Yesterday, Amazon released an application titled Kindle for iPhone. For those of you who are not familiar with Kindle it is a “software and hardware platform for reading electronic books (e-books), developed by Amazon.com.â€

Setting the iPhone free from AT&T
As the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Apple iPhone, AT&T has had a lot to celebrate. Rivals hope to crash the party.

A growing number of public interest groups want an end to the partnership that forces buyers of Apple's iPhone to buy their mobile-phone service only from AT&T. And they're taking their case to the highest levels of government.

The Consumers Union, the New America Foundation, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as software provider Mozilla and small wireless carriers MetroPCS and Leap Wireless International, are lining up in opposition not only to the Apple-AT&T partnership, but to all manner of arrangements whereby mobile phones are tethered exclusively to a single wireless service provider.

Consumer groups are reaching out to the Federal Communications Commission, the Copyright Office, the Federal Trade Commission, and congressional leaders, asking them to outlaw exclusive handset and software deals. Judging from the track record of Julius Genachowski, the newly nominated head of the FCC, petitioners may get a sympathetic hearing, at least at that agency.

Opponents also take issue with Apple's insistence that iPhone users download software only from the Apple iTunes App Store. The argument is that these and other "exclusivity" pairings are anticompetitive and limit consumer choice. "It is unthinkable that you could only use a Macintosh on an AT&T connection," says Michael Calabrese, vice-president at the New America Foundation, which is chaired by Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt. Google has helped develop phone software that competes with Apple's.

Apple and AT&T aren't the only tech companies under fire. Every major U.S. carrier including Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile USA has struck exclusive deals with cell-phone makers such as Samsung Electronics, HTC, and Research In Motion. Companies such as RIM also have their own online application stores tied to particular devices.

Lots at Stake for AT&T
While any ruling would affect many industry players, AT&T and Apple may have the highest stakes in the battle. The iPhone is the No. 1 seller at AT&T, and the iPhone has been key to driving AT&T Mobility subscriber growth as it gets harder for carriers to add new customers. About 40 percent of the 4.3 million AT&T customers who activated the device in the second half of 2008 were new to AT&T, according to the company's latest quarterly filing.

Apple also benefits by extracting key concessions from its partner. For instance, Apple can sell music and applications to iPhone users without sharing revenue with AT&T, an arrangement AT&T doesn't allow with other devices.

AT&T would stand to lose big. Without an exclusive device, all the carriers may have to compete on service or handset price after subsidies. For Apple, "the [iPhone's] price might not drop very quickly, if at all, because the device itself still has great value — it's iconic," says Neil Strother, an analyst at consultant Forrester Research. The impact from opening up the phone to all software could be muted as well, as App Store revenue is minimal.

Friendly Ears at the FCC and FTC
The consumer advocacy groups are pinning their highest hopes on the FCC, which last year asked for comments on the exclusivity issue. Exclusive handset practices "result in a very direct and negative effect on the competitive positions of smaller carriers," wrote the Rural Cellular Association (RCA), which represents smaller carriers, in a Feb. 23 filing submitted in response to the FCC's request. "The large carriers use it as a vehicle to drive customers away from the smaller carriers," which end up getting popular phones years later, says Eric Peterson, executive director of the association.

The RCA hopes that as soon as a new, Democratic FCC chairman is in place, the agency will investigate the issue and rule on it. A former government official familiar with the FCC believes the new Democratic-majority commission will be sympathetic toward smaller carriers' interests. The FCC could prohibit exclusive handset deals outright, or it could impose limits on carriers' ability to restrict what networks a phone works on.

The RCA is also lobbying Congress to get involved and expects a bill that prohibits exclusive carrier deals to be introduced soon, Peterson says.

On Dec. 10, the New America Foundation met with law professor Phil Weiser and former FCC Commissioner Susan Ness from President Obama's transition team. The group asked that the Federal Trade Commission take up the issue of "wireless carrier anticompetitive practices" — namely, the practice of locking handsets to a particular network, and requiring users to buy software from a particular source, Calabrese says. A decision in the foundation's favor could make it illegal for AT&T and Apple to limit new iPhone users to AT&T's network or the App Store from the get-go. Former FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, expected to be nominated for the FTC chairmanship position, is likely to be sympathetic to this view; in a February 2007 speech, he supported allowing any device to attach to any network.

