Archive for March, 2008
March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008 -- 6:15 p.m. -- at my desk
Of course, everyone here at the office is concentrating on March Madness and what sounds like a great game taking place.
Me? Why, I'm pondering the big iPhone picture, of course.
And today, I have a question that goes a long way at looking at the big picture:
Why do you suppose the iPhone is so easy to hack?
And let me state up front that this is not me complaining about hacking or jailbreaking. Not at all. As someone who knows nothing about programming, I wonder why it's so easy to hack -- is that something Apple wants? Is it that the jailbreaking community is really that darn good? Is it a combination of both?
Gizmodo reported on Saturday that just 24 hours after Apple rebranded the beta iPhone firmware 2.0 (it was 1.2) that it was jailbroken again ... and the folks who do it say that Apple is actually going to have a hard time overcoming it this time.
Anyone out there with some knowledge of the subject care to enlighten me? I'm quite curious.
Thanks for calling.
March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008 -- 2:57 p.m. -- at my desk
It's a busy time in American sports ... opening day for baseball is Monday, NASCAR and the NHL are in full swing ... and of course there's March Madness.
And obviously, we need our score fix no matter where we are.
Lluckily, those of us with iPhones and Internet capable phones in general can go to espn.com and cbssportsline.com among others.
But we also have a great resource and that's SportsTap at sportstap.mobi.
Here, you can keep up with a number of sports ... including baseball, hockey, NASCAR, basketball and even golf.
The information on the site updates each minute -- and I can attest that it does just that for NASCAR at least -- and it works pretty fast over EDGE and Wi-Fi.
If you want a more personalized experience, you can pay $1.99 a month and customize what you follow. You can sign up at the site and get 7 days free to decide if it's right for you.
I'll really put it through its paces tomorrow when all kinds of baseball games are going on. ... but so far I am quite excited and intrigued with what I see here.
And of course, because it's Safari-based, there's no jailbreaking or anything else that you need to do. Just bookmark the site and you are all set.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Thanks for calling.
March 30, 2008
Poring through the latest iPhone 2.0 firmware that Apple has distributed to developers, The Boy Genius spotted that a new YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app has been added. At present, video embedded into webpages won’t display in the iPhone’s browser, and only YouTube content is visible in a separate program. It’s unclear right now whether this new plugin will simply embed the separate YouTube app into the webpage, or is a sign of more advanced Flash development on Apple’s part.
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March 30, 2008
Goldstriker, the UK firm that specialises in adding extra luxury (and exclusivity) to personal electronics, have unveiled their latest 24ct tweak to the iPhone range: a leather and gold re-trim of the Apple handset. Adding the sort of hide you’d usually find cladding the seats of a Ferrari or Bentley, together with lashings of real gold, the company also adds quite a bit to the iPhone’s price tag: they’re estimating it’ll be around £900 ($1,800) when it goes on sale at the end of April.
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March 29, 2008
The iPhone Dev Team strikes at Apple’s core with the Pwnage tool. The PWN, which is publicaly available later today, Sunday March 30th, allows you to flash custom unsigned firmware onto the iPhone or iPod touch. Not only will PWN properly hack the iPhone and iPod touch, the iPhone Dev Team claims, “any subsequent firmware releases will also be vulnerable to “Pwnage”…like 1.2 (2.0) beta.” Is the iPhone Dev Team getting too arrogant for their own good or is it possible they’re that good to believe they’ve developed a tool that’s Jobs proof? Apple, I believe the ball is now in your court. Click over to watch the video and view screen shots of PWN in action.
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March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008 -- 12:10 a.m. -- on my couch
So you all know how much I love analysts and their groundbreaking information on the future of Apple products. On Friday, it was Bank of America jumping on the bandwagon, saying it's likely coming in June.
Here's an idea, Bank of America -- how about you spend your time trying to keep 3 of the same credit card offers from hitting my mailbox in the same day and leave the iPhone forecasting to me.
We good? Great.
Thanks for calling.
March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008 -- 12:05 a.m. -- on my couch
A headache is keeping my posts a little short today, but luckily short and also mean sweet.
iPhoneWorld.ca and iPhoneInCanada.ca have teamed up to create the Great Canadian iPhone Petition.
Here's a link if you would like to sign it.
Hopefully the sites will get together and send it along to Apple and to Rogers, but there's one thing they should be aware of ... no petition is going to get the iPhone to Canada. Both countries are quite aware how much people want it. We're way beyond petition stage. But still doesn't mean you shouldn't sign it.
Thanks for calling.
March 29, 2008
BGR is claiming iPhone firmware 2.0 will provide a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app. They aren’t citing their source, but they’re pretty confident in their assertion:
“You heard it here first, people! The latest version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware that was just seeded to developers has a YouTube plugin for MobileSafari.app”
BGR tends to be a solid source, but we cannot confirm this to be true without some more evidence. Nonetheless, if true, YouTube video playback from within Safari will be possible on the iPhone, without launching a separate application for the content. That sure would make surfing the web and viewing content a helluva lot easier; here’s hoping BGR is bang on with this one.
Boy Genius also goes onto suggest that this may be indicative of some form of native Flash support, but we just can’t raise your hopes like that. It wouldn’t be right. [BGR; Thanks, Ted B. Image via Limited Edition iPhone]
March 29, 2008
We know Apple’s had its Inkwell handwriting recognition software in OS X for years now, so we might have otherwise just totally glossed over this Handwriting Recognition Engineer job listing on Apple’s site. Except for the part that reads: “The recognition technology you create may extend beyond Mac OS X to other applications and the iPhone.” They always love to throw those little tidbits in there, don’t they?[Via Macrumors]
March 28, 2008
CNN Money has reported that some person familiar with the situation, told Dow Jones Newswire that Hon Hai will be the folks assembling what they’re referring to as a more advanced version of the first-gen iPhone. The unnamed source stated Hon Hai scored the exclusive contract from Apple. Unfortunately, the source declined to provide more details.
In case you’re wondering how much more advance the iPhone can really get. Lets just say at the moment it sorely lack 3G, integrated GPS as well as the not so-advance feature such as copy and paste. Well, the last one is an OS feature that doesn’t require new hardware - I just thought it’s important to throw in there.
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Of course, everyone here at the office is concentrating on March Madness and what sounds like a great game taking place.
