Friday, 29 April 2011

Cydia Creator Explains Why You Should Jailbreak the iPhone

Why should you jailbreak the iPhone? That’s a question that gets asked here at iDB all the time. If you consider yourself a jailbreak expert, you’ve most likely been asked the same question once or twice.
There’s perhaps no one man more qualified to answer that question than Jay Freeman, a.k.a. “saurik.” Saurik created Cydia- the hub of the jailbreak world. He is the man responsible for what the jailbreak community has become today.
At the Mobile Connections conference, Robert Scoble caught up with saurik and Cydia’s “Community and User Experience” manager for a short talk about jailbreaking.
Saurik gave a brief explanation of what jailbreaking allows you to do on the iPhone, and he also talked about Cydia and some of his favorite tweaks from the Cydia store.
Some of the tweaks/apps that saurik and Brenda mentioned:
  • Barrel
  • Five Icon Dock
  • SBSettings (Serious theme)
  • qTweeter
  • Voicemail Forwarder
  • LockInfo
  • Color Keyboard
  • WinterBoard
As noted in the interview, saurik recommends the RedSn0w jailbreak tool. Check out our RedSn0w tutorial to learn how to jailbreak your iPhone.
When Scoble first asked saurik why you should jailbreak, saurik said that it gives you,”the freedom to do things that are outside of the scope of an application.”
How would you answer someone if they asked you why to jailbreak? What tweaks or apps would you show off?
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Thursday, 28 April 2011

iPhone 5 or 4S: My Name is?

Well the latest revelations regarding the iPhone 5 seem to blow quite a few of the previous rumours regarding this device out of the water. That is of course if they are to be believed.
Apple’s newest iPhone has become known by us as the iPhone5 and was thought to be launched with this name, but this new information that has surfaced indicates that the handset will actually be called ‘iPhone 4S’ and will look like the iPhone 4, but with an Apple A5 dual core CPU within.
The handset apparently will also not come with an 8MP camera and not be able to record 1080p HD videos, but will have a 5MP camera that is only capable of shooting 720p HD videos, with the front camera being the same resolution. This information comes to us by way of a thegadgets article via what they claim is there ‘Apple source’.
According to the thegadgets article there is no information on the screen size or resolution of the smartphone. However, their source did say that Apple has given the prototype versions of the ‘iPhone 4S’ to certain developers within the Apple headquarters and also some selected application developing partners who are getting the apps sorted for the phones release and that the prototypes must stay on the campus.
In addition, the source indicated that the iPhone 4S will not come with iOS 5, but will have a version of iOS 4 instead, believed to be iOS 4.5 or possibly 4.6 and that it is more likely that the iOS 5 will be revealed at WWDC 2011, with the release date being withheld. However, the shipping of the latest iPhone addition in ‘September’, is believed to be correct, with the white version being shipped from the start.
Earlier today we did a post on this topic, see article here and we would now like to know what your thoughts are on the ‘iPhone 4S’ name and the possibility of the iOS handset not coming with many of the features we were perhaps hoping for? Please let us know below.
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Sunday, 24 April 2011