Legalizing 'jail-breaking'
The U.S. Copyright Office is getting involved as well. This year, it will review whether to extend a ruling that made unlocking cell phones — essentially, making them work on a network for which they are not intended — legal. Public interest groups and companies such as Mozilla are trying to get that exemption renewed and get the Copyright Office to give a nod to a practice known as jail-breaking — essentially, allowing cell phones to run software of their owners' choosing vs. applications limited to offerings from, say, the Apple App Store. In comments filed in December, the Electronic Frontier Foundation claims that the current setups "disserve iPhone owners and suppress competition from independent iPhone application vendors."

The Copyright Office will hold hearings on this issue May 1 in Palo Alto, Calif., and the following week in Washington, D.C. It will issue final rules in October. "[The issue arose] in large part because of the iPhone, because the iPhone did not exist in 2006," says the Electronic Frontier Foundation's senior intellectual property attorney, Fred von Lohmann.

Battles over these kinds of arrangements could be lengthy. But Apple could actually benefit from an end to exclusive carrier deals by dramatically increasing the iPhone's distribution. "They'd have sold five times more iPhones [without exclusive contracts]," estimates Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research.

Exclusivity as Driver of Innovation
Apple declined to comment for this story, and has not submitted comments to the FCC. But on Feb. 20, RIM commented in a filing that exclusive handset deals have done nothing to restrict competition in the wireless marketplace. "There are at least 35 companies designing and manufacturing handsets today," the maker of the BlackBerry wrote in its filing. "As of March 20, 2008, there were more than 620 unique models of wireless devices available to American consumers. New manufacturers continue to enter the U.S. market …"

In its December comments to the Copyright Office, Apple said that jail-breaking phone software "will destroy the technological protection of Apple's key copyrighted computer programs in the iPhone device itself and of copyrighted content owned by Apple that plays on the iPhone, resulting in copyright infringement, potential damage to the device, and other potential harmful physical effects, adverse effects on the functioning of the device, and breach of contract."

AT&T believes that exclusive deals actually drive other carriers' innovation. "Exclusive arrangements are an important form of competition," AT&T said in a statement. "The popularity of the iPhone and its innovative features and applications have provoked a strong competitive response, accelerating not only handset innovation but also the pace of wireless broadband investment and applications development." Indeed, most carriers nowadays offer iPhone look-alikes. If consumer advocates have their way, rivals may eventually offer the iPhone itself.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29510498/

Saurik has announced that a Cydia Store for jailbroken iPhones will be launched tomorrow.

The official announcement of the Cydia Store was made at 360|iDev, complete with demo of social packaging: comments via Facebook Connect!

The Cydia Store is about providing a simpler billing channel to buy the already commercial applications in Cydia, like Snapture.

With many iPhone applications being rejected by Apple's approval process, developers are searching for an alternative way to distribute their paid applications. Cydia Store will provide these developers and their customers with a viable solution.

[quote="GorgonZuki"]





Story 1..................
Known for it’s off beat designs, Swiss automaker Rinspeed unveiled a new concept car that will be shown at the 2009 Geneva auto show. The Rinspeed ‘iChange’ has a ton of unique design ideas packaged in it. Gone are such mundane things as a key. Its role is filled by an Apple iPhone, which plugs into the dashboard and controls key vehicle functions.

The Rinspeed ‘iChange,’ is the world’s first car whose body adapts to the number of passengers on board. The car can transform at the push of a button from a single-seater sports car to a vehicle that accommodates three people. The extra seats are contained under rear end of the teardrop-shaped panel which pops up, creating more room.

The basic idea behind the ‘iChange:’: The energy demand of a vehicle depends mostly on its weight, the type of engine it uses, and its aerodynamic properties. The engineering-services company Esoro that traditionally builds Rinspeed concept cars has built an extremely lightweight car weighing in at only 2,314 pounds. To power the car, the Swiss specialists chose an electric motor. The idea of the pop-up rear end was conceived to account for the size-able effect aerodynamics play in fuel consumption.

