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Ever since the iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S first debuted, a small but extremely loud and angry minority of handset owners have reported extraordinary battery drainage, and despite the iOS 5.0.1 update, the problem is still unresolved.

It’s well known that the iOS 5battery issues are a software problem, but since Apple hasn’t been able to fix the problem in three months, maybe it’s time to give the jailbreak community a shot at things. In fact, that’s what a new Cydia tweak called iOS 5 Battery Fix claims to do… and initial buzz suggests that it may just have delivered on its promise.

What sort of numbers should Apple report later today for the first quarter of 2012? The third quarter surprised all analysts as Apple announced a rare under-performing quarter due to the late introduction of the iPhone 4S. Stung by that rebuke, professional analysts are offering conservative projections for the first quarter of 2012. This sets up a classic pros versus independents cliffhanger.

The Chronic Dev Yeam’s Absinthe jailbreak tool for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S owners has been updated to version 0.3. This latest update brings Linux support and minor cosmetic changes. A small bug fix for Windows users has also been included.

As part of its annual promotion to get more Americans to cram nacho cheese-flavored asbestos triangles down their gob during halftime, Doritos throws a Crash The Super Bowl contest where they invite fans to make their own commercials. Win the contest and your winning ad gets aired during the Super Bowl.

I don’t usually pay attention to stuff like this, but this entry for the contest is just wonderful. It portrays Siri (or a Siri-like) as a magical genie in a smartphone capable of automatically beaming bags full of Doritos, a festive sombrero or even three hot, bikini-clad girls into a bro’s apartment at just a long press of the home button, no questions asked.

The only problem? In Dorito’s land, Siri’s speech-to-text transcription abilities have a couple of small auditory processing kinks to work out. The result? A guy’s request for hot wild girls leads to him being torn apart by… well, you’ve got to see it for yourself. Brilliant.

[via iDownload Blog]

Apple is one of the best-known brands, so no wonder it paid Google just $18 million in 2011 for search traffic. By comparison, HP and Dell, which are breathing heavy to keep ahead of the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for spending big bucks flogging their products online.

The ability to print documents from an iOS device is a feature that many of us find incredibly useful, but Apple’s implementation has its flaws — such as the need for an AirPrint compatible printer. But thank to xPrintServer from Lantronix, you can wirelessly print to almost any networked printer from any iOS device.

If you have ever used iBooks or the Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad, you probably have experienced virtual page turning… and probably turned it off shortly thereafter.

Why? Well, virtual page turning is just a fancy animation that does nothing practical. It slows the reading experience down (however minutely) just to give you a little millisecond voyage through an e-reading uncanny valley.

After all, in the real world, pages do more than just flip: you can rifle through them, bend them back, check multiple spots in a book at once, bookmark places with your fingers, etc. Wouldn’t it be cool if your iPad’s virtual page-turning animations could do the same things?

Apple’s iPad is not hurt by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, a Dutch appeals court just ruled. Apple had appealed an August 2011 decision that the South Korean tablet didn’t infringe upon the iPad’s design. Today’s ruling only answered whether the design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 too closely resembled the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant’s product.

Xobni has brought its Smartr Contacts service to the iPhone today, which a new app that is likely to change the way in which you handle your contacts list forever. The service takes the pain out of maintaining your contacts list by creating profiles for everyone you’ve ever contacted using your emails, calendars, and social networks. It also puts a face to every name and even keeps track of your recent communication history.

Meanwhile, over in the Linuxverse, the next release of Ubuntu looks set to try something pretty radical – ditching the top-of-screen Menu bar in favour of a type-what-you-need HUD panel. Rather like Spotlight for menu items, mixed with some Alfred and some Siri.

Verizon Wireless swung to a $2 billion loss, despite higher data revenue and doubled iPhone sales. Increased interest in the Apple smartphone was a double-edged sword. Higher iPhone demand resulted in steeper subsidies paid by the second-largest domestic carrier during the fourth quarter.

