Here’s the lowdown, as soon as people were receiving their iPhone 4′s yesterday, the problems started surfacing. Left handers, or people who hold the handset in their left hand were finding that randomly the signal was cutting out, dropping calls and data connections.

This video explains it well:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The iPhone 4 when held in the left hand, so that the palm was essentially bridging the two antennas would create the issue. Bridging the two with a finger tip, however, didn’t cause any issues.

The video here from Engadget demonstrates the problem:

It seems as if conductive skin was acting to detune the antenna, this issue is so clear cut that it’s possible to recreate on almost any iPhone4. Just give it a go.

This is where Apple got sneaky, in the way they are, in the flagship stores here and in the U.S. they were seen giving away their $29 rubber bumper accessory, which surprisingly creating a insulated surface between the palm and the antennas.

It’s already being reported that some handsets in the UK that are in the later batches received are not showing the issues. This is speculated as being a quick fix where a clear insulated resin is being washing over the antennae to stop the conduction.

Expect more on this issue as it surfaces.

Whether you’re an Apple iPhone developer or somebody who paid $10just for a gander, iPhone OS 4.0 beta 4 has just been released by Apple for review.

No official changelog has been released so it’s a case of suck it and see, but if there are any new developments we’ll be sure to let you know.

OK, so we weren’t obviously there, but the guys over at Engadget were. So here’s their run down of what’s new in iPhone OS 4.0

Hold on to your seat though, it’s extremely, yawn, revolutionary stuff. Ok so it’s nothing that exciting but the concept of an xbox live style gaming system and a rework of the task switching (albeit a Palm Pre rip-off by the sounds of it) are a step in the right direction.

Make no bones about it, it’s intuitive, user interface based enhancements and that’s what Apple does best. There’s no denying that the UX for the iPhone is fluid and quick.

All I can say is, this summer better bring some upgraded hardware for the most chavvy popular phone known to man. After playing with an x10 recently with it’s 4″ AMOLED screen and 1Ghz Snapdragon, the iPhone is starting to feel like the 4 year old handset it really is.

Notable new features for users (“tentpoles” are in bold):

• Multitasking.
• Spell check (like on the iPad).
• Bluetooth keyboard support (again, on the iPad).
• User-defined wallpaper (a jailbreak favorite).
• Tap to focus when recording video, just like with photos, and a 5x digital zoom for the camera.
• Playlist creation and nested playlists.
• App folders for sorting apps! You can even put an app folder in the dock.
• Enhanced Mail! You can have a merged inbox view, switch between inboxes quickly, and sync to more than one Exchange account. There’s also threaded messaging (at last!) and in-app attachment viewing.
• iBooks, just like on iPad, only smaller. You can wirelessly sync books between platforms, a la Kindle.
• Enterprise features, including remote device management and wireless app distribution.
• Game Center. It’s like Xbox Live, but for iPhone games. Includes achievements, leaderboards, and match making. It will be available as a “developer preview,” and out for consumers later this year.

Developers are getting plenty of new tricks too:

• New SDK, available today.
• 1,500 new APIs.
• Background audio (think Pandora).
• Background VoIP (think Skype).
• Background location data, both with live GPS for backgrounded turn-by-turn, and cell tower-based for lower power draw.
• Local notifications. Like push notifications, but sends a notification straight from the app without needing a push notification server, perfect for an alarm, for instance.
• Fast app switching. Saves the state of an app and resumes it from where you left off, without dwelling in memory.
• iAd. Apple says it’s for keeping “free apps free.” The ads keep you in the app, while also taking over the screen and adding interactivity — using HTML 5 for video — up to simple gaming in-ad. Apple will offer a 60 / 40 split on revenue, and users can even buy apps straight from an ad.
• In-app SMS.
• Map overlays.
• Quick look for previewing documents.
• Photo Library access.
• Calendar access.
• Full access to the camera.
• Video playback and capture.
• Date and address “data detectors.”
• Automated testing and performance / power analysis (the same tools Apple uses).

