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Do you feel reluctant standing in another long tiresome queue to buy an iPhone 3G? It seems Apple has decided to end this torture by announcing a new online tool that can assist potential customers shorten the process. From now on, you can go online and type-in all the billing forms, including name, address, payment details, etc, choose your desirable plan and schedule the time and date you wish to get to any nearby Apple store, in order to collect the merchandise and complete the activation. Regretfully, you get no home delivery and still bound to a 2 years contract, but Apple’s intention is affirmative.

[Apple]

Following recent announcement, Apple has officially released firmware update 2.1, to fight those irritating bugs and unbearable crashes that took all over the place, leaving so many customers desperate and confused. The new 2.1 update is reported to be much stabilized than its predecessor, fixing so many bugs that made your applications crash and improving the flaky battery life, to work much longer than it used to. In addition, El Jobso has promised to minimize those failing drop calls and substantially improve iTunes’ backup speed, along with a better email usability, so lets hope he can keep his word.

To get version 2.1 installed, you can hook your iphone to iTunes 8, choosing “check for update”, to download the entire 237.8mb file and install it. You can download it RIGHT NOW from here.

[Apple]

Apple has officialy confirmed the release of a 2nd generation iPod Touch player, to hit the stores right away with the same 3.5-inch widescreen display,  802.11 b/g Wi-Fi connection, a built-in speaker and the amazing integrated accelerometer that turns your device into an interactive machine. The new Touch boasts a thinner chrome budy design with those curvy tapered edges, that can be found in the new iPhone 3G. It has external volume controls (finally) and runs the latest 2.1software with the App store inside and those Genius playlist menus, to automatically create smart playlists and save them for a repeatable use. You get 3 different versions to choose from, including an 8GB player to set you back for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399. Battery life can deliver up to 36 hours of music or 6 hours of video. Another big addon, is the Nike+ receiver, to be used as your workout companion, once you place the optional Nike + iPod sensor ($19 US) in your Nike + shoe.

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Apple is desperately looking for new solutions to fix those pesky iphone/ipod touch bugs, crashes, call drops and bad reception, announcing new firmware update, to be available on Friday for a free download (regretfully, ipod touch owners will have to pay $10 for it). Also, the coming 2.1 version will apparantly improve battery life and backup synchronization, but won’t tackle with the copy & paste problem - hopefully it will - one day.

Update1: You can download it RIGHT NOW from here.

Update2: iPod Touch owners with firmware version 2.0 are entitled to download the new update for free.

[Image courtesy: Slashgear]

It was back at the CeBIT show when we first spotted the Meizu M8 UI, but ever since, there were more speculations than a real product. Today, we finally get a chance to look at what appears to be a tangible video of the new Meizu M8 interface, presented by Mr. Jack Wong himself, introducing a smooth iphone-alike surface, with a flowing touchscreen and some new icons, different from the first imitating ones. Still, no word on when or where this long-time saga is about to end, if at all, but we do keep following. Meanwhile, checkout the new video.

Dev Team has released their latest iPhone jailbreaking utility, the Pwnage 2.0.3, including support for Pwning recent iPhone firmware 2.0.2 and adding the most updated installer app. This is a Mac only version and as you can guess, there’s no baseband unlock for the iPhone 3G yet, only activating and jailbreaking, but there is hope for a full jailbreaking version until the end of the year.

[Dev Team]

This awesome application from David O’Reilly brings staggering 3D animation to your iPhone, thanks to the anamorphosis painting technic that has been used since the 15th century, and now combined with the iphone’s accelerometer and gyroscopes, to create an amazing 3D visual illusion in a constant viewing angle of 35 to 45 degrees, when the real drawings are actually in 2D. Check out the video, featuring a nice tangible 3D character walking along the screen path, almost jumping out of the phone.

[via PMPToday]

It’s been four months since Snapture released their first revolutionary iPhone camera application with the abilities to capture up to three frames in a row, take self photos, take photos in different sizes, get a digital zoom, toggle Auto rotation and more. Now we hear that Snapture steps up with the new Snapture 2.0 version, adding features like self timer, 4 color modes, a clean UI, and multi-touch gesture zoom, all for free, in case you have a jailbroken device. You can also go Premium for $7.99 and get free-ads application with the ability to view, enlarge and delete recent pictures directly on the viewfinder, thanks to the QuickView system. Checkout the video after the break.

