Apple Seeds iPhone OS 3.1 Beta 2 To Developers

Yesterday Apple provided iPhone developers with Beta 2 of the OS 3.1 firwamre. This release didn’t mention any changes, although the first beta included minor feature adjustments without Apples mentioning. Beta 2 will most likely contain bug fixes which address issues in Beta 1. Along with this a updated version of the iPhone SDK for both Leopard and Snow Leopard have been also released.

If your using Beta 2 and notice any changes feel free to leave a comment.

Update: I’ve just found that beta 2 also introduces a public API for manipulating live video. Developers are still testing the capabilities but it could open the door for many interesting apps in the near future.

Geohot Releases His Own Soft Unlock For iPhone 3GS

Geohot has released his own unlocking software, like ultrasn0w, for the iPhone 3GS. Playing off the Dev-Team’s naming scheme he called it Purplesn0w. The user is required to have a jailbroken device so that the unlock can be downloaded through Cydia, like the Dev-Teams unlock.

Geohot also claims that his unlock is superior to the Dev-Teams unlock:

Wifi fails? Battery fails? Unlock fails? You need purplesn0w, the geohot 3GS unlock solution. Now I know you here a lot about different colors of sn0w, but I’m here to tell you why purplesn0w is the best. First off, what is purplesn0w? It’s a soft unlock for your 3GS that I’d actually use day to day. It’s not a daemon that takes any resources, and it doesn’t add a task to your baseband. It’s very close to a true unlock. All it does is patch three files, CommCenter, lockdownd, and your wildcard activation plist(which you need, activate w at&t sim first, no hacktivation support yet). That’s it, no other files are installed. Props to Oranav for the at+xlog exploit!
A full explanation is coming soon, but I think you clever reversers out there will see what it does, and see why it’s so pristine 🙂 The payload is radically different from other varieties of sn0w. beta as usual, back up first.

Be sure to have legit activated 3GS
Disable 3G if you don’t have it(like T-Mobile).
Add apt.geohot.com to Cydia
Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
Watch for success output in Cydia
Reboot, and enjoy your unlocked iPhone

Apple Announces 1.5 Billion Downloads In App Store

Apple announced yesterday that they have had a total of 1.5 billion app downloads on just over 65,000 apps. There are currently 40 million iPhones and iPod Touches that are able to run the App Store, and over 100,000 developers registered in the iPhone Developer program making all these apps.

Apple today announced that customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications in just one year from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. The App Store is also growing at an incredible pace with more than 65,000 apps and more than 100,000 developers in the iPhone? Developer Program.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

Why Apple Need To Fix 3.0 Soon

With the vast collection of new features from the new iPhone OS 3.0, also came the vast amount of problems it’s causing.

As a 3.0 user myself I have been affected by some of these, such as the WiFi connectivity issues which have caused hundreds of users problems.
The battery life using 3.0, for some has dropped drastically and I have myself seen a bit of a drop in the batteries performance.
Destructive video editing on the iPhone 3GS. which Apple has fixed in 3.1. Also some unknown problem with 3.0 which causes the device to over heat and the battery to drop drastically as I experienced whilst using Qik to live stream a video.

These are just a few problems that 3.0 users are having and Apple really needs to sort these out, as a lot of people rely on there iPhone to last throughout the day, we don’t want it to be like the Palm Pre do we. Hopefully these will be fixed in 3.1 and anyone using the 3.1 Beta feel free to drop a comment on if any of these problems, or others, have been fixed or even maybe caused by that update.

Apple Patents SMS Interface Changes

Apple has filed a few changes to the SMS messaging interface. The first, called Multiple Recipient Messaging Service for Mobile Device (# 20090176517), allows sending a message to multiple recipients at once (as shown above), this could be helpful for sending texts to maybe a team of people. Apple suggest that the app to check the status of the messages after a certain interval of time to see if they were received. If some of the messages weren’t received, it offers an interface in which the sender could easily resend the message to those who didn’t receive it, and also giving the user the option to send it through a different medium such as email.

The other patent application, called Systems, methods and apparatus for providing unread message alerts (# 20090177617), suggests way that make it easier for the user to read unread messages. For example, it suggests checking to see if someone you are about to contact has sent you a message you haven’t, it gives the user a way of viewing the message before contracting them. It would cross-check unread emails, SMS messages, voicemails etc. for that contact.

Apple Patents Text Message Filtering

This patent explains the different ways the iPhone could filter text based communications in your iPhone. Apple says the main use for this is, to censor objectionable text like swear words in email for children, or to help someone learn a foreign language by forcing someone to send emails in that language.

