The single and family license packs of MobileMe have gone AWOL in Apple online and retail stores and according to AppleInsider resellers have been advised that these products have been declared end-of-life by Apple.
The abrupt departure by these apps from retail channels indicates that something is going to happen and some of it might happen tonight during a scheduled outage that will last about a half-hour later tonight.
FireCore LLC has announced the release of an update to the Mac OS X version of Seas0nPass. The new release allows you to perform an untethered jailbreak on Apple’s latest AppleTV running 4.1.1 (the equivalent of iOS 4.2.1). The Windows version of the untethered jailbreak isn’t currently available, but will be at a later date.
According to FireCore, the new version of Seas0nPass is based on the jailbreak created by the Chronic Dev Team and the latest Beta3 version of aTV Flash (black) is compatible with Seas0nPass, GreenPois0n and Pwnage Tool jailbreaks.
You can read more about this on FireCore’s blog and you can download Seas0nPass now for free.
Apple appears to have re-introduced the full version of field test mode in iOS 4.3 Beta 3, which will allow you to quickly check the quality of your cellular signal by simply dialing: *3001#12345#* and pressing Call on your iPhone.
Under iOS 4.0 the field test vanished much to everyone’s dismay during Antennagate last year only to have a much simplified version reappear in iOS 4.1 that looked like this:
AT&T is now offering information about their 4G HSPA+ coverage in the U.S. The cities and areas that have completed the backhaul upgrades to support this are:
●Bay Area, CA
●Greater Los Angeles, CA
●Northern, CA
●Chicago, IL
●Boston, MA
●Baltimore, MD
●Charlotte, NC
●Buffalo, NY
●Providence, RI
●Houston, TX
●Dallas, TX
●Puerto Rico
If your area has HSPA+, but not the backhaul upgrade then you will not be able to experience the new 4G network speeds. However, AT&T’s network completely supports HSPA+ and they will eventually have the backhaul upgraded everywhere else.
You can check out AT&T’s coverage map that includes 4G coverage by visiting www.att.com/network and clicking on the coverage tab. Hovering your mouse over the map will reveal the 4G HSPA+ cities and locations listed above.
Have you noticed the difference? Tell us about it by leaving a comment.
[via iClarified]
Earlier this week, ABC 13 Action News in Houston, Texas reported that an unnamed West University woman was robbed in front of her house. An iPad owned by the woman was used to locate the robbery suspect.
The woman was robbed at gunpoint while placing her child into her car. The robbery suspect took her jewelry and iPhone.
I wasn’t really surprised by the popularity of my post Apple Publishes Six Free Electronic Books for Developers since I’ve been telling everyone that developer topics would be popular and you delivered. That post was re-tweeted 253 times and shared on Facebook 92 times which isn’t to shabby for a short news blurb about books for iOS developers. So, the good news out of all this is that I’ll be covering more developer related topics on Cult of Mac in the future. Especially due to all the nice comments on the above post.
Therefore let’s get started by taking the six free books and adding some good books that are worth purchasing to your reading list. If you are interested in iOS development then you should not overlook these books from The Pragmatic Bookshelf.
The Clamcase an iPad case that promised to turn your iPad into a laptop earlier this year has finally arrived and it pretty much does what it says it will do. The company, Clamcase LLC, is finally shipping the device after a delay. It looked pretty awesome when I first heard about it, but I was a bit skeptical. So I asked the company to send me more information about it and they came through this week with a product sample.
I originally wrote a news post about this device in late December 2010 and then recently I noticed that several readers commented that they had not received their Clamcases yet even though they had been billed for them. I contacted the company and my advice to those readers is to contact Clamcase LLC to get a refund or to replace a missing shipment. The product is very real and the best case of this type I’ve seen so far.
The Clamcase gives a great first impression, but I’ll spend some time with it before you get to see my through review about it later this week.
In the meantime go ahead and feast your eyes on the Clamcase un-boxing pictures after the break.
There is an app for practically anything and now there are apps that will help you to impersonate a cop. Especially a cop making traffic stops as one woman reported to Northwest Indiana police recently.
The woman called 911 late one night recently with the suspicion that the black Pontiac GTO with flashing blue and red lights at the top of its windshield wasn’t really a cop. She thought that the driver of the car was following her and attempting to pull her over.
