iOS 6 Jailbreak already available, but not for all devices

Apple’s iOS 6, the latest iteration of its mobile operating system was released yesterday and before some people have even managed to download the update it seems the ingenious developer community have already managed to come up with a tethered jailbreak using the latest version of the Redsn0w tool. The speed of some jailbreaks is really quite remarkable and we have all the details below but you need to be aware that this won’t work with all devices.

Hackers seem to be particularly quick at jailbreaking new iOS’s as the last few were jailbroken within a day of release by the dev community. Only a couple of days ago we told how one hacker advised those with jailbroken iOS devices not to update to iOS 6 until a jailbreak was available for it. We also then told about the iOS 6 TinyUmbrella app to save SHSH blobs. Now the Redsn0w iOS 6 jailbreak is available but a significant point is that this will only work with some iOS devices, namely the A4-based iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th generation. Also as mentioned earlier this is a tethered jailbreak and there is not yet an untethered jailbreak available.

News of the Redsn0w tool jailbreak for iOS 6 came to us from Redmond Pie and came from the creative minds of the iPhone Dev Team. As usual we cannot recommend jailbreaking your device and anything that goes wrong is totally your own responsibility. Nevertheless we know that many people out there do enjoy the freedom of a jailbroken device so we will give you the details if you wish to take advantage. You’ll probably already know that if you want to go ahead with a jailbreak you’ll need to do a full backup of information but if you rely on unlock then you should avoid updating to iOS 6 at the moment.

You’ll need to download the newest Redsn0w version for either Mac or Windows from the source provided in the Redmond Pie article linked to above. You will also find full step-by-step instructions on how to perform the jailbreak process as well as how-to boot tethered on iOS 6 and also how to install Cydia on iOS 6 as the latest version of Redsn0w doesn’t do this by default. No doubt there will be many happy iOS 6 jailbreakers using any apps they choose on their devices very shortly.

Please remember this jailbreak is only for the A4-based iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th generation. It will NOT work for the other devices that support iOS 6, namely the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad 3 (new iPad) and finally the iPod touch 5th generation. We’re interested to hear from readers about the iOS 6 jailbreak with the latest Redsn0w tool.

In Thailand, Smuggled iPhones Go for Up to $1,400

BANGKOK – IPhone fanatics lined up in their droves across Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong to pick up the latest version of Apple Inc AAPL -0.49%.’s smartphone Friday. But enthusiasm also raged in Thailand – a country where the iPhone 5 won’t go on sale until later this year.

Customers here are flocking to crowded shopping warrens such as Mahboonkrong in downtown Bangkok to place deposits on phones smuggled in from places such as Hong Kong, Singapore and even the United States. One vendor in MBK – as it is known – said his team will try to bring over 100 phones into Thailand, and so far more than 80 people have handed over deposits of 5,000 baht, or $160, per phone.

Bloomberg News

People wait in line outside the Apple store on George Street in Sydney on Friday.

This contraband comes at a price, however. The an unlocked, top-end 64 gigabyte iPhone 5 will cost 43,000 baht, or $1,387, compared with about $927 in Hong Kong. The cheaper 16GB version goes for 35,000 baht, with the 32GB version selling for 39,000 baht.

“There is very high demand here, that’s why the prices are so high. Many people want to be among the first to have the new iPhone, but nobody knows exactly when it will go on sale in Thailand,” said a vendor who asked not to be identified, adding that this was a “golden time” for MBK’s phone traders. “If you want one, you’d better make a deposit now,” he said.

The first batch will arrive at MBK at around noon on Saturday, traders said. “If you want to see some pandemonium, come then,” one added.

The new iPhone will cost much less when it makes its official launch in Thailand later this year, and will set back customers around the same it costs them to get an unlocked iPhone 4S at present.

What is less clear is when the new phones will be available. Representatives at the DTAC network run by Total Access Communications sa DTAC.TH +2.59%id they don’t know when they will be ready to sell the iPhone 5 in Thailand. An official at rival network Advanced Info Service said that it might be able to have the new phones available for subscribers at the end of this month, potentially giving the first batch of iPhone buyers just a couple of weeks of posing time before the rest of the country can get their mitts on them.

How to avoid costly app bills

Ensure you are safe from your children’s sky-high app bills.

It’s all too easy to allow your children to buy expensive add-ons to iPad games. Photo: Alamy

Many parents will happily hand over their iPhone or iPad to their children in a bid to get a few moments of peace and quiet. But few are aware of the financial pitfalls that can be caused by just a few flicks of a finger.

