Spirit Released for iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad

The day has finally come, comex has released Spirit, the first userland jailbreak since the 1.x era. It runs on the latest iPhone OS firmwares (3.1.2, 3.1.3 and 3.2). Spirit is an untethered jailbreak which comes as great news to many 3rd generation iPod Touch & iPhone 3GS users who have the MC models who were stuck with a tethered jailbreak for months.

It works on all the iDevices but on the iPad, all this is still sort of beta. Some packages in Cydia, not designed for iPad, might screw up your system and require you to restore.

You can download it from SpiritJB.com

iPhone OS 4.0 Only For 3G and 3GS?

According to a source, the new iPhone OS 4.0, which is rumored to be shown at the upcoming Apple event; will include multitasking, which has been wanted for a long time but many iPhone users but only those who jailbreak the device can use this feature. The source also says there will be a new UI, “to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient” and also OS-wise mutli-touch gestures. However I see it unlikely that Apple will majorly change the UI of the OS as they like to keep things familiar.

The source also says how they will also be “some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications” but that the new OS will only be available for the iPhone 3G and 3GS, this makes sense for the multitasking as the iPhone 2G doesn’t have enough RAM to be able to multitask properly.

iPhone OS 4.0 To Have Contacts On The Home Screen?

Apple recently applied for a patent to put contacts on the iPhone home screen. The patent gives pretty solid evidence that the next iPhone OS iteration will include this feature.

The patent shows that the custom icons for contacts won’t just be for speed dialing but will be able to perform wide range of things, such as launching any app you specify that is personalized to the contact or display information about the contact.

One of the options has the icon for the contact that shows up on your home screen based on the persons proximity to you, so if someone gets within a certain range to you then they will show up on your home screen, however this will probably only work on iPhones or possibly phones that have GPS.

The icon can also be used to invoke one or more applications that are personalized to the contact. The icon can be modified to display information related to the contact. In one aspect, an icon associated with an entity can be temporarily displayed on the mobile device based on the proximity of the mobile device to the entity.

iPhone 4G Wishlist

So with all the rumours over the past few months I’ve been thinking what I’d love to see from the next iteration of the iPhone. Although some of the points maybe wrong if you believe the rumours, we have been wrong many times before but this is just what would make the iPhone 4G the next killer device.

Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 CPU

The iPhone runs pretty well on its current CPU, but having a dual core more powerful CPU would help make the phone snappier and along with the PowerVR SGX545 GPU we could be looking at desktop quality games and HD content.

PowerVR SGX545 GPU (HD Graphics)

With HD capability we could play games at a whole new level, surpassing any current portable gaming device on the market. Along with HD playback and hopefully HD video recording.

5/8 Megapixel with Flash

The rumours say that Apple is going to include a 5 Megapixel camera in the next iPhone and possibly Flash but a lot of phones these days are pushing up to 8MP and with bigger capacities why not?

720p video recording

This would help bring more products in to one, the iPhone 3GS does a good job of video recording at VGA but 720p would make that video look even better.

802.11n WiFi

There has been a recent job posting looking for someone who would be able to work with 802.11n WiFi so it would be nice for the people who use it.

Bigger memory capacity (16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB)

For some people they must have all their video and music collection with them and so we need to increase the size of memory as usual, obviously Apple controls the prices on flash memory so I’m sure they can offer it.

512MB RAM

We’ve been slowly progressing, the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G both had 128MB or RAM which isn’t good when you have to reboot your device to play games, the 3GS made up for it with 256MB but why not add in a little overhead for those jailbreakers who multi-task?

Front Facing Camera

This is a feature that was rumoured for the 3GS but never happened, the technology has been around for years. I had a Sony Ericsson phone about 5 years ago that could video call, it was one of the first 3G devices in Europe but still the technology is there and it would make taking self-shots easier.

OLED Display

This would make a nice feature, not only because it looks better but because it saves on battery life which is something the iPhone really needs ever since 3.0.

Better Battery

As most iPhone users will tell you, unless you have a battery pack with you, your phone will not last the day. The jailbreak are trying at the current time to certain daemons from running and this apparently does increase battery life, but Apple should really sort this issue out.

Fully Bluetooth Support

So many people ask me you have bluetooth right? And I reply the truth, Yes. But of course then I have to tell them how it’s crippled and how I can’t even send them a picture over Bluetooth.
These are just my personal hopes for the next iPhone, obviously I know not all of them will come but hopefully Apple fits some in there. And one last thing, headphones that last longer than 4 months, I’ve been through 3 pairs in under a year.

8GB iPhone 3GS Coming Soon?

There have been rumors about a 8GB iPhone 3GS going around since the summer. But a man in Hamburg, Germany who recently bought a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3G was supirsed to find on the label that it said “iPhone 3GS v2.2, 8GB.” The model and part number are for the older model, but “iPhone 3GS” appears on other places on the packaging as well, implying that the label wasn’t just a typo but an actual part label for an existing or soon to be existing iPhone model.