Rumors have been running rampant on the internet about AT&T’s response to the Verizon iPhone and one of those rumors was about adjustments that AT&T will be making or could be making to current data plans. Retention of current customers seems to be on AT&T’s mind lately and we can thank Verizon for that.
It all started with the fairly generous offer of 1,000 rollover minutes for customers who simply sent the word “yes” in a text message to 11113020. The system responded telling those customers that they would receive these minutes on their account within four weeks. However, the generosity hasn’t stopped there.
Griffin Technology has announced the release of their Survivor iPhone 4 case which is made for warriors of all types. Even if pink is their favorite color. Personally I’ll stick to black and that’s the color of the case I’d probably buy if given the chance.
The Survivor case retails for $49.99 and it is one of the most heavy-duty iPhone cases I’ve seen similar to the Ballistic HC I reviewed previously, but it is also the first I’ve seen that is compatible with the Verizon version of the iPhone 4.
The Chronic Dev Team has released an updated version of its Greenpois0n utility that allows you to jailbreak your favorite iOS devices running iOS 4.2.1. The good news about this new release is that the utility will perform an untethered jailbreak, which means you can reboot the device without having to have it tethered to your computer.
This version is new and I haven’t tested it myself yet, but from what I am hearing there may be a few problems with the utility so you might want to wait a while before using it.
Greenpois0n is currently only available for the Mac and it isn’t recommended for people who have unlocked iDevices or are interested in unlocking.
You can download a copy at the developers site or via this link.
[via iClarified]
Apple has finally released the Gold Master version of Xcode 4 after releasing it earlier today and then pulling it suddenly reverting back to the sixth beta preview that was previously released. Why this happened isn’t known and I don’t expect Apple to explain it.
However, now it is back and I highly recommend it. I have to say it is a welcome addition to my developer tools since the crazy multi-window interface of Xcode 3 wasn’t something I liked using.
Xcode 4 introduces a fully updated integrated design environment for Mac and iOS developers — the type of environment I’m more comfortable in. It offers a lot of really nice new tools that were first introduced at last years WWDC.
Check out the new features in Xcode 4 and if you are a registered Mac or iOS developer get a copy of Xcode 4 GM now.
AT&T is waking up to the fact that it has lost its exclusive to the iPhone. Now the company is starting to try to prevent massive customer departures when the Verizon iPhone goes on sale this month. The first try directly aimed at current AT&T customers was the e-mail I received today titled: Feel free to make a call while reading this email.
Apple released iOS 4.3 Beta 3 to developers this afternoon. The update includes a new firmware update for the new Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.
Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new SDK from developer.apple.com.
Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new beta by leaving a comment.
I recently came across a humorous post on Facebook that made me laugh out loud so I thought I should share it. It read:
I named my iPhone Titanic, why you ask? So that every-time I plug my phone into the computer it says ” Titanic is now syncing”– haha
While the gallows tone of this tidbit of humor might offend some people it definitely makes most of them laugh at the creativity and obvious play on words.
So now the question is did you give your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad a unique name? If you did share it with everyone by leaving a comment.
That’s right folks the Impactband from BaseOneLabs, LLC. is one big ass iPhone 4 bumper case and it will work with all iPhone models including the one coming soon from Verizon.
The plethora of cases offered for the iPhone 4 have several things in common since most of them offer some level of protection and the ability to absorb the shock of an impact if dropped. The level of protection varies, but the Impactband has a unique way of protecting your iPhone 4.
Apple giveth and Apple taketh away after notifying developers that the new multi-touch gestures for the iPad, discovered in the first beta release of iOS 4.3, will not be available to the public when iOS 4.3 is released.
This bit of news was delivered to developers today in the Read Me file included with the iOS 4.3 Beta 2 release.
Now Apple is claiming that these gestures are now simply there for developers to preview and test with their own apps.
You can see how the new gestures work by clicking the read link below and watching a video demonstration of them.
Apple released iOS 4.3 Beta 2 to developers this afternoon. The update includes a new firmware update for the new Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.
Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new SDK from developer.apple.com.
Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new beta by leaving a comment.
