Your Custom iPhone

If you’ve hacked your iPhone, chances are you’ve come across a fun little application called Sketches. While it’s not very useful (but entertaining) in it’s current state, it’s in for some big improvements. Ars Technica’s Clint Ecker caught up with Jorge and Pedro of LateNightSoft, and they say that Sketches will indeed be in the App Store, with some major additions. Ars talked about it with them, as well as their experiences of developing for jailbroken iPhones vs. the App Store.
The new version’s main screen is a cork board showing all of your sketches. You can choose between a photo from your camera roll, several pre-made background like paper or leather, a solid color, a map (centered with Core Location), or even a web page. It also has the ability to zoom in, letting you draw with much greater accuracy for things like writing text.

They’ve also added several fun vector shapes to scale and rotate, like speech bubbles, mustaches, hats, cartoonish Apple hardware, holiday symbols, and more. When you’re finished, you can share it with your Twitter followers. They haven’t settled on a price yet, but say that it will be affordable to the average user.

Quoted from: iPhoneAlley

When Apple announced the iPhone apps store several months ago, it appeared to signal the end for the popular homebrew Installer.app by Nullriver. While the application has a few developer creations that cost money to use, most of the library is completely free, letting people load up on useful applications without spending a dime. The application became so popular it started coming with popular unlock and jailbreak utilities, including ZiPhone, which has had more than 3 million downloads of its latest version.

Apple’s new system is a different story. It doesn’t cost anything, but developers must go through the company’s QA for approval and inclusion. Developers can also charge users to use their applications at the point or purchase instead of relying on time or feature restrictions post-download. There’s also the SDK, which makes it viable for companies to spin out entirely new development teams to port over versions of their Web apps or software that are specially tuned for the device.

The obvious guess here is that the Installer.app will simply go the way of the dinosaurs because of Apple’s own first party creation, but I think the groundbreaking tool has life left in it yet. Nothing besides the apps store says people will no longer want to jailbreak their phones. The new marketplace sure looks nice, but it’s not going to have everything people want. There will be all manner of apps that don’t make the cut and the developers that built them will want to hawk them somewhere else.

Another thing to take into account is one of the important things not included in Apple’s latest software–customization.

One of the early killer apps for the iPhone was Summerboard, a simple tool that would completely re-skin the look and feel of your phone. No such application is likely to make its way to the app store, since no app made through the SDK can have that level of control. The same goes for potential VoIP apps that can be integrated at a very deep level into the device’s calling software.

There’s still a huge market for these things, whether Apple is willing to allow it or not. I’m not surprised the company has passed on the potential cash cow. Nokia practically built an empire in the 1990s by selling phones with interchangable faceplates, but ultimately the ratio of quality to crap from third-party creators was off the charts. That stigma still exists for some users, which is why it’s likely Apple passed on adding a user replaceable battery if only to limit the offshoot of companies that would likely create glitter, and clear plastic replacements.

What it comes down to this time around is readiness. A cheaper price point means more people are likely to want and actually afford the device. The new architecture also means those same hordes of people will be open to having non-Apple applications on their phone. While I have no doubt Apple will easily pull in huge numbers from paid apps in the coming months, Installer.app might have a few surprises up its sleeves.

Quoted from: WebWare

As expected, Steve Jobs has announced the much anticipated 3G iPhone during his keynote address at WWDC today. The new device comes as an update to the current iteration of the iPhone, which did not have 3G. 3G will enable much faster browsing speeds than the current iPhone. Continue reading for an extensive gallery, and a full overview of the device.

According to Steve Jobs “it’s very nice”. We all knew that, but what makes it very nice? Well how does solid metal buttons, a flush headphone jack, gloss black, 3G, a better “feel”, better call quality, and a thinner iPhone sound? Well that is what you will be getting with this new device. This is not all Apple is updating though, not by a long shot.

They also added GPS to the iPhone, a feature many had desperately hoped for. Over the next few months this new iteration of the iPhone will be available in 70 countries, including Canada, Mexico, and Sweden.

The price will be $199 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 16GB model, and $399 for the 32GB model. 32GB of storage has been rumored for quite some time, so this is not a surprise. The device will also come in white, and will be the same price around the world. The new iPhone will be available July 11th. Though I would not expect to be able to get one without a fight.

Quoted from: iPhoneBuzz

And they just keep rolling in like unstoppable forces of nature. The iPhone 3G (or 3G iPhone / iPhone 2, call it what you want) rumors are starting to get dizzyingly out of hand. Late last night we saw some purported marketing material leaked out for all 3G iPhone hopefuls to drool over, but it didn’t stop there.

Apple’s next-generation iPhone will run on an as yet unreleased version of the iPhone firmware, and it seems that said firmware has already been leaked and it’s details have seemingly found their way through the labyrinth of inter-tubes to land on many a blog’s front-page. So, it’s only appropriate that we clue our dear readers in to what the iPhone 3G firmware purportedly confirms.

Infineon S-GOLD3H 3G chip for iPhoneThe code apparently confirms that tri-band (850/1900/2100Mhz) HSDPA is in the cards for the iPhone 2. There are numerous mentions to UMTS/HSDPA hardware running on all three frequency bands, and the code confirms that the Infineon-sourced S-GOLD3 3G chip will be handling the bulk of the data-legwork. We’ve been expecting this for a while now, so it’s not really new news, just newsworthy news (get my drift?).

We also see that A-GPS is a lock for the upcoming iPhone 3G. The firmware code shows that software for determining location based on network data and satellite signals is embedded within and should make for some snappy GPS location-acquisition times.

Oh, and the next-generation iPhone will be powered by the same CPU as the current generation - which means that the ARM 1176JZF-S CPU will be running the show.

There’s more. To keep things exciting, iPhone Atlas has apparently been tipped off by a Vodafone employee who’s had a chance to get some hands-on time with the 3G iPhone. The employee says that the iPhone is glossy black, serves up location data with haste (it purportedly determines position through WiFi, cell tower triangulation, and A-GPS - in that order) and has a 3-meter accuracy, will be about 20% smaller (thinner, in other words), and gets an average throughput of 140Kbps.

Now, that 140Kbps throughput value is a bit disappointing, as the current iPhone’s EDGE speeds easily hit that mark indoors and outdoors. The data speeds quoted by alleged Vodafone employee are likely (if true) UMTS numbers and not HSDPA speeds. Still, it’s good to here that the A-GPS is quick and the handset is slimmer than the original. Interestingly, there’s no mention a video-call camera occupying that mysterious third optical sensor location.

Perhaps more importantly, we’re hearing that the 3G iPhone is locked down like no other iPhone before it (which is to say, the first iPhone). The hardware bootloader exploit for jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone has been closed, which means that jailbreaking the next-generation iPhone will be tougher - if not, dare we say it, impossible. Let’s hope the iPhone Dev Team’s Pwnage Tool works with the new firmware.

Now, all we have to do is sit back and wait for the iPhone to get announced more 3G iPhone rumors to roll in. At least it gives us something to do while we wait in agony for the iPhone to launch.

Quoted from: IntoMobile