On January 2nd, 2010, I wrote a post titled 10 predictions for the iPhone in 2010. Just like the title of the post suggested, I shared with you some of my predictions for the iPhone in this year that is about to end.
Looking back at what I predicted then, I'm glad to see that I was right on 90% of my predictions. In this post, I will go over each point and explain you how much I was wrong, or right in most cases...
Apple took loads of heat earlier this year due to the issues surrounding the iPhone 4 so-called 'Death Grip' which causes the signal strength to plummet when the phone is held a certain way. Apple replied by saying that all smartphones suffer from this issue to a certain degree, a point that HTC notably took issue with.
Unfortunately for Apple, the popularity of their products put a huge red target on their backs, and the fact that they didn't properly own up to the issues didn't help them much either.
But that's not the end of this story. Now, another popular phone manufacturer, HTC, is caught in the middle of a similar controversy with their flagship Windows Phone 7, the HTC HD7...
The Dev Team just released RedSn0w 0.9.7b4, the latest version of their untethered jailbreak, which let me remind you, is still in beta. This updated version of RedSn0w brings the untethered jailbreak to your iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch 4G for those of you on iOS 4.2.1.
The major improvement in this update is that you no longer need to run usbmux, which was very confusing for many of you (oh yeah, me included)...
You gotta love all these Verizon iPhone rumors as it seems that every week, there is a new one being spread. The latest to date is a lovely rumor spread by Business Week, who got word from a "person familiar with Apple's plans who is not authorized to discuss them publicly" that Apple will be holding a special event on Valentine's Day to announce the new partnership with Verizon.
It seems we've heard that before, no? Oh yeah right, we've heard that about a zillion times and it never actually happened...
The App Store has never been a very quiet place. 2010 was no exception; thousands upon thousands of new apps were submitted to the App Store. Most of them aren't worth mentioning, but there have been some exceptional apps that have risen to the forefront of what the App Store has had to offer throughout the year 2010.
We've covered a lot of App Store apps this year on iDB, with the goal of keeping our readers in the know.
Now, we’d like to take some time to reflect on our favorite App Store apps of 2010. Being included on this list doesn’t necessarily mean the app was released in 2010, it just means that it was amongst our most utilized of this year. Drumroll, please…
Synchronicity is a popular jailbreak mod that allows you to use your iPhone while it's syncing with iTunes. Instead of being stuck with a lock screen while your iPhone is syncing with your computer, Synchronicity allows you to run apps, make calls, etc. Basically anything is fair game, except for the iPod app (to prevent data corruption with iTunes).
This mod has been a favorite of ours since it was released back in August; it even made it pretty far up our "Top 10 Jailbreak Apps for 2010" list. If you don't have Synchronicity, you should.
Synchronicity was recently updated to 2.0 status. The mod was already super lightweight and unobtrusive, but 2.0 makes it even better with a design tweak and some enhancements...
Lord of the Rings: Middle-Earth Defense [iTunes Link] was developed by Glu Mobile and was one of the apps that I picked up during the holiday Christmas sale. When I was young I read the book series maybe 3-4 times which made me an instant fan of the movie franchise, so this app was one of those must buys!
From this point I will save myself the trouble and refer it to as LOTR.
LOTR is a tower-defense game that brings the genre to a whole new level. Instead of setting towers along a set path, and watching your enemies run in your defenses, you will follow your heros on their quest to destroy the Ring.
During your quest you will come upon your favorite locations from the movie such as Helms Deep or the Mines of Moria. In addition, towers are replaced with your favorite heroes, which is really awesome for fanboys like me. Characters such as Legolas, Aragorn, Gimli and Gandalf are available as well as your small feeble Hobbits, and other minor characters. And how could I forget those adorable Orcs, Goblins, Nazgul and other huggable creatures...
We've been talking about it for about a week now, and to be honest, we expected it to launch at CES in a few days, but the Skype application for iPhone got an update today and finally lets you do video calls over wifi or 3G to another iPhone or to a Skype desktop user.
This update is long overdue. Since the iPhone 4 launched in June, introducing FaceTime, we've all been waiting for Skype to catch up and update their application to allow video calls. FaceTime is great, but not everyone owns an iPhone 4, thus it makes it hard to have a video call with someone who's not an iPhone 4 user...
As if this wasn't already enough, Skype has further removed the veil concerning its pending announcement at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In what can only be described as an Apple-esque marketing approach, Skype video chat looks destined to make the jump outside of the desktop and into the mobile platform. The only question remaining is, which platforms will it jump to?
When it rains in the jailbreak scene, that's a good thing. Now it looks like there might be some scattered showers in our forecast in the form of RubyRa1n, which is reportedly iPhone liberator GeoHot's lastest and greatest jailbreak tool.
The evidence? A domain name registered in his name on the same day that his most recent jailbreak tool, LimeRa1n, was registered...
Digitimes reports that 21 million iPhones will be shipped in Q1 of 2011. In case you didn't know, "Q1" is an industry term for "quarter one;" each business year is composed of four quarters, with each quarter representing three months out of the year.
This scoop from Digitimes indicates that Apple will most likely be doing some sort of revamp to the iPhone before March of 2011. It's not that much of a stretch to think that Apple could have a fantastic first quarter and pull off selling 14-15 million regular iPhone 4 units, but what really makes this rumor interesting is that Digitimes says that 5-6 million of these devices will be CDMA iPhones.
Contacts with Taiwan-based component suppliers say that the CDMA iPhone will be launched in North America and Asia Pacific in the first quarter of 2011. Digitimes says, "Currently, Foxconn is the only maker of WCDMA iPhones, while Foxconn and Pegatron Technology have equally shared the production volume for the CDMA version, the sources noted..."
I'm sure it comes as no surprise that there were plenty of iOS devices under the tree this Christmas season. Most of you either gave, or saw a loved one receive a new iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone. Two very prominent applications in the App Store, Facebook and Tap Tap Revenge, have shared their download numbers from the holidays. The results are very impressive.
Both Facebook and Tap Tap Revenge 4 have sat comfortably near the top of the App Store charts for quite some time, and TTR4 has been the number one app for several days. Both of the apps had huge download spikes this past weekend, giving us a good idea of how many iOS devices were opened for Christmas...