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The “Next iPhone” Debacle: How It All Happened

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Are you feeling a little confused about how and when this whole lost next iPhone story happened? Yeah, me too... Here is a short and sweet wrapup for you:

February 21: A kid posts on TwitPic what seems to be leaked pictures of the next iPhone. He says: "I found this photo while doing a twitter search for "iPhone 4G", and found this pic and saved this photo from a pic uploaded by a chinese tweeter." No one will really see or hear about these pictures until they were confirmed real by Gizmodo a couple months later.

March 18: Gray Powell, a young Apple software engineer walks into a bar in San Jose, most likely gets drunk and forgets a prototype of the next iPhone. On the same night someone finds this phone that appears to be an iPhone 3GS. From what he can tell, the iPhone is running a new OS (most likely OS 4).

March 19: The guy who found the iPhone wakes up and looks at the new iPhone and realizes it's been killed. Nothing but the "plug to iTunes" logo shows on the phone. The phone has been remotely wiped off by Apple. He then notices there is something wrong with this iPhone. It takes it out of the case and realizes it is actually a prototype.

April 17: A month after the supposed next iPhone was lost and found, Engadget gets the first scoop and scores some pictures of it. Some say it's a fake. I'm one of those skepticals.

April 18: Engadget gives more proofs it's for real. In the same time, John Gruber talks to some of his sources at Apple and confirms the theory of the lost iPhone.

April 19: Gizmodo allegedly paid between $5,000 and $10,000 to get their hands on the device. They took it apart and ran a full review of it. At this point, there is absolutely no doubt that this is indeed the next iPhone.

On the same day, Gruber publishes a new post to clarify that Apple didn't "lose" the iPhone, but that it got stolen. If you ask me, I believe it was indeed lost but they call it stolen so they can get it back quicker.

Apparently during the day, Steve Jobs himself called Gizmodo and asked them to give them back the lost/stolen iPhone. Gizmodo asks for a proper written request. Later that day, they receive an email from Apple's General Counsel asking for the phone back. Gizmodo agrees.

What Now?

Is everything going to be back to normal again? I doubt it. For one, Gray Powell, the dude who lost the phone, probably lost his job at the same time. Knowing the ruthlessness of Steve Jobs, dude is most likely not going to find a job in the Silicon Valley for the next 50 years. Does he deserve this? Well, yes and no. Gray's loss of the iPhone lead to the biggest leak in history of Apple's products and if you're going to be so stupid to lose such an important thing, you do deserve to be fired. At any rates, it sucks to be him right now...

There is also the ethical issue. Was it ok for Gizmodo to buy this lost/stolen iPhone when they could have helped return it to Apple instead. Blogs are trashing Gizmodo right now for publishing all this. I think Gizmodo did what everybody would have done in the same situation. Heck, were they supposed to keep all this info for themselves? No, they're a tech blog, that's what they do for a living. One thing is sure though, they should prepare themselves to face a UTSA lawsuit...

Where Gizmodo was wrong was when they gave more details about Gray Powell, the guy who lost the phone. This was a very shitty move from Giz to put this poor guy on the spot like they did by putting his name out there.

What do you think of this whole situation? Are you glad you got an early sneak peek at the next iPhone? Do you believe Gizmodo was wrong in buying the device? Do you agree they completely screwed things up by revealing the identity of Apple's employee? I look forward to reading your thoughts.

This Is The Next iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ April 19, 2010

A few days ago, Gizmodo received the pictures of what was supposed to be the next iPhone. We see these all the time and when I read that this iPhone had been found in a bar in San Jose, I completely disregarded the rumor.

Gizmodo happened to actually get their hands on the device and decided to take it apart. Against all odds, it turns out that looking at the "guts" of the device, it seems extremely likely that this is indeed the next iPhone.

Why, will you ask, why should we believe this is the next iPhone and not some crap fake from China? Well, according to Giz, the proofs are pretty strong:

According to Gruber, it's been reported lost The screen resolution seems much better than the iPhone 3GS According to the person who found it, it was running OS 4.0 It is recognized as an iPhone when you plug it in iTunes Finally, the definitive proof is the Apple-branded components which can hardly be faked

What's new in this iPhone?

a brand new and slick design a front-facing camera an improved back camera camera flash an improved screen display Micro-SIM (like the iPad 3G) instead of the standard SIM 3 grams heavier than the iPhone 3GS the battery is 16% bigger than the 3GS

There is much more to it and I really suggest you check out Gizmodo's coverage for all the details, pictures and videos.