Back in August, screen caps from an internal website for the Canadian iPhone provider, Rogers Wireless were posted to the internet showing a 8GB iPhone 3GS and stores were apparently under strict orders to sell out their current stock of 8GB iPhone 3G to make room for the new 3GS, which never appeared in stores.

Hacker Sends Warning To iPhoneUnlockUK Customers

Customers who had used the controversial unlocking service, iPhoneUnlockUK.com recieved an unexpected email recently informing them that the company had been using unlicensed software and that their personal details, including email and physical addresses has been compromised.

The hackers had broken into the web server back in February, where they gained access to the personal information of several users who had illegally unlock their iPhone. The hacker sent emails that the software iPhoneUnlockUK was selling for profit had been stolen, suggesting the customers demand a refund from the fraudulent company. Some people might of thought the iPhone Dev Team, who put a huge amount of work into unlocking the iPhone could of been involved but the hacker made it clear that they were not.

The breach in February is the only one currently known, when the hackers copied the personal details of customers and defaced the website. Since then, iPhoneUnlockUK moved web hosts and claim they have not suffered any more attacks. No financial details were believed to have been compromised during the breach, as all the credit card transactions were handled by a third party company.

Vodafone UK To Offer iPhone January 14th

Orange & Tesco Mobile are soon to be joined by Vodafone as one the iPhone carriers in the UK. They have announced that the iPhone will be on their networking starting January 14th.

The plans start at £30 a month for 24 months, with additional handset charges ranging from £59 (iPhone 3G 8GB) to £239 (3GS 32GB). However, if you sign onto a £35 a month contract for 24 months the 8GB iPhone 3G is free.

Unlike Orange, O2 and Tesco Mobile; Vodafone don’t appear to be offering a Pay As You Go option for its customers.

There has been some concerns whether or not the network would be able to handle the major increase in traffic, but Guy Laurence, chief executive of Vodafone UK, says the company has been preparing for the launch for over a year, strengthening their infrastructure for the release.

Apple Testing iPhone OS 3.1.3 and 4.0

It’s possible that Apple could be testing the iPhone OS version 3.1.3 and version 4.0, which we assume would run on the new iPhone3,1 device being currently tested. The rumours have come from server logs showing the new versions of the OS.

The BoyGeniusReport found evidence of two new user agents in their log files. The first, iPhone OS 3.1.3 would be a minor bug fix. The second, iPhone OS 4.0 would be a significant upgrade to the operating system.

The user agents could be faked, but it’s likely by now that Apple are testing these versions of the OS.

iPhone 3GS Coming To Tesco Mobile December 14th

As I spoke about before, Tesco said how they were hoping to release the iPhone 3GS before Christmas. Now the date has been set for December 14th, just in time for Christmas. Tesco gave some further details on their offerings of the iPhone. It has free unlimited 3G (fair use policy applies) and BT Openzone WiFi access, which is free for a year to Pay As You Go customers and for the life of your contract if your on Pay Monthly, the same as O2 offers.

The cheapest contract is £20 per month for their one-year contract, but that gets you only £60 calls and texts allowance and you have to pay £320 for the 16GB device itself. They also offer an unlimited calls and texts plan for £60 per month, cheaper than what Orange offer. Last of all they offer half-price calling to your favourite five numbers. The Pay As You Go costs will be the same as what O2 and Orange offer.

iPhone Security Issues Not Exclusive To Jailbroken Devices

In the past few months there have been multiple worms released into the wild that affected inadequately protected jailbroken iPhones. However a Swiss iPhone developer has published research that indicates that there are also security vulnerabilities affected un-jailbroken devices too. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise to most as it was only a matter of time.

The developer, Nicholas Seriot has created a proof of concept app called SpyPhone to demonstrate how Apple’s own APIs can be used to read and edit user’s address books, gain access to the user’s web surfing history or even recent location information. Although this is not as bad as what can be done with root permissions to the device, it can still effect users, especially when they think they are safe.

For the attacks to work, the application with the malicious code would need to get through the App Store approval system, however this wouldn’t be very hard as pointed out by many developers, as Apple doesn’t check source code but does have a kill switch on every app. The code would be delayed, so that it only beings to work so many weeks after the app is released or it could be an encrypted payload.

Nicholas Seriot detailed these possible iPhone privacy risks in a talk he delivered in Geneva, during which he also outlined possible defense strategies, suggesting that Apple should design the iPhone OS to require users to authorize read or read-write access by iPhone applications to potentially sensitive on-device information such as the Address Book, add firewall functionality to the device and ensure the keyboard cache is not as readily available to third-party applications.

Developers Research

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