Ios

Redsn0w 0.9.8b5 Released To Jailbreak iOS 5 Beta 5 On iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, iPod touch

9 August 2011 4:34 PM

Late last week, iOS 5 Beta 5 was seeded to eager Apple developers, As always, many are asked the million-dollar question: can it be jailbroken? As with all previous builds, the answer is yes, with the latest version of Redsn0w which was just released, as long as you don’t mind plugging your device into your computer every time you power it on.

“redsn0w has been updated to 0.9.8b5, adding support for Apple’s new iOS5 beta5 (point it directly at the beta5 IPSW). Please use this only if you’re a jailbreak app developer with a legit Apple dev account, and remember it’s a tethered jailbreak for now!”

iOS5 - Apple iOS

Redsn0w is able to apply a standard tethered jailbreak on almost any iOS device, except for the iPad 2. Since this is an experimental build of iOS 5, iOS jailbreakers will likely be reluctant to disclose vulnerabilities for it yet, making an untethered jailbreak highly unlikely at this point, meaning that the jailbroken device will have to be plugged into a computer running Redsn0w every time it’s powered on, or else it won’t boot into a jailbroken state and won’t be able to run unofficial apps or tweaks.

Redsn0w is incredibly easy to use considering that all the instructions are presented in a relatively well-built user interface. In order to jailbreak your device using Redsn0w, all you’ll need is a copy of the iOS 5 Beta 5 firmware file and iTunes 10.5 Beta 5, which can be both obtained from Apple’s developer website. Some addition iOS skills are recommended, such as switching your device into DFU mode and restoring it with iTunes in case the process somehow fails. You can read our full guide on how to perform this jailbreak here.

It should be noted however that if you jailbreak your device on iOS 5, you wont get future OTA updates from Apple, until and unless you restore your iOS to stock state.

iOS 5 is the upcoming major release of operating system that runs on iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. First unveiled at this year’s WWDC, after months of rumors and speculation, iOS 5 includes several new features that had long been wished for by iOS fans. Among those, there’s a new notification system known as Notification Center which unobtrusively queues up all the notifications issued by apps and services; enhancements to Mobile Safari, especially the iPad version; Newsstand, a special folder on the iOS Home Screen that organizes all magazine apps; and system-wide Twitter integration.

It’s important to stress once again that it’s currently impossible to jailbreak iPad 2(s) on anything above iOS 4.3.3. Redsn0w only works with any iPod touch, iPhone and the first-generation iPad.

>> Redsn0w 0.9.8b5 for Windows OS
>> Redsn0w 0.9.8b5 for Mac OS

Apple Launches iCloud Beta [+PHOTOS]

2 August 2011 1:48 AM

Apple Launches iCloud!

Apple has unveiled the beta for , the company’s new suite of media streaming and cloud-based services.

The new beta, which is available to all users with an Apple ID, features web-based version of Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Find my IPhone and iWork. They are accessible if you visit www.iCloud.com while using iOS 5 (available to Apple developers) or Mac OS X Lion. It does not include Apple’s cloud music services, including iTunes Match.

Apple also unveiled the pricing structure for iCloud. The first 5GB of storage on the service are free. An addition 10GB will cost $20, 20GB will cost $40 and 50GB will retail for $100. It’s a good deal more expensive than Amazon Cloud Drive, which gives 20GB of space for $20 and lets users store an unlimited amount of music for free.

We’re playing around with the iCloud beta now, and while we’ll have more to report, our initial conclusion is that the iCloud beta is a modified version of MobileMe. It includes similar interfaces, which isn’t a surprise. The addition of iWork support is a welcomed addition though, as is the simplistic and universal interface for all of Apple’s cloud services.

We’ve taken some screenshots of the beta and embedded them below. Check them out, and let us know what you think of the iCloud beta in the comments.

[source: Mashable – Credit: Ben Parr]

MobileMe runs till June 2012 – no refunds?

7 June 2011 1:35 AM

If you went to MobileMe's page on Apple's website Monday 6th June 2011, this is the message you saw.

It’s great news for many that Apple is offering free email, contacts and calendars, but it irks those people who have recently paid the $99 annual fee for the MobileMe service. Here’s what they need to know, and what Apple hasn’t yet explained.

MobileMe isn’t shutting down. It may be “dead” but Apple is giving everyone who paid for the service another 12 (and a half) months. The company stated that the service will shut down on June 30, 2012.