Head over to Engadget for more info

Since the official announcement by Steve Jobs back in January, pre-orders for the iPad exceeded the initial sales of Apple’s previous big hit, the iPhone. Apple themselves were pleased with initial sales, with Jobs stating “It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world – it’s going to be a game changer”.

Although Apple stores were full of eager punters in the first few hours after the device went on sale on Saturday, many queues had fizzled out by mid-afternoon.

On Monday, some Apple stores reported robust activity. An Apple store in San Francisco said it sold out of its first shipment of iPads on Monday morning, and a small line formed to buy the second shipment that had just arrived.

It is hard to say at this stage how well the iPad is likely to sell in the long term, as some of Apple’s previous big products saw relatively slow growth before they excelled. For example, the iPhone has sold more than 42.5 million units globally, with 270,000 units in the first 30 hours when it was launched 3 years ago; this was almost half of analyst expectations at the time.

[source: blog.mobile.co.uk]

Earlier this month several UI buttons were discovered to accept and reject video chat invitations, and today, MacRumors is reporting on the discovery of more evidence confirming a front-facing camera inclusion in the SDK.

Several lines of code in the file PLCameraController.h indicate the presence of a camera with a flash, the ability to zoom, and the possibility that this camera is front-facing.

The facts: a front-facing camera with the ability to make video calls would be great, and a camera with a flash and zoom anywhere on the iPhone or iPad would also be appreciated. The fact that this code is included in Apple’s SDK seems very promising, but unless Apple’s holding a lot back (which isn’t out of the question), we’ll just have to see how far this gets us.

Lets not forget that video calling has been on mobiles in the UK since Hutchinson 3 arrived on our shores about 5 years ago or so, which sounds about right for Apple’s yearly development cycle, adding archaic features wrapped up to look like new with flashy buttons. yawn.

[via: BoyGeniusReport]

]]> http://www.mygreatphone.com/coming_soon/ipadiphone-video-chat-rumors/feed/ 1 http://www.mygreatphone.com/new_releases/apple-ipad/ http://www.mygreatphone.com/new_releases/apple-ipad/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:00:29 +0000 Daz http://www.mygreatphone.com/?p=1860 The guys over at MyGreatiPhone.com have the latest update on the new Apple release, the iPad.

They report:

“So after the whole team sat them selves in front of their PC / Mac in order to watch Apples ‘latest creation’ event there is only one thing to say and that is we’re disappointed. So why are we disappointed well there was no iPhone news at all.

The biggest and only news at the event is that Apple have released a tablet as rumoured and their calling it the iPad.

Let me tell you a bit about the iPad then:

• The iPad will have a 9.7 inch (diagonal) display.
• Email
• Photos
• Video
• Screen Rotation
• Virtual Keyboard
• Wifi
• 3G (added cost)
• 16GB, 32GB, 64GB Models.
• Will play all iPhone / iPod App Store apps.
• New App just for the iPad
• Will have App Store and iTunes on it.
• New App called iBook to allow downloading of digital books.

So all in all its a nice looking device. The iPad looks like a large 2G iPhone.

Pricing for the device will start at $499 for the Wifi 16GB model all the way up to the $829 for the Wifi/3G 64Gb model.

Wifi versions will ship in 60 days worldwide and the wifi / 3G models in 90 days.

So yeah Apple released a new device that looks great but alot of us are waiting for iPhone OS 4.0 which is long awaited. It’s disappointing that we didn’t get anything at all, and I’m sure that 4.0 rumors will now become more rife.

Keep your eyes out here and if we here any more iPhone 4.0 news we’ll let you know.”

source: http://www.mygreatiphone.com/news/apple-latest-creation-event-ipad/

Baba is an OS and new user interface which will come pre-installed on new Samsung phones, probably replacing Touchwiz.

Geared for compatibility and usability from feature phones to full blown smart phones, Bada aims to bring new functionality to the all markets. The Bada Software Development Kit (SDK) is being rolled out to developers in December which should ensure a large Application store will be available when handsets start shipping. Applications are going to be the focus here (anyone else notice a pattern?).

