enabling seamless handover between networks of the same type as well as handover between different network types also called Media independent handover (MIH) or vertical handover. The standard provides information to allow handing over to and from cellular, GSM, GPRS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 802.11 and 802.16 networks through different handover mechanisms.

AT&T’s press release:

AT&T* today announced it will support auto-authentication for iPhone OS 3.0 users connecting to AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots. Auto-authentication allows iPhone users to seamlessly switch from AT&T’s 3G network to an AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spot without being prompted.

AT&T customers with qualifying iPhone data plans have unlimited access to the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network — more than 20,000 U.S. AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots.

The new process eliminates the previous two-step authentication, making it easier and faster for iPhone customers to connect to AT&T Wi-Fi. Auto-connect is established once a customer connects their iPhone to an AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spot the first time.

The addition of auto-authentication for iPhone users comes at a time when Wi-Fi usage continues to experience rapid growth, driven by the proliferation of Wi-Fi enabled devices. More than 4 million connections were made at AT&T’s U.S. Hot Spots with smartphones, including the iPhone 3G, in the first quarter of 2009 alone.

AT&T is a leading provider of Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, and includes Wi-Fi access at no extra charge with qualifying AT&T High Speed Internet plans, 3G LaptopConnect plans and select smartphone plans.

“Auto-authentication makes it even easier for iPhone customers to stay connected on the nation’s fastest 3G network and the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “With access to our U.S. hotspots, customers are receiving a great value, with a fast, reliable broadband connection virtually anywhere, through 3G or Wi-Fi.”

The new auto-authentication process is available starting today to all existing iPhone and iPhone 3G customers who download the free iPhone OS 3.0 software update via iTunes. It will also be available to all iPhone 3G S customers once that product goes on sale on June 19. Meanwhile, all iPhone customers can continue to get AT&T Wi-Fi access with the current authentication process.

AT&T’s Wi-Fi network complements its wired broadband and wireless 3G networks with Wi-Fi hotspots including retail stores, restaurants and airports from coast-to-coast.

Here they all are..Reviewers have been playing with the iPhone 3G S for a week.    The overwhelming theme is "evolutionary not revolutionary" and "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it".  Most do notice a speed increase as well which makes the experience better.  We’ll keep adding sources and media below.

Pogue, Mossberg, Engadget, Gizmodo, Sun Times, TimesOnline.uk, CNET, USAToday, Others out there?

Here are some videos:

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/atd/microPlayer.swf

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf

We hope you guys didn’t already go out and buy a Pre, because AT&T has made a change to its policy: It will now give iPhone 3G owners who purchased in the first 3 months (July, August or September 2009), the original iPhone price upgrades.  Sort of.  Log into your account to find out exacly how much of your money they want.  (via engadget)

"We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18."

We’re guessing that to a good portion of our readers, the iPhone 3.0 software release isn’t a big deal.  We showed you how to go to 3.0 last week.  It appears that Apple is delaying the release a day.  "Why?" is the question – especially since the GM was released last week.  If the answer is to kill our precious tethering, we think we’ll pass.

Hardmac follows up on the issues surrounding the 1.5/3.0 Gbs SATA interface on new MacBook Pros. As you’ll recall, for some reason Apple’s new high-end laptops can’t go to SATA II 3.0 Gbs speeds but instead are relegated to 1.5Gbs.  

Hardmac ran a test with two high end SSDs to see if there would be a speed increase on the top end 15-inch MacBook Pro.  The results were the same: SSDs were faster on older, slower Mac hardware.  They also tried installing diffrent versions of the MacOS on the MBP without getting a different result.  This would seem to indicate that the issue is not software related.

• WE have removed the SuperDrive and installed two SSDs. Despite that both SSDs are in SATA II format, there are limited to 1.5 Gbits/s as highlighted. We have carried out some performance tests with the Falcon SSD: 130 MB/s reading and 110 MB/s writing. This is in average 100 MB/s less that what we recorded when performing the same experiment with the previous MacBook Pro Unibody Rev 1 (MBPUR1).
• In order to eliminate a potential link to a Mac OS X version, we cloned the special build (9J3050) shipped with the new MBP 15" 3.06 GHz, and installed it on the MBP Unibody Rev1: SATA port was then identified as 3 Gbits/s.

Apple so far has refused to comment despite many attempts to find out what is going on.  We’re still hopeful this can be fixed with a firmware update, as the NVIDIA MCP79 Mobos support 3.0Gbs transfer rates.

SAI is reporting that MLB’s At Bat application ($9.99 iTunes Link) will start streaming full live baseball games to iPhones.   The service is set to go live this week, possibly in conjunction with the iPhone 3G S launch.  You’ll need to update your copy of MLB’s application, and of course to do that, you’ll need to be running the 3.0 software.  They also note that the service will work over 3G, though this hasn’t been verified.  This would be a pretty big blow to apps like Sling who have been relegated to working over Wifi only.  If it does stream over 3G, we’d expect the quality to degrade, much like Youtube.

MLB also sells a separate app for baseball gameplay (thanks commenters).

As promised yesterday, MuscleNerd and the rest of the iPhone dev team have Jailbroken the iPhone 3.0 OS.  You might want to fast forward half-way through the video before you see anything good.  The short answer, however: iPhone 3.0 is jailbreakable and will be shortly after launch.

http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer4.swf

Try to be patient.  Do as we say, not as we do.

