iOS Devices

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The time has finally come.  Games like Quake 3 are hitting the iPhone platform.  It is particularly cool to see the accelerometers being used to control the action.

Bonus points for controlling 2 players at once. 

Apple’s new gaming platform looks to be shaping up quite nicely.

Via Hermitworks

Here’s the story: four Italian students this weekend will take the iPhone SDK and begin a 36-hour marathon to develop an iPhone application. The four intrepid developers begin their experiment on Saturday, April 5 at 9am CET. The plan for this iTalian Job is that after 36 hours they will stop working and the software should be finished. 

Want more?

These iPhone-crazy developers want to give it up: the 36hoursdeveloping.com website will let you watch them working their socks off across the 36-hours, with a blog to let you know how it’s going. The story’s not quite finished yet. As far as we can tell from one of those comedic Google translations, the developers don’t even know what the application is they’ll be working on.  But that’s not the whole point, really, is it?  The point has to be – iPhone has become a meme.

We know the folks in Cupertino are enjoying a Karaoke session today. Why not? We hope they enjoy it. But when they wake up tomorrow, we’d like to think some of the Apple-staffers will take a moment to point their copy of Safari at what we, at 9 to 5 Mac are christining, the iTalian Job.

Apple’s in development firmware iPhone Software 2.0 potentially supports a range of features that have been hoped for by users, including the capacity to stream music to Bluetooth speaker systems, printing and more.

Meanwhile, third-party developer Jajah has confirmed it intends producing a solution that will legitimately enable voice over IP calling using the Apple device, though only when using a WiFi connection.

Apple confirmed it would allow the development of VoIP applications in early March, when it announced the new software and the iPhone SDK. Jajah will ship its VoIP solution shortly after the iPhone Software 2.0 ships in June.

Developers have been exploring the new version of the iPhone Firmware since it debuted, and interesting nuggets suggesting the addition of a new set of features for the device continue to emerge. 

Such new features include more general support for YouTube in Safari – where users navigating to a YouTube video using the browser have so far been transported to the built-in YouTube application, it appears users can now expect to enjoy their video within a browser session.

Bluetooth support has also reportedly been improved in the new software. Apple has clearly understood that the limited form of Bluetooth currently supported by the device is inadequate for many users, who want to, for example, stream music from their iTunes collection held on their device to external speaker systems. Now it appears Apple will deploy Bluetooth GPS and A2DP (required for media streaming) on the phone.

It also appears possible users will be able to print directly from their device – a useful feature for backing up important email correspondence. The evidence for this is a new Printers folder which has appeared in the Library of the OS, though this doesn’t mean such support is a definite for the release.

An iPhone was an essential witness in the apprehension of the man responsible for a grisly murder, with location information tracked using cellphone towers leading police to the killer.

Attorney Melissa Lewis was strangled inside her garage. At first, police in South Florida thought it was a random attack, but later determined that the victim’s iPhone was missing. Working with AT&T, they tracked data relayed from the missing phone to cellphone towers in the area – and that data led them to the killer, Tony Villegas.

Villegas was the estranged husband of the victim’s best friend, Debra Villegas. The couple separated because the husband was jealous of the success of his wife and had threatened her with violence, leading to the split. The victim had been helping Debra draft a will designed to protect her children in the event her estranged husband committed an act of violence against her.

The murderer has been indicted for first-degree murder, and faces the death penalty. 

People use their iPhone much more for non-voice activities than the industry average.  *GASP!*

Seriously though, it is interesting to see exactly how much more of each category..sort of.

Right from the horses mouth:

The “DevTeam” would like to announce the release of the OS X version of the PwnageTool application.

The team (and especially Wizdaz) have been working hard to bring you this release in as short a time as possible.

The plan (4 weeks ago) was to release a Mac tool only. This was decided because of the lack of reliable Mac filesystem tools on Windows, and the fact that the task of porting them would be too time consuming.