MobileMe may run for another year, but as of now, there are no new subscribers. Apple is refunding anyone who bought the subscription box with a code, provided they have not yet used the code. If you have the code, or recently paid up, you will simply have the MobileMe service until it shuts down. (If you have a family pack, you can still create family member accounts.)

Hello, iCloud!

The much-talked about iCloud service from Apple was officially detailed today by Steve Jobs himself at the Apple WWDC keynote in San Francisco. Apple will now let you store your files on their servers, but the real application for Apple fans here will be the syncing possibilities iCloud opens up, and that’s what Jobs focused on the most in his speech today.

iCloud is free of charge for everyone – iOS device users, Mac users and PC users alike. All devices registered to you will be able to communicate with iCloud, and all applications on your devices will be fully integrated with it. The service will automatically push new data to all of your other devices. Buy an iBook, and it will be automatically downloaded to your other devices. Take a picture, same thing happens. Store a contact on your iPhone, the iCloud pushes it immediately to your iPad.

Almost everything about the iCloud is automatic. Once a day, your data will be backed up to the cloud, wirelessly. This means all of your data – if you buy a new phone, you can enter your Apple ID, and everything saved to your old phone will be automatically downloaded to your new phone.

iCloud has a few little advantages depending on which app you use it with. When reading an iBook, your progress will be automatically pushed to all of your devices, so you can pick up immediately where you left off on your book when you switch between your iPhone, Mac, and iPad. Photo stream will upload your camera roll to the cloud and push to all other devices. This works with PCs, too, using the pictures folder. iOS devices will then store the 1000 most recent photos, due to storage space considerations, while Macs and PCs will store all photos from all devices.

This isn’t a permanent storage solution, though. Files are stored on iCloud for up to 30 days, meaning this is more of a wireless syncing platform with rolling cloud storage. It’s also not a streaming service – files and apps are downloaded to your devices, so no form of media can actually be streamed from the cloud. There will be 5 GB of free storage available to everyone in iCloud, but purchased items like books and music do not count toward that limit.

iCloud seems to be more of a wireless syncing platform than a storage solution, and is certainly not the streaming media center many were hoping for. But, it is fully integrated with all apps, and to say it’s easy to use would be a little misleading. You don’t really use iCloud at all. You set it up on your devices, and it does the rest in the background, pushing new and updated files and apps to all of your devices in (literally) seconds. It is amazingly fast. iCloud will work over Wi-Fi connections, and will completely replace MobileMe, which will cease to exist after iCloud is fully implemented, which will be sometime this fall, alongside iOS 5.

I’m not going to pretend I’m not looking forward to this, but I will miss the MobileMe gallery, if there’s no suitable replacement. And as for the people who paid $99 for a premium service that won’t be premium in three months, I guess Apple is happy to charge you the early adopter tax. Like you’re surprised!

More on this at:
Apple Announces iCloud at WWDC – Goodbye MobileMe – ChipChick
MobileMe runs till June 2012 – GadgetBox

ComScore: Android Passes iOS For Overall U.S. Smartphone Subscribers

8 February 2011 12:43 AM

ComScore’s monthly smartphone data is in and it looks like for the first time Android OS has surpassed Apple’s iOS in terms of U.S. smartphone subscriber share. The data, which measured smartphone usage from September until December of 2010, showed that 63.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during period, up 7.3 percent from the preceding three month period.

RIM once again led with 31.6 percent market share of smartphones, and Google’s Android OS maintained the #2 position with 28.7 percent, which is up 7.3 percentage points versus September. Apple accounted for 25 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 8.4 percent and Palm with 3.7 percent.

In terms of total mobile device usage, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices during the period. Samsung ranked as the top device manufactuerer with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 1.3 percentage points from the three month period ending in September. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.7 percent), RIM (8.5 percent) and Nokia (7.0 percent).

comScore also examines mobile content usage on phones; reporting that in December, 68 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up only 1 percent from the previous three month period, while browsers were used by 36.4 percent of subscribers (up 1.3 percent). Interaction on mobile devices was up as a whole, with subscribers who used downloaded applications comprising 34.4 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 1.3 percent. And 24.7 of U.S. subscriber accessed social networking sites or blogs via their phones, which is an increase of 1.5 percent. Playing games attracted 23.2 percent of the mobile audience, while listening to music attracted 15.7 percent of subscribers.

While this data indicates reach vs. number of units sold or sales, Android has continued to grow strongly over the past year.

CrunchBase Information
comScore
Information provided by CrunchBase

Apple iOS 4.2: The First 24 Hours

23 November 2010 3:33 PM

Apple released iOS 4.2 into the wild about 24 hours ago, and users installing the software update have found improved HTML 5 features, quirky bugs and limited AirPlay support.

