Month: April 2011

AT&T: We Need T-Mobile to Increase Our Network’s Reliability

Since the news surfaced about AT&T's potential acquisition of T-Mobile, many have concerned themselves with AT&T's motivation behind the move.

Unsurprisingly, Sprint, the company that stands to lose the most from the deal, is officially in opposition and has asked the government to block the $39 billion dollar transaction.

AT&T's Mobilize Everything website was recently updated to reflect the news that a filing with the FCC has been made. In it, they expressed their reasoning behind the move, and the reasons why they believe it will benefit the wireless industry as a whole...

Closer Look at iPhone’s Location-Tracking Database

A couple days ago, we told you about a discovery made by two researchers concerning location data collection on the iPhone. Apparently, the iPhone logs your GPS coordinates for an unspecified amount of time and saves that data to a system-level consolidated.db file that is then synced over to iTunes upon backup.

This finding was demonstrated at the Where 2.0 conference by British programmers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allen. They claimed the discovery as their own, when in fact it has actually been a known issue in the security community since last year.

Cydia Experiencing Issues Due to Amazon EC2 Outage? [UPDATED]

According to a recent tweet from big-name jailbreak dev chpwn, it appears that Cydia is experiencing connectivity issues due to a prolonged outage of Amazon's EC2 cloud computing service.

EC2 is a service used by many heavily-trafficked services on the internet, and Amazon has been experiencing an EC2 service outage for an astounding 16+ hours. Some say that Cydia is working fine, but the jailbreak store has been experiencing intermittent connectivity issues since the EC2 outage began.

NFL Finally Releases Official iPad Application

While an NFL season is questionable, the draft seems to be right on schedule. On April 28th, last year's top college football players will participate in the NFL Draft where players are selected by professional teams.

The NFL iPad app will allow you to watch live video of the draft, along with several other great features. You can check which positions your favorite team needs help in and view a detailed breakdown of each player that gets drafted. You can even set the application to alert you when your favorite team is up for selection.

Outside of the exclusive draft coverage, the application is pretty bare. There is a section where you can read general news and view the entire NFL schedule, but that's pretty much it.

If a 2011 season does go on as planned, the NFL has mentioned that there will be a lot more content pushed out to users via an update. You'll most likely get the usual cocktail of features like in-game highlights and up to the minute league scoreboards.

I would be interested to see Fantasy Football get integrated into the application. Maybe even throw in some audio clips of popular players that are wearing microphones throughout the game.

Although it's kind of on the light side right now, if you're planning on watching the draft next week, this application would make a nice accessory. NFL 2011 for iPad is free to download from the App Store.

What do you think?

Mysterious iOS Location Tracking File Likely Just a Glitch

We reported yesterday on the iPhone location tracking bug that has been buzzing around the internet for the last 48 hours. It's been making headlines from tech sites to blogs of privacy advocate groups, like Epic (Electronic Privacy Information Center).

For those that haven't heard: A hidden file in iOS versions 4.0 and above has been found that actually records the user's location fairly frequently. I'm not talking about Facebook requesting your location, I mean it records your GPS coordinates with a time stamp to a secret file. Was this in the EULA (End-User License Agreement)?

Apple’s Cloud Service Almost Ready to Launch

We've heard a lot of talk regarding this cloud thing Apple's been working on. It's supposed to allow iTunes customers to store their media on a remote server, and then access it from anywhere they have an internet connection.

It's obviously coming. Apple built that huge data center in North Carolina and rented all that digital storage space for something. We've heard rumors that the service could launch right alongside a revamped MobileMe sometime this spring, but will Apple be able to meet expectations?

iPhone Won’t Have 4G Until At Least 2012

Speculation has been that Apple could possibly introduce an LTE/4G iPhone in the coming year. Some even thought that Apple pushed back the iPhone 5's announcement to wait for LTE saturation in the U.S.

Will we see an iPhone 4G this September? According to both Apple and the LTE industry, it doesn't look hopeful...

Apple Testing “iPhone 4S” With Developers, Device Will Have A5 Chip for Enhanced Gaming

Apple has already started testing prototype units of the next generation iPhone with "select" developers. We've already heard that the next iPhone will most likely sport Apple's powerful A5 processor, and 9to5Mac is reporting that the next iPhone will indeed boast the A5 chip.

The iPad 2 uses Apple's A5 processor, and Apple is bringing the A5 to the iPhone in order to improve gaming performance. Big-name gaming companies are already testing an A5-equipped iPhone "4S" to get ready for the new device's launch.

Kickstarter Project Brings Popular Movie to iPad App

Most everybody recognizes the movie Full Metal Jacket, or at least recognizes the name. The 1980's film based on the Vietnam War was instantly a classic, not only because of its epic storyline, but because of director Stanley Kubrick.

The experience was so amazing, that star Matthew Modine decided to keep a journal of his experiences on the set. This diary later turned into a book, which included on set photographs and personal accounts of working with the legendary director.

The limited edition book sold out quickly, and fans have continued to hope that a paperback edition would soon make its way to the shelves. Although Modine doesn't plan to publish any more copies of the diary, he might be looking to bring the book to life with a new iPad app.

Adam Rackoff is a huge Kubrick fan, and loves Full Metal Jacket. He also loved Modine's book enough that he approached the retired actor last year about his idea for an interactive iPad app that told the behind the scenes story of Full Metal Jacket. The app would feature audio of Modine reading his journal, and a wealth of scanned original photographs from the movie.

Although they've done a lot of work on the application, they've reached a halt in production. Lack of funds has forced the producer to launch a Kickstarter page to raise money for this hefty project. Rackoff currently has 80 backers that have pledged $6,601 so far. His goal is $20,000.

If you would like to see this app available in the App Store one day, pop over to the page and donate. You can pledge anything from $5 to $10,000 or more. The higher the donation, the cooler gift you get from Rackoff including authentic photographs from the set of the movie.

What do you think?

Apple Overtakes Nokia to Become Highest-Grossing Mobile Phone Vendor

Apple and Nokia have gone head to head in a couple of arenas. First it was the mobile phone market and then it was the court room. Although Nokia has typically faired better than the Cupertino company due to their extensive Global reach, Apple has been right on their heels.

At least they were on their hills, until yesterday. Everybody is talking about Apple's impressive 25 billion dollar quarter, heck they sold close to 20 million iPhones in just 3 months. But how much of their posted revenue is directly from mobile phones, and how does it compare to Nokia's earnings?

Verizon CFO Says that iPhone 5 Will Be GSM + CDMA “Global Device”

The iPhone 5 will be a dual-baseband device that operates on both GSM and CDMA networks. According to comments made by Verizon CFO Fran Shammo in the company's last quarterly earnings call, Apple's next iPhone will be a "global device" compatible with all carriers.

Shammo was the one that leaked the information that Verizon would be getting the iPad 2, so there's reason to believe his claim is true.

Verizon Has Sold 2.2 Million iPhones in Two Months

Following the heels of AT&T's and Apple's Q1 earnings call, Verizon has announced a rather impressive earnings report for Q1 of 2011. The Verizon iPhone has been available to consumers since February, and the industry was been waiting with eager anticipation for Verizon's official word on its iPhone sales.

Yesterday, AT&T announced 3.6 million iPhone activations on its network for Q1, and Verizon has announced a staggering 2.2 million iPhone activations since February. That means that Verizon is selling 1 million+ iPhones per month.