Well we finally got to see the Verizon version of the iPhone 4 (big yawn) and I know many iPhone 4 users on AT&T are excited about a chance to own an iPhone that won’t drop calls (Note my iPhone 4 rarely drops calls and I really mean rarely). Although the iPhone 4 on Verizon isn’t actually here just yet it won’t hurt to get prepared for when it finally gets here.
So considering all the above — what’s the most important thing to know about a cellular carrier?
Coverage and now there’s an app for that, but unfortunately you might have better luck checking a carriers site for coverage versus using this app.
Apple has released another software update for the late 2010 model MacBook Air. The update isn’t currently showing up in Software Update, but it can be downloaded directly using this link.
Apple’s comments on what the update does are rather sparse all they say is that:
This update resolves an issue with some MacBook Air (Late 2010) systems that prevents the system from sleeping.
The new MacBook Air has had a few problems with the sleep/wake features of Mac OS X as well as video problems being reported by early adopters (myself included). However, I have not seen or experienced the problems that people continue to complain about regarding external monitors and video.
Try this update out and let us know by leaving a comment how it works out for you.
The first thing you’ll notice about Twitter v2.0 for the Mac, which is available for free via the Mac App Store, is that it doesn’t look like a regular Mac OS X application. The applications author, Loren Brichter, has completely tossed Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines for the Mac aside and Apple not only allowed him to do so, but allowed his application into the Mac App Store — much to the surprise of many developers.
I’m surprised that Apple, which has been so overly anal about iOS apps in the iTunes App Store, would allow this in the first place. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to wonder about Apple and the future there. It’s probably the forgone merger of the iOS and Mac OS X GUI interfaces. I’m not sure I’m ready for that – I’ve always boasted about the Mac OS X interface and how it improves my work flow.
So outside of the controversy about Twitters unique GUI it isn’t all that bad if you are looking for something simple. Some of it is actually kind of neat, yet that doesn’t overshadow the fact that it falls short of the iPad version that it appears it is trying to emulate.
Apple has released the sixth developer preview of the forthcoming Xcode 4. The new update has been posted to Apple’s developer websites for Mac OS X and iOS. Primarily it offers iprofiler a new command-line tool along with a new framework for measuring application performance. It also wouldn’t be your typical Apple software update without additional enhancements and bug fixes from the previous version released last November.
The iprofiler command-line tool helps developers to measure an applications performance without having to launch the Instruments application. However, its output can be analyzed by Instruments later for a complete performance evaluation.
The new framework introduced in the update is called DTPerformanceSession and it allows an application to create performance measurements of itself or other applications.
Complete information about the Xcode 4 Preview 6 and a download link are available to registered Apple Developers through Apple’s Developer website.
Feast your eyes on the new Verizon iPhone 4. Apple’s iPhone 4 has finally hit the largest CDMA network in the U.S. so now my Verizon friends can stop coveting my iPhone 4 and get their own!
Click the read link to see more images.
[via Engadget]
Early photos from Engadet’s hands-on shows a picture of the Verizon iPhone 4 sitting on top of an AT&T iPhone 4. They look the same until you notice that the mute button and the volume buttons on the Verizon iPhone 4 has been repositioned.
The mute button has been placed in a lower position than the original iPhone 4 on the left side of the iPhone frame. This has led to an offset in the position of the volume buttons also. This means that existing iPhone 4 cases may not work with the new Verizon iPhone 4 model.
Considering all the time and money invested in case design and manufacturing this has to be a set back to the existing case industry and it will lead to confusion in the retail space. However, since case vendors deal with many different phone form factors to begin with this may not be a big deal to them. I’ll be reaching out to a few of them for comment about this soon.
Is this the fall out from Antennagate? Although Apple representative, Tim Cook, claimed that the antenna changes were made to accommodate the CDMA network. I have to wonder if we’ll see the same changes made to the AT&T version of the iPhone 4 or the next generation iPhone 5.
[photo via Engadget]
[Updated to clarify additional changes in volume button position and to correct some typos.]
Apple has released an announcement, via e-mail, that enhancements to iWork.com Apple’s public beta online service for iWork ’09 users have been released.
This announcement came out of the blue regarding a service that has definitely been off the radar for a long time and in beta for longer than I can remember. It’s future isn’t clear considering the pace at which Apple is deploying features on it. Perhaps that will change this year with the rumored release of iWork ’11.