BBC iPlayer App Finally Becoming Reality?

If you re-call my article from months ago, I suggested how the BBC need to make a native BBC iPlayer app and their latest press pack hints that this has finally begun.

The image shows the native app running on Wi-Fi, much like the website, which restricts you to only WiFi. It will be up to O2, Orange and Vodafone whether or not they will allow it to run on their 3G network. Little is known about the app, except what we can see from the images.

It appears to show a downloads section, meaning the possibility of downloading radio and TV to listen to when your not in WiFi, much like on the computer. This will probably have the same DRM which will delete it after so many days. The DRM on the media could have been the reason it’s took the BBC so long to develop the app as last time it was put on a portable device it wasn’t long until someone worked around it.

There still no confirmation of the native iPhone application but from these images we know that something is in the works.

Related:
iPhone Idea: BBC iPlayer App

iPhone 3,1 In Testing?

The developer of the public transportation guide for San Francisco, iBART. Has spotted an iPhone3,1 user in their log files. This is similar to when the 3GS was spotted before it was announced by the device string in log files.

“iPhone3,1” was first spotted in Pandav’s usage logs in November. The identifier “iPhone3,1” does not match any shipping iPhones. The last iPhone released was the iPhone 3GS which carries the identification string “iPhone2,1”.

If the reports are correct the next iPhone should be around in about 8 months, if the cycle is the same as before.

R5 Release Dates (November 3rd – May 2010) [UPDATE]

Check the R5 Release Dates page for the latest release dates. (Dates go up to December 2010)

Update: Avatar – January 14^th 2010

November 2009
Bring It On: Fight to the Finish – November 3^rd
Zombieland – November 5^th
The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon – November 5^th
Hardwired – November 5^th
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure – November 5^th
Banlieue 13 Ultimatum – November 12^th
Julie & Julia – November 12^th
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – November 12^th
OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus – November 19^th
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – November 19^th
Little Hercules in 3-D – November 19^th
Driven to Kill – November 19^th
Hachiko: A Dog’s Story – November 19^th
The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations – November 19^th
Saw VI – November 26^th
Playmobil: The Secret of Pirate Island – November 26^th

December
My Sister’s Keeper – December 1^st
Astro Boy – December 3^rd
Jennifer’s Body – December 3^rd (2nd Date)
Law Abiding Citizen – December 3^rd
American Pie: Book of Love – December 8^th
Inglourious Basterds – December 8^th
2012 – December 10^th
The Box – December 10^th
Love Happens – December 11^th
Funny People – December 15^th
Zombieland – December 17^th (2nd Date)
This Is It – December 17^th
The Stepfather – December 17^th
Planet 51 – December 17^th
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – December 24^th

January 2010
The Soloist – January 12^th 2010
Avatar – January 14^th 2010
Shrink – January 21^st 2010
The Final Destination – January 26^th 2010
Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball – January 26^th 2010
City Island – January 26^th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – January 28^th 2010
This Is It – January 2010 (2nd Date)

February 2010
The Informant! – February 2^nd 2010
500 Days of Summer – February 4^th 2010
Whiteout – February 9^th 2010
The Time Traveler’s Wife – February 9^th 2010
Couples Retreat – February 9^th 2010
The Invention of Lying – February 16^th 2010
Amelia – February 18^th 2010
Into the Blue 2: The Reef – February 18^th 2010
Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead – February 18^th 2010
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – February 23^rd 2010
The Blind Side – February 23^rd 2010
Tooth Fairy – February 25^th 2010

March 2010
Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove – March 2^nd 2010
Fantastic Mr. Fox – March 4^th 2010
The Marine 2 – March 4^th 2010
Ninja Assassin – March 9^th 2010
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – March 11^th 2010
Where the Wild Things Are – March 23^rd 2010
Surviving Evil – March 25^th 2010
The Cabin in the Woods – March 25^th 2010
Sherlock Holmes – March 30^th 2010
The Wolfman – March 2010
A Christmas Carol – March 2010

April 2010
Paranormal Activity – April 6^th 2010
It’s Complicated – April 20^th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – April 25^th 2010 (2nd Date)

May 2010
Preacher’s Kid – May 4^th 2010
Valentine’s Day – May 18^th 2010

For the rest of the dates go to http://tinyurl.com/r5dates

Updated: 28^th November 2009

Note: not all dates are 100% accurate and are likely to vary, please keep checking back for updated release dates.

O2 Will Unlock iPhones For £15

O2 will now unlock your iPhone if your contract has expired or you’ve been had a Pay As You Go iPhone for 12 months.

Sine O2 lost exclusively of the iPhone to Orange and Vodafone early next year. O2 have said they will unlock the device.

