Category: blackra1n

It seems that all the consumers Mac have a preferred launcher, the three that they go for the greatest I am LaunchBar (€ 24), Butler ($20) and Quicksilver. But if you have not found the yet “pitcher of applications and file” ideal or is thinking about trying of of it new, I suggest you to free unload Alfred for Snow Leopard and Lion from the Mac App Store.

 

 

Alfred 0.9.9 allow to start the applications and search on the Web, Amazon (in Preferences / General it needs to point out the Country where it is us to get results “located”), and still more the all pressing few keys. A combination of keys (of default is Option-bar spaziatrice) can be assigned, to visualize the relative box of search, and then digitare the first letters of the application that it is desired to launch, or a key word to effect a search on the Web. Alfred will show a list of results. If the first one is what he is looking for, it is enough to press the key Dispatch and the application you/he/she will be launched or the open document. If what is looking for is not the first one of the list of the results, Alfred very kindly it assigns a specific combination of keys to every result to quickly (those of deafult are .-2, .-3 and so street) select them.

If is thinking about passing to one of these launchers, you keep in mind that Alfred is currently in beta, and the search works in different way in comparison to Quicksilver (greatest difference is that it deals with a rigorous textual search, therefore if you press “ff” you won’t find Firefox).

Alfred has profited of an important updating that introduces new functionalities as the support for the extensions, the integration with Growl and a new background inspired to Mac OS X Lion, besides it resolves the usual long list of bug.

Alfred 0.9.9, that it requires at least OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or OS X 10.7 Lion, can free be unloaded by the Mac App Store

Apple has disclosed great details around its service of synchronization iCloud, included the prices. Steve Jobs had in precedence declared that the consumers of the devices Apple would have had 5GB of storage title free iCloud, it is possible to add others 10GB (that more other five gigabytes of free space ten, for a total of 15GB) for 16 European a year, 25GB for 32 European, or 55GB for 80 European a year.

 

It is interesting to compare these prices with the popular service of cloud-storage of Dropbox, that offers 2GB of free storage, 50GB for $120 to the year and 100GB for $228 for year.

Besides, Apple has released also to the developers a version beta of iCloud.com, that furnishes Mac Dev to the recorded consumers to the program a preview of the applications Web “iOS like” you syncronize with e-mail, contacts, calendars, iWork, and it Finds my iPhone.

Apple has not exactly said still when icCoud will be available for the great public, but the service is strongly tied to iOS 5, that it will arrive “this autumn.”

Apple has submitted a new patent claim which seems as an interesting development in human computer interaction space which is perhaps the area where Apple is at its best. The device is an piezo-acoustic system which has also the capacitive touch detection. The device basically looks like a glass keyboard. Such a device could have its “keys” painted on, or perhaps even represented as a graphic image on a display which lays bellow the glass protection layer. Tactile feedback for fingers should be enabled by vibrations or perhaps through a motion of the key which is pressed.

Apple has included in the submission a couple of piezo-electric sensors which can detect the sound made when users fingers tap the keys on the keyboard.

We have already seen another keyboard related patent by Apple where they have implemented a kind of proximity sensors into the keyboard, which detects the position of users fingertips and opens small air nozzles releasing pressurized air stream to give tactile feedback to the keyboard user.

This could represent a completely new frontier for Apple and as usually all other hardware manufacturing competitors are far behind Apple’s designs and ideas. Who knows what else will we seen soon in Apple’s bag of tricks? IOS 5 and iPhone 5 should soon be here. What can we expect with these new devices? Completely new devices or improvement on actual models? Let us know your opinion!

When Apple released its iPod touch media player and all round mobile computer, the tagline of ‘the funnest iPod ever’ not only made any self-respecting grammar Nazi froth at the mouth, but also heralded a new approach to gaming for both Apple and the gaming industry.

Years later, the iPhone, iPod touch and now the iPad, are all selling like gangbusters, and the success of the App Store has been even more impressive than the staunch Apple supporter could ever have hoped.

This success, we’d wager, is in no small part related to the explosion of iOS games that both independent developers and large software houses have created over the last couple of years.

With huge success stories like Angry Birds under its belt, iOS has proven to be a real gaming powerhouse in an industry that has historically been dominated by one of the big console companies.

