Month: July 2011

Apple Seeking Preliminary Injunction Over 4 Samsung Devices

Apple is ramping up its spat with Samsung, according to reports, with the company seeking a preliminary injunction on four of Samsung's top pieces of hardware. Three Android smartphones and one Android tablet are named by Apple as violating their patents, and the lawyers from Cupertino want all four devices yanked from store shelves.

The Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G, Droid Charge, and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are all named by Apple's crack legal team and if they get their wicked way, we could see four of Samsung's newest releases pulled from sale....

iPad 2 Leak Will Likely Spawn iOS 4.3.4

The jailbreak scene has been extremely talkative since Comex's iPad 2 jailbreak was leaked earlier today. Some folks jumped at the chance to install the beta version of the exploit, while others continue bashing the ones responsible for the leak.

It seems the individual(s) responsible for the leak claim they did so to encourage Comex to hurry up and release a final version. But it looks like all the leak did was create more work for the jailbreak community...

iPhone Helps Reunite Mother and Daughter After Years of Separation

We've reported on a lot of unfortunate events here on iDB. From the ongoing struggle in Foxconn's factories, to human rights, to the awful tragedy that struck Japan earlier this year. So needless to say we love it when a feel-good story comes along.

Just a few days after hearing the heartwarming story of Holly and her iPad, another touching tale involving an iDevice has started to circle the web. The Loop uncovered this report from a Chinese publication about how an iPhone sparked a reunion between a mother and daughter...

iFaith v1.1 Released

iFaith, the SHSH dumping tool, has received an update and is now available to the public for download.

Up until iFaith came out, if you wanted to restore your device to a previous iOS firmware, the only way to do it was to save the current firmware's SHSH blob using tools such as @notcom's TinyUmbrella or Cydia's 'Make my life easier' function which automatically saved your SHSH blobs to Cydia's server.

If you didn't save the SHSH blob and Apple stopped signing for that iOS then you would not be able to downgrade, as iTunes would stop the process from being completed during the 'Verifying firmware' phase of the restore.

The unique thing with iFaith is that, regardless of what firmware your device is running, iFaith will extract the SHSH blob directly from the device. That way, you'll to be able to restore back to that same firmware in the future, even if Apple is not signing that firmware...

JailbreakMe iPad 2 Jailbreak Got Leaked! [Use at Your Own Risk]

After weeks of anticipation, we knew that the release of JailbreakMe was imminent. The clues and hints that Comex had left behind were just too obvious. What we didn't expect, though, was that one of the beta testers for JailbreakMe would leak it out to the world.

Links starting popping up on several websites this morning, and by simply opening a PDF document from your device (yes, including the iPad 2), you were able to install Cydia, much like you install an app from the App Store...

SlickWraps Protects your iPad From Everything, Even Firecrackers

In honor of the 4th of July, we figured it was appropriate to show off this promo video by SlickWraps. The iPad wrap manufacturers have gone through unusual lengths to show off their products before, but this one takes the cake.

TUAW's Erica Sadun passes on this viral clip of a wild demonstration of SlickWraps' durability. I'll give you a hint, it involves an iPad, a SlickWrap and a bunch of explosions...

Celeste Bluetooth File Sharing App Updated

CocoaNuts, the developers behind popular Cydia tweaks such as Yourtube 2 and MarkRead, have after what has felt like an eternity, finally updated their latest bluetooth file sharing app Celeste to v1.0- 73.

Celeste was met with bitter reception after its initial release with a plethora of bugs found by users who had purchased it at its limited time launch price of $7.99. Although initial releases are expected to have bugs and faults, Celeste was in no shape to be released. It also didn't help that at the time, its dependency tweak ActionMenu was not updated for iOS 4.3 and wasn't reportedly playing nice with Celeste. It was broken.

Initial Twitter updates from the developers appeared promising but with its last update on Celeste's status on the 10th of April many users were left in the dark as to Celeste's future other than the promise that the tweak would be fixed "…very, very soon".

An update was finally pushed out of no where on June 13th, with no announcement of its release on the @CelesteSupport and @CocoaNuts Twitter feeds...

Anicons: Animated Springboard Toggles

ModMyi broke the news today about a new project that jailbreak developer Dan Zimmerman is working on. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Zimmerman recently participated in TweakWeak, releasing utilities like the Airplane and Wi-fi Icon toggles.

If you liked those tweaks, you're going to love Zimmerman's next idea. The developer is now working on an entire set of settings toggles for your springboard...

Apple Part of Consortium That Buys 6,000 Nortel Patents for $4.5 Billion

Nortel just sold a shed-load of its patents at auction for a whopping $4.5 billion. The winning bidder? A consortium of six tech companies that includes Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony.

There were 6,000 patents and patent applications sold in total, according to the press release, spanning wireless, wireless 4G, data networking, optical, voice, internet, service provider, semiconductors, and more...

Pic3D Sheet: Glasses-Free 3D Accessory for the iPhone

3D technology continues to be a hot tech topic. Between Nintendo launching the 3DS and HTC launching multiple 3D Android devices, it's safe to say that the technology is going to stick around the mobile arena for a while.

Even iDevices are getting the 3D treatment, and they don't even house any 3D-specific hardware. While we've already seen head-tracking technology used to simulate 3-dimensional graphics on the iPhone, this new entry doesn't require a front-facing camera. Enter Pic3D...

Next iPhone to Sport an LED Indicator?

I thought a lot about whether I should publish this or not and I came to the conclusion that it was worth throwing out there. Now you have to take what's to come with a grain of salt because it comes from an anonymous tipster that we had never heard of before. After doing a quick check on the IP address of the sender though, I can tell that our tipster is not too far from Cupertino, which I admit is not an indication of trustworthiness.

Our tipster - let's call him Mr T - referred to an article we wrote last week, in which DigiTimes claimed the next iPhone will sport a dual-LED camera flash. According to Mr T, the next iPhone will indeed sport 2 LEDs, except that one will be a LED camera flash, and the other one will be an LED indicator...

Verizon iPhone Sales Dip as Customers Await iPhone 5

In anticipation of the iPhone 5 this September, would-be Verizon Wireless customers are holding on to their cash until they have a fifth-generation device to spend their money on, says one industry analyst.

Jason Armstrong of Goldman Sachs says "iPhone sales will be a touch below the 2.2 million" Verizon managed during the first quarter, and expectations of a fifth-generation iPhone landing in just a few months time are thought to be to blame for Verizon's dip in sales...