The car has solar panels integrated on the top and sides of the roof which provide electricity to the cooling system in the car on hot days. While parked, the panels charge the vehicle’s on-board lithium-ion batteries. The battery stacks can be configured in either a city driving or long distance driving orientation. The electric motor of the “iChangeâ€

The Cydia Store for Jailbroken iPhone Applications is now open with its very first package for sale.

The Cydia Store currently supports Facebook and Google as login accounts. You can take a look at some screenshots below and we will be posting a tutorial soon.

The very first package for sale is Cyntact an app that shows profile pics in your contact list. The app costs 1.00 dollar to purchase.

Meanwhile…back at the App Store

Would-be iPhone developers “pulling their hair out by the rootsâ€

A widely reported interface overhaul making its debut in early betas of QuickTime X Player distributed with pre-releases of Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system this week is reportedly not much to write home about.

Unlike the current version of QuickTime Player 7.6 — which reserves considerable real estate for sizable, platinum-themed video controls at the base of the each player window — QuickTime X Player is said to forgo all traditional interface controls in favor of video overlay controls (like those that appear when you mouse over video in full-screen mode of the current Player software).

The only window-based interface element in the QuickTime X Player is reportedly the title bar, which is reminiscent of the iPhone’s semi-transparent black glass interface while also adopting hues from the video frames playing beneath it. However, this too fades away and disappears with the new overlay controls so videos appear to float on the screen with nothing more than a deep shadow surrounding all four sides.

AppleInsider has made its best attempt to provide mockups of this reported new interface using existing Apple interface elements, based off descriptions of the new QuickTime X Player provided by people familiar with the software. In addition to the standard overlay for controlling playback, the new player is also said to offer overlay controls for trimming, editing, and viewing scenes of a video like in iMovie.

Apple has described QuickTime X as a new version of its media software due to ship with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard that “optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback.â€

Hi Guys,

I've created an offline map for the south region. This is for use with the google maps app. To use it install offline maps from cydia and copy the files in the archive over to the maps folder. The offline maps application provides instructions. So far it works perfectly with no gprs/wifi connection.

You may use http://i-funbox.com/ to put the files on the phone.











Get the map here

I'll eventually cache the whole of Trinidad & Tobago but for now i did this as a test to see how it was done and thought some other people could use it since it's fully functional.

FYI: These maps are the property of Google therefore selling them are against the law.

I need people in other regions to test maps for their area. If you have a 3g iphone please post your area map request here.

i still having a little problem placing the maps into the folder...do u hav to create a folder "Maps" and extract the maps into there, then u restart an import?

Yep make sure the folder is named Maps and that you create a folder inside for every map you want. So you should create a folder called South and put the contents of the zip in there.

Maps/South/MapTiles.sqlitedb
Maps/South/com.apple.Maps.plist

ok kool...now i just open maps an without a wifi connection i can get the maps?

Yup once you're in south. I'll do the rest of T'dad later.

well have to wait until i'm away from a connection to let u no how it's working... thanks

wolfie ......... i in d port of spain

Aite i'll throw a map your way soon man.

Apple on Wednesday introduced an all-new iPod shuffle that’s nearly half the size of the previous model and includes speech technology, making it the first music player “that talks to you.â€

MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev has announced the 24kpwn LLB patch aka an untethered jailbreak for the 2G iPod Touch.

-----
Here it is. Just drop it into your existing pwnagetool or xpwn flow. You can even combine it with the nor-only variations to make this easy to install from iTunes without touching your main fs.

http://iphwn.org/24kpwn.zip

It's bitter sweet that this has to come out in this manner, because it *really* would have been nice to save for the next iPhone. On the other hand, nobody knows the struggle to jb like iPod Touch 2G owners So it's good for them.

Now it's a waiting game to see if Apple can react fast enough.