Despite the huge success of gaming on iOS, there is still one issue that just isn’t going to go away – controls.

With iDevices obviously not sporting any hardware buttons, it’s been left to third-party inventors to come up with a solution – and one such solution is the ‘iControlPad’.

Sporting a Bluetooth connection to an iPhone, the device is what we oldies would call a ‘control pad’. What this offers is a selection of buttons, perfect for those games where a touch screen just doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

The iControlPad even offers an attachment that can slot into the main body of the unit, and then offer a place to slide your iPhone, making the iPhone+iControlPad combo a one piece of kit affair.

Problem is, the iControlPad pairs to the iPhone using Bluetooth, something that makes it impossible for App Store apps to support the control unit’s ever-so-useful analog sticks. All this means that if you want to take full advantage of the iControlPad, you’ll need to be of the jailbreaking persuasion beforehand.

Best of all, the glorious analog sticks! And…the first disappointment comes when you, iOS gamers, discover that they’re rendered unusable due to Apple’s restrictions on the type of Bluetooth devices that can interface with iOS.

Judging by these videos embedded below, we actually see a bright future of this add-on after all!

It’s Apple patent time again, while watching the inventions and innovation coming out of Cupertino often proving to be a bit baffling – and almost impossible – job in itself.

The latest jewel to escape the US Patent Office’s metaphorical crown, relates to the offline storage of a payment method which, it is claimed, could be used to purchase content while not connected to the internet.

Currently, when we choose to buy something via iTunes, the App Store, or any other kind of online store for that matter, the transaction is handled by a third party, over the magic of the internet.

Apple’s patent would allow ‘credits’ to be stored on a local device, which would work perfectly with Apple’s current iTunes gift card model.

The idea then, would be that the credits would be synced with Apple’s servers once the iDevice is back online, via either 3G or a WiFi connection.

When a user later wishes to play back one of the media items, but the device cannot connect to a communications network to provide payment information for purchasing the media items, the electronic device can use pre-paid credits that were purchased and stored by the device when a communications network was available to complete the purchase.

Now, those following along will see one glaring problem with this plan: if a device is offline when trying to purchase content, how exactly is said content supposed to get onto that same device? Magic?

Well, yes, as it happens. Or at least, Apple’s own brand of magic.

Apple’s patent proposes a kind of caching system, whereby content is stored locally, but locked in order to prevent use.

The suggestion here is that, for example, the top 10 singles in iTunes could be cached to an iPod touch overnight, via Wi-Fi. Once there, they lay dormant until the users decides they want to buy one. Using the credits mentioned above, the track is unlocked and away they go.

Now, obviously that’s over-simplifying the situation, but we’re sure you get the drift.

The recommended items can be selected based on any suitable criteria, including for example the media items of the user’s library, recently played back media items, media item rankings, recently purchased or added media items, a preference profile defined by the user, or combinations of these. In some embodiments, the recommended media items can be selected based on playback or sale information provided by other users (e.g., the top selling media items in the media store, or the recently purchased media items by users in a local network).

The top 10 apps, movie rentals and more could also get the caching treatment, too.

As great as that all sounds, we can see storage becoming a problem pretty quickly due to increasing app sizes, unless Apple intends to make storage on the next iPhone and iPod touch hardware much more plentiful. Doing that and keeping the prices down though, isn’t an easy feat.

OS X Lion, the newest version of Apple’s operating system targeted at Mac computers, has sold 1 million copies since it became available yesterday, Apple claims, making this release the fastest-selling version of Mac OS X in Apple’s history.

Unlike previous versions of Mac OS X, Lion is currently available exclusively as a 4 GB digital download from Apple’s Mac App Store, for as little as $29, unlike most previous releases which were available for as much as $129. This new distribution model, as well as the new price, have likely been the main contributors to the product’s success. Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, weighed in on the news, calling Lion “the best operating system ever made”:

Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic, […] Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.

In order to download Mac OS X Lion successfully, users must be running Mac OS X 10.6.8 which was released several weeks ago. The new system is available straight from the App Store and installable just like any other standard application: after downloading the standard executable, just run it and follow the on-screen instructions. No boot media is necessary.

For users without access to a broadband network, Apple unexpectedly announced yesterday that it plans to ship USB sticks with the Lion installer for over three times the cost as the standard license: $69. For those who wish to use this method instead, said thumb drives will be available in August.

