What’s New In iOS 5.1

So much awaited iOS 5 update has finally been rolled, announced on an iPad event on March 7th , San Francisco. Due to the fact that there has been no single mention of the update since January 9th (the last beta release date), the expectations about iOS 5.1 have gone wild. Unfortunately there are no surprises in iOS 5.1  as it was anticipated, but the update brings several major improvements along with some minor changes in audio and call quality.

One of the most vivid changes concerns the way you access the camera app: if you had to double tap your device and then again press the home button to access camera in previous iOS versions, now the camera icon is always present on the lock screen when the phone is on, and is activated by just sliding the icon up.

The next change concerns the camera app too, but this time for iPad: it is redesigned the way that performs faster, smoother and has some minor basic functions added. One more thing that’s new is that you now finally have an option to delete photos from your photo stream! And the last and the most expected: Japanese Siri is also present and will be available by March 16th. 

The update also brings major battery improvements for the sake of iPhone 4S owners, fixing all the previous issues that the users complained so much about. 

Despite battery fixes, there is one  more important thing iPhone 4S users should know: iOS 5.1 turns iPhone 4S into a 4G iPhone on AT&T's network, but unfortunately without any increasee in speed.

The latest iOS firmware update is already available for each and every iDevice, but if you have jailbroken your device, avoid upgrading to iOS 5.1 because you may lose your jailbreak.

Apple’s March 7 Event Complete Coverage: New iPad, Apple TV and iOS 5 Updates

Several hours ago Apple dropped a huge press conference in San Francisco for making three major announcements: the launch of so much rumored and awaited iPad, highly expected Apple TV and some major updates with the current iOS.

New Apple TV features 1080p programming comprising iTunes movies and TV shows, Netflix, Vimeo, photos and more, and all in HD! With iTunes in the Cloud, users can get hands on their favorite movies and TV shows right from the iTunes Store instantly, enjoying them in HD. Despite the huge speed and simplicity, the new Apple TV features humbler, advanced user interface making it easier than ever to access your purchased movies, TV shows and music with iTunes Match right from iCloud. Streaming or mirroring your favorite content from the rest of iDevices including iPad or iPhone is also available. On the other hand, you can buy movies and TV shows on Apple TV and watch them on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC too, with incredibly high speed, no matter which device you choose to use.

Apple TV will be available on March 16th for a suggested retail price of $99 (US) through the Apple online store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers and requires iTunes 10.5 or later, 802.11g/n Wi-Fi network or Ethernet network, a broadband Internet connection and a HD TV capable of 1080p or 720p and an HDMI cable that is sold separately.

Now let’s move on to iLife apps for iOS. To complete this bundle, Apple introduced iPhoto for iPad and iPhone and major updates to iMovie and GarageBand. The following improvements were made:

• iPhoto now features revolutionary Multi-Touch abilities so you can use simple gestures to sort through hundreds of photos and find your best shots, augment and retouch your images using fingertip brushes and share spectacular photo journals with iCloud. To list the whole new improvements would take us far away, so to cut the long story short, so just imagine Photoshop mating with Instagram- to fully analyze the new capabilities.

• With the advanced iMovie you now are able to create amazing Hollywood-style trailers as you record HD video on your iPad and iPhone, even as you’re recording. The new Theater view lets you screen and pick from nine patterns in a range of categories including Superhero, Romance and Fairy Tale. Trailers feature soundtracks written by legendary composers such as Academy Award-winner Hans Zimmer and performed by world class musicians like the London Symphony Orchestra. 

• GarageBand introduces Jam Session, a groundbreaking and really cool feature that allows you to invite up to three friends of yours to wirelessly tie the iOS devices together for playing instruments and record live music. Jam Session spontaneously orchestrates the tempo, key and chords of your Touch Instruments so one and all sound great.

And the last and the most important- the new iPad! The third generation device of its category defining mobile device, featuring a fabulous new Retina display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight camera with progressive optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video. iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G connects to fast networks worldwide, including AT&T’s and Verizon’s 4G LTE networks, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life- just like the iPad 2, while remaining amazingly thin and light. Beginning today, iPad 2 will be offered at an even more affordable price starting at just $399!