You know that I'm always tough on Apple, usually being really critical but if this is indeed the new iPhone, I believe it is going to blow our mind as Apple is finally giving us the hardware we've wanted for a while.

What do you think?

iPad 3G Ships By May 7 In The US

Sébastien Page ∙ April 19, 2010

It's now official, the iPad 3G will be ship in the US by May 7th, according to Apple's website. It's interesting to note that even though Apple hadn't been specific on a launch date back when they introduced the iPad, they did say it would launch 90 days after January 27. In short, they're late, but not really...

I know I'm not buying an iPad 3G. Why would I pay extra for 3G when I can simply tether my iPhone and share its 3G with my iPad? But at $130 more than the wifi-only version, I don't think it's a bad deal.

What I really like about it too is the flexibility of the 3G data plan. You choose the amount of data per month you want to buy (250MB at $14.99, or unlimited data at $29.99).

"Best of all, there’s no contract. So if you have a business trip or vacation approaching, just sign up for the month you’ll be traveling and cancel when you get back. You don’t need to visit a store to get 3G service. You can sign up, check your data usage, manage your account, or cancel your service — all from your iPad."

There's still no official launch date in other countries. For more information, check out Apple's website.

iPhone News You Missed This Week

Sébastien Page ∙ April 18, 2010

Here is your weekly recap, in case you missed any of the articles that were published on the blog this past week.

iPhone OS 4 theme Turn your iPad into an iPad 3G iPhone OS 4 jailbreak: GeoHot reveals BlackRa1n 7 ways your iPhone can make OS 4 jealous Traveling with an iPhone in Vietnam The best jailbreak apps for iPhone iPhone OS 4 jailbreak: Dev Team releases RedSn0w 0.9.5 Apple: taking over the world, one bite at a time How to copy your iTunes library to a new computer

How to Copy Your iTunes Library to A New Computer

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated December 15, 2017

If you recently bought a new computer, you may have faced the issue of moving your data from your old computer to your new one. In most cases, it's pretty easy, simply put your documents (ie. photos, videos, folders, etc...) on an external hard drive and move it to the new computer.

However, it's a bit more tricky if you want to move your iTunes music library while preserving your ratings, play counts, and playlists. Fortunately, Apple made it pretty easy for us to copy our iTunes library to a new computer.

This article will show you how to move your iTunes music library to a new computer in just a few simple steps. It's simple, but it does take some time though. Kudos go to Simon for this trick.

This method will work with every item you can get from iTunes. You will be able to backup the following files:

Applications Music and Podcasts Movies, Videos and TV Shows Ringtones

In order to copy the iTunes library to a new computer we will use iTunes' backup feature.

Step 1: In iTunes, go to File > Library > Backup to Disc.

Step 2: Choose Back up entire iTunes library and playlists.

Step 3: Insert a DVD or CD and start the backup process. Depending on the size of your library, this process could take hours, maybe days... If your DVD or CD is not enough to backup all the data, iTunes will offer you the option to backup to several discs.

Step 4: Once the backup process is over, open iTunes on your new computer and insert the first disc.

Step 5: iTunes will be smart enough to recognize the backup and will ask you if you want to restore from this disc. Click restore and let the magic happen.

This works pretty well if you don't have much data to backup. However, if you have tens of thousands of songs and movies like I do, this will take you days to just copy the data.

Apple: Taking Over The World One Bite At A Time

Guest Author ∙ April 16, 2010

By the looks of all of Apple's announcements last week, it seems they will literally control all forms of technology in 10-15 years. iAd replaces Google Adsense and HTML5 replaces and ruins Adobe.

It’s a pretty bold statement but let’s take a deeper look. You might compare Apple’s actions to the likes of Google. Google’s motto over the past few years has been "if you can’t beat'em, buy'em". Google is perhaps best known for its business acquiring capabilities. Quite often there are jokes about Google taking over the world.

