After introducing the iPhone 4S on Tuesday, Apple was met with an onslaught of harsh criticism for essentially "not living up to the hype." Several rumors regarding a completely redesigned handset seemed to set the wrong expectations.
But level-headed folks saw this coming a mile away. The Cupertino company pulled the same thing with the 3GS. Why recreate something brand new every year, when the cell phone business generally revolves around two-year contracts?
If you're a person that likes to upgrade to the newest iPhone each year, still having not completed the previous 2-year commitment you signed, AT&T offers an early upgrade price. That upgrade price is usually about double that of the full 2-year contract pricing for new customer/eligible ugprades.
The guys over at AndroidCentral seem to have obtained an internal AT&T document that shows early upgrade price increased for the iPhone by $50.
With the new iPad coming out this week, some of you may wonder how to get one at a lower cost. Apple just launched a free iPhone to iPad upgrade program. All you need is a glass magnifier.
With me, the iPhone is like the water cycle, a never ending circular flow, that just keeps on repeating itself. What do I mean?
Well, my theory is like this: Buy an iPhone once, and never pay the full price for one again. How so? Here are 5 easy tips that will help you sell your iPhone for top dollar, so that you can turn around and buy a new one for free, or close to it.
Apple's new iPhone 4 TV ad titled "Longer" has been airing for a couple of days now. It makes an emphasis on the great battery life, telling you that the iPhone 4 new lithium polymer battery lets you work, play, and talk longer.
I do believe the iPhone 4 battery is a great improvement from the iPhone 3GS'. I can now go through a day of average usage without having to charge the battery at every occasion I have...
In case you think the iPhone 4 battery life is not that great, you might want to check out these tips to optimize it.
It's always a busy time in the world of iPhone blogging when the iPhone iOS gets an upgrade. Reports are flying high and aiming low about every feature implemented in the newest version of the operating system.
As you know by now iOS 4.1 has brought us Game Center, the social network fix for Apple gamers. So now that the platform is there and you've convinced all your iOS toting friends to add your handle, you may be asking what you're supposed to do without any games. Have no fear, the App Store is here...
It was bad enough that many of the exciting features that accompanied iOS 4 weren't going to be added to the iPhone 3G. It was a whole different debacle when we reported that the device was basically crippled in many instances after making the upgrade.
According to a demo by Life Hacker, iOS 4.1 works much smoother on the 2 year old device than the previous version. The site notes the following regarding their little experiment:
iOS 4 will be released in just a few hours and depending on your setup, there are a few steps you should take to ensure that you and your iPhone are ready for the latest software update.
1. Make sure YOU are ready
If you jailbreak/unlock your iPhone, you have to understand there won't be a jailbreak or unlock out at least for a few days. If you rely on your jailbreak/unlock, don't update to iOS 4 yet.
2. Make sure your device is compatible
The iPhone 2G and the first iPod Touch won't be getting the iOS 4 update. The iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G will only get a "partial" update as not all the features of iOS 4 will be able to run on these two devices (ie. multitasking) because they aren't powerful enough. The iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G will get the full update.3. Update iTunes to 9.2
In order to download and install iOS 4, you will need to have the latest version of iTunes.
4. Sync and backup your iPhone
Before hitting the "update" button, make sure to sync and backup your iPhone. If something goes wrong, you'll always be able to revert back to your old settings.
5. Make sure you know what your jailbreak apps are
Before updating to a newer OS, I always take screenshots of what apps are installed on Cydia, as well as all my sources. Taking screenshots is much quicker than writing down the name of all your apps and sources.
6. Keep your App Store apps in order
Just like I do for jailbreak apps, I take a screenshot of every page of apps on my springboard. This allows me to remember in what order these apps are installed. Once my iPhone is updated, I make sure the apps on the first page of the springboard are in the same order as prior to the update.
7. Restore, don't update!
This one can be a bit controversial. Usually people prefer "updating" their iPhone rather than "restoring" in order to keep all the settings in place. It's fine if you run a stock OS. However, if your iPhone is jailbroken, I suggest you restore and set up as a new phone. Sure you will have to set up your iPhone all over again, but it's a good way to make sure the upgrade to iOS 4 doesn't bring unwanted parts of your jailbreak.
8. Seek help in the forum
If you have any problem during or after the update, you can find help in our iPhone forum. Simply create a new thread there and the community will be here to help.
9. Check back here again
If you're a jailbreaker, make sure to check back iDB on a regular basis to find out when the new jailbreak is available. For up-to-date information, subscribe to the RSS feed, become a fan on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Any other tip, feel free to share by leaving a comment below.
[Credit image TiPb]
Earlier today, AT&T issued a press release aimed at calming down its angry customers (I am one of them) who pre-ordered the new iPhone 3G S and were not eligible for an upgrade.
Previously, only customers who were eligible for an upgrade could get the iPhone 3G S at the best price. So if you bought your iPhone 3G last year at launch, like most of us, you theoretically wouldn't be eligible for a full upgrade until December of 2009.
According to AT&T's press release:
We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.
That's incredibly nice of AT&T except that most 3G customers aren't eligible until December anyways. Still according to AT&T, those eligible for their best upgrade pricing are customers "who spend more than $99 a month per line".
