Month: April 2012

They poured $250,000 into Instagram, took $78M, but could’ve made way more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2016

Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz had poured a cool quarter million dollars into Instagram back when it was just a small startup called Burbn.

Though it never took off, its photo-sharing component was doing quite well, giving birth to the widely popular Instagram photo-sharing service.

Even though Horowitz never invested in Instagram again, they're poised to walk away with a cool $78 million once the $1 billion deal with Facebook closes.

That's a nice 312 times premium on a $250,000 investment, but they could have made potentially hundreds of millions of dollars if they chose to back Burbn in series-B funding.

Instead, the investors gave cofounding CEO Kevin Systrom back information rights and pro rata rights to the series B, never investing in Instagram again...

Samsung teaser for the upcoming Galaxy SIII likens iPhone users to iSheep

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 23, 2012

Apple's frenemy Samsung is gearing up for the upcoming Mobile Unpacked 2012 event due May 3 in London. In order to pique interest, the company posted a new YouTube advert teasing its upcoming third-generation Galaxy smartphone.

The device is aimed at stealing the spotlight from Apple's sixth-generation iPhone due later this year. As has been the case with Samsung's advertising as of late, it subtly likens iPhone users to mindless sheep, but doesn't refer them directly.

Instead, the clip wraps up with a line suggesting the Galaxy III smartphone helps one stand out from everyone else, spiced up with an image of sheep. As the iPhone is the iconic handset by the world's top smartphone maker, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out to whom 'everyone else' refers to.

Check out the teaser video right below and tell us what you think...

Gevey releases new Ultra 5.1 SIM interposer for the iPhone 4

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

We've recently seen some great options surface for unlocking our iPhones. For instance, AT&T recently started unlocking off-contract handsets. And then of course there is the new SAM method that popped up over the weekend.

But the competition hasn't stopped GEVEY from releasing a new SIM interposer. In fact, it's stepping up its game. The new Ultra 5.1 for the GSM iPhone 4 supports more basebands and has more features than ever before...

MotionX Sleep: a sleep cycle alarm clock done right

Guest Author ∙ Updated January 18, 2018

Do you hate your alarm clock? I certainly did. I have broken many snooze buttons over the years. That's why I'm so excited to have finally found an iPhone app that wakes me up.

MotionX is known for their wonderful navigation apps including MotionX GPS and GPS Drive. MotionX Sleep is their latest addition to their iPhone offerings and unsurprisingly it's a wonderful experience...

How to backup your iPhone’s unlock activation ticket with RedSn0w

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 22, 2012

Backing up your iPhone's activation ticket was a step suggested by iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd. Fortunately for us, his team has made it even easier to perform such a backup using the latest version of RedSn0w.

This step is suggested for those who take part in the recently uncovered SAM iPhone unlock method. If you followed our tutorial to unlock your phone, we suggest you follow through on preserving your activation ticket as well.

Check inside for a full video tutorial that shows how easy it is to successfully backup your iPhone's unlock activation ticket, and any other file that you want to save locally from your iPhone...

RedSn0w 0.9.10b8 released to add unlock activation ticket backup support

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

It didn't take long for the iPhone Dev Team to release an updated version of RedSn0w to support backing up the precious activation tickets resulting from the SAM unlock.

Instead of having to manually go in and backup your activation tickets, you can use a new option found in RedSn0w instead.

The full download for RedSn0w 0.9.10b8 can be found inside, along with the tool's release notes...

My iPhone 4 was finally unlocked by AT&T

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 22, 2012

So it took a while, but I can confirm that my iPhone 4 has been officially unlocked by the fine folks at AT&T. It looks like my online chat with the AT&T representative paid off after all.

All I had to do was pop in my T-Mobile SIM and load up iTunes. I was then presented with a beautiful message that stated: Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.

Oddly enough, this unlock has nothing to do with the SAM unlock method that was revealed earlier this morning. This is a follow up to AT&T's promise to unlock out of contract iPhones...

How to backup your unlocked iPhone’s activation ticket

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 22, 2012

Earlier this morning iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd recommended that all who unlock their iPhone using the SAM method backup their activation ticket for future use.

To do so, he suggested that we backup everything contained in this folder: /var/root/Library/Lockdown/ for each SIM card that we use. If you have iFile installed on your jailbroken iPhone, then you can securely backup your activation ticket in less than 5 minutes.

Check out our video how to inside...

New app allows you to watch free premium UK TV no jailbreak required

IDB Staff ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

A new app has appeared on the App Store that allows users to watch premium UK television for a $0.99 one time fee.

We've tested it and can confirm it works, though we're not exactly sure how the developers of the app were able to pull off such a thing at such a low cost.

Because of this, it's highly likely that the app will be pulled by Apple due to its shady nature...

The top 10 iOS news of the week

Sébastien Page ∙ April 22, 2012

A new week is coming, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on what happened last week. If you think you may have missed a few of the top stories from last week, don't sweat it, we've got you covered.

We've gathered the top 10 most popular stories from iDB last week for you to check out. As always, make sure that you're friends with us on Facebook, Google+, and that you are following us on Twitter...

How to unlock any jailbroken iPhone on iOS 5.0 or later on any baseband [Video]

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 22, 2012

Unlocking the iPhone 4S, and the iPhone 4 just got a whole lot easier thanks to the SAM package unlock revealed earlier this morning.

After alerting you guys to the news, we went into out labs and started testing this for ourselves. After a few failures, we were finally able to come up with a reliable method for making this work every time.

The good news is that this will likely become even easier as time goes on, and needless steps are eliminated. We're already to the point where we can switch back and forth between our AT&T SIM card and our T-Mobile SIM card without having to reconfigure anything. It's pretty awesome.

Check inside for our full tutorial that shows how to unlock any iPhone on iOS 5 or higher (running any baseband) using the SAM jailbreak package...

How to unlock your jailbroken iPhone right now using SAM – confirmed working

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 21, 2012

Chinese iPhone hacker Loktar_Sun has released a method for unlocking a jailbroken iPhone by yourself using Sam Bingner's SAM (Subscriber Artificial Module) package.

The unlock technique has been verified by iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd. He was able to unlock his iPhone 4S and get it running on T-Mobile's network.

This is very big news for iPhone owners everywhere, and means we don't have to wait for AT&T to unlock our phones if we want to use it on another GSM network.

Check inside for more details...