The tweet says it all. The update was posted by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired. Perhaps he is baiting us but nevertheless it's the first rumor of its kind so what the heck.
Apparently Chris was told by a T-Mobile manager that the iPhone 3GS would be coming to the carrier. Why the company would be getting the year old model of the iPhone instead of the current device is beyond me. I guess that's why they call it a rumor.
Thoughts?
This is definitely going to make uncle Steve angry. TUAW reports that China Unicom is offering to jailbreak their customers iPhones directly from the very store they sell the devices from.
Apparently the staff will gladly hack the apparent iPhone 3GS devices (the iPhone 4 hasn't been released yet), or cut the SIM card down to fit the micro size on those who have opted to buy an iPhone 4 through alternative outlets. Some stores are even going as far as saying that they will show users how to download 3rd party applications. Wow.
It hasn't been long since we speculated that releasing the iPhone 4 so soon to the iPhone 3GS might not be the best business move for Chinese provider China Unicom. According to The Inquirer we were right on the money with our predictions and that China Unicom has reported an astounding 54% profit drop for the 2nd quarter.
It's appropriate to be clear about how Unicom ended up carrying Apple's iPhone in the first place. China Mobile is the top dog in chinese cell service with over 500 million customers. Consequently they weren't about to acquiesce to Steve Jobs and his stern business model, so they told Apple to take their iPhone and have a nice life...
iLounge reveals a bit of discerning information that took a mysterious amount of time to surface. It turns out that the iPhone 4 shares the same limitations as the iPad and the Apple TV in regards to being unable to transfer rented movies back to your iTunes library.
The ability to move rentals had never been a problem before when renting on previous iPhone models. An excerpt from the iPhone iOS 4 User Guide briefly mentions the limitation on page 99, and it reads as such:
Now that the iOS 4 jailbreak has been released, those of you who were waiting for an unlock can unlock their iPhones with UltraSn0w. Before getting into the details, let me tell you more about who this is for and who this is not for.
The latest version of ultrasn0w will unlock the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS running iOS 3.1.2 or higher. As long as you are running iOS 3.1.2 or up to 4.0.1, you're good.
This being said, ultrasn0w will not unlock the iPhone 4 at the time being. The Dev Team needs a little bit more of time to test out the iPhone 4 unlock before releasing it. I believe they will release the iPhone 4 unlock in the next few days, so stay tuned.
This guide and tutorial will show you how to unlock your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 3G running iOS 4 using ultrasn0w.
Step 1: Make sure your iPhone is backed up in iTunes.
Step 2: Jailbreak your iPhone using JailbreakMe (see instructions here).
Step 3: After the jailbreak process is done, go to Cydia and search for ultrasn0w.
Step 4: Install ultrasn0w and reboot your iPhone.
Step 5: Done!
You now have an unlocked iPhone 3G or 3GS.
There's been quite a bit of controversy about the now infamous iPhone 4 retina display. In short, Apple makes some claims about the new display that are disputed by industry experts.
Like Patrick Beja says, the claims and controversy doesn't really matters in the end. What really matters is to know whether the new iPhone 4 screen is better than the iPhone 3GS or not.
To put an end to the debate, Scoble posted pictures of both displays. You be the judge. I think it's pretty clear and obvious that the iPhone 4 has a better screen, but that's not really surprising. After all, the iPhone 4 is a newer device and I can't see why the screen display wouldn't be as good or even better than the iPhone 3GS'.
Your thoughts?
[via Patrick Beja]
Battle of the giants, tonight's match up: iPhone 4 VS iPhone 3GS.
Via Engadget and 9 to 5 Mac
Kyle of iFixIt sent me an interesting infographic putting the iPhone 3GS and the Nexus One side by side to compare their hardware.
According to Kyle, the Nexus One deserves more attention because its hardware is really quite impressive, and yet no one seems to be buying it!
Look at these numbers and tell us what you think. The Nexus One does look good on paper, doesn't it?
Now I can't wait to see how the next iPhone will compare to the Nexus One. If I had to guess, I'd say it's gonna kick its butt...
Is GeoHot really going to work on an untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS? That's what he mentioned in a tweet yesterday.
As usual, in order to get him motivated, you have to do something in exchange. He wants you to make #dudeitsaballoon a trending topic on Twitter. I haven't really looked into it as I don't have much time while traveling, but it has something to do with red balloons in the sky.
Some of you may be interested in this untethered jailbreak as it is a pain the the butt to always have to plug your iPhone every time you want to reboot.
So, what are these red balloons about?
Since the release of OS 3.1.2 last week, there has been a friendly competition to release a jailbreak for the iPhone 3.1.2. GeoHot was the first to release the iPhone 3.1.2 jailbreak called BlackRa1n, followed by the Dev Team and their PwnageTool.
If I can make a suggestion, do not use BlackRa1n. It is buggy and unstable. PwnageTool is much more stable and "clean".
This article is a summary of the options you have to jailbreak your iPhone 3.1.2 depending on your model.
This step-by-step guide and tutorial will show you how to jailbreak your iPhone 3G or 3GS OS 3.1.2 using PwnageTool 3.1.4 for Mac OS X. PwnageTool is a Mac and Mac only tool. There is no equivalent for Windows and no one knows yet when such a tool for Windows will be released.
If you updated your iPhone via iTunes to 3.1.2 or if you bought your iPhone with 3.1.2 pre-installed, you will be able to jailbreak it, however, you will not be able to unlock it. On the other hand. if you are still on 3.0 or if you have updated to 3.1 using PwnageTool, you preserved your baseband and you will be able to unlock using UltraSn0w.
This tutorial is written for both the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The steps are identical. The only thing that changes is the file you have to download in order to create your custom IPSW.
How to jailbreak iPhone 3G/3GS 3.1.2:
This step-by-step guide and tutorial will show you how to unlock your iPhone 3GS running OS 3.1 using UltraSn0w. This is a very simple method that requires only a few steps.
Step 1: You have to jailbreak your iPhone 3GS by following one of these tutorials.
Step 2: Once jailbroken, follow these steps:
Launch Cydia. Add the following source to Cydia repo666.ultrasn0w.com (note there is a “0″ in sn0w, not an “o”). After installing this source in Cydia, search for “ultraSn0w”. Install UltraSn0w and reboot your iPhone.Tha'ts as simple as that!