Since the evasi0n jailbreak was released last week, we've seen a wave of tweak and package updates as developers rush to fix remaining iOS 6 bugs and add new features. Today, our favorite theme joins in; ayecon 1.3 is now available in Cydia.
The update is fairly significant, as it includes a number of additions and improvements. There's a new dial pad (for iOS 6+ only) and new icons for apps like Google Maps and Netbot. We've got the full change log for ayecon 1.3 after the fold...
A new patent granted to Apple today could signal a huge advance in a trimmer, slimmer iPhone perhaps made from a single block of aluminum. The U.S. patent describes "microslot antennas" cut into the smartphone body, eliminating the need for exposing hardware required for communications.
While it could make fans of minimalism - such as Apple's chief designer Jonathan Ive - jump for joy, could the patented technology cause another production slowdown?
More indications that Apple may be slipping in the eyes of some consumers. Internet retail giant Amazon.com now has the best reputation among U.S. corporations, Harris Interactive announced Tuesday. Despite Apple winning the poll in 2012, Kindle-maker Amazon grabbed the top spot this year - ironically cited for its emotional impact on consumers despite operating a completely virtual business.
The online retailer also topped Apple, Google, Disney and others in the products and services category. This result only highlights Amazon's increased brand image in tablets, music, movies and cloud computing, areas bringing it into conflict with Apple and other tech players...
Samsung Executive Vice President David Eun during a panel at the D: Dive Into Media conference on Monday said its ongoing legal fight with Apple is "a loss" for innovation. And taking another page from Apple's book, the South Korean giant is plunking money into researching new technologies and better integration of its devices.
In fact, the company is turning the home turf of Apple and Google into a center of its own innovation by announcing the new Samsung Open Innovation Center in Silicon Valley...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPH2PK5WZys
I know your news reader choices on iOS are rich. There's Flipboard, Instapaper, Readability, News360, News.me and a whole lot of other lesser known apps. Winston, a new software by a Colorado-based startup, is unlike your regular news client. Instead of overwhelming you with an endless stream of updates, Winston presents you with a personable British butler which compiles a daily brief from your selected news sources and social network feeds.
It detects what's important and then reads the summaries out aloud, so you can catch up on the latest while doing something else. It's a novel approach that saves time and as such is likely to strike a chord with busy mobile users. I'm already liking Winston a lot. More tidbits right past the fold...
Talk of Apple working on a smartwatch has really heated up over the past week. Following a speculative piece from a former Apple engineer, both the NYT and the WSJ have reported that the company is indeed building such a product.
So what will this so-called iWatch do? Things like Siri, NFC and support for third-party apps have all been thrown about. But according to the folks over at Joy of Tech, the watch's built-in Dyson hand drier will be its killer feature...
If you are an avid user of Twitter or Facebook, you likely see 'pull to refresh' as an essential part of the smart phone experience. So it's surprising to see how slow Apple has been to bring the gesture to its internal apps. In iOS 6, Apple finally cued in and included their own implementation of Pull To Refresh in Mail. Unfortunately this hasn't carried over to every one of Apple's internet-enabled apps; Safari still lacks the feature.
Of course, jailbreakers have had access to Pull To Refresh Safari since iOS 4. Instead of pressing a tiny icon, we could just pull the screen down and refresh the active app. Now the tweak has been updated to work with iOS 6...
What you see in the photo above is the new Smarter Stand for the iPhone and iPod touch. Created by Dotan Saguy, it's a dual-purpose accessory that acts as both a kickstand for your iOS device and a spool for your earbuds, so they don't get tangled.
It may not look like much, but don't underestimate Saguy's knack for turning simple ideas into hit products. He's already done it once with the Smarter Stand for iPad, raising over $150,000 via Kickstarter. And now he's looking to do it again...
We're not against developers making money from their tweaks, or pursuing alternative routes of funding, but having a piece of nag-ware on your phone without any option to disable it is a major annoyance.
Unfold is a jailbreak tweak that we are huge fans of at iDownloadBlog, but unfortunately we learned that the tweak was programmed with an annoying behavior. After 500 uses, a message pops up asking for a donation, and the message repeats again after every 500th unlock. This wouldn't be so bad if a donation disabled the message, but there's no option for entering a subscription into the app...
To the surprise of many of us, Apple released iOS 6.1.1 today for the iPhone 4S. Fortunately, @planetbeing has reiterated the fact that the evasi0n untethered jailbreak works with iOS 6.1.1 perfectly fine.
Living up to that promise, the evad3rs just a few moments ago, released their update to evasi0n with iOS 6.1.1 support in tow. We have tested out the jailbreak for ourselves, and can confirm that the process is exactly like the previous jailbreak process, except it now works for iOS 6.1.1.
If you feel like doing so, it is now okay to go ahead an update to iOS 6.1.1, and re-jailbreak your iPhone 4S with the latest version of evasi0n. One thing that must be kept in mind, however, is that the iOS 6.1.1 update will most likely update your iPhone 4S' baseband. So, if you're relying on some sort of unlock like UltraSn0w, it's advisable that you hold off for the time being. Those of you who are factory unlocked won't have a problem.
Check inside for the full tutorial and video walkthrough.
The evad3rs just released evasi0n 1.3, an update specifically targeted to iPhone 4S users who are running iOS 6.1.1.
Earlier today, Apple released iOS 6.1.1 for iPhone 4S users, an update that was pushed to fix spotty 3G issues on the device. As always when a new firmware version drops, the main question on our mind was: will this break the jailbreak? We were quick to find out that even though evasi0n was not working with 6.1.1, it didn't fix the exploits used by evasi0n to jailbreak your device. Ultimately, evad3rs member PlanetBeing let us know that it was only a matter of time until evasion would get an update for iOS 6.1.1, and this time has come...
Before he died, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was dreaming about building an Apple-branded car, an iCar if you will, a Sunday newspaper report has briefly reasserted. Conveniently, Apple's head of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, is on the board of Ferrari. This isn't the first time we've heard that Apple was considering building a car.
Apple board member Mickey Drexler said at a conference last year that Steve at one point was keen on having Apple build a car, having even reportedly met with German car-maker Volkswagen back in 2007 to discuss the project.
And then there is SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller's testimony during the monster August 2012 Apple v. Samsung trial where he said that Apple, after it had gotten its wind back from conquering the music biz with the iPod, considered all kinds of things it could do, among them "make a car"...