The patch needs to be applied directly to the LLB without decrypting it first, using "bspatch" or equivalent. The resulting img3 should have this sha1:
SHA1(LLB.n72ap.RELEASE.img3)= 82734c7cdf945ba5421b83962aab3ab91e4fb23a

An iPhone prototype manufactured in 2006 which was used for testing prior to the launch of Apple's iPhone was briefly available on eBay. The auction had reached more than $2000 before Apple lawyers managed to get the auction pulled.

The prototype appeared to have an early beta version of iPhone OS running on it.

The guy trying to sell the prototype had also published a video to show that it was in good working condition (which should not miss). He was also giving away a non-functional unit along with it.

The working prototype interestingly featured a matte plastic screen as opposed to the glass screen found in production units of the iPhone. However, the non-functional unit had a glass screen.

The guy selling the iPhone prototype claimed that serial number of the working unit is YM649xxxxxx, which corresponds to a factory in China, manufactured week 49 of the year 2006, and it runs iPhone firmware 03.06.01_G. The iPhone launched running firmware 1.0, version 03.11.02_G.

The seller had also claimed that you can make calls, browse the mobile versions of websites, and also receive SMS, but lacks anyway to manually type an SMS on the iPhone.

The seller by the nick billions_of_money also commented that:





<embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/321db126/" width="437" height="370" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" name="viddler" ></embed>

As you can expect, Apple lawyers quickly got in touch with eBay and got it removed. The auction had reached more than $2000 before it was pulled.

It was thrilling to see the UI of the testing unit.

The release of Metal Gear Solid Touch has moved a day and will now be available worldwide on Thursday, March 19th.

Konami sends word that Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid Touch, the iPhone & iPod Touch game that takes place around the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, will be released through Apple's App Store on Thursday, March 19.

Furthermore, it will run you $9.99.

<embed src="http://g4tv.com/lv3/36926" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" name="VideoPlayer" width="480" height="418" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" />

iBluetooth: The world first application that enables the file transfer via Bluetooth on your iPhone! Exclusively released in Cydia by iSpazio.net
Here there are some question you might ask:


IMPORTANT: Visit http://www.medevil.net

Q: When the app will be published?
A: It’s on-line, you’ll find it in cydia.

Q: Will i be able to send any file?
A: Yes, image support is built in, and the file viewer allow you to
send ANY file on the device.

Q: Will i be able to send music?
A: Music can already be sent by selecting an MP3/wav/aiff file from
the file system. However, i’ll include a music library to send ipod
syncronized songs directly in the near future.

And, the most important question:

Q: Why i have to pay 3.99 euro for this app?
A: Mainly, because apple didn’t want to include a full bluetooth stack
to be used by the developers. Implementing a complete and stable stack
(with all the bluetooth profiles) is nearly impossible for me in a
short time, so i’ve considered the idea of buying a complete (and
well-tested) stack. Now, there are only 3 stack that supports almost
all bluetooth profiles: BlueMagic, BCHS, ClarinoxBlue and, of course,
all of these are VERY EXPENSIVE.
So, i’ve decided to make you pay* this application, so i can buy one
of those stack for ALL the community and implement a background daemon
that will provide a full-featured stack for ANY developer out there.

Please, understand that the “free wayâ€

Apple has announced some of the new features that will be in the upcoming release of iTunes 8.1. This information was posted on the iTunes "What's New" page.

Speed improvements
iTunes gets a speed boost. Now when it comes to loading large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, and syncing your devices, iTunes responds faster than before.

Autofill any iPod
Now the convenience of Autofill works with any iPod. Let iTunes choose what songs fill your pocket and enjoy your music at random.

Import as iTunes Plus
Automatically import music from your CDs as higher quality, 256-Kbps iTunes Plus files. Watch a tutorial to find out how to import music from CDs.

As anticipated, Apple on Wednesday evening delivered iTunes 8.1 with performance enhancements, support for CD imports to iTunes Plus, and new Genius features. Separately, the company also updated its Front Row media application.

iTunes 8.1 (65.4 MB) "is now faster and more responsive," Apple says. "You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing."

In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides several other improvements and bug fixes, including:
Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).


Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.


Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.


Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.


Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.


Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.


Includes many accessibility improvements.


Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.

iTunes 8.1 also includes a couple of security enhancements.

---

Front Row Update 2.1.7

Meanwhile, Front Row Update 2.1.7 (13.3 MB) has also been released, promising to deliver improved compatibility with iTunes 8.1.

On top of yesterday's announcements

-iBluetooth's launch
-Metal Gear Solid: Touch's March 19th debut
-iPod touch's untethered jailbreak debut
-iTunes 8.1 release
-iPod shuffle (3G) debut

Apple on Thursday announced plans to hold a special media event for journalists on its Cupertino-based campus that will offer a sneak preview of the next-generation iPhone operating system dubbed iPhone 3.0.

The event will take place at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday March 17th in the intimate setting of the Apple Town Hall -- the same venue used to introduce the company's new unibody MacBooks last fall and the original iPhone Software Developers Kit (SDK) last March.

ArsTechnica was amongst the publications invited and has posted the following image from the email invite.

At this juncture, there's no indication that Apple will use the gathering to divulge details of next-generation iPhone handset hardware, which is expected to be unveiled several months later at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference or another event of its choosing.

Developing...

So it looks like Apple’s planning on holding an event for iPhone 3.0 OS March 17th along with showing off an updated SDK. This would fit nicely with their brief history of having a preview software event followed by a hardware refresh in June/July. As far as what we’ve been told of iPhone 3.0, here’s what we’ve got:

MMS
Tethering via Bluetooth and USB

Steve Wozniak has fractured his leg while practicing for Dancing With the Stars.

ABC confirms that Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles xrayed and found a fracture but he'll be able to continue on the show.

His partner, professional dancer Karina Smirnoff was there for moral support as doctors performed an X-ray followed by an MRI showing that the Apple co-founder had a fracture.

Doctors told Woz that he could dance as long as he wears a removable cast and watches his foot.

According to ABC the Woz told doctors he loves being on 'DWTS' because he really "loves being a part of such a good and important thing." He also promises his next dance will be "wild and fast and all-over and crazy and fun, just like the first one."

good info...keep up the good work

Voicemail Forwarder, an application which forwards voicemails to email, has become the second app to be sold on the Cydia Store.

The application adds new functionality to your existing iPhone Visual Voicemail. Instead of only being able to listen to your voicemails on your phone, you can now share those iportant messages with a single click.

Voicemail Forwarder gives you a new button that fires up an email with the current voicemail attached to it. You can then send the email as normal to any recipient.

The application costs $2.99.

Rock Your Phone, an alternative app store for Cydia Store or Apple’s AppStore, is now open for business! First, Cydia Store opened and is now challenging Apple’s AppStore and now, Rock Your Phone has joined Cydia Store and is challenging Apple.

At the moment, Rock Your Phone only has 5 applications for sale, one being free (for limited time). Rock Your Phone does offer a 10 day trial unlike Cydia or Apple which is awesome! I can’t tell you how many applications I’ve boughten from the AppStore and to find out they are horribly unstable and sometimes they aren’t even what I expected. So, Rock your iPhone having a 10 day trial is a huge plus for me.

Head over to RockYourPhone.com to get a RockID and download their desktop client (Windows and Intel Mac OSX - no PowerPC) and install it and install Rock Your Phone on your iPhone and start downloading some applications!

- source: http://RockYourPhone.com

Kevin Rose leaked some information about iPhone OS 3.0 during the live Diggnation show at SXSW in Austin last night.

<embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/829ad9ef/" width="437" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" wmode="transparent" name="viddler" ></embed>

According to Gizmodo, Rose revealed the following information:
- Cut and paste in 3.0
- Users magnify or double tap a word to bring up cut and paste
- Pinch “boundariesâ€

Apple may be set to reveal a tablet alongside the iPhone OS 3.0 during tomorrows media event.

Seth Weintraub of Computer World writes

The timing? Well, if this thing has to be put on a device in late Summer, Apple will probably want some software to run on it…probably even an App Store. If so, developers will need at least a few months to get their apps to run on this new little device. That means they should probably start right about now.

Then there has been the persistant “premium app storeâ€