As for the further details about iPad 3, read through:

• Retina display: delivering four times the number of pixels of iPad 2, so compact that the human eye is incapable to differentiate individual pixels when held at an ordinary distance, making web pages, text, images and video look extremely sharp and lifelike. The 3.1 million pixels in the Retina display are more than one million more pixels than an HD TV, and with 44% increased color saturation the new iPad displays colors that are astonishingly richer, deeper and more vivid.

• A5X chip – this powerful chip with quad-core graphics was specially designed by Apple to deliver a fast, receptive user experience while supporting the incredible Retina display. With double the visuals performance of the A5 chip, the A5X delivers a superb equilibrium between performance and power efficiency so you can enjoy all the benefits of the stunning new display while experiencing a smooth Multi-Touch interface, intensive gameplay, unbelievable visual depth and all-day battery life that iPad is known for providing.

• iSight 5 MP camera features progressive optics for taking fabulous pictures and recording full HD video. Backside illumination is available, allowing you to shoot great photos in low-light environments and a new video image maintenance feature eliminates the bumps and shakes naturally seen when filming with a hand-held device.

Despite the features above, iPad Wi-Fi + 4G with built-in next gen 4G LTE has the most all-inclusive support for fast networks internationally including HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, and now both CDMA and GSM iPad users have the ability to easily roam internationally.

So much rumored Japanese Siri was also introduced, together with iOS 5.1 and iTunes 10.6 free software updates!

Pre-Orders for iPad are now available. Despite the US, iPad will also be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands on Friday, March 16 for a suggested retail price of of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. 

The new device is available in black and white colors and wills hit Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden by the end of March!

iOS 5.0.1 Is In The Air

Not long since iPhone 4S has been released, some users have experienced problems  with the battery life. Apple has confirmed that battery performance actually has a few problems and they’d release a software update as a solution in a few weeks.

Finally,  the iOS 5.0.1 update has been released, bringing fixes to iPhone 4S battery life. Apple says that the update fixes problems with Documents in the Cloud and improves voice recognition as well, which had problems  also.

For the first time, you can update your device without connecting it to your computer. It is very simple, go to Settings > General > Software Update, and then tap the Download and Install button.

iOS 5 Details

To the surprise of all Apple users, so much discussed iOS5 beta is now ready for you to download! As we have already mentioned, iOS5 will come built in iPhone5, but you have to upgrade your smartphones yourself by now.

iOS 5 includes more than 200 new features for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. What we consider the most important is its enhanced accessibility- iOS 5 comes with innovative new features that make it easier for people with mobility, hearing, vision, and cognitive disabilities to get the most from their iOS devices.

Some other features that iOS update brings are as follows:

A Notification Center that brings all you alerts at one place. You get all kinds of notifications on your iOS device: new email, texts, friend requests, and more. With Notification Center, you can keep track of them all in one convenient location. All you need to do is to swipe down from the top of any screen to enter Notification Center.

A Newsstand-  iOS 5 organizes your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions in Newsstand: a folder that lets you access your favorite publications quickly and easily. There’s also a new place on the App Store just for newspaper and magazine subscriptions. And you can get to it straight from Newsstand.

Twitter- the social network is integrated in iOS5, allowing you to mention or @reply to a friend- it contacts applies your friends’ Twitter usernames and profile pictures. So you can start typing a name and iOS 5 does the rest. You can even add a location to any tweet, no matter which app you’re tweeting from.

This is not a full list, of course. Many more features are awaiting your download. Jailbreaking is also available, only with some problems on iPad2. So go get it now!

iOS 4.3.4 Update Preventing Hacking & Jailbreaking

A software update has been released by Apple for the majority of its devices, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad and generation 3 and 4 of iPod touch. Available now by plugging it into iTunes, it’ll bring your device to version 4.3.4.