OS X Lion is the latest version of Mac OS X, Apple’s operating system for its Mac lineup. The new system borrows some functionality and user interface paradigms from iOS in order to create a reliable and very touch-friendly operating system. Features like Mission Control allow all open windows, spaces and the dashboard to be visible from one single view, while Versions extends Time Machine, Mac OS X’s backup feature, in order to work from within apps, allowing users to restore previous versions of a document with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Judging by the results so far, Apple has every reason to be proud of the new Mac OS X. If you haven’t downloaded it already, what are you waiting for?

These days, in order to downgrade an iOS device to a previous version of iOS, you need to have an old SHSH blob of that version, and the only way to do that is to back it up ahead of time, that is, when Apple is still signing the firmware. iSHSHit is a tool that backs up the firmware’s blob for later use right on the device itself. The said app has now been updated to work with iOS 4.3.4 and 4.2.9 (for CDMA iPhones), which were both released to the public last week.

iSHSHit is really easy to use. After installing the app, it can be launched from the iOS Home Screen; from there, users simply have to choose what device and version of iOS they are using and click “Save”. After a few minutes, the blob will be saved within the app and can be accessed by heading over to the “Manage” tab within iSHSHit: from there, users can choose to export the blob by emailing it to themselves.

It’s important to note that this app won’t restore SHSH blobs, it will simply back them up. In order to build a custom signed IPSW with the blobs you’ve created, you can do so using a tool like iFaith, which we showcased earlier, on your computer. The same tool can be used to back up blobs, in case you’re not aware, but iSHSHit is the way to go for those who’d rather do it on from their own devices.

Backing up blobs has become a fairly regular maintenance practice these days, especially for those who might want to downgrade their devices in the future. iSHSHit is one of the best ways to go about it.

In order to get this tweak up and running, you can follow our step by step guide to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.4 using Redsn0w or PwnageTool (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), or iOS 4.3.3 using Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Sn0wbreeze or JailbreakMe (that last one being the easiest). If you’re already using iOS 5 beta, you can jailbreak it using tools like Redsn0w (for Mac and Windows), or Sn0wbreeze.

One of the most interesting advertisement campaigns we’ve ever seen, Glacéau’s Vitaminwater Energy Bus Shelters let you give your iOS device (or other, supported devices) a juice-boost before you set off on your commute.

Discovered by Creativity Online, this very interesting ad campaign is running in several American states. The bus shelters are offering a 5-volt battery powered USB port that allows users to charge many different devices.

From Creativity Online:

Recharging on the go.

Vitaminwater is underlining its energy-boosting powers with interactive bus shelters that allow commuters to recharge electronic devices.

The bus shelters, installed on bus routes in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, offer a 5-volt battery powered USB port that allows users to charge mobile phones, music players and gaming devices. They form part of the soft drink brand’s ‘You’re Up’ campaign, underlining its message that it is formulated to provide a quick boost when you are on the go.

This goes along with their theme of giving yourself a boost when your own body is running low on juice during a hectic workday.

It’s a fine piece of advertising, really. The folks behind Microsoft’s popular Laptop Hunters/I’m a PC and the famous Windows Phone 7 “Really?” ads came up with the abovementioned campaign – an advertising agency called Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

I personally don’t believe much in energy drinks or, you know, drinks that market themselves as energy boosters. The amount of sugar that these drinks contain is off the charts but people see the word Vitamin and go, “Oooooh! Vitaminsss! Ought to be great for my body, let’s chug down a two bottles of this”.

The campaign is currently running in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston, so if you come across an Energy Bus Shelter, be sure to say hi to HTC Thunderbolt owners from us!

Speaking of HTC Thunderbolts, am I the only one who thinks Android smartphone manufacturers need to stop working on creating more technically powerful ones and instead work on more efficient ones? The current crop of Android phones: the Samsung Galaxy S2, Google Nexus S, HTC Sensation, LG Optimus 2X etc don’t last past 24 hours with moderate use. This is in contrast to Apple’s iPhone 4 which has the longest-lasting battery life among current-gen smartphones, lasting over two days with moderate usage.