This week, a six-year-old boy left his family with a £2,000 credit card bill after using an app on his grandfather’s iPad. The youngster had spent the amount on a special app which involves children “collecting” and “breeding” their own online creatures.

To the relief of the grandparents, Apple refunded the money once the situation was explained. However, not all families are so lucky.

While free downloadable apps can keep children of all ages amused for hours, many offer expensive add-ons that are supposed to improve the gaming experience. These “in-app purchases” might include virtual credits for buying items in the game, special abilities for game characters, additional levels not accessible in the free version of the game, or the ability to skip a level that might be challenging.

Even the most popular – and seemingly harmless – mobile games possess in-app purchases, from a “Mighty Eagle” that automatically clears levels in Angry Birds to packs of extra turns in Flight Control.

The economics behind this have spawned the term “freemium” to describe the practice of offering a free app with expensive enhancements. As gaming apps have become more sophisticated, the risks to parents have become greater. This ‘freemium’ model initially took off on Facebook, where money is charged for expediting progress or additional content.

The fees are not to be scoffed at; some games charge as much as £70 per purchase. Freemium apps use the iTunes purchase mechanism to streamline the process, so it is easy to buy items without leaving the game. In some cases gamers don’t even have to type in credit card details or a password.

And as many parents have found, it’s this ease of purchase that is the greatest risk. With Smurf Village, for instance, the cheapest in-app purchase costs £2.99, but a wagon-full of virtual “Smurfberries” can be had for £69.99, all at the tap of a finger. The charges will be billed to the iTunes account and credit card associated with the gadget.

For those who wish to ensure they are protected, updating software is very straightforward and should take just an hour or so. The following tips should ensure you can safely hand your phone to your children.

Update the software

“Updating the software on an iPad or iPhone can be done on the device itself,” Mr Wiggins said. “To check if a newer version is available to download and install, parents should go to the ‘Settings’ menu, scroll down and select ‘General’, then choose ‘Software Update’.”

Apple recommends always backing up data before updating or restoring. To learn how to do this, visit support.apple.com/kb/HT1766.

If you choose to update when you are not connected to your computer, you will need to use Wi‑Fi instead of 3G, as the file size will be too big.

Alternatively, if you connect your device to your computer, a pop-up window will say if your software is out of date and you will be prompted to install the latest version.

Disable the purchase function

Another option is to disable the in-app purchases function on your Apple device. To do this, go to “Settings”, select “General”, tap “Restrictions” and select “Enable Restrictions”. Here you must create a unique four-digit passcode, then scroll down to “Allowed Content” and turn off “In-app Purchases”.

Bear in mind that unless you adjust the time necessary before a password is required to purchase content, it will automatically allocate a 15-minute time limit. This will mean that if it has been less than a quarter of an hour since you downloaded the app or made an in-app purchase, your children will not be required to type in your password again, potentially racking up a huge bill without inputting any additional details.

Use Airplane Mode

Even if you aren’t flying, this will block all downloads and in-app purchases. To do this on an iPhone or iPad, go to “General”, select “Settings” and then turn “Airplane Mode” to the on setting.

Gift card option

For the parents of teenagers who wish to make purchases on their own device, but who do not have their own bank account, using an iTunes gift card instead of your credit card will help avoid unwanted costs.

Get Google savvy

It is not only Apple products that can leave parents facing potentially hefty bills. With Google’s Android, in-app purchasing is also problem, but, as with the iPhone and iPad, there is protection available.

To ensure your Android is safe, always activate the “Screen lock” function, which will force users to enter a pattern, pin or a password on the device each time an item is to be bought. To set this up simply go to “Settings” then “Security” – and then you can choose and set it.

Similarly, removing bank details from “Google Checkout” can stop this function from being exploited. To remove your information, go to the “Google Checkout” site and log into your account.

On the left of the screen will be a link called “Edit payment methods”. Follow that and you will get a list of your accounts. Remove your financial details with the delete button. The Android Market will pull your payment information directly from Google Checkout so no apps can be purchased – by yourself or your children. For future purchases, simply re-enter the details on your account.

Telegraph.co.uk

Twitter’s updated iPad App provokes a backlash

Twitter’s updated iPad App has provoked a strong response with several critics calling it a step back for the social networking site.

Twitter’s updated iPad App has provoked a strong response

Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo announced the changes yesterday on American television.