Samsung have had a great year, shipping 200 million phones in 2009 but are expecting Bada to increase this by 10 to 20 %. Samsung currently are the worlds second largest mobile phone vendor, Nokia (who are number one) will be nervously looking over their shoulder. Android and Windows Mobile are going to stay, but Symbian OS is out in favour of their new Bada development. How Android and Samsung will play together for the manufacturers is another matter as their goals appear very similar.

It’s very easy to just toss this aside as a “Samsung are trying to catch up with Apple” style stance, however Samsung have the possibility and the market to make Apples App store seem like a niche store for a minority of mobile phone users. Let’s take a look at last quarters market figures:

You see that? Samsung currently sit at having 10x the market share of Apple. If Samsung were to get their new OS on 30% of their range (Which we’d be looking at if an OTA update to Touchwiz is in the plans) and half of those people used the new application environment, that would be more than Apples entire Market share. Sure they would effectively be riding on the coattails of Apples successful model, but apple didn’t invent the mobile, or application stores, they just made it popular.

It’s very easy to assume that Apple are ruling the mobile work because of aggressive marketing and rampant fanboyism. This has lead to the announcement of Bada as being treated like a bit of a last minute joke. But when you look at the facts and figures, their new endevour could still be what’s considered as a failure and only reach 20% of their current marketshare, but that would still leave twice as many people using it than OSX.

They have recently launched a new advertising Campaign entitled “Droid Does” which goes about showing potential Verizon mobile owners that the almighty God phone that they’ve heard about may not have as much functionality as a handset using an alternative OS.

The advert includes comments like:

iDon’t run similtanious Apps

iDon’t have a 5 Megapixel Camera

iDon’t allow open development

iDon’t know how to pee without sitting down

OK I made the last one up, but you get the point.

Verizon are clearly backing the Android OS, and we can hardly blame them with literally every manufacturer releasing handsets, even Motorola, who look to be making a comeback of Jenson Button proportions. I think it’s clear that 2009 / 2010 is going to be the comeback year. All the established mobile phone manufacturers are not just going to let Apple do them out of their industries. In the case of all Apple’s competitors it’s going to be a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Expect many many more manufacturers to adopt Android and Windows Phone and don’t be surprised to see them team up to remove Apple from it’s current position.

Check out the first Droid does commercial below (warning iPhone owners, Verizon do not care about your feelings.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Also included are other fixes:

• Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart

Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming As always the Dev-Team released the usual warnings;

WARNING! At 10.20AM PDT on October 8th 2009 Apple released the 3.1.2 version (7D11) of the iPhoneOS.

If you care about your jailbreak and unlock, don’t update your device – 3G and 3G(S) owners should pay particular attention to this warning.

• PwnageTool and redsn0w are not yet compatible with 3.1.2
• There is no estimated release time for compatible tools (please don’t bug us about this).
• Any information we have regarding this update will be posted here.
• You can also follow us on twitter – @iphone_dev

This news has been received from our forum Moderator Nazaroth from Nazaroth.co.uk

OS 3 has brought us great new features like Spotlight and Cut and Paste. It has also brought us bug fixes and improvements and not to mention Bluetooth on 2nd generation  iPod Touches, but along with these new features, lots of bugs.

So we want to know what do you guys want in iPhone OS 4.0?

Here is a list of what I want:

1. New interface
2. The option to choose from percentage or a bar in the battery meter
3. Flash
4. BT File Transfer to Non-Apple devices
5. Wireless Syncing
6. Multi Tasking
7. More customization
8. Better battery
9. 802.11n to be unlocked on 3rd gen iPod Touches

I want it ASAP, it’d nice to see some new features even though OS 3 has only come out a with months ago.

And that’s what I want. iPhone OS 3 has opened up a whole new world to us, and so should 4! So let’s get you guys thinking!

