Attention all BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) App Developers… Looks like RIM is having another informational and educational webcast. This one is titled ‘Small Screens, Big Dreams: a Detail-Oriented Approach to User Interface Design‘. Translation: Learn tips, tricks and methods to get the most out of your user interface. The webcast will run on February 16th, starting at 2PM EST. Presented by Brian Zubert (Senior Application Development Consultant), he’ll discuss everything from colors and fonts, to layout, alignment and other details often overlooked in UI design.
If you’re thinking about updating your iPhone to the latest iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware, you might want to note that the update will essentially stop you from unlocking your iPhone for use on GSM networks that aren’t your official iPhone carrier. The iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware comes bundled with a new baseband firmware version (05.12.01) that makes it impossible to unlock the iPhone to use on, say, the T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) USA network. We’re telling you this because we’re a bit surprised by new stats from Medialets that indicates that 14% of iPhone users have updated their iPhones to the new iPhone OS 3.1.3 since last week.
The baseband modem is the piece of technology that allows your iPhone to communicate with wireless networks like AT&T (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile. It’s this baseband modem’s firmware that controls whether or not you’re allowed to surf multiple GSM networks, or just the one that sold you your iPhone. The thing is, there are hacks out there that will unlock almost all versions of the baseband, but none of them work on this latest version. Even the latest iPhone hacking utility, PwnageTool, won’t be able to hack this new baseband to work with unlocking utilities like blacksn0w or ultrasn0w.
Medialets also mentions that 87% of those that updated to iPhone OS 3.1.3 came from the previous iPhone OS 3.1.2 firmware. The only real benefits of the new iPhone OS are it’s less buggy batter meter and better support for third-party apps that were reportedly crashing with 3.1.2. Considering that most people probably don’t need the iPhone OS 3.1.3, we thought it was only right that we let you know what you’re losing by updating your iPhone.
In the end, if you don’t travel or could care less about using your iPhone on other GSM networks, just ignore this post. This concludes our Public Service Announcement. You’ll now be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.
It’s only been a handful of days since Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) released their iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware update through iTunes, and the iPhone Dev Team has already come out with a way to jailbreak the new firmware. The new firmware does little more than fix buggy battery level indicators and Japanese language keyboards, so most of you probably won’t need to install the update. But, there’s invariably going to be a subset of jailbroken iPhone users that can’t resist the urge to update to a brand spankin’ new firmware. For those of you in this group, the iPhone Dev Team has released PwnageTool 3.1.5 to jailbreak iPhone OS 3.1.3!
The PwnageTool utility creates a custom iPhone restore file that you can use to update and jailbreak your iPhone in one felled swoop. PwnageTool 3.1.5 will strip the iPhone OS 3.1.3 update file of its newer baseband modem firmware and replaces it with an older version that can be unlocked with ultrasn0w – this allows you to keep using your iPhone unlocked on any GSM carrier in the world. If you were to update your currently unlocked iPhone 3GS to iPhone OS 3.1.3 without PwnageTool, iTunes will replace your iPhone’s baseband firmware with a new version that cannot be unlocked.
For those of you using a newer iPhone 3GS or had previously updated your firmware to a newer version (05.11.07), you’re going to want to avoid updating to iPhone OS 3.1.3 altogether, if you plan to use your iPhone on unofficial GSM carriers. As long as you stay at iPhone OS 3.1.2, you can jailbreak your iPhone 3GS using blackra1n or PwnageTool and then run GeoHot’s blacksn0w unlock utility to free your iPhone of GSM lockdown.
Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) has recently revamped its developer portal to make it look like an integrated part of the main Sony Ericsson website. The updated portal reflects the handset maker’s new branding look and feel, while adding a number of functionalities:
Documents and tools are organized in a more intuitive way
Search facility in improved
Developer World accounts are now migrated to Sony Ericsson MyAccount so that users can access other services (such as Sony Ericsson Sync) from a single account
AT&T (NYSE: T) has just announced a new mobile app developer contest that is offering a sizable $40,000 prize pool for developers that enter the contest. The AT&T Open Call – Apps For All! contest is a re-imagining of the Fast-Pitch Platinum Awards, so if you’ve dabbled in that contest, you’ll be familiar with this contest. The contest will pit developers’ apps against each other for a chance to win $10,000 in each app category, as well as the AT&T Open Call Award and other app promotion opportunities.
The apps will be judged at the CTIA 2010 show in Las Vegas this coming March, and the deadline for all app entries is midnight (PST) on March 1st, 2010. Get your coding started!
The iPhone OS 3.0 and 3.1.2 firmwares have been jailbroken through various methods for some time now, but you may have noticed that you can no longer tether your iPhone. That’s because the latest fixes that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) put into the iPhone OS 3.1.2 pretty much killed the data tethering (IPCC tethering) hack that allowed jailbroken iPhone users to use their phone as a wireless 3G modem. Today, the always impressive iPhone Dev Team has resurrected IPCC data tethering on the iPhone. How, you ask? Through the new redsn0w 0.9.3 iPhone jailbreak utility!