Remember way back on September 24th 2007, Apple released a notice that hacking the iPhone could cause irreparable damage?:

Three days later they released an iPhone 1.1.1 update that temporarily bricked many iPhones.  Fast forward to today, they’ve put out the following statement as a KB article:

Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store. Apple is aware that some third-parties[Palm Pre] claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.

We expect to see an iTunes update shortly that isn’t going to be a pleasant one for 3rd party device owners who sync to iTunes.. If we were Palm Pre owners in particular, we’d try as hard as we could to avoid hitting that next iTunes update button, until some other suckers watch it kill their iTunes-Pre sync…and then Palm figures out away around it.

Us?  We’re still on iTunes 8.2 pre-release 1!  (via everybody)

Update: Palm responds:

Palm seems unfazed by Apple’s implied threat. Reached for comment, the company said Cupertino will only harm consumers if it disables iTunes integration with the Pre. “Palm’s media sync works with the current version of iTunes,” Palm spokesperson Lynn Fox told me. “If Apple chooses to disable media sync in a future version of iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we could consider.”

Somehow, we don’t think Apple gives a f….

We know a lot of the ‘boys aren’t going to like this notion one little bit.  But, let’s all try to approach this idea with an open mind.  Over on ModMyI, an intrepid iPhone skinner has built a Pre theme for your iPhone.  Screengrabs galore below.  Blasphemy?  (via Engadget.)

DOWNLOAD HERE

The iPod touch 3.0 Page is up and working according to MacRumors.  You’ll soon be able to pay $9.95 for the iPod Touch 3.0 update, if you haven’t already installed it for yourself, free.  Update: Link temporarily back to 2.2.

By the way, here’s a great little video of some guys with a lot of iPhone 3G Ses from all over the world.

OK, this is a first. We’re kind of in love with this application from Layar, but it is only available on the Android platform.  We’d love to see someone do something like this for our beloved iPhones.

The Dev team seem to think that they’ll have the 3.0 OS jailbroken before Friday.  Judging by their track record (and the screenshot on the right), we tend to believe they’ll be able to do it.  Cycorder and Qik might be a nice consolation prize for those who can’t afford to upgrade to the 3G S’s video capabilities.  As for the compass…well…  

From the Dev Team:

As anyone reading this blog must already know, this is the big week where Apple releases their official 3.0 FW to the public (Wednesday), and then the new iPhone2,1 hardware, aka the iPhone 3GS (Friday).

On Tuesday evening (just before the big Apple release) we’ll do a live demo of the yellowsn0w carrier unlock working on official 3.0 firmware.   The actual link for the feed will be twittered by @MuscleNerd and also placed here when the feed starts.  The demo should answer everything you need to know about the new yellowsn0w.  But it’s good news for iPhone 3G unlockers everywhere.

Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of testing our PwnageTool and QuickPwn tools, which will work with iTunes 8.2. The jailbreak of course continues to work on 3.0 for all devices it ever worked on, thanks due the Pwnage 2.0 technique released last summer.   Our tools will be released no sooner than the Apple release (just in case!).

P.S. For the new iPhone 3GS, please don’t expect periodic updates about any progress we have or don’t have.  Nothing gives Apple the upper hand like someone tweeting or blogging partial hack results.  That’s not how cat & mouse is played :)  That’s how the cat gets fed.

According to popular Israeli website nana10 (via MacBlogz), Israel will be getting the iPhone in short order.  The tiny nation is chock full of technology companies and jailbroken iPhones are a dime a dozen there. 

But until now, Apple hasn’t officially partnered with any of the telecoms.  Strangely, Orange who has iPhone contracts in many other surrounding countries and all over the world, isn’t going to be the carrier of choice.  Apple has gone with Pelephone, a smaller local carrier.

Update: Orange also will be carrying the iPhone in Israel it appears … which makes sense. 

You’ll recall that Scott Forstall announced during WWDC ’09 that Hebrew, Arabic and other right to left languages would be officially supported in iPhone 3.0 – so this news timing makes sense.

Update: This might be a beta for Perian for Quictime X as our developer friends are saying nay on FLV support in Quicktime X.

According to a blog called Cateto, Apple’s Quicktime X in Snow Leopard will play Flash FLV movies…again.  Quicktime supported FLV movies up until 2007.  After that, you needed Perian to play FLVs and SWFs in Quicktime. 

No longer.

Some have insinuated that this might lead to Flash support on iPhone.  We’d be hopeful, but that is a big stretch.  FLV support only means that Quicktime will play H.264 video in a .FLV wrapper, not that all of the complex Flash interactivity will be built in as well.

Baby steps.

Go-iPhone users: Unless you are an "original iPhone with a Pick Your Plan" Customer with the required unlimited Data Plan for iPhone, you might want to give AT&T a call.  Otherwise, expect to see a service interruption.  Erica Sadun found out the hard way (via SMS of course) that her Go-iPhone is no longer approved to run on AT&T’s network.   What?! You wanted more than 4 days notice?  Welcome to the new AT&T. 

Oh, btw, we’re pretty sure Erica knows a few ways to get around AT&T :D

BGR got the as yet unannounced no-plan price of the 32GB iPhone 3G S in Canada.  While those 800 Loonies will get you an iPhone, you’ll need a few more to find a carrier besides Rogers to use it on.  Good luck with that.

Although the iPhone 3.0 Software hasn’t gone live yet (but you can get it now), apps are starting to populate the store with Push Notifications.  Tap Tap Revenge 2, as you can (blurrily) see below, now supports Push.  Get TapTap 2 (iTunes store link).