The number one reason why people jailbreak their iOS device is for the experience-enhancing tweaks. From little tweaks like MultiIconMover to the big, game-changing ones like Winterboard, SBSettings etc; all tweaks help make iOS an even more powerful mobile OS.

We’ll be talking about a small but very useful tweak today, it’s called “Delete Word” and it makes deleting words an appreciably faster experience.

Delete Word is a jailbreak tweak developed by iSam. Its main and only objective is to make deleting words or backspacing a much more faster experience.

It does this by allowing you to delete entire words instead of deleting each character one by one.

Delete whole word instead of just one letter by holding Shift then tapping Delete on the keyboard. You can still delete normally without holding the Shift button

There will be no icons or settings for this tweak. Just install, and you will be able to use on the normal keyboard.

Since it is a small tweak, it does not add any icons or settings in the Settings.app. Once installed, you will be able to use it from the default keyboard. Delete Word basically adds a keyboard shortcut.

In order to go about this quick deletion, you have to tap Shift+Delete. Once pressed, the tweak will delete words instead of characters. If you want to delete only characters, tap Delete only.

We can speak from first-hand experience that this tweak does actually save time. It is highly, highly recommended for all iOS users. Besides, it is free, so you don’t have anything to lose!

To help you understand how Delete Word works, watch the short video embedded below shot by iPodTouchHelping:

You will, of course, need to have a jailbroken iOS device. You can follow our step by step guide to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.4 using Redsn0w or PwnageTool (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch), or iOS 4.3.3 using Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Sn0wbreeze or JailbreakMe (that last one being the easiest). If you’re already using iOS 5 beta, you can jailbreak it using tools like Redsn0w (for Mac and Windows), or Sn0wbreeze.

Delete Word is available for free on Cydia under the BigBoss repository.

After a long wait, the official Google+ app for iPhone was finally released yesterday. The native app, which is a giant leap forward from the web-only experience that was available up until now, only supports iPhone 3G, 3GS, and iPhone 4 running iOS 4.0 or later. Google for some odd reason has left out the support for iPads and iPod touches.

But now thanks to a workaround found by our reader Caleb Zierke, you can now install the official Google+ app for iPhone on your iPads and iPod touches by following this step by step tutorial.

 

Step 1: First, you will need to download iPhone Configuration Utility. The download links are given below for both Mac and Windows:

iPhone Configuration Utility for Windows

iPhone Configuration Utility for Mac

Step 2: Once you have downloaded it, simply install it like any other software on your PC or Mac, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.

Step 3: Now if you haven’t already, connect your iPad or iPod touch with your PC or Mac.

Step 4: Download Google+ for iPhone directly from here on your computer.

Step 5: Launch iPhone Configuration Utility, on the left hand side, you should see your device. Click on your device name.

Step 6: On the tabs you see on the top of the screen where it is showing your device information, click on “Applications”.

Step 7: Now click on Add+ button and browse for the Google+ .ipa file which you downloaded in Step 4 above.

Step 8: In the “Applications” list, you should see the Google+ app, and right next to it should be an “Install” button, simply click the install button and in a matter of seconds the Google+ app will appear on your iPad or iPod touch. That’s it, you’re done and ready to scoop some friends inside your +Circles!

It is important to note that Google+ for iPhone is not optimized for iPad’s display resolution, therefore you’ll see the iPhone version of the app running on your iPad, pressing the “2x” button will enlarge the app to fit the screen. Though not a pleasant experience, but better than having no Google+ app at all, right?

Our friends have shot a very nice video tutorial. Make sure you check that out as well!:

While iOS has always supported the use of various ringtones for different callers, it has not supported ability to use a tone of your choosing to notify you of a text message – until now, that is! Data found in iOS 5 Beta 3 shows that iOS 5 might finally bring us this ability.

According to a new report, not only will iOS 5 support the use of text message alert sounds, it will also allow you to set custom alerts for emails, new voicemail, sent email, tweets, calendar and reminder alerts, and possibly more. This is great news for those of you that, like me, have grown tired of Apple’s boring default tones for these things.

It actually seems a bit odd to describe this as news, as cell phones have had this functionality for a very long time, starting with the “dumb phones” of years past. Nevertheless, it’s better to come late to the party than not come at all, right Apple?