With that in mind the genius that is “cmw” stepped up to the plate and offered his services to the DevTeam. He proposed to provide a tool that would give the same functionality and User Interface as the Mac tool.

cmw has done an almost unthinkable task and ported the almost complete Pwnage Tool to Windows in a little under a week, and we would like to thank him for this unbelievable work. He is currently in the final test stages and hopefully this should be finished within the next 24 hours (but even he needs sleep and family time occasionally!) We’ll post a link as soon as the testing has finished.

cmw’s site is at http://www.iphonelinux.org

The Mac tool is available at http://www.iphone-dev.org

Really.  According to an NPD survey, Apple just passed Wal-Mart to become #1 in the US for Music sales – by a significant margin.  It took 19% of the January unit share comared to Wal-Mart’s 15%, Bestbuy’s 13% and Amazon’s 9%.  Christmas giftcards probably had an effect so it will be interesting to see what happens as ongoing numbers come in…

Orange France has revealed its iPhone sales figures for the first time, confirming over ten per cent of iPhones sold were sold unlocked, loosely in line with estimates that one-in-ten of the devices sold are then unlocked for use on other networks.

Speaking to UK technology news website, Pocket-lint, Orange France confirmed that as of January 31 2008 the mobile network had sold 90,000 iPhones in total since late November last year.

The report reveals that 14 per cent of iPhones sold were sold unlocked (which is a legal requirement in France, where Apple and Orange have been forced to sell an unlocked model). The remaining smartphones were sold for use on the Orange network.

These reports are the first firm sales figures to emerge from a European iPhone partner, though in the UK O2 has called iPhone the "fastest-selling" device it has ever sold.

 Footballer David Beckham is affectionately known as golden balls – now he has a gold iPod touch to add to his collection.

Beckham played his centenary match on the England team against France last week. To celebrate his 100th match representing the country squad, his team clubbed together to buy him an iPod touch – with a difference – it’s gold plated.

The Daily Telegraph has the story, and this clearly shows the magic 32GB capacity printed on the back, meaning it’s a top-of-the range iPod touch the former England captain is sporting. Of course, it’s not clear if he’s going to use the device to keep track of football scores using wifi, but it is likely he’ll use the device to replay key moments from his matches recorded and passed along to him by England’s coaches and the popular Mac-only SportsCode application.

iPhone is plat du jour in the Mac world lately, and the second beta of the iPhone 2.0 SDK continues to generate news nuggets for industry watchers.
Latest news in shows that the second build of the SDK includes built-in support for managed Exchange Server settings, while that could be predicted on the basis of Apple’s deal with Microsoft to license Exchange support, that the company has also chosen to build administrator support into the software is bound to generate excitement among infrastructure boffins.  There are lots of other clues in the ManagedConfiguration.bundle and ManagedConfigurationUI.bundle files.
The support consists of a couple of lines of code in the software that support Exchange Policies natively on the device, and also support Exchange Active Sync account handling.
These nuggets confirm the strength of Apple’s push at the enterprise market in its iPhone, as loud speculation continues to predict a new 3G-capable model of the device seems set to ship in May/June.(Image courtesy GadgetVenue).

(Screencaptures of the SDK files below)

Imitation = the most sincere form of flattery?   New specs are coming out on the Blackberry 9000 below..

BGR Says specs are:

• Everything we reported was true. 624MHz processor, 480×320 screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, 3G, etc.
• The web browser flies. "Loads web pages in 3-4 seconds."
• The BlackBerry 9000 in its current state runs OS 4.5
• Early launch date was slated for a consumer AT&T launch on June 18th (3G iPhone?!). Remember that we predicted the device was delayed. See below.
• The battery lasts around 4 hours with straight phone calling. "Battery sucks, to be honest. With Wi-Fi on, I only got a little less than two hours browsing the web," and all testers are reporting huge battery issues which could be why we’re all hearing it is delayed.
• We’re not sure of the next part, but he said that the device either has 256MB of internal memory or 128MB. Don’t ask why we couldn’t tell the difference.

According to El UNIVERSAL (translated), our amigos south of the border will be enjoying the iPhone with mobile operator Telcel in a few short months.  They expect the price to be about on par with the US, although the iPhone is widely expected to go 3G by June.  Perhaps Apple will be selling EDGE iPhones and 3G iPhones or maybe dividing by market.