Twitter said: “Today you can download the new Twitter for iPad. We’ve rebuilt the app from the ground up to make it fast, beautiful and easy to use. Twitter for iPad brings you closer to what’s happening all over the world, and makes it easy to keep up with the news you need to read, the photos you want to see and the people you follow.”

The previous version of the iPad app was designed by Tweetie founder Loren Brichter who left Twitter a year ago so a redesign was not unexpected

Twitter’s product manager Sung Hu Kim has described the app as beautiful, saying: “Tweets come alive in the new Twitter for iPad. Expand Tweets with a single touch to see beautiful photos, rich videos and web page summaries right in your timeline. Dive into the content with another tap to see the photo, play the video or read links from the web in fullscreen mode.”

But many critics have dismissed the iPad app’s new look.

Wade Rouch of technology blog Xconomy said: “Nearly everything that was cool about Brichter’s design has been ripped out, and replaced by a generic timeline that looks as though it were designed for an Android smartphone.

“The sliding panels that made navigating to tweeted content such a pleasure are gone, replaced by an awkward system in which tweets first ‘expand’ (on the first tap) and then disappear.”

The newly updated App already has hundreds of negative reviews in the iTunes App Store.

John Gruber’s blog Daring Fireball was also scathing of the App: “They threw away Loren Brichter’s groundbreaking UI and replaced it with a timeline where you can’t tap anything — URLs, usernames, hash tags, images. Instead, you have to tap to ‘open’ the tweet first. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Twitter client in which you couldn’t tap URLs from the timeline”.

Mashable’s Emily Price criticised the navigation system on the updated app: “When you load up Twitter’s iPad update for the first time, chances are you’re going to think there’s something wrong.

“The updated version of the iPad app abandons Twitter’s card-style layout — where tapping on a tweet would make it swipe in from the right side of the screen — for a much more space-filled design. Your navigation is limited to tapping on the four tabs on the side of the screen.”

HTC Elation leaked as Windows Phone 8 flagship

 

Better than One X on paper

 

 

 

Not much Elation at HTC HQ over latest leak (credit: ubuntulife)

 

The HTC Elation appears to have leaked online in what seems a bit of an own goal by the Taiwanese manufacturer.

Ahead of its press conference on Wednesday in New York, Ubuntulife claims HTC has posted details of its upcoming flagship Windows Phone 8 handset on its own website.

Originally rumoured as the HTC Zenith, the Elation looks to be the final name for the smartphone touted to sport a 4.7-inch HD 720p super LCD display, 1.4GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera and running Windows Phone 8.

One X killer?

The product page on the HTC website which reportedly revealed this information has now been taken down, but if correct the Elation is set up to be a more powerful device than the Android-driven One X.

We’d be surprised if the Elation did pack the quad-core processor the captured screen grab claims it does, as Microsoft has made a point about its operating system running happily on dual-core devices.

Plus we’ve already seen the Windows Phone 8-running Samsung Ativ S, Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 unveiled, none of which have four cores inside them.

HTC’s press conference kicks off at 4pm UK time (11am New York) on Wednesday, and TechRadar will be bringing you all the information live as it’s announced.

Apple’s new iOS 6 system coming today

The new system also comes with features such as shared photo streams, which will let users open up parts of their photo libraries to friends, and more Facebook integration.

In the iPhone reviews that went out today, a few reviewers had critical words for the mapping app, saying that it lacked the detail and functionality of Google Maps — the app it is replacing.

For one, Apple’s mapping feature doesn’t have built-in information about public-transit systems, said Wall Street Journal reviewer Walt Mossberg. Apple, it seems, will eventually pull in that information from other applications. For now, Engadget reviewer Tim Stevens notes, the app directs you to a currently empty search for “routing apps” when you click on an option for transportation directions.

Stevens was also underwhelmed by Passbook, the coupon and ticket app in the system, but said that he expects it will get better.

Last year, Apple released its operating system for the first time over the air, which led to server problems — both for Apple and for those who use its iCloud service.

Some of Apple’s iCloud users were hit with an outage last week that prevented users from getting their mail. That issue has since been resolved, according to Apple’s status page, but some users have reported that they’re still having problems opening the e-mails they received during the disruption, 9 to 5 Mac reported.