The update is free and fixes a vulnerability of the PDF hacking, with which a malicious PDF file could sneak malware into your iOS device, giving hackers access to your hardware. Moreover, the same PDF file allows easy jailbreaking of iOS 4.3.3, which frees users from the strict constraints Apple sets for its iOS software. Apple definitely sought to stop that as hastily as possible.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to install the update if you backup your iPhone on a regular basis. Having tries it on our devices; there are no significant changes in system operations after the update download. 

Anyway, it’s a wonderful feeling when you recognize that your iPhone is no longer bound by the quirks of some nasty PDF files!

Apple Makes Jailbreaking More Challenging On IOS 5

When Apple announces the release of iOS 5 late this fall, consumers who’d like to jailbreak their devices might find the process more difficult than natural.

While examining the code for iOS 5 beta 2, the members of the iPhone Dev Team revealed Apple is putting actions into place to make it more challenging for iOS 5 users to rollback to previous versions of iOS.

It isn’t unusual for more progressive users to want to try out the latest non-jailbroken software and then revert back to a former version so that they can benefit from their jailbroken features. The recent workaround is for customers to back up their SHSH blobs before upgrading the software. This guarantees that an older version of the OS and firmware can be restored later.

With iOS 5, Apple is shifting the way that the blobs are created. The blobs will be renovated every time a device is rebooted, meaning that solely having an old version of the key won’t permit users to install an older version of the software.

While this doesn’t avert groups like the iPhone Dev Team from finding deeds and making tools available so that users can jailbreak their pieces of technology, it might make maintaining a device in a jailbroken state more difficult.

With iOS 5, Apple will also be viewing doing over-the-air OS advancements, meaning that the software can upgrade itself without needing to connect with iTunes. In principle, this means that Apple could push out small updates to cover exploits, avoiding a user who has agreed to install said update from jailbreaking their device.

iPhone 3.0 Safari JavaScript Performance Gets 3x Speed Boost

JavaScript performance has become a battleground for desktop-based browsers recently. It's not surprise that Apple has taken care of this direction on iPhone as well. The reason is simple. With the advent of complex web applications, JavaScript performance has become a critical factor for a browser success.

Ars Technica has published results of a rather interesting research. According to the findings,early JavaScript benchmarks from iPhones running a beta of iPhone OS 3.0 suggest the new version will bring big speed gains to web apps running in Mobile Safari, even on existing iPhone hardware.

In a nutshell, we shall see a 3x speed improvement. It is even speculated that the browser on iPhone 3.0 will deliver a 16x speed boost over the existing version of Mobile Safari in iPhone OS 2.2.

Well, I think we have to wait and see the final results when the iPhone 3.0 becomes available.

GRAPH SOURCE: Ars Technica

Meet iPhone 3.0

Today is a big day indeed. Although I believe we won't get the full preview of iPhone 3.0, we will learn much about this important update. Is Apple adding some of the iPhone's most heavily requested software features? Nobody knows for sure. There have been so many rumors about iPhone 3.0 recently that it has become really difficult to assume anything. Below are a couple of features that are believed to be present in iPhone 3.0. But again, these are only assumptions.

Cut/Copy and Paste - of course this is one of the missed functions. Especially, if you've switched to iPhone from Symbian or WinMo.

Push Notifications - This was promised by Apple so most likely we'll see this one implemented.

Background Multitasking - Jailbroken iPhone owners do get multitasking via an application available on Cydia. However, it's better to have multitasking which is supported by Apple.

MMS - I personally don't use MMS but I know many people like this functionality.

It is also believed that a couple of other stuff will be present in iPhone 3.0 like tethering, compass, premium app store plus and a new app launcher.

Again, all of the above are just assumptions. We'll have to wait and see what kind of a surprise Apple has prepared for us.

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Third iPhone Update is Already on the Horizon

iPhone unlockers may shortly have to start all over again. Apples is about to release the third firmware update to the phone. Will the unlock survive firmware upgrade? Most likely not. The update shall address stability issues and extend the device with new features as well. Particularly, this shall include functionality to access just announced Wi-Fi iTunes Music Store, which will allow iPhone users to browse, purchase and download media from the iTunes Store with a WLAN connection.