However it comes with a price, customers will have to pay £15 to get the code to unlock the device.

This makes me believe there must be a similar method, as used on other phones to unlock the device via a code which will be calculated by O2.

Tesco To Sell iPhone’s Before Christmas

UK supermarket giant, Tesco, has unveiled that they will start to sell iPhone’s this year. Offering ‘competivie contract prices’. A spokesman for the firm said that it hoped to offer the phone “in time for Christmas”. They have not yet revealed tariffs but are offering “competitive prices”.

Tesco has now joined the iPhone party: O2, Orange, Vodafone and now Tesco will sell both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. Orange said that they had sold more than 30,000 handsets on its first day of release.

The phone will still be running on O2 as Tesco Mobile and O2 are in a joint venture. You will be able to get the phones both on contract and pay as you go.

Second iPhone Worm Used For Malicious Purposes

There has been news today of yet another iPhone worm that affects users who have unsecured SSH installed on their device.

Security Company, F-Secure, has unearthed this latest worm for the iPhone which targets people in the Netherlands, as it did before with the first exploit of unsecured SSH. It targets users who use their iPhone to online bank with ING. Much like a phishing attack, it redirects the bank’s users to a look-a-like website with a log-in screen.

The worm only affects jailbroken devices as before, and only devices with SSH that has the default password are affected. This latest worm is more serious than the ones prior, as they were created to warn people, that things such as this could happen. The security company, F-Secure, have also said that it can behave like a botnet and send itself to other un-secure devices on a local WiFi network.

The phone can be controlled by the hacker remotely without the knowledge or permission of the user. Hackers can ring people, text people, copy your contacts or what ever they wish with your device if it’s left open. At the moment it’s only spreading around the Netherlands, but soon enough malicious hackers will most likely take advantage of the users who don’t change the default password.

A spokesperson for ING Bank said that a warning was going to be put on the bank’s official website.

“We are also briefing call centre personnel,” she added. “It’s important to remember that the worm only affects jail-broken phones and it is only aimed at customers in the Netherlands.”

If your device is jailbroken and you believe SSH maybe, or is installed then please read this guide to secure your device. Many other guides will not fully protect you as they only change the mobile user password and not the root.

If you wish to read more from F-Secure on this issue click here.

How To: Change Your iPhone’s SSH Password
Dutch Hacker Hack’s Into Jailbroken iPhone’s
iPhone Worm Rickrolls Jailbroken Devices

Mac OS X 10.6.2 Hacked To Allow Intel Atom Chip

As I previously thought, hackers have worked around Apple’s decision to disable the Intel Atom chip in the latestrelease of the operating system (10.6.2). It only took 2 weeks for hackers to figure out how to fix the change, however it doesn’t come without it risks. It’s a full-on replacement kernel for OS X. It was developed by a member of the InsanelyMac forum and it requires a bit of fine tuning to get installed. Download and use at your own risk, links below.

Download the patched kernel

Blog Update 23/11/2009

Today I’m planning on doing quite a few new posts as recently I haven’t been posting many due to not having a computer for over a month and then lots of work for college. This is just a quick update to say that the blog is moving into more of technology than just Apple products but also other technology based articles.
Not only am I going to start doing more articles, I’m also going to start reviewing products as I’ve had some sent to me and I’ll be reviewing those shortly.
Unfortunately today I found out that the domain I was going to purchase this week has already been sold, so the website may be delayed for a while until I can think of the best domain to purchase.

R5 Release Dates (November 3rd – May 2010)

Check the R5 Release Dates page for the latest release dates. (Dates go up to December 2010)

January 2010
The Soloist – January 12^th 2010
Shrink – January 21^st 2010
The Final Destination – January 26^th 2010
Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball – January 26^th 2010
City Island – January 26^th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – January 28^th 2010
This Is It – January 2010 (2nd Date)

April 2010
Paranormal Activity – April 6^th 2010
It’s Complicated – April 20^th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – April 25^th 2010 (2nd Date)

May 2010
Preacher’s Kid – May 4^th 2010
Valentine’s Day – May 18^th 2010

For the rest of the dates go to http://tinyurl.com/r5dates

Updated: 18^th November 2009

Note: not all dates are 100% accurate and are likely to vary, please keep checking back for updated release dates.

Gigabyte Fixes iPhone Sync Issue With BIOS Update

The Intel P55 Express chipset had an issue that caused iPhones unable to sync. Gigabyte has issued a BIOS update fixing the problem. The Intel P55 is Intel’s latest midrange chipset and is for Core i5 and Core i7 machines. The other two P55 motherboards, ASUS and MSI were also affected by the bug and there is an update for ASUS BIOS but it’s not the official fix. Hopefully both ASUS and MSI quickly update the BIOS to fix the issue.