Also I have found a nice concept design at DeviantArt: iPhone OS 4 Concept Design by xazac87

Ping! is a new iPhone application, created by Gary Fung, that is very similar to SMS, except for a few differences, Ping! uses your WiFi, HSDPA or EDGE connection to send messages and the service is free. At the moment, the program is free on the Apple App Store but at the top of the description, it is stated that it will be free for only a limited time so get this app fast This app is currently ranked No#1 free app and No#1 social networking app according to the app store. To use the app you must have iPhone OS 3.0 or later because the application needs push notifications enabled to receive messages.

Review:

How it works:

Now onto how the app works, it works by using your WiFi, 3G or EDGE as mentioned above. It works similar to SMS, except free and no annoying international codes to remember around the world, instead it uses IDs which you can choose also unlike mobile numbers.

Interface:

The interface is quite nice, it shows the last message you sent or receiver, to/from who and what time for each conversation when you open the app. When you tap on a conversation it comes up with all the messages you have sent. A link contact button so you can add an ID to a contact you have or if you have linked a contact, a contact info and unlink button as in in my screenie, currently there is no buddy list. Down the bottom of the conversation there is a text box where you type your message in and a send button next to it.

Performance:

Overall the app is very good, it sends fast, I get my messages and is hassle free. There are some bugs but the app has been out for less than a fortnight. Now as for push notifications, these are great, let’s say I’ve left my iPod/iPhone in front of me at my desk and it is locked, the iPod/iPhone will make a sound and light up showing a notification badge with the message and from who.

Conclusion:

Overall the app is great, free messaging just like SMS and IM but unlike IM, you don’t have to have the person online. A few bugs but but great, I’d rate it 4.5/5 stars.

Daz: Well, well, well. One of MGP’s keenest contributors has put together a great first post for the site. Glad to have you on board and look forward to future posts from you. Well done HR!

Facebook Fan Page: Facebook | Ping!

Website: Ping!

Here are some screenies, I have blanked out some some spots and replaced them with black with text saying what would be there:

There is a post on GigaOm that gives a detailed comparison of  PlaceBase vs. Google Maps, customisation and tons of ways to layer multiple kinds of data sets onto maps, with an API that makes it easy to layer on data sets all come into play.

This is just another case of Apple wanting to go it alone with no reliance on third parties for their own apps. I’d agree this was a good move, if it promoted choice with a default option, however it doesn’t. There’s no doubt that Apple will remove the Google Maps app to force users to use their own.

The handset has received great reviews, especially considering it’s on its 5th generation of Symbian OS, which is starting to look just a little dated when put against Touchflow or Apples’s OSX, or Palm’s WebOS (or in fact almost anyone else).

However saying that it’s still performing well. TestFreaks gave it a 9.4 with many positive user reviews to back it up.

The guys over at tecknoreview had us giggling with their Touch Pro 2 review, now they’ve released one for the N97, Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2 after the break.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Review by David Pouge

You’ve seen that movie, right? The one where a pair of lovable, sad-sack losers team up to defeat the smug, athletic golden boy? If not, you’re about to. It’s called ‘‘Palm Pre vs. iPhone.’’ The star of this summer blockbuster is Palm. Over the years, this once-great company lost its talent for everything but making business blunders. Pundits were predicting Palm’s passing—but then the new Palm Pre appeared.

The Pre, which goes on sale first in the United States on Saturday and sometime in the second half of 2009 in Europe, is an elegant, joyous, multitouch smartphone that seems intended to be ‘‘iPhone, remixed.’’ That’s no surprise, really; its primary mastermind was Jon Rubenstein, who joined Palm after working with Steve Jobs of Apple, on and off, for 18 years. Once at Palm, he hired 250 engineers from Apple and elsewhere, and challenged them to outiPhone the iPhone.

That the Pre even comes close to succeeding is astonishing. As so many awful ‘‘iPhone killers’’ have demonstrated, most attempts to replicate the iPhone result in hideous, designed-bycommittee messes.

