The Dev Team has released RedSn0w beta 9 for Mac and Windows. The jailbreak tool has been updated to offer full support for users that are stuck on iOS 5.0.1.
Like all previous releases for iOS 5, this jailbreak is a tethered one. The Chronic Dev Team's pod2g is actively working on an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.
Bjango, the company behind great apps like iStat, has released Consume 2.0 in the App Store. The huge update introduces an iPad version of the popular usage tracker and iCloud support.
Consume is a gorgeous app that lets you easily track your data usage, packages, and even reward cards. Version 2.0 makes an already-fantastic app even better.
Our friends at Just Mobile have partnered with us to give away 3 brand new Xtand Go White car mounts for the iPhone. You may recall that we told you about the Xtand Go several weeks ago, and now we're ready to give 3 of them away to lucky iDB readers.
This flexible, versatile car mount for the iPhone sells for about $40 normally, and the new white version is not yet officially available in the US. The winners of this giveaway will be some of the first people in the US to get an Xtand Go White!
One of the benefits of iCloud is Find My iPhone, a service that lets you locate and remote wipe a handset if it is stolen or misplaced. While remote wiping an iPhone on iOS 5 cleans the device of your personal information, a bug in iMessage has been discovered that lets a thief continue to send messages from someone's iMessage account.
Ars Technica has uncovered the bug, and the scariest part is that permanently deleting your Apple ID is the only way to circumvent the issue until it is addressed by Apple.
What's better than 30 million? How about 190 million. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty has predicted that Apple is set to shatter its previous sales records in 2012, with 200 million iPhones expected to fly off the shelves.
Oddly, more consumers are expected to buy iPhones in the first quarter of next year rather than this holiday 2011 quarter. Demand for the iPad isn't weakening, either.
We teased you with the updated version of Netflix's iPad app several weeks ago, and the redesign has officially gone live in the App Store. Netflix 2.0 for iOS brings with it a revamped iPad interface and several cosmetic changes.
Requiring iOS 5, Netflix's updated app is available for free in the App Store.
Google is reportedly working on its own version of Siri for upcoming Android devices. The project has been given the internal codename of "Majel" (a reference to Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the Federation Computer from Star Trek) and is meant to be an evolution of the current voice recognition technology in Android, Voice Actions.
Siri is by far the iPhone 4S's hottest feature, and Apple has used marketing to put itself in the lead once again with the rest of the industry now forced to play catch-up. Will Google's upcoming assistant be the competition that Siri needs?
Dieter Bohn of The Verge has an amazing walkthrough of how iOS has evolved since its release in 2007. The post takes a detailed look at the key iOS features and releases that Apple introduced throughout the years.
During the original iPhone announcement, Apple touted that it ran on the same Unix core as Mac OS X and that it used many of the same tools. However, it was clear even then that while there may be some shared elements between OS X and this new phone OS, it was a different-enough beast to warrant its own branding. When the original iPhone launched, the OS was called "iPhone OS" and it kept that name for four years, only changing to iOS with the release of iOS 4 in June of 2010. For the sake of simplicity (and because it's a much-less awkward phrase), I'm going to indulge in a little revisionist history here and refer to all versions of the operating system as "iOS" in this piece.
Head on over to The Verge to read about the history of iOS. It's amazing to see how far the platform has come.
Here's a nice little tip for Siri fanatics. Did you know that you can have Siri speak any selection of text out loud anywhere in iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S?
By enabling a nifty feature in Settings, a simple "Speak" option can be shown any time you select a chunk of text. Siri can then read that text out loud through your iPhone's speaker at a pre-programmed speed.
We recently told you about Apple's free shipping holiday promotion for its online store. Any order placed through December 22nd will be shipped for free, including orders that are under $50.
Apple has added another perk to its promotion by offering 2-3 business day delivery for free. This means that online orders will be shipped much faster throughout the holidays.
Apple has continued to lose ground to Google in online advertising after the launch of iAd. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is trying to make its iAd platform more attractive to potential advertisers.
Having originally asked marketers to commit to spend at least $1 million—an amount later dropped to $500,000—Apple is now discussing ad deals with a minimum commitment of just $400,000, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Apple has also introduced more flexibility to a pricing structure that had befuddled advertisers, ad executives say. Instead of charging marketers every time a user taps on an ad—a policy which often led to ad budgets quickly being exhausted—Apple is willing to put a cap on what it charges for the taps, according to the person. Advertisers pay $10 every time an ad is viewed a thousand times and $2 every time it is tapped on.
This new pricing structure will hopefully give iAd a fighting chance against Google's AdMob service.
Apple has launched the iTunes Store in Brazil and Latin America. Customers in those regions now have access to all major record labels and thousands of indie labels in the iTunes Store.
iTunes can be downloaded from Apple's Brazil portal and songs can be purchased with any valid credit card in country. Brazilians can also access iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match.