Workers’ plight at Foxconn sweatshops is real despite fabricated facts, monologuist says

The  controversial topic surrounding inhumane working conditions at Foxconn plants (often likened to sweatshops) has entered a new phase as monologuist Mike Daisey backtracks on his unpleasant claims, now admitting they were partly fabricated from sensationalist news reports.

As you might recall, the whole thing gained traction as the New York Times published a lengthy piece on the conditions of Apple’s supply chain in China. Other mainstream outlets immediately picked up the story as consumer groups began demanding an ethical iPhone. The public backlash also pushed Apple to list its suppliers for the first time. CEO Tim Cook dismissed the allegations as "patently fales", insisting that "We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain."

Now, as the popular NPR radio program This American Life retracted their story based on Daisey's highly acclaimed show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, the monologuist ran a post on his personal blog this morning basically saying that even though he spiced up his original report, the basic premise on workers' plight in China sweatshops still holds true...

Unlock your CDMA iPhone 4S with Gevey Ultra S Interposer SIM

The folks over at HowToarena are reporting that a new SIM interposer for the iPhone 4S is about to hit the market. The GEVEY Ultra S promises to unlock both GSM and CDMA handsets, which is a fairly big deal.

We've already seen a couple of SIM interposers launch for Apple's latest handset this year. Last month alone we told you about two new products, the R-SIM and TP-SIM. But neither worked with Sprint handsets...

New iPad owners experiencing overheating issue?

The new iPad finally landed in consumer hands on Friday, March 16th and it looks like there are already people noticing an issue with Apple's newest tablet.

A growing number of users over at MacRumors forums and Apple support forums claim that the lower left-hand corner of their new iPad gets warm, or evern extremely hot in some cases...

Sparrow Push email notifications in action

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQdIS0jH-Q[/tube]

Earlier we reported that a new jailbreak tweak was on its way to Cydia to enable push notifications in Sparrow. That tweak has finally touched down on Cydia's BigBoss repo for free, and we've taken it for a thorough spin.

Do the push notifications make Sparrow a legitimate Mail app replacement, despite the flaws that we uncovered in our previous video review?

Check out our video walkthrough of Sparrow Push for the answer.

New iPad vs assault rifle: guess who wins

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With every new Apple device coming out, you can expect this typeof videos to pop out all over the web. Yes, it's stupid. Yes. it's a waste of money, and no, the iPad doesn't win against an assault rifle.

But will it blend? That's a question that really keeps me up at night. I'm sure we'll find out soon though.

New single-day record for iPad sales and activations for AT&T

Apple CEO Tim Cook said just this morning that the new iPad has broken records during its first weekend on sale, and now AT&T is also touting the tablet's successes.

AT&T spokesmen Seth Bloom said in a tweet this morning that the carrier has broken its own iPad sales and activation records over release weekend, with Friday seeing the biggest numbers to date.

That's no mean feat considering AT&T has had the iPad since day one, and that Verizon's LTE network is arguably stronger in the United States than AT&T's own. Cue Verizon's figures showing similar results...

Sharp to begin cranking out Retina displays of its own

A new report out of the Wall Street Journal claims that Sharp is closer than ever to being able to ramp up production of Retina displays for Apple's new iPad.

Current shipping iPads feature Retina display panels manufactured by, ironically enough, Samsung, with both Sharp and LG supposedly set to join the fray sooner rather than later.

The Wall Street Journal suggests that Sharp may be the first to offer backup for Samsung, with mass production set to be underway "as soon as possible," according to a source...

Tim Cook says Apple has a “pipeline full of stuff”

As expected, Apple held a conference call this morning to discuss plans regarding its stockpile of cash. Although investor relations and iPad numbers were the highlights of the call, Tim Cook did make another interesting announcement.

When asked about Apple's growth outlook — now that it's going to spend $10 billion dollars repurchasing stock, investors want to know how it's going to make that money back — Cook said that Apple's "pipeline is full of stuff..."

Sparrow Push tweak adds push notifications to Sparrow for iPhone [Updated]

Sparrow for iPhone would surely file as a dream come true for mobile email addicts if it weren't for its lack of push notifications for incoming email messages, as we noted in our video review. Enter Sparrow Push, a handy little Cydia tweak for jailbroken devices that adds this useful feature to the otherwise awesome email client.

Once installed, Sparrow Push will enable notifications for incoming email messages even when the program is in the background, allowing you to stay on top of important email messages as they hit the server...

Apple announces record iPad sales this weekend

Apple's new iPad may have been released on Friday, but the company is already crowing about its sales performances.

New CEO Tim Cook was asked about the new iPad's sales results during the conference call the company just held to explain what it is doing with that $100 billion war chest, and the answer was a simple one: Apple is "thrilled" by the iPad's performance.

Cook also went on saying that the new iPad had produced a "record weekend" although he did not elaborate on that comment. For all we know, he could mean the new iPad holds the record for most pixels, or shiniest box...

Top jailbreak videos of the week

The big news last week was of course the new iPad and Apple TV launches. For that reason, we supplemented our normal deluge of jailbreak videos with some iPad and Apple TV unboxings, comparisons, and the like. But that's not to say that there weren't some striking jailbreak videos created last week, because there were.

Please be sure to share our iPhone, iPad, and iOS video guides by spreading our posts on Twitter and Facebook.

Apple announces dividends and share repurchase program

Apple CEO Tim Cook just announced the company's plans on what to do with their cash balance at this morning's conference call. Tim Cook announced that the Cupertino company plans to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program beginning later this year.

Cook said the company will offer a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012 beginning in July. Additionally, Apple announced its Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program starting in fiscal 2013, which begins September 30. Apple said it expected the move to take place over three years and said its goal was "neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs."