Tech and Amusing Stuff

FORTUNE has some “new information” about the 3G iPhone:

“When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.”

AT&T and Apple have declined FORTUNE’s claims, but when does apple tell us what they’re up to anyway.

Check back here for more information about the 3G iPhone.

Via Engadget

Rubicon Consulting published a survey from 460 iPhone owners and this is what they found out:

• 80% of iPhone owners said they were “satisfied” with the device
• 72% of users said they use the iPhone at least once a day for e-mail
• 55% of those surveyed said that the iPhone has increased their mobile browsing
• Almost half of the owners changed their carrier
• 40% of those that switched, switched from a smartphone device
• 1/3 of iPhone owners carry 2 phones
• 13% of iPhone owners surveyed have unlocked iPhones
• 1 out of 10 users reported “hand pain” after use
• 1 out of 5 iPhones were purchased as a gift
• Only 20% of the users surveyed said that they had both an iPod and Mac; while only 5% said they had had a Mac and no iPod
• Half of iPhone owners are under 30 years of age and students took up 16% of iPhone usage
• The average phone bill before iPhone purchase was around $78/mo. and after purchase was around $97/mo.

Via TUAW

Firmware 1.1.4 has been released for the iPhone and iPod touch, but no one has been able to find any new features. Perhaps it gets the phone all ready for that sweet SDK who knows.

Stay tuned

• Maps: New hybrid view, same as Google Maps. Satellite imagery and street mapping available on a single view.
• Maps: Location triangulation. Uses nearby WiFi access points and GSM towers (on the iPhone, anyway) to roughly guesstimate your current location.
• Web Clips: Web bookmarks can now be saved as home screen icons, including zoom and location information.
• Home screen: Icons on the home screen can now be rearranged.
• Home screen: Up to 9 home screens can now be created and “flicked” between.
• SMS: A single text message can now be sent to multiple recipients; groups can be recalled for future use.
• iTunes: Movie rentals are now supported.
• iTunes: Support for lyrics.
• iTunes: Option to “manually manage” music and videos instead of synchronizing.

Via Engadget

Looks like Apple just published firmware v1.1.2 for the iPhone; hit the download link to grab it yourself because iTunes hasn’t yet gotten wise to the fact that it’s out. Details to follow, but don’t expect jailbreak or the unactivated Safari workaround hack to still be functional, ok? (… aaaand we’re watching our download speed drop as our readers are grabbing the file. Rockin’.) Update: TIFF jailbreak exploit is dead. Sorry people. More below.

Update: Ok, We’re “sacrificing” an iPhone for you people. We’ll let you know what we find.

• Extracting software… restarting… iTunes successfully upgraded to 1.1.2.
• The “slide for emergency” slider flashed through different languages while it was waiting to be plugged in again.
• It’s activated, pulled the backup data, and restarted — success! Officially on 1.1.2.
• Testing jailbreakme.com… looks like they broke jailbreak! Yep, it’s broken alright.
• Not really finding any new features — certainly no new icons, no voice memos, nothing obvious about disk mode. Anyone else finding anything?

More info

“Researchers for Strategy Analytics claim that the iPhone could become the best-selling handset in the US within the next six months. In addition, the handset has already become the best selling device for AT&T, according to reports. “The iPhone has become AT&T’s top selling device, commanding some 13 per cent of AT&T’s overall handset sales, and the fourth top selling handset in the US market,” said Barry Gilbert, vice president of the Strategy Analytics BuyerTRAX programs. “Although the iPhone hasn’t had an expansionary impact in the market, the iPhone has quickly assumed a leading market share position and raised the ante for smart devices. The sales trajectory we are observing with the iPhone could make it the top selling device in the US over the next 1-2 quarters.” The current best-selling handset, the Motorola RAZR V3, has seen its lead diminished recently, according to Strategy Analytics.”

Original story

“This new LG CU920 Prada version is heading to AT&T—which means there will be two touchphones battling it out on one network. Our source tells us that it’s very light, but comes with an antenna that’s easy to snap off. It’s supposedly 3G. It’s got zooming like the iPhone when browsing, but takes a couple steps instead of the iPhone’s one.”

More pix

“Well lookey see here, sounds like v1.1.1 isn’t all doom and gloom after all. The iPhone dev community’s apparently not only moved past accessing the nigh-unbreakable file system protections Apple implemented in the latest iPhone and iPod touch firmwares, they’ve also managed to hack the SpringBoard app into shape enough to properly launch 3rd party apps (which were, as expected, recompiled to function with the new iPhone frameworks). The iPod touch has apparently also been hacked for root access, and apparently those freshly recompiled apps are functioning there as well. But it’s still not without some bad news: unfortunately, it sounds like most (if not all) of these new hacks rely solely on that single TIFF exploit in Mobile Safari, meaning that everyone’s back to square one the moment Apple beams v1.1.2 to the public at large.”

Original story

Original story

“HTC has done a great job of sprucing up the joint with a sprinkling of add-ins that make the OS more usable, while AT&T brings goodies like TeleNav, AT&T Music, and Cellular Video to the table.”

More pix

the Tilt has finally been set for an October 5 launch. Besides the obvious feature of a tilting display the spec sheet reveals a 3 megapixel autofocus camera, HSDPA, stereo Bluetooth, Windows Mobile 6 Professional (the first AT&T device to officially get it), microSDHC slot for cards up to 32GB, WiFi, an integrated GPS receiver, and BlackBerry Connect support.

Original story

The picture here looks pretty much like HTC Kaiser variant in the wild, confirming that the front cam is gone, though it’s a little chubbier looking. The site gives nary a clue about when we might actually be able to get a Tilt in our hands simply by walking into a store..

Original story