Canada??….  How does it feel to be the last large North American country sans iPhone?  Ouch – Rogers!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siuKQw6L6Rk&hl=en]

So this is the story….  Instead of the normal iJailbreak or Ziphone hacks, the iPhone Dev Team is releasing (update: may be a week late) a full firmware hack that allows you to use itunes to upload and download any software you want to your iPhone (even a full OS?).  You could also change the processor speed up to 667 from 400Mhz if you wanted to.  In the future, you could also back up your iPhone with all of the hacked apps, settings, videos, songs, etc.  Then do a full restore at a later point.  You can also do interesting things with the bootloader as you can see from the video.

The creators think this will be unbreakable by Apple and they show it running on iPhone OS 1.2 (2.0Beta)

Here is a quick rundown… interview with the developers:

theiphoneproject: What does PWN accomplish for the users?

The Devs: Full independence from Apple’s vision on what the iPhone (and iPod Touch) can and cannot do. Currently it will allow you to restore to a jailbroken and unlocked state, and if you can figure it out – some extra cool stuff like Installer, Cydia, and other applications. You will eventually be able to backup your entire phone and restore to a state exactly the way you like it, restore straight to jailbroken state with installer, or even potentially install other OSes like linux (see iphonelinux.org) to your phone.

theiphoneproject: Why should I use this instead of ZiPhone? (or any other method in that case)

The Devs: Because it is the first time you can fully take control over your device. Previous solutions such as ZiPhone rely on exploits to break into an existing installation of iPhone OS, and install stuff into your device that way. Those approaches are fundamentally different from ours, in that they attempt to correct what Apple’s restricted in the OS after the fact, and only have limited power in what they can do to it. Our approach takes full control of the lowest layers of Apple’s device, and allows a much safer kind of jailbreak, that uses Apple’s tried and tested restore mechanism. It will also allow much more when hackers realize all the new possibilities this method opens up and start taking advantage of them.

theiphoneproject: Can you give us an overview of the process?

The Devs: In all honesty, it’s quite simple. This is the first release of Pwnage, and the process of building an IPSW is thus far only supported on Mac OS X. The first thing to do is make sure you have the Official IPSW of the firmware you are running (eg. If you are running 1.1.4, download 1.1.4). Now open the Pwnage tool, and click “Browse .ipsw” and browse to the firmware file that you just downloaded. Next you click the “iPwner” button, and watch as PWNAGE patches the iPhone bootlader, making it possible to circumvent any code signing checks. After this, your iPhone will reboot. As the iPhone reboots, exit the Pwnage app, and reopen it.

Here is where the magic happens, once the phone has rebooted, click on “IPSW Builder,” and you are presented with a list of the building options (jailbreak, unlock, etc..) including the all new “BootNeuter,” the ultimate iPhone unlocking solution. Once you have customized your IPSW, hit OK and let Pwnage build the restore file. Next we head to iTunes, option+click on the restore button, and navigate to the custom ipsw that you just created,. Hit OK and we’re done! iTunes will restore the iPhone to the state of your choosing (Be it jailbroken, unlocked etc…).

Credits: asap18, bgm, Bugout, bushing, chris, dinopio, drudge, Fred_, ghost_000, gray, kroo, MuscleNerd, netkas, np101137, planetbeing, pr3d4t0r, pumpkin, pytey, roxfan, sam, Turbo, w___, wizdaz, Zf.

Special thanks: Geohot, cmw

We’ve known for awhile that TIM Italy was in the iPhone carrier settings…but for some reason they haven’t gotten the the green light to announce the iPhone.  Perhaps it all went bad.  Or they are waiting for 3G?  Or maybe it is only a matter of days.  Strangely, the created on dates for TIM are the same (Dec 12th 2007) as Orange in France, O2 in the UK and Tmobile in Germany, with Tmobile Austria and O2 in Ireland created later (February 2008).

Something tells us that TIM and Apple had a falling out.

Onto a possible Russian iPhone possibility…

We’re not sure how long it has been there, but Russian text input is joining German, English, French and Italian as the default input languages in the System/Library/TextInput Folder of the iPhone.  Perhaps we’ll see an iPhone in Russia next?

var digg_url = ‘http://9to5mac.com/tim-italy-russia-iphone’;

UPDATE: All of the sites where these were found are now taking them offline at the request of Apple. 