Google’s actions, however, are usually widely accepted by the public and encouraged. Admit it, you kind of like it when Google acquires a new company, probably because Google has a good track record of bettering acquired services and offering them free for public consumption.

When Google acquires a service, it usually means new and innovative things are coming soon. Apple, on the other hand, is not so friendly.

Apple knows that no matter what kind of business practices they use, consumers will still buy their products since they create desirable products. So Apple decides to not incorporate Adobe Flash into the iPhone OS. Let’s consider a few reasons as to why Apple might not want to allow Flash to run on their devices.

Virtually all forms of multimedia online today can be delivered through the Flash platform. From Hulu to illegal streams of newly released movies, Adobe Flash powers all forms of media on the internet. Using Flash, you can illegally listen to new music that is being streamed through a peer to peer website. You can also find tons of sites that offer streaming of new release movies via Flash. You can play thousands of graphically advanced games via Flash as well. So why does Apple not want to allow Flash on their device?

If the previous few sentences have not made it apparent yet, here’s why: Apple makes a killing selling movies, music, and games. Billions of songs have already been downloaded from the iTunes store, and billions of games have been downloaded from the AppStore. You read that right - that’s BILLIONS (1,000,000,000++). I would say that’s a pretty profitable source of income.

If Flash were to be allowed on the iPad and the iPhone, then there would essentially be no use for Apple’s iTunes Store. Why pay $9.99 for an album and over $15 for a movie or TV show when I can stream it online for free? If Flash were to be allowed on the iPad, then they would not be profiting from their App Store or iTunes Store, at all.

So they decide to make the iPad HTML5 friendly, which is essentially a new Adobe Flash, but newer technology and less memory intensive. All of today’s dynamic online advertisements are delivered with Flash. So Apple is trying to become the father of HTML5, meaning in the future they'll essentially control the content of every website, because website creators will want to conform to Apple's rules so that their own content will be allowed to be viewed on the iPad.

Several sites have already posted an HTML5 version of their website such as TED.com, WSJ, NYTimes, MSNBC, ABC, and CNN. They all already have HTML5 friendly videos, instead of Flash, and all this only for the iPad (and it’s only been what? A few days since the release of the iPad?).

Imagine 5 years from now the control that Apple will have. Adobe itself admits today that Apple is ruining their business. Today Apple says they don't want Flash on their device. So everyone conforms. Tomorrow they'll say they don't want Google to work on their device, so everyone conforms.

iPhone OS 4 Jailbreak: Dev Team Releases RedSn0w 0.9.5 Beta

Sébastien Page ∙ April 15, 2010

MuscleNerd announced a few minutes ago on Twitter that the Dev Team is releasing the first public jailbreak for iPhone OS 4.0 beta 1. This beta release comes roughly a week after the Dev Team jailbroke iPhone OS 4.

Although new, this jailbreak uses same pwnage2 DFU exploit that's been out for a few years so nothing major has been revealed to Apple.

This beta release of RedSn0w is not for the general public but is targeted at iPhone developers of jailbreak apps to allow them to fix their software before the official release of iPhone OS 4.

In short, if you're an average iPhone user, you should stay clear from this jailbreak.

RedSn0w 0.9.5 beta currently supports the iPhone 3G only and only works on Mac OSX, since jailbreak apps are developed on this platform.

For more information as well as directions on how to use the beta RedSn0w 0.9.5 to jailbreak the iPhone 4.0 beta 1, check out the Dev Team wiki.

Note that this jailbreak is for iPhone OS 4 beta 1 only. It will not jailbreak or unlock any other firmware.

The Best Jailbreak Apps For iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 27, 2018

I'm often asked what the best jailbreak apps for iPhone are. The truth is it's hard to tell what the best jailbroken apps are because what's good for me might not be for you.

While we can't all agree on the best apps for jailbroken iPhone, we can certainly agree on what our favorites are. In order to come up with this list, I asked people on Twitter and in the forum what their favorite jailbreak apps were (and I also added some of mine).