With luck, Apple will have smoothed out any server wrinkles and will be ready to take on the rush of eager upgraders today. According to Fortune, the company is staggering its rollout for this release.

washingtonpost.com

Twitter redesign aims: More control, bigger bottom line

By updating its iOS and Android apps and releasing an all-new iPad app, Twitter aims to bring more users than ever back into the fold.

A look at Twitter’s new iPhone, Android, and iPad apps.

(Credit: Twitter)

With the “mobile first” strategy it unveiled today, Twitter achieved two key goals: creating a look and feel that more than ever resembles Facebook’s, and asserting new dominance over users’ Twitter experience.

On the surface, the announcements of new Twitter profiles, common across all devices and operating systems and top-heavy with a single cover photo, as well as a new photo stream, and an all-new iPad app, are essentially incremental moves, albeit ones that streamline users’ mobile experiences.

But for years, the company has been trying to bring its users back into the fold, slowly limiting their third-party options, either through acquisitions of popular apps like TweetDeck or Posterous or through locking out third-party photo services like TwitPic, and yFrog — which Twitter quietly did today with the new versions of its mobile apps. And all in the guise of gaining more control over the advertising dollars generated by the service.

Today, despite Twitter’s base of more than 140 million active users and 400 million daily tweets, the user experience is clearly fragmented — and so is revenue generation. Whereas Facebook keeps its users essentially locked into a walled garden of its Web site and its mobile apps, Twitter’s users access the service not just through Twitter.com and Twitter’s own apps, but also through a broad set of third-party apps such as Hootsuite, MetroTwit, Echofon, and others. “Twitter was built on the back of third-party developers,” said Noah Everett, the founder of TwitPic, “but now those developers are getting the shaft. I’m sure the pressure coming down from [Twitter’s] boardroom is pretty intense [to try to] control the eyeballs and control the message.”

A look at the all-new Twitter iPad app.

(Credit: Twitter)

Everyone knows that the future of Twitter and Facebook is on mobile, but it’s not at all clear yet how either company will cash in on the shift away from the Web. For Twitter, though, the job is all that much harder if it can’t even control where its users access the service. “Twitter has been trying for some time to bring all of its apps together under a consistent user experience umbrella,” said Lauren Dugan, a social media consultant who writes about Twitter for MediaBistro. “Twitter wants users to feel like they have the same…experience regardless of how they access their tweets — through for iPhone or Android or Twitter.com. And the reasoning is pretty simple: Twitter doesn’t make as much money when a user sees tweets through a third-party app.”

There’s been much ink spilled over the growing enmity between Twitter and third-party developers in the wake of the company’s decision to limit outsiders’ access to its APIs. But Dugan pointed out that those changes haven’t made life harder for everyone. “I think [Twitter’s] strategy has been pretty clear,” she said. “They are encouraging developers who expand on — but who don’t copy — the Twitter experience. So analytics and enterprise-level solutions are given the thumbs-up, for instance, while Twitter clients are slowly being squeezed out of the ecosystem.”

We’ve asked Twitter for comment and will update the post when we hear back.

Like Facebook?
Of course, the goal of centralizing control over how users access Twitter won’t work if people don’t like the company’s mobile apps. But while there has been no widespread lovefest as a result of today’s changes, some users do appear pleased with what happened.

On Twitter, for example, user Dylan Kohlhaas referred to the new-style apps as “awesome,” and later elaborated to CNET that he liked the new photo stream feature, as well as the cover photo. He did allow that the new Twitter mobile experience seems more like Facebook’s look and feel than ever before, but added that “I just like it.”

While Facebook and Twitter are fundamentally different services, there’s little doubt that each has some features the other is trying to replicate. With today’s changes, it’s evident that having a large, single profile photo, as well as easy access to a photo stream are elements of Facebook that Twitter wanted to bring to its own users. “Twitter does seem to be taking some cues from Facebook on the design front,” Dugan said. “Facebook has had a cover photo on pages and profiles for some time, and clearly someone at Twitter thinks it works.”

Ultimately, today’s Twitter news seems much more about its long-term strategy than about a fundamental redesign or change in the way its users experience its service. But by improving the way its mobile apps work, even as it slowly restricts users’ third-party alternatives, Twitter’s game plan is becoming more evident.

“I think [the changes are] a little underwhelming on its own, but part of a larger strategy that Twitter has in the works,” Dugan said. “With all of their early acquisitions they were working with a sort of hodgepodge of apps and now they’re working hard to align everything under the Twitter brand. This will allow them to capture more of their user base, and ultimately serve up more ads to increase their revenue.”