Apple’s advertising agency in South Africa: TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg, South Africa
Executive Creative Director: Damon Stapleton
Creative Director: Adam Weber
Illustrators: Colwyn Thomas, Sasan Saidi
Art Director: David Joubert Copywriter: Lauren Shewitz
We like!!!

No word yet on whether these will go international or if these are one offs. Our eyes, as always, are peeled.

Danke

Apple has released a second beta of its iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK), and is searching for a handwriting expert to join its iPhone development team.

SDK beta 2 is now available as a 1.36GB download from Apple’s developer website. The kit contains all the tools developers may need to build applications for the device, and now also includes an Interface Builder, a visually-based tool that lets us build application interfaces using drag-&-drop.

Developers also gain access to new sample code and technical documentation, as Cupertino’s iPhone dev team respond to the first batch of developer feedback. The first version of the essential toolkit was introduced just weeks ago, indicating Apple to be prioritizing iPhone in its R&D cycle. 

Apple has also responded to complaints from some developers that they were summarily rejected from signing up to the $99 per year iPhone Developer Program. A note on the iPhone Dev Centre website explains: "We have many more requests than we can serve during this initial beta period, so we must limit the Program at this time. We plan to expand it during the beta period, and we will contact you regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. We appreciate your patience."

Finally, Apple has posted a new recruitment ad to fill the post of Handwriting Recognition Engineer, working with its Mac OS X handwriting recognition technology, Inkwell. "The recognition technology you create may extend beyond Mac OS X to other applications and the iPhone," the ad explains.

MacNN is reporting that the iPhone may hit the Dutch shores on Saturday at 11am local time. (Do people in Europe work on Saturday?).  While The iPhone has been spreading across Europe over the past few months and we’ve been hearing rumors as such, we aren’t sure if any new releases will happen before the 3G iPhone hits the streets (this summer?).  If so, great for them – but maybe wait 2 months for 3G?

Dear Dutch people, sorry for the lame image..

Apple has instructed its manufacturers to produce ten million new model iPhones, equipped with 3G support, a report claims.

Interviewed by iPod Observer, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney makes the claims, citing "sources in Asia". The analyst speculates the new model iPhone may feature and environmentally-friendly OLED display. As well as being a little more green-friendly, the display technology promises better battery life.

The news suggests Apple may introduce a new 3G iPhone within the first half of 2008, with strong signals suggesting the new breed will appear in June.

 Smartphone manufacturers have caught the bug, exploring Innovative new technologies and touch screens as they attempt to secure their slice of the market against Apple’s iPhone, at least, that’s what the analysts think is going down.

ABI Research calls the wave of invention that’s breaking across the smartphone industry the ‘iPhone effect’. Essentially, Apple’s high-tech foray into the market is forcing existing incumbents to play catch-up to remain competitive.

The analysts predict smartphone shoppers will face an array of choices, with touchscreens, touchpads, movement sensors and tactile feedback appearing across these devices. It’s extremely likely Apple’s competitors will attempt to build more user friendly interfaces within their products. The research claims manufacturers to be working to optimise their operating systems to work more efficiently on low-spec processors.

Smartphones are predicted to account for 31 per cent of mobile phone sales by 2013, the research claims. That’s up from 10 per cent of the market last year.

The Apple device is also impacting mobile marketing, the researchers claim: “When the iPhone was announced over a year ago, many thought that the device and its support for the Safari browser meant that this might be the beginning of the end for mobile specific websites and marketing programs. After all, the iPhone had a PC level browser with full HTML support.”

They praise the iPhone for its intuitive user interface, big screen, touch-navigation, and more.

 Cult Manga animations along with a pair of cult US sitcoms will be made available through iTunes, a Starz Media executive confirmed last night.

Marc DeBevoise, SVP of business development and strategy confirmed the move in a panel discussion at the Future of Television West conference last night. He promised to make four cult Manga anime classics available through iTunes, including the ground-breaking ‘Ghost In the Shell’.

LINK

Update: woops – we forgot about the oldest trick in the book (you know? The Chronological Book of Tricks, Page 1?) – registering a domain name and pointing it to Apple.  It is too early…going to get some coffee now!

http://www.ipodair.com

New tablet or random domain name purchase to point confused web users…we like the former!

Thanks Tousigar

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