The Pre has the usual feature checklist: Wi-Fi; GPS; 3G (high-speed Internet); Bluetooth (including wireless audio); 3.2-megapixel camera with tiny flash; ambient light sensor; proximity sensor; tilt sensor; standard headphone jack; 3.1-inch, or 7.9-centimeter, touch screen (smaller than the iPhone’s, but the same 320 x 480 pixels, just packed more tightly). But the hard part is getting the design right—and for the most part, Palm nailed it.

HARDWARE The Pre is a shiny, black plastic, flattened capsule, coated with a hard, glossy, scratch-resistant finish.

When it’s turned off, the screen disappears completely into the smoky finish, leaving a stunning, featureless talisman.

It’s smaller than the iPhone, and therefore more comfortable as a phone. It’s a half inch shorter, and a quarter of an inch thicker.

PRICE The Pre costs $200 after a rebate, with a two-year contract. Sprint, Palm’s equally downtrodden co-star, offers a better deal than the iPhone’s AT&T. For example, the $70-a-month plan (450 talk-time minutes) includes unlimited Internet and text messages; the equivalent iPhone AT&T plan includes no text messages at all. Similarly, Sprint’s unlimited-everything plan costs $100 a month — $240 a year less than AT&T.

And these plans include the excellent Sprint Navigation (turn-by-turn GPS, spoken street names and all) and streaming TV shows and radio (pretty neat if you have a strong cell signal).

Still, I know what you’re thinking: Sprint? Like that’s a huge improvement over AT&T, which iPhone owners love to hate? But read on; there’s good news ahead.

TYPING Unlike the iPhone, the Pre has a real keyboard. The phone’s top and bottom halves slide apart, revealing four rows of keys. They’re really tiny; a BlackBerry’s keyboard is expansive by comparison. Even so, thanks to the domed key shapes and sticky rubber key surfaces, you’ll probably find this keyboard a faster, less frustrating way to enter text than typing on glass.

PHONE To make a call, just pop open the keyboard and start dialing. Or just start typing; matches from your address book come up immediately. Or set up speed-dial keys. Call audio quality is about average. The ringer, however, is too quiet; expect to hear a lot of people complaining about that.

SOFTWARE The Pre’s all-new operating system, called Web OS, is gorgeous, fluid and exciting. It shares some iPhone ideas — pinch or spread two fingers on the screen to zoom in or out, for example, or flick a list item sideways to delete it — but has its own personality and ideas.
For example, once the bright screen comes to life, the strip of black plastic beneath it is also touch-sensitive. Slide your thumb leftward, for example, to go back one screen. Drag upward to summon the animated, bendy, quicklaunch strip. It holds the icons for the five programs you use most often (phone, calendar, e-mail and so on). In other words, you can switch programs without returning to a central Home screen first, as on the iPhone.

That’s important, because the Pre can keep multiple programs open simultaneously.
Play Internet radio while you read a PDF document, or compare two open e-mail messages—you can’t do that on the iPhone.
Thoughtful grace notes are everywhere.

When watching a video, you can flick right or left to skip forward or backward a few seconds. Empty time slots on your daily calendar collapse to save space, denoted by a ‘‘3 hours free’’ strip. When you magnify a Word document, the text reflows so that you never have to scroll horizontally.

BATTERY Everyone griped about the iPhone’s permanently-sealed battery.

The Pre’s battery, however, is easy to swap. That’s fortunate, because battery life is the Pre’s heartbreaker. On days when I used the Pre a lot, the battery was dead by late afternoon. On days when I used it only occasionally, it was dead by dinnertime. Yikes.

Palm calls those unusually poor results, probably stemming from the poor Sprint coverage where I live; hunting for a signal eats up power faster. (Palm rates the battery at 5 hours of talk time or 12 hours of music playback.) MUSIC Most phones do a feeble job as music players.

Especially compared with the iPhone itself, which, after all, is an actual iPod.

But so, apparently, is the Pre.

When you connect it to your Mac or PC, the Pre shows up right there in Apple’s iTunes software, labeled ‘‘iPod.’’ A couple of clicks later, you’ve synced your music, photo and video collections (minus the copy-protected items) and iTunes never knows the difference.

BUILT-IN PROGRAMS You might keep your family schedule on Google Calendar, your work calendar in Exchange or Outlook, and some events in Facebook.

The Pre consolidates these online agendas, presenting them all on a single, color-coded calendar.

It does the same thing with your various online address books (Google, Outlook/Exchange, Facebook, AIM).

You wind up with only one entry for, say, Snuffy Smith, containing all contact information from all sources.

The Pre can also consolidate e-mail accounts into a single Inbox, or AIM and Google Talk buddy lists. It’s done well, and it makes enormous sense.

APP STORE A big part of the iPhone’s appeal is the app store: 35,000 free or dirt-cheap downloadable programs.
The Pre’s app store is starting small.

Palm intends to approve thousands more in the coming weeks, but they won’t be as diverse or powerful as the iPhone’s. At the outset, at least, Palm is limiting programmers’ access to the Pre’s features.

All right, then: the Pre is a spectacular achievement. Zero to sixty in one version. But is it an iPhone killer? Silly bloggers! The Pre will be a hit, but the iPhone isn’t going away. First of all, Apple’s 20 million-phone lead will only grow when the new iPhone 3.0 software (and, presumably, a third iPhone model) comes out shortly. Second, Palm’s audience for this model is limited to the United States. It requires a CDMA network, so it won’t work overseas.

Third, even the Pre has its annoyances.
Opening certain programs can be very slow—sometimes 8 or 9 seconds—and there’s no progress bar or hourglass to let you know that it’s still working. There’s no memory-card slot to expand the 8 gigabytes of storage, and no Visual Voicemail (where messages are listed like e-mail). The onboard search function won’t look through your e-mail or calendars. There are a few bugs left to exterminate, too.

Finally, the Pre is not quite as simple as the iPhone. All those extra features, by definition, mean that there’s more to learn.

So do the Pre’s perks (beautiful hardware and software, compact size, keyboard, swappable battery, flash, multitasking, calendar consolidation) outweigh its weak spots (battery life, slow program opening, ringer volume, Sprint network)? Oh, yes indeedy. Especially when you consider that last weak spot might be going away. Verizon Wireless has announced that it will carry the Pre ‘‘in the next six months or so.’’ Can you imagine how great that will be? One of the world’s best phones on the best U.S. cell network? If the story of Palm’s rise from the ashes really is like a movie plot, then that twist will give it one heck of a happy ending.

 

Palm are already doing a good job or raising their companies profile with a very effective marketing campaign, leaving the Pre as a hotly anticipated handset, but is it the only contender? Read more to find out.

Apple iPhone v3

June 2009 Apple will announce the iPhone 3 – or whatever it is going to be called. Chances are It will be a familiar form factor, simply with the addition of many features missing in the first incarnation.

The most likely additions are improved camera, improved software (copy / paste), Compass addition (useful when used with GPS) and video recording capabilities.

The less likely but still possible are dramatically reduced thickness, use of OLED (or AMOLED) display and a slide out keyboard.

Whatever happens the handset will sell well, no doubt. However this June features a few other tasty handset releases that may make an impact on it’s forecast….

expected release date announcement: June 8th

Palm Pre

The pre is Palm’s comeback handset. After nearly folding just over a year ago, with the investment of Bonno and his equity partner the pre is set to be back on form.

For those who haven’t heard (how?) the Pre is a pebble like shaped smartphone. It has a touchscreen candybar profile with a vertical slider revealing a full QWERTY keyboard.

It uses a capacitive touch screen much like the iPhone we know and love and also features the use of similar “gestures”.

The Pre was given official confirmation of release on June the 6th on the 20th May, on Sprint (US) with a 2 year service contract and for the price of $200.

For more Pre articles please click here.

Announced release date : June 6th

Nokia N97

The Nokia 97 is Nokia’s Smartphone, QWERTY enabled offering.