The highly anticipated mobile operating system refresh brings iOS 4 features such as folders and multitasking to the iPad for the first time. And many were excited to get their hands on AirPlay (a feature that lets you stream content from your iOS device to an Apple TV) and AirPrint, which allows you to print to select printers on a wireless network.

But it hasn’t been a perfect launch for iOS fans. Here’s a look at some of the early impressions and problems with iOS 4.2 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Content Gets Limited AirPlay

An iOS 4.2 feature getting a lot of attention is AirPlay, which lets you stream audio and video content from your iOS device to a new Apple TV. You can also use AirPlay to stream music through AirPort Express. But, at least for the moment, AirPlay isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. AirPlay works really well with stock Apple iOS applications such as YouTube, Photos and iPod (video and audio), but that’s about it.

You can’t stream video from your iOS device’s Safari Web browser, for example, and PC World’s sister publication Macworld found that many other video playback applications wouldn’t work with AirPlay.

Blogger John Gruber also said you can’t use AirPlay to stream a video shot using your iPhone to an Apple TV. “That’s an obvious feature, right? Shoot a video on your iPhone, then play it back for family and friends on your big TV via AirPlay,” Gruber said. I guess we’ll have to wait for iPhone 5 for that feature.

The Case of the Disappearing Content
Some users were shocked to find that after upgrading to iOS 4.2 their music, video and podcasts were no longer in the iPod application. It turns out that iOS 4.2 has a quirky bug causing some iOS devices to fail to recognize iPod content. One solution on Apple’s forums that appears to fix the problem is to sync your iOS device with iTunes, and click on the triangle next to your iOS device icon in iTunes’ left sidebar. Then you select the “Music” heading underneath your device to see the music library on your handset. Select a song on your iOS device and play it, then sync your device one more time. Your content should return.

Apple has opened up some more iOS goodies for Web apps in iOS 4.2, according to mobile Web developer Maximiliano Firtman. Besides improvements to mobile Safari’s HTML 5 support, Web developers can now use the accelerometers found in iOS devices to enhance their Web apps. Accelerometers are able to sense the orientation of your device, which allows iOS handsets to switch from portrait to landscape view and is a key component in iOS gaming.

If you’d like to try the new feature out, point your iOS device’s Safari browser to ad.ag/wjmtgt. The sample site lets you move a red ball back and forth across your screen by tipping your device. For best results lock your screen orientation before trying it out.

Find My iPhone Hack

Apple made its Find My iPhone application, which lets you track your device from a Mac or PC, free to iPhone 4, iPad and new iPod Touch users running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone was originally bundled with Apple’s $99-per-year Mobile Me cloud sync service. Unfortunately, if you’ve got an iPhone 3GS, 3G or older iPod Touch, you’re out of luck as there’s no way for you to use Find My iPhone for free … or is there?

Lifehacker claims it has found a simple solution to let you use Find My iPhone for free on an older iOS device. All you need is an iPhone 4, iPad or new iPod Touch (even a friend’s will do) and your older handset. First, download Find My iPhone on the newer iOS device and sign in to the app using your Apple ID connected to a Mobile Me account. Even though the service is free you need to sign in to Mobile Me (for free) for the feature to work.

Once you’ve got the newer device ready, you can download and install the free Find My iPhone app on your iPhone 3G or 3GS. Then log in once again with your Apple ID tied to the same Mobile Me account you used on the newer device.

You should now be up and running with Find My iPhone on the older iOS device for free, and you can disable Find My iPhone on the newer handset if you have to give it back to a friend. Check out Lifehacker for complete details, and let us know in the comments if this trick works.

Hardware Switch Revolt

Installing iOS 4.2 on the iPad switches the device’s hardware button on the upper right side from a screen lock button to a mute switch. The move puts the iPad in line with other iOS device that also have a similar hardware-based mute function. But some iPad users are not happy about the change. My colleague Jared Newman said in October that he was sorry to see the hardware screen lock function go, while the folks at Gizmodo have decided to protest the change. The gadget blog is calling for disgruntled iPad users to post, “Hey #Apple, change the #iPad switch back to screen lock!” on Twitter, Facebook and comment sections everywhere in the hope that Apple will change its mind. Good luck with that.

iOS 4.2 is compatible with these devices
– iPhone, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4.
– iPod Touch 2nd generation, iPod Touch 3rd generation, iPod Touch 4th generation
– iPad.

Have you tried out iOS 4.2? What’s been your experience so far?