If you’ve used ultrasn0w or PwnageTool, you’ve already acquainted yourself with the Dev Team’s work. This latest release of redsn0w differs from PwnageTool in that it doesn’t touch the baseband firmware (the code that controls how your cellular modem connects to wireless networks) and doesn’t even need iTunes to do its thing.
Rather than creating a custom .ipsw restore file that is used to restore and jailbreak your iPhone, redsn0w breaks into your iPhone like a ninja and hacks out all of Apple’s firmware protection technologies. iTunes never comes into play. All you need to do is connect the iPhone to your computer, fire up the redsn0w utility, and you’ll be good to go in a matter of minutes.
redsn0w blasts blackra1n out of the water by offering features like automatic Cydia installation, custom logos, afc2 and the IPCC tethering hack. The new redsn0w utility’s IPCC tethering hack is itself enough reason to run redsn0w, even if you’re already jailbroken.
To hammer home just how easy it is to use redsn0w, we’re not even going to post a redsn0w “How to” guide/tutorial. Download and read up on redsn0w here. Done.
[Update]
Okay, maybe a little guidance is in order here. For clarification, you’ll need the redsn0w 0.9.3 beta to get the IPCC tethering hack working again – find at the bottom of the page via the link above (or here). Once you’ve run redsn0w, you’ll have to download a custom IPCC file (carrier bundle), which tells your iPhone that you are allowed to tether on a given carrier.
Point your iPhone Safari browser here, and download an IPCC file that corresponds to your region and carrier.
Once downloaded, install the IPCC file and replace your existing carrier bundle.
Navigate to Settings > General > Network on your iPhone to enable tethering.
You now have tethering enabled on your iPhone 3G/3GS running iPhone OS 3.1.2!
Remember the Haiti relief charity project, called Indie+Relief, that we told you about last week? The charity project sought to corral a group of independent iPhone and Mac developers with the goal of donating app revenue to Haiti relief efforts. Participating developers pledged to donate app sales from January 20th to various charity organizations helping to bring Haiti back from disaster. Well, we’re happy to announce that Indie+Relief managed to raise more than $143,000 in just a single day!
The amount raised in a single day is amazing, but it’s also heartwarming to see independent developers banding together in less than a week’s time to give their hard-earned money to a good cause. Kudos to all the developers involved in the charity effort!
Check out the list of participating devs here. The apps sold on January 20 can be seen here.
As far as mobile gaming goes, Android has been fighting an uphill battle, but Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s make a concentrated effort at the next Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, which covers all the major platforms, including mobile. To win the hearts and minds of attendees, Google’s giving out free droid and Nexus One handsets to paid, early bird registrants attending the Mobile, iPhone, or Indie Games Summits. That’s a pretty sweet deal, especially considering a serious bottleneck for many smaller developers is the simple cost of testing hardware. Getting some of the latest and greatest Android hardware ensures that at least they’ll have the option to work with the platform. iPhone remains the top dog of all mobile app sales, let alone gaming – it’ll be a hard sell for those who have already made their fortunes on iTunes, but those shops who would rather not deal with that much competition might be able to sooner carve out a reputation on Android…
The Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Nexus One is as good as it gets when it comes to Android phones. With the latest Android 2.1 OS and a bevy of high-end hardware features on board – like the 5-megapixel camera, 1Ghz processor, 3.7-inch touchscreen – the Nexus One packs in almost everything a smartphone user could ask for. That is, unless you’re asking for multi-touch. Google, for some reason, didn’t endow their first own-branded smartphone with the multi-touch capabilities that have helped the iPhone carve out a significant slice of the smartphone market. But, there’s hope yet. A newly released “mod” enables multi-touch zooming (pinch zooming) on the N1’s Android web browser, paving the way for custom Nexus One Android ROMs with multi-touch baked in.
We have prolific Android hacker Cyanogen to thank for bringing multi-touch to the N1. At this point, multi-touch is only working in the web browser, but Cyanogen says we’ll eventually see the feature working in other apps in the future.
It’s not clear why Google didn’t enable multi-touch on the Nexus One. There are whispers about Google and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) having made a back-room deal to keep multi-touch off of Android, but that’s all speculation and hearsay. There’s also the possibility that Google doesn’t want to infringe on Apple’s patents regarding multi-touch. Whatever the reason, multi-touch is a sorely missed feature on the Nexus One.
As you can see from the video below, the pinch-to-zoom feature isn’t as smooth as it is on the iPhone, but it’s a start. We’ll keep you posted on new developments on N1 multi-touch hacks.
You can find the multi-touch hack here. You’ll need to root your N1, so tread carefully.
Oh hey, Ericsson has labs just like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Neat. They’ve published their first YouTube video, showing off a map with 3D structures working on the Xperia X10. Of course, the X10 runs Android, the APIs for which have been available since November, but it’s pretty sweet to see them in action. Ovi and Google Maps have their own ways of making buildings pop out, and also include tools for enabling third-party developers – I wonder if any developers would pick Ericsson’s solution over theirs, especially if they’re making something for Android. For a closer look at the tools, hit up Ericsson’s 3D Landscape page.
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