My opinion is that this is just a marketing stunt from AT&T. If you read various iPhone blogs right now, they are all excited about this piece of news basically saying that AT&T redeemed itself and did the right thing. You should not be fooled by their good words. Unless you spend over $100/month on your iPhone plan, you will not be eligible for the best price ($299 for the 32GB).
For those of you who spend more than $100/month on your iPhone plan, you might be eligible. In this case, read the following information from AT&T:
If you’re one of the customers who benefits from this change, and you’ve already preordered from an AT&T store, we’ll adjust the price of the device when you pick it up. If you benefit from the change and you pre-ordered from AT&T online, we’ll send you an e-mail and issue you a credit.
If you pre-ordered an iPhone 3G S through Apple’s online store, your upgrade eligibility will be reassessed based on AT&T's new upgrade policy for iPhone 3G owners. If you are eligible for the lower price, Apple will issue you a credit for the difference as applicable.
I called AT&T this morning and they confirmed I was not eligible. I was very polite and friendly with the customer service rep and explained her my situation. I switched from T-Mobile to get the iPhone back in 2007. I've been a loyal customer since then and I pay my bills as soon as they show up in the mail. I told her that I feel left out and that it would be a nice commercial gesture to credit the price difference (roughly $200) to my account. In the end, she credited my account of $50, which is better than nothing.
Still, I feel that AT&T is not doing the right thing here.
Update: The Dev Team cracked the code again and you can now jailbreak your iPhone 2.2 firmware. I highly recommend you read this before doing anything!
Update 2: I wrote new tutorials on how to jailbreak or unlock your iPhone 2.2 firmware using QuickPwn:
jailbreak iPhone 2.2 unlock iPhone 2.2Like I mentioned in my previous post, there is no jailbreak available so far for iPhone firmware 2.2. The Dev Team is working on it and from what I understand, it shouldn't take too long...
We believe that our Pwnage technique (and therefore the Jailbreak) isn’t affected, but PwnageTool and QuickPwn do not support this release as yet, so DO NOT install 2.2 using iTunes as you will lose your jailbreak.
It's also worth noting that if you're on a jailbroken iPhone, you really don't want to update using iTunes yet as it may modify your baseband and make future jailbreak and/or unlock impossible.
I suspect that it will take a few days to the Dev Team to update PwnageTool to allow it to jailbreak your iPhone firmware 2.2, so please hang on... Once PwnageTool is released, other methods including WinPwn, and QuickPwn will be following.
We will let you know as soon as PwnageTool, WinPwn, and QuickPwn are available, and we will also release our tutorials on how to use them. You may want to subscribe to our RSS feeds (if not done yet) to keep in touch and be notified as soon as the news fall.
Later today I posted the QuickPwn 2.1 tutorial and I was reminded by a commenter that this type of tutorial is only good if you're already on an "up-to-date iPhone", meaning that in this case, this tutorial is only good if you already have 2.1 running.
Now what happens if you are still running on an older firmware, let's say 2.0? Well, if you hit this Restore button, you will lose all your Cydia apps and cool customizations. Do you really want that? Of course not.
As highlighted by BigBoss, you never want to upgrade on a jailbroken iPhone. If you upgrade, you will lose about 500MB of space. If you do that again on the other update, you will lose another 500MB, and so on. This space will only be recovered after a restore. The data loss is because Cydia moves your files around to free up space. The moved files become inaccessible but stay on your disk which means you essentially just lose the space.
To prevent this from happening, simply restore! Do not upgrade! Follow these few steps to upgrade from 2.X to 2.1 without losing any of your apps.
If you haven't yet, upgrade your iTunes to iTunes 8. You can find the direct link from our iPhone Downloads section. Install AptBackup from Cydia and run it. It will backup all your apps and put them in a location that will be backed up by iTunes in the next step. Sync/backup your iPhone with iTunes. Do the full on backup. Yes, I know, it's probably gonna take a while but you have to. Restore. Just click "Restore" in iTunes and let iTunes put the latest firmware on your iPhone. Again, this might take some time but be patient. If you are a legit iPhone user, meaning that you have a legit AT&T contract, activate your iPhone with iTunes. If you are an "unlocker" (this is for iPhone 2G users), you will see the "slide for emergency" message. Do not do anything else. Do not restore your backup yet. Simply unplug your iPhone. Now let's jailbreak the phone. Again, do not restore your backup yet! To jailbreak your iPhone, use QuickPwn by following this QuickPwn tutorial for Windows and this QuickPwn for Mac guide. Once your iPhone is jailbroken, go to Cydia and install AptBackup again. It is the most important step so don't fuck it up! Again, go to Cydia and install AptBackup. Also install Open SSH and BossPrefs. Ok, now we can restore the backup. So plug your iPhone in and iTunes will ask you to set up as a new phone or restore from backup. Restore from your latest backup. If everything goes fine, iTunes will restore all your stuff, such as notes, photos, email accounts, etc... Now we have to restore your Cydia apps. Open AptBackup and tap "Restore". It should reinstall all your apps from Cydia. AptBackup may not be visible. To see it, just open BossPrefs, and look it up in the "hidden icons" section. Tap it to unhide it. You may also unhide any other hidden icons. Done!I would like to thank BigBoss for showing me the way, although he doesn't know... Bigups to the B O S S, aka BigBoss.