…control application includes an instructional tool or study aid where the administrator sets one or more modes, such as language, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, punctuation and/or other content of a text-based communication based on, for example, a user’s age or grade level. This can be especially useful, for example, such as when a child’s grades go down. A parent can then institute a condition to improve a child’s grades. For example, the control application may require a user during specified time periods to send messages in a designated foreign language, to include certain designated vocabulary words, or to use proper designated spelling, designated grammar and designated punctuation and like designated language forms based on the user’s defined skill level and/or designated language skill rating. If the text-based communication fails to include the required language or format, the control application may alert the user and/or the administrator/parent of the absence of such text.

Apple Patents Object & Face Recognition

Systems and methods for identifying objects and providing information related to identified objects (# 20090175499)

This patent filed by Apple shows a technology that would allow the user to point the iPhone’s camera at an object. The software would then recognize what the object is, then provide relevant additional information about it. The methods for recognition would be either image or camera recognition technologies, Barcode scanning, RFID tags or other similar technologies. Different modes could also be set up so that the recognition process would be easier based upon where you are such as a restaurant, museum etc.

Personal computing device control using face detection and recognition (#20090175509)

This patent describes the various techniques that Apple might use to the the iPhone the ability to recognize faces of which the camera is pointed at. If these methods are implemented, the facial recognition could add another layer of security to the phone by only allowing use by certain people or deciding whether or not to put the device to sleep.

WiFi Connectivity Problems Caused By iPhone OS 3.0

I for one have experienced connectivity problems with my iPhone 3G over WiFi. My signal is never as strong as it used to be and even in the house I get no connection where I used to get a connection, all this after the 3.0 update.

Hundreds of people have been complaining of these issues of the iDevice not connecting to WiFi, less signal strength or saying you have a WiFi connection when you don’t.

Apple if fully aware of the problem and will be working to fix it. Some people think that the 3.1 update will fix these issues but some people don’t agree with this so we will have to see. If anyone is using 3.1 Beta do you experience any of the WiFi problems?

Some people have came up with many solutions to try and fix this problem, but they don’t work, some people even tried putting there iDevice in the freezer.

iPhone Battery & Heat Problems

Multiple cases of iPhone’s overheating and the battery of the phone quickly depleting have been causing iPhone users problems recently. Most believe it’s down to the software, the 3.0 firmware that Apple released a few weeks ago as it only seems now that users are having these problems.

Apple blame the overheating on the hot weather and are blaming people for leaving there iPhone’s in hot places but the battery issues must be in some way connected to the new firmware as I experienced today.

My iPhone 3G which used to run 2.2.1 would run under moderate use each day without getting into the 20% battery area, with heavy usage it would get down quicker and I would have to charge. But today whilst at a friends house I decided to do some live streaming using Qik, however after about 10 minutes I noticed that my iPhone had heated up considerably and the battery had lost maybe 30/40% of it’s charge. Now I know for a fact this isn’t usual as I’ve used Qik before and the phone didn’t have the same problems using 2.2.1.

It seems that there must be something not quite right with the 3.0 firmware which is causing maybe the CPU to be overused, causing the phone to heat up or something in some setting which isn’t coded properly and causing these problems.

I’d be interested to try out the 3.1 Beta to see if it had the same issues, however I’m not currently a developer so can’t try it but if anyone has tried it leave a comment about if you experience the same issues.

3rd Generation iPod Touch Found in Online Logs

The same way that the iPhone 3GS came to light, there’s now online logs of a new 3rd Gen iPod Touch device being used recently. Analytics firm Pinch Media, which spotted the iPhone 3GS online last year, now says’s it’s been seeing the device string (iPod 3,1) for the new iPod multiple times since April of this year.

The usage pattern shows that Apple are testing the new iPod Touch to ensure there are no major flaws before the device goes live, which is presumed to be in September.

Signs of the string iPod 3,1 were first seen in early iPhone 3.0 beta firmware, the hardware ID was shown alongside present and unreleased Apple handhelds, at the time. As with the iPhone 3GS, Apple’s naming scheme seems to show that this will be a substantial update, camera perhaps? The first number of the string always refers to a major generation leap whilst the second refers to less substantial updates. The current iPod Touch is listed as iPod 2,1,

Trying to determine the release date based on this data is difficult as the iPhone 3GS was seen 8 months before its release however there is a lot more things to test in a phone, therefore making it more likely the release will be in September, as the iPod Touch has always been updated in a special music themed event held in September.

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