Mark Dalby

Tonight, After much speculation, deliberation and procrastination (@jason your a git!) our friend Steve jobs unveiled a gadget that will make anybody even slightly tech-savvy sell their own grandmother.

Introducing the iPad…

At first glance the device looks like somebody has had their iPhone on a stretching rack. but once you see a demonstration you immediately see the appeal, The 9.7″ screen is the perfect size for watching podcasts or films on the move and If you have ever tried to read a large email or document on your iPhone your eyes will definitely appreciate the space.

Technically speaking the iPad is nothing short of amazing, it packs a 1Ghz Apple A4 processor that can decode HD video for up to 10 hours on a single charge.  To put that into perspective my 12 month old  Macbook can only do 4 hours before it’s battery dies (and that is pretty good for a laptop.)  It looks like Apple buyout of P.S. Semiconductor is going to pay off pretty fast.

It comes with all the usual bells and whistles we have come to expect from Apple…

• Accelerometer
• Ambient Light sensor
• 802.11 (b/g/n) WIFI
• Built in Speakers
• Microphone
• Multi Touch Screen
• Bluetooth2.1 capability (3G Model Only)
• GSM / EDGE / 3G (3G Model Only)

At the moment thre is no solid release date for the UK but there is a LOT of speculation that it will be hitting our shelves in June.  The release date for America has been confirmed for April 2010.

Pricing for the US models are suprisingly cheap…

WIFI ONLY

16GB – $499

32GB – $599

64GB – $699

WIFI and 3G

16GB – $629

32GB – $729

64GB – $829

Click here for more information.

According to Apple the next version of the iPhone 3G and 3GS to be shipped out will have a modified boot rom which is reported to have been hardend against the 24kpwn exploit that so many cracking groups are using to jailbreak your phone (Blackr41n, Purpler4in, Devteam).

I actually find this pretty annoying, I’ve just shelled out for a brand new iPhone (which aint cheap) and I’ll damn well use it how I please!! But not to worry I have faith in “The Scene” to have this broken pretty quickly.

For those of us that already enjoy an unrestricted iPhone it is important that you DO NOT upgrade to the latest firmware.

Hopefully apple will learn that its better to work with these people than against them, Take android for instance, You can run multiple apps at once,  It had copy and paste out of the box and the only complaint I’ve heard is that of bad battery life.  But the next-gen batteries are out soon so that will clear itself up.

Anyway, I’ll make sure to update you guys as soon as the new boot-rom is cracked.

Cheers,

Mark

Even though OS 3.1.2 Was a pretty pityfull upgrade, A lot of people either accidentily upgraded or felt the need to be “up to date” and as a result were unable to jailbreak their iPhone.

Well there is a now a big shining flood lamp at the end of the tunnel in the form of “blackra1n”  The new iPhone Jail Breaking tool from Geohot (Thanks man!).

The bad new is that it is currently only available on winblows Windows.

The tool can be downloaded from here but please read the following warning first…

3G and 3G S unlockers, do not upgrade to 3.1.2 using iTunes

if you want to keep your unlock. Baseband cannot be downgraded. Check out the dev team’s offerings. Also blackra1n doesn’t hacktivate.

The iPhone Dev Team have confirmed that they are working on an unlock for 3.1.2 and this should hit the interweb very soon.

Happy Hacking,

Mark