In their defense, I’m really much more interested in Apple creating a revolutionary and amazing user interface and app infrastructure than I am in them supporting all the tiny little features some people might expect, such as custom notification tones.

Accessing and setting custom tones is easy – just fire up Settings.app, click the Sounds menu, and you’ll see the options for changing the text tone, voicemail tone, and others. Clicking one of these sub-menu’s brings up a list of all of your iPhone’s ringtones, including the one’s you’ve made yourself, and also includes a button that directs you to a ringtones store on iTunes.

Of course, one might argue that Apple’s limiting of tone options on the iPhone has assisted, to some extent, in the cult status of the iPhone – its default ringtone, text tones, etc have become easily recognizable symbols of the iPhone, and have made for some interesting experiences while standing in line at the Apple Store!

I’ve already got a good idea of what I’m going to be changing my tones to – what about you?

According to a discovery found in iOS 5 Beta 3, FaceTime now supports AirPlay streaming to an HDTV, so if you’ve ever wanted to see your contacts’ faces in that much detail, now is your chance!

The report comes to us from TiPb, who provided the above image, and raises an intriguing tone – I sense a possibility that Apple could add FaceTime to a future Apple TV. Apple TV HD, anyone? One step closer to the smart house of yesteryear!

One of the things that really grinds my gears about my iPad 2 is the lack of user accounts. If the iPad 2 is meant to be a laptop replacement then why doesn’t it cater for multiple accounts in the same way that “normal” computers can?

It doesn’t make sense to me that I can only have one profile on my iPad and everyone must share this profile. I was really hoping that Apple would introduce profiles in iOS 5 but it doesn’t look like it’s on the cards.

Cydia hack to the rescue!

iUser is a Cydia hack that lets you create multiple profiles on your iPad so that you and your family / friends / loved ones / dog can have their own unique profile to run amuck on.

 

Your iPad needs to be Jailbreaked in order to run iUser. Grab it from the Cydia repository.

Even though Apple just issued their 4.3.4 update for iOS on Friday, which patched the PDF exploit (disabling JailbreakMe 3.0), it has already been jailbroken, and the latest PwnageTool release can already install Cydia on the new firmware.

In addition to the PwnageTool release, it appears that popular jailbreak tool Redsn0w has also been updated with the ability to jailbreak the latest firmware. Unfortunately, the jailbreak is currently tethered (meaning you have to hook your iDevice up to your computer and use software to boot it every time it restarts), nevertheless, those of you excited to maintain your jailbroken status on the new firmware now have the ability to do so.

The jailbreak does not work with the iPad 2, and currently, the iPhone Dev Team continues to recommend that users do not yet update to 4.3.4, but remain on version 4.3.3, as the jailbreak work better on that version, and is untethered.

Some Verizon iPhone users that attempted to use the recently-released JailbreakMe 3.0 web-based jailbreak found that their iPhones became stuck at the Apple logo at boot. This is a sad tale indeed, but fortunately, a correctable one: Here’s how to fix it.

Fortunately, Comex, the developer behind JailbreakMe 3.0, is an upstanding and responsible human being, put his brain to work, and was quickly able to provide a solution for how to fix the problem.

A bug in JailbreakMe 3.0 could cause iPhone 4 (CDMA, i.e. Verizon) to get stuck at the Apple logo and be unable to boot. If you are in this situation, there are two options:

1. Hold down the home and power buttons until you see “Connect to iTunes”, then use iTunes to restore to the latest firmware. This will lose data stored on the phone.

2. Apply a quasi-experimental fix using redsn0w. Download:

redsn0w 0.9.6rc19: Windows / Mac (do not use an earlier version)
Fix bundle, depending on firmware version: 4.2.6 / 4.2.7 / 4.2.8
IPSW for your firmware version, if you don’t have it: 4.2.6 / 4.2.7 / 4.2.8
Open redsn0w, select your IPSW, choose ‘Install custom bundle’, and select the fix bundle. Then follow the directions. If it works correctly, after installation your phone will boot normally.”

That should do it. Also note that the JailbreakMe 3.0 tool has been updated and is now ready for Verizon iPhone owners to use as-is.

Great news! Whichever method you choose to use, it will be possible to get the jailbreak back onto your device afterwords, and the original bug in JailbreakMe 3.0 that caused this issue has now been completely repaired.