It boasts a host of features including a touch display (3.5″ of it) which slides and tilts to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard plus d-pad for easy navigation, a 5 Megapixel Camera with Carl Zeiss integrated optics coupled with a dual LED flash, 32GB of internal memory with MicroSD support for further memory expansion, Integrated Assisted GPS and WiFi and HSDPA.

Rumours are that Nokia will be announcing their competitor at the very beginning of June, the 2nd infact to get a bit of a run with early adopters. There’s no doubt this will be a polished and easy to use handset but will it have the appeal of the other two?

expected release date announcement: June 2nd

Samsung I7500

The Android-powered I7500 is Samsung’s first Google incorporation and looks to be a huge leap forwards for the manufacturer. Created to directly compete with HTC’s Magic Handset it is incredibly feature packed.

Not only does it boast the Samsung patented AMOLED screen it also has the features of Quad-band GSM with HSDPA and HSUPA, 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, micro-USB and 3.5mm audio jack and Built-in 8GB memory with microSD expansion card slot.

expected release date announcement: June / July 2009

As with all new milestone releases, Apple seeds a string of beta’s to developers that are registered with them. This is for testing purposes for both finding bugs and developing compatible applications. For OS 2.0 there were 9 beta’s in total before final release.

For some people the temptation is too much and they MUST have the new firmware, albeit in it’s beta stage. This opens up an opportunity for some wiley people to take advantage of this. By paying $99 to register with the iPhone development program, each developer is allocated 100 “spots” to add the UDID’s of their beta testers. But, it has become the norm to start selling these spots to people itching to get the new firmware early, or people who were too hasty and upgraded straight away and find themselves locked out of their iPhone, unable to activate with Apple. These slots go for between $5 – $11.There are, however, plenty of kind and generous developers that are simply giving away these slots, whether it be no strings or with the promise of testing their apps. There is of course still the matter of obtaining the firmware, which Apple only releases to the devs with the understanding that they do not share or publish it on the Internet, but as with everything else, at some point it makes it’s way to the torrents.

It was possible to upgrade without being registered with a dev, the only drawback being you had to disconnect from the Internet each time you connected to iTunes to sync your info and media, not a major problem really. But Apple has since put measures in place that thwarts this method in the form of a pre-release update to iTunes, which now “phones home” to check if you are registered at the time of upgrade. The current public release of iTunes will not update firmwares later than beta 3.

The most recent beta, the 5th increment, is probably the most buggy to date. For those that are thinking of trying the new firmware, there’s less than a month left until the expected public release in June, so there’s not much point in paying to upgrade.

The main drawback for most users is the jailbreak side of things, it does not work well so far. The main reason being that the Dev Team stated that it is too time consuming to test, perfect and release new versions of QuickPwn and PwnageTool for each beta that emerges, so they will only release the official methods after public release of 3.0. There are other devs that have patched the QuickPwn program to work with each beta, but these are very buggy and very unstable, with nothing much working.

So my advice would be to sit tight and await the release of 3.0 in June, and look forward to the new breed of apps that will be released.

This comes alongside a host of other confirmations and rumours such as OLED display , video production and a slide out keyboard.

Boy Genius Report has gotten hold of two screens from the unreleased iPhone OS build which confirms our news. Also confirmed is turn by turn support for the satnav, but that’s kind of required for a satnav device anyway.

While these new features are nice for the handset and will bring it up to the satidfactory spec for a modern smartphone, are we not being cheated a little by Apple’s marketing department? With exception to the OLED display these features have been present on give-away handsets for at least the last 2 years.

Apple, if you want to really excite us you’re going to need to try a little harder that just packing more old tech into a smaller shell. Still it does liven up the smartphone competition market, especially with Palm Pre looking to get released the very day before Apple unveil there new handset officially.

After the break: additional image and source

Additional Images:

Source: Boy Genius Report

For the past 2 years Apple have had an exclusive contract with AT&T over the sales of it’s iPhone mobile phone but the time looks near that they will be allowing other carriers to sell their popular handset.

This comes from of USA Today, where we also learned today  that Steve Jobs was involved in the negotiations when they first began a few months ago, before Jobs left his post due to his illness.