Audiobooks.com has today launched the first subscription service to provide unlimited access to thousands of audiobooks streamed directly to your device. The service uses an HTML5 web app and promises to enforce no monthly limits and no long-term commitments.

We know Apple puts a lot of effort into its product packaging to ensure it’s almost as beautiful as the product within, but you may be surprised to hear that an entire room within the Cupertino company’s headquarters is dedicated to testing different variants of product packaging.

Apple has issued an EFI firmware update to its mid-2010 13-inch MacBook Pro which enables Lion Recovery over an Internet connection, allowing users to reinstall the latest OS X operating system onto their machine without the need for physical recovery media.

A Cydia package by the name of SiriToggles brings functionality to Siri that Apple should have included from day one. With the free SiriToggles tweak on your jailbroken iPhone 4S, you can launch any app, change your system settings, and even turn your iPhone off with your voice.

While Apple has restricted Siri to a limited set of capabilities by default, SiriToggles liberates the virtual assistant for jailbreakers.

He created products that profoundly shaped the technology sector and modern culture as a whole. He won a Grammy without ever recording a song. Now Steve Jobs has a commercial jetliner named after him.

Virgin America has emblazoned a giant “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” on the side of one of its Airbus A320 jets. The plane flew for the first time last fall and is part of an internal naming competition within the airline.

Siri has a new competitor, and her name is Evi. Developed by True Knowledge and powered by the same Nuance-based backend as Apple’s virtual assistant, Evi is available for all iPhones in the App Store. There’s also a beta app available for Android handsets.

While Evi doesn’t have the integrated advantage that Siri wields, she is perhaps the first clone that’s just as smart, if not smarter, than Siri.

Help on those tricky algebra problems could be a touchscreen away thanks to a new iPhone app.

A company called Does That Make Sense? (DTMS, for short) plans to offer live help to students using Apple’s smartphones.

Microsoft’s super expensive Surface table doesn’t have anything on the iDesk, a stunning concept by the editors at MacLife and illustrated by Adam Benton. The iDesk’s Minority Report-like interface would allow you to sync your iOS devices by simply placing them on the table. Not only that, but the whole desk could serve as a trackpad. Talk about gestures.

Thanks to the newly-released Absinthe untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can finally get Siri up and running on Apple’s latest tablet. The process isn’t an easy one, as you will need to set up your own SiriProxy server and edit your iPad’s filesystem.

If you have the time and stamina to get Siri up and running on the iPad 2, you’ll be able to take advantage of all the voice assistant goodness that’s available on the iPhone 4S. You’ll also be able to install other jailbreak tweaks to enhance Siri’s functionality.

Thanks to Apple’s free AirPort Utility app for iOS, it’s easy to make simple changes to your Time Capsule and update its firmware without having to use a computer. Here’s how to update your Time Capsule firmware using only your iOS device and the AirPort Utility app.

Last Friday the Chronic Dev Team released Absinthe, a free tool for jailbreaking the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 on iOS 5.0 and 5.0.1. The release was met with such high demand that many were unable to install the jailbreak for nearly 24 hours due to intense traffic strains on the Greenpois0n.com servers.

Jailbreaking has become much more of a mainstream trend during the last few years, and the demand for this recent jailbreak reiterates that millions are still willing to hack their iPhones and iPads post-iOS 5.

More signs pouring in the iPhone benefitted big time during the holidays. In particular, new research finds some 36 percent of consumers buying the iPhone 4S between October and December 2011 were abandoning other platforms, such as Android or the BlackBerry. The findings were doubly good news for Apple, as researchers found 21 percent of iPhone 4S buyers chose the 64GB smartphone model.

Tablets — especially iPads — were hot holiday gifts. A new survey finds that in about just one week, the percentage of U.S. consumers owning a tablet almost doubled to 19 percent, up from 10 percent prior to Christmas Day. That portion was even higher as you go up the income and education scale.

Following the release of iTunes U for iOS last week, Apple has introduced a new support section to its website that is aimed at students and teachers who are interested in adopting the new app. The support notes cover things like creating new iTunes U courses, creating course podcasts, and marketing your institution’s content.