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here are the best jailbreak iPhone apps voted by you and me:

MyWi - turns your iPhone into a hotspot Backgrounder - brings multitasking to your iPhone ProSwitcher - a nice UI for Backgrounder Circuitous - a multitasking/app switching application Categories - allows you to create folders WinterBoard - an app that lets you customize many aspects of your iPhone BossPaper - an advanced wallpaper manager that puts total control of wallpapers into your hands VoIPover3G - tricks any app into thinking you're on wifi while you are on 3G or Edge Xpandr - a shortcut expander Action Menu - improves the copy/paste experience QuickScroll - allows you to quickly scroll through a page Find In Page - quickly find any text on web pages qTweeter - lets you update Twitter and Facebook status from within any application SBSettings - a quick a way to toggle settings on/off MultiIconMover - lets you move multiple icons at a time InfiniDock - add unlimited icons to your dock InfiniBoard - vertical scrolling on your springboard QuickDo - app switching/launching LockInfo - customize your lockscreen to get the information you need

Edit: More awesome jailbreak apps here.

What do you think the best jailbreak apps are? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Traveling With An iPhone: My Experience in Vietnam

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

I had done a little research online before flying to Vietnam about the communication network there. Reading the many positive comments about the infrastructure of this country, I flew there very confident that it wouldn't be much of a hustle to find a SIM card for my iPhone.

After going through the very unfriendly Vietnamese customs, I headed straight to the Viettel booth inside the airport. Viettel was not my choice. It just happened to be the only phone store I saw inside Hanoi's airport.

A woman welcame me and asked me what I wanted. As usual, I was pretty clear that all I wanted was a good data plan for my iPhone as well as a few minutes of communication so we can call hotels, etc, in the country.

For about $8, I got a SIM card, 100,000 Dongs of talk time and an extra 50,000 Dongs of bonus time. To activate the data plan, she took my iPhone and sent "3G on" as a text message to the number 161. I immediately got a text message back saying that 3G was activated. Very good.

Now what I wanted to know was the cost of 3G. She was unable to tell me and after calling her own customer support, she came back to me saying they didn't know but that I shouldn't worry too much about that because 3G is very cheap in Vietnam. Ok, not really the answer I expected but there was nothing I could do.

On my way to the hotel, I tried to call Viettel customer service myself, only to be turned down several times in Vietnamese. Since my taxi driver spoke English, I asked him to tell them I wanted to know the cost of 3G and if there was any monthly plan I could sign up for. They didn't know. Hmm, I started wondering if they knew anything at all. Anyways.

I decided not to worry too much about that and started surfing the Vietnamese 3G to email, tweet, blog and more. Turns out I used crap loads of data until I had to recharge my SIM. I didn't make any "scientific" study about it but it was clear that data was dirt cheap.

Viettel doesn't allow internet tethering but I remembered that someone commented on my last travel post about Laos, giving me information about custom APN settings to allow tethering. Sweet! I had tried help.benm.at and unlockit.co.nz to download the custom APN but none of these site had them available.

A big thank you to Thy for telling me about custom APN for Viettel and VinaPhone. Without him, I would have probably been incapable of tethering my iPhone while in Vietnam.

Those of you interested in downloading the custom APN settings to tether your iPhone in Vietnam on Viettel or VinaPhone should go to Giaitri.net. The site is very slow and all in Vietnamese but it clearly says "Internet Tethering" at the top. Then you just need to select your carrier and install the custom APN, then reboot (don't forget to reboot).

While I can't say I'm impressed in any way by Vietnam (no offense to my Vietnamese friends but many bad things happened to me there), I have to admit that their network seriously kicks ass! It is my far the best network I've seen so far in my travels. That's mostly due to the fact that their network is so new that they pretty much have the latest and best technology available.

The only time I didn't have signal was when I was 30 feet underground visiting the tunnels of Cu Chi. At all time I had coverage, with at least Edge and in most cases 3G. 3G is burning fast too, which was really handy when looking for hospitals... but that's another story...

I had to recharge my SIM with 150,000 Dongs, which is about $8 and this last me forever. Definitely the best and cheapest data plan I had been on.

