iPhone & iPhone 3G News

With the iPhone v2.1 software out of the door, Apple is hard at work on v2.2. From this first glimpse it looks like Apple, now that the major bugs have been squashed, is adding some new features.

The screenshot, unearthed by iPhone Atlas, shows a new Safari interface. Above you see a shot from my iPod Touch (left) next to a picture of the new v2.2 Safari. In the new browser, Google gets its own search bar (instead of popping up when you hit the regular URL bar) and the reload button has been moved the address bar, a purely aesthetic change which helps the text-entry areas to look bigger.

Apple is selling the iPhone 3G on its Apple Store Web site in Hong Kong, promising the phones “can be activated with any wireless carrier.”

Apple did not offer an explanation for why it started selling unlocked iPhones in Hong Kong, or indicate whether such sales will be offered in other markets.

The iPhone 3G has been available in Hong Kong since July 11 through Hutchison Telecommunications. The cheapest monthly plan offered by the operator charges HK$2,938 for the 8G-byte version and HK$3,738 for the 16G-byte one, along with a two-year contract that costs HK$188 per month.

China Mobile might be asking Apple to take out the 3G (and also Wi-Fi) capabilities from iPhone 3G. What??? The reason is, just to ensure its customers stay within its network.

China Mobile wants Apple to ship an iPhone in China with the Wi-Fi and 3G chips disabled. Why take out the fast networking chips that make the iPhone shine, you may ask?

Competition. China Mobile plans to build out a 3G network based on a homegrown Chinese standard for third-generation networks that is not compatible with the widely used W-CDMA standard that is also expected to be used by China Mobile competitor China Telecom.

Peter Thuvander seems to like yo-yos so much that he designed the iYo induction battery charger. It’s an actual yo-yo with a tiny lithium ion battery that charges when the yo-yo rotates and can be used to juice up exhausted gadgets. The iYo charger is perfect for the iPhone and iPod. Eco-friendly gadget lovers such as yourself would certainly like this iYo battery charger concept.

Are you looking for an iPhone unlocking program? The Iphone-sim-unlock.com offer you the Easyest, fast way for all versions.For only 29$ you can Unlock iPhone 3G and like a bonus  their unlock solution allows you to ‘jailbreak’ your iPhone, which adds the installer application. This means you can easily install unlimited applications like Games, Tools, Utilities etc. There are more than 1000 custom applications available for you to install.

The iPhone unlock software was a really wise purchase and I’m so happy with my phone now! The best part of all is that I also have unlimited access to all the movies, TV shows, music, sports, games and programs I could ever want for my iPhone.

Sotec recently introduced the first PC with a built-in iPod dock as part of it E7 series of media center PCs. With styling that takes cues from iMacs, the E7 combines a 21.6-inch, 1680×1050 LCD display and the computer’s associated hardware into one unit. The standard CPU is a 2GHz Intel Pentium dual-core, though a 2.53GHz CPU is optional, and other specs can be optioned up to include 2GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. Standard fare is 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive. Other features include an NVIDIA GeForce 9300 video card, an integrated 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi module and Gigabit Ethernet. Windows Vista Home Basic is the pre-loaded OS. In keeping with the media center mission, an HDMI output is standard.

The PC also includes a DVD drive, built-in card reader as well as a 1.3-megapixel webcam. A wireless keyboard and mouse as well as Onkyo speakers rated to produce 8W each are part of the package as well, which starts at the equivalent of about $950 in Japan, with an October launch date. A fully loaded version with the 2.53GHz chip costs $1,560.

Here is a list of the changes for the new iPhone 2.1 firmware, which have been released last Friday

iPhone 2.1 Change Log:

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
• Significantly better battery life for most users
• Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications
• Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
• Improved performance in text messaging
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

The iPhone Dev Team has also released their new PwnageTool 2.1. The team has figured out a way to avoid iTunes 8.0 detection which previously do not allow your Pwnaged iPhone to connect with the iTunes. Check out the Pwnage Tool 2.1 here

Among the many improvements to the iPhone with the 2.1 software update posted on Friday are changes meant to enhance security on the device. Apple has provided details about what’s changed. All of the changes affect security issues noted for iPhone 2.0 through 2.0.2 software releases. None of the problems affect iPhone software prior to 2.0.

Among the notable fixes in 2.1:

• an update to the Application Sandbox to enforce proper access restrictions.
• FreeType vulnerabilities have been shored up.
• mDNSResponder has been updated to reduce susceptibility to DNS cache poisoning.
• TCP initial sequence numbers are now randomly generated to stop attackers from spoofing TCP connections.
• Passcode Lock has been corrected to fix the emergency call exploit.
• WebKit has been updated to address CSS import statements that were causing problems.

iPhone firmware 2.1 (5F136) weighing in at 237.8MB is now live and available via iTunes.iPhone version 2.1 contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• significantly improved battery life for most users
• dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• faster installation of 3rd party applications
• fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
• improved performance in text messaging
• faster loading and searching of contacts
• improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

Apple iPhone is expected to be finally launched in Korea market in October, according to a market watcher. The source said iPhone will be available for between 200$ and 300$ with two years contract.