iPhone 5 on September 13th: five reasons release isn’t worth waiting for

If the iPhone 5 really is to be a September baby, it’ll be unveiled in September 13th. And that being the case, our official advice has changed: if you’re sitting around waiting for more information on the iPhone5 in order to make a decision on whether to buy aniPhone 4 now or keep waiting, and it turns out the iPhone 5 really is coming in the fall instead of the summer, go ahead and take the plunge on theiPhone 4 now. Bear in mind that this advice is conditional upon the iPhone 5 being held back until the fall; if it does indeed arrive this June then you’re best off simply waiting another six weeks. But Appletraditionally holds its fall press event on the second Tuesday of September, namely the 13th in 2011, and if that event is to be the first sign of the iPhone 5 along with the iPod models which will debut that day, don’t bother waiting. Here’s why.iPhone 4 rocks: Several members of the Beatweek staff have been using the iPhone 4 since last year, and while we’ll likely all upgrade to the iPhone 5 as soon as it arrives, here’s what we’ve learned about the iPhone 4 in the mean time. It’s by far the most ideal smartphone on the market. It’s faster, more versatile, thinner, and lighter than any previous iPhone model, and offers significantly more battery life with a much better screen. The supposed “iPhone 4 antenna issue” simply does not exist except in the minds of the deviants who concocted it. On its own merits, it’s nearly the perfect smartphone; we’d be hard pressed to come with things we don’t like about it.
4G pipedream: Even if the iPhone 5 does end up offering 4G networking, that’ll only work in the scant areas in which Verizon and AT&T have actually built 4G networks. For the vast majority of iPhone 5 customers, it’ll be the same 3G or even EDGE experience that they’d have gotten on the iPhone 4. Unless you live in one of a handful of big cities where 4G LTE will arrive early, this is not a reason to wait for the iPhone 5.
Verizon already has the iPhone: For those Verizon customers who wanted an iPhone but skipped the iPhone 4 because they thought the iPhone 5 was just around the corner, we’ll ask you this: what exactly have you gained by waiting? A few more months of being stuck with your existing phone, which you clearly don’t want? And now you’re looking at another few more months of doing the same? You’re not winning this battle.
Question marks: In other words, it’s all we know about the iPhone 5. Will it offer better specs and features than the iPhone 4? Certainly. What will those specs and features be, and will any of them be relevant to you? No way of knowing. Waiting means you’re gambling that the iPhone 5 will offer something over the iPhone 4 which will have justified your wait. Waiting does not equal playing it safe; it’s just a different kind of gamble.
Have it both ways: The real clincher is that even if you buy an iPhone 4 now, you can still buy an iPhone 5 later. Sure, you’ll end up paying $200 above sticker for the iPhone 5 because you’ll have used up your upgrade cycle on the iPhone 4 purchase. But nothing says you can’t turn around and sell your iPhone 4 in September (for more than you paid for it, thanks to the magic of unsubsidized pricing), and put that money toward paying your iPhone 5 ransom. You’ll still end up having paid at least little bit for the privilege using an iPhone 4 between now and iPhone 5 launch day, but it won’t preclude you from getting to experience both iPhone generations. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
[via beatweek]
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Saturday, 23 April 2011

Did Sony CEO Howard Stringer Spill The Beans About An 8MP iPhone 5 Camera?

We’re recently reported that very few new features appear to be solid for the iPhone5. But a recent slip-up by the Sony CEO suggests that an 8-megapixel camera might be a definite upgrade for the next iPhone. read Charles Moore’s new article:
MacNN, Appleinsider,, CNET, and several other Apple-watcher sites reported over the weekend that Sony CEO Howard Stringer may have inadvertently revealed that Apple is gearing up to equip the iPhone 5 with an eight-megapixel camera.
9To5Mac’s Seth Weintraub, who attended the event, reports that Stringer, in a Talking Tech with Sony event interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York, commented that his company’s camera sensor plant at Sendai, Japan, is among 15 of the company’s facilities damaged by last month’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, and that the supply interruption will delay shipments of sensors to Apple. Since Sony sensors are not used in the iPhone versions 4 and 3GS, which employ 5-megapixel and 3.2 megapixel OmniVision camera sensors respectively, it’s not a major deductive leap to infer that the higher-resolution CMOS sensors sourced from Sony would most likely be destined for the next revision iPhone 5.A PhoneArena blog from six weeks ago notes that OmniVision shares nosedived last summer when a rumor spread that due partly to complaints about a yellowish color shift in still photos shot with the OmniVision sensor camera, Apple might be moving to Sony for its next generation iPhone camera sensors — possibly Sony’s Exmor R sensor unit that is used in the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc and Xperia neo. That 8MP sensor is backlit to help it finesse low light conditions, similar to the way the iPhone 4′s 5MP OmniVision sensor does. Indeed, rumors of Apple dropping OmniVision in favor of Sony as its iPhone camera supplier are longstanding.
PhoneArena also reports that OmniVision has announced that it has an 8MP camera sensor of its own coming, the OV8820, which incorporates the same low-light performance enhancements, plus HD video at 60fps, and Full HD at 30fps, and which had been projected to begin mass production in March, but that production problems have occurred.
Not everyone agrees that Apple will use Sony CMOC camera sensors in the iPhone 5. Analyst Yair Reiner of Wall Street’s Oppenheimer & Co. is quoted by Appleinisider isaying he expects OmniVision to remain Apple’s camera supplier for the fifth-generation iPhone, corroborated by checks with contacts in Apple’s supply channels, dismissing the notion an Apple-Sony hook-up as “rather silly.”
Whatever, regardless of whether the iPhone 5‘s camera supplier is to be OmniVision or Sony, it looks like camera sensor supply problems may be a significant factor in Apple’s evidently postponing the iPhone 5 introduction from an anticipated Worldwide Developer’s Conference release until some time later in the year. With the iPad 2′s camera performance being that unit’s most unanimously panned feature in reviews, Apple will want to get the camera right in the iPhone 5, where it is arguably a much more important feature than it is with the tablet product.
Also, with Sony Ericsson rumored to be getting 12MP+ camera equipped phones ready for summer release, Apple will need at least the 8MP sensors to remain even ballpark competitive in that context.
[iphone5newsblog.com]
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