As a side note, it is very easy to find free Internet everywhere in Vietnam. 90% of hotels, bars or restaurants have free wifi available (not even password protected). Vietnam is the most "Internet friendly" country I have ever visited (except for the censorship of Facebook.com in North Vietnam).

I'm now back in Thailand and I am typing this post from the airport, tethering my iPhone thanks to the great (but slow) DTAC network. The network is not as good here as it is in Vietnam but I don't mind it if I can get my health back. We'll be in Thailand for about 3-4 weeks, then heading to Kuala Lumpur to catch a flight to Paris.

If you're traveling with an iPhone in Vietnam, I hope this article will help you figure things out, especially for tethering your iPhone.

Questions or comments, please feel free to write a comment below!

7 Ways Your iPhone Can Make OS 4 Jealous

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Last week Apple gave us a sneak peek at iPhone OS 4. The presentation, which was more for developers than users, focused on 7 "tent poles" (multitasking, folders, enhanced mail, iBooks, enterprise, game center, and iAd).

I was not particularly impressed by the new features unveiled, mostly because most of them are already here for anyone with a jailbroken iPhone. In this post, I would like to show you how you can make your old boring iPhone 3.X look a little bit more like iPhone OS 4.

For all features listed below, there is either a jailbreak app or mod to do the job. If your iPhone is jailbroken, here is how you can give it a little taste of OS 4. If your iPhone is not jailbroken yet, then you're missing out and you should jump on the jailbreak bandwagon!

Multitasking: Install Backgrounder and ProSwitcher to bring multitasking to your iPhone.

Background wallpapers: Install BossPaper or WinterBoard, which will let you customize your iPhone in every possible way. You can even download the iPhone OS 4 Theme from Cydia!

Folders: Install Categories.

Multiple Exchange accounts: Simply look at this hack that lets you set up multiple Exchange accounts on your iPhone.

iBooks: Just download the free Kindle application from the App Store.

Home screen music controls: Install the Music Controls app.

iAd: Want more ads on your iPhone? Go to any porn site from your iPhone and you'll get plenty of ads. Ok I'm being sarcastic...

I can already hear the complainers complain that this is a huge stretch and that OS 4 will be much better than these jailbreak apps. Well, yes you're right. OS 4 will probably do a better job than these jailbreak apps or tweaks, but the point of this article is to show you that Apple didn't reinvent the wheel at all and that you don't need to wait for this summer to get OS 4 rocking on your iPhone.

iPhone OS 4 Jailbreak: GeoHot Reveals BlackRa1n

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Just a few days after showing proofs of a jailbreak for iPad, GeoHot is back at it, this time with an iPhone OS 4 jailbreak with BlackRa1n.

The wonder kid tweeted this image of an iPhone running iPhone OS 4 with the BlackRa1n and Cydia icons on it. It is not the first proof of a jailbreak for iPhone OS 4. Recently, the Dev Team released a video clearly showing a jailbroken iPhone OS 4 and there are still talks around Spirit, the jailbreak for iPhone 3.X which supposedly works for OS 4 and the iPad as well.

If you look at this image more closely, the Cydia icon looks very prominent which makes it a little suspicious. What makes this image even more suspicious is that it's just an image. Why didn't GeoHot shoot a video like he did for this iPhone OS 3.X untethered jailbreak?

Real or fake, you decide.

How to Turn Your iPad Into An iPad 3G

Sébastien Page ∙ April 12, 2010

If you don't want to cough an extra $130 (+ $15 to $30/month) to get the 3G version of the iPad but still want to enjoy the freedom of 3G technology on the go, I have a quick and easy tip for you to turn your iPad into an iPad 3G.

In order to get your iPad work on 3G, you will need an iPad (duh!) and a jailbroken iPhone 3G or 3GS. The trick is pretty simple. You just need to download the MyWi app from Cydia. MyWi is a tethering app that allows you to turn your iPhone into a wireless hotspot.

I wrote about MyWi a couple of months ago here so I won't go too much into details but basically it creates a wifi hotspot so you can share your 3G with devices around you, including your iPad. My Twitter friend @LappyGirl tried it and confirms it's working great.

So here you go, you just got yourself an iPad 3G for the price of a standard iPad.