[Snapture]

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Apple has released firmware update 2.0.2 for iphone and ipod touch devices,  available for downloading via your iTunes, only two weeks after introducing the 2.0.1 version to the world. The new update weights around 250MB and presumably, fixes some of the bugs that have been reported by users. So far, no one can point out which of the bugs were fixed, but it seems to be targeting iPhone 3G phones. The overall feeling is that there’s sort of improvement, so stay tuned for more news and reports to come.

Dev Team has released their latest version of the iPhone jailbreaking utility, the Pwnage 2.0.2, including Cydia and Installer 4 beta. Still, no unlock for the iPhone 3G, only activating and jailbreaking. Yet, you can download other applications and patiently wait for the final version to be released. You can get the tool in here or here or here. Meanwhile WinPwn 2.0.0.4 has been released for the iPhone 2.0.1 firmware as well and it includes Installer support. You can get it here.

[via Dev Team]

Apple has just released firmware version 2.0.1 for iphone and ipod touch devices, available for downloading through your iTunes, 3 weeks after introducing the 2.0 buggy edition. The new update weights 250MB(!) and presumabley, blocks your jailbroken handsets, but not for long, we’re still waiting for Dev-Team to officialy release their ultimate software solution. Meanwhile, if you like your unlocked applications, you should patiently wait, otherwise, in-plan users can update their phone without any problems. Stay tuned for more bug fixing updates and other related news.

Update1: it seems the 3G network browsing works much faster than previous version. Checkout the video after the break.

Update2: several iPhone 3G users are reporting carrier error on both Windows and Mac OS X versions. In this case, restore to the previous 2.0 firmware.

[via slashgear]

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Apple should officially put an end to the iPhone’s Copy & Paste saga (They’ve said they don;t care). Meanwhile, we get a chance to see the MagicPad app, a rich-text editor, coming up to App Store very soon, allowing users to write their personal notes, create text documents and change fonts, text sizes, colors, mark them as bold, italic, underline and of course, copy & paste them in order to send threw emails. It works really well and looks promising, so checkout the video after the break.

Update: the MagicPad is now available at the App Store and can be downloaded from here.

[via Gizmodo]

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Windows OS users, this is your day, as Pwnage 2.0 version for your PC (AKA: WinPwn 2.0) has been released, allowing iPhone 1st Gen, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch users to jailbreak their devices and unlock their sim cards if necessary. Although it was already available, for early adopters, only 24 hours after the official Dev-Team Mac release, this one is much easier, especially with the ability to make your jailbroken handset - Sim Free - in one click. Mind you, this is only a preliminary version and it might have some bugs, so stay cautious while updating your device.

You can download the software from here or here or here.

read the instructions after the break.

Update: There are new versions available in here.

[via WinPwn]

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After days of expectations, Dev Team has finally released a software-based jailbreak for firmware update 2.0, installed on iPhone 3G, iPhone 1st Gen and iPod Touch devices. Although it is only Mac users compatible, Dev Team has promised to release PC friendly version in the near future, along with iphone 3G full unlocking version [You can download the jailbreaking software from here or here or here]. The new Pwnage 2.0 jailbreak can do the following:

iPhone 3G - Only activate and jailbreak, no unlock yet (no sim free).

iPhone 1st Gen (With firmware 2.0 installe.d) -  activate, jailbreak and unlock.

iPod Touch (With firmware 2.0 installed) - activate and jailbreak.

Mind you, there are plenty of people trying to get this one so be patient as you download those 19.7MB. Full instractions can be found in here.

Update1: that was fast! Jailbreak 2.0, now available for Windows OS users. You can get full instructions in here or here.

Update2: 24 hours later and there’s a new update that fixes some of the bugs from the first version. You can get it in here or here.

[via Dev-Team]

If you wanted to learn more about the main components that assemble your new iPhone 3G, the chips, the amps, the processors and the involved manufacturing companies, this is your chance to take a look at one the most detailed inside-views, as the guys from research firm Semiconductor Insights dissected the stellar handset into pieces, showing us who has done what. From the picture below, we understand that Infineon provides many of the components, including the GPS chip, the baseband chip, UMTS transceiver and the power management chip. In addition, we can see the  application processor, provided by Samsung and the power amplifiers, provided by Triquint and Skyworks, as Marvell brings the Bluetooth and the WIFI components while Toshiba is responsible for the internal flash memory of your phone. The rest stays the same as the first generation, with Samsung to supply the ARM11processor architecture, Wolfson the audio decoder chip, Broadcom the touchscreen controller, National Semiconductor’s MPL the display interface, etc. Hit the jump to checkout more pictures and to see the videos. To get a bigger view just click in here.

[via Semiconductor Insights]

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