In the depths of the current iPhone SDK lays evidence of a Video Chat feature, that will most probably be used in future iPhones. This means that we will in fact see a front facing camera on the coming iPhone.
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Google today released a new version of the Google Mobile App for the iPhone. The changelog can be seen in the image above.
Here’s an interesting passcode hack for the iPhone. Actually, this one isn’t even a hack, since it has been made with Apple’s own tools and can be used on a non-jailbroken device. 9to5mac used Apple’s Corporate Development kit to make this.
The hack will let you use letters in your passcode, and it forces you to combine numbers and letters in it, and will not let you use sequences of any kind. For instance ‘abcd1234′ is not allowed, when ‘adbc4132′ is allowed.
To apply this hack, you just simply have to open this file with your iPhone. If you ever need to get rid of this, simply go to Settings/General/Profiles/9to5mac/ and remove the file.
Apple has quietly raised the app download limit over 3G to 20MB. According to 9to5mac this update has hit at least Germany and Canada, and I can confirm that it is also 20MB here in Finland. So I guess we could call it global.
A 3D performance comparison between Google’s Nexus One and Apple’s iPhone 3GS.
The test I’m showing here is a pretty typical 3D game scene. It contains a 3D environment and multiple animated 3D characters. The GPU is stress tested due to the high number of polygons in the scene and the CPU is stress tested as it is calculating the bone & skinning of the animation.
Starting up the test on both devices shows that the iPhone 3GS runs at 60 frames per second (fps) and the Nexus at between 30 to 35fps. As we add more woman models until we get to 8 models we see that the frame rate has dropped to 29fps on the iPhone and approx 21fps on the Nexus. Therefore, on the face of it, it seems the iPhone is 138% faster in this scene.
Check out the video after the break.
A homescreen comparison between Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile and webOS. The phones compared in the video are iPhone 3GS, Google Nexus One, HTC HD2 and Palm Pre.
Video after the break.
Jay Yarrow wrote in an article for Business Insider that Google is paying Apple $100 million a year for the default search engine deal on the iPhone.
Another interesting fact about Yarrow’s article, is that he basically kills the rumor about Apple entering the search business with its own Search engine.
iPhone repair site iResQ has posted a few photos of what appears to be the fourth-generation iPhone’s parts. What is interesting about these, is that the front of the phone is a little bit taller, and has some soft of reflective surface on the top. No-one knows what this reflective surface will be used for, but I can’t even come up with a wild guess about its function.
Leaks like this should always be taken with a grain of salt, since there have been so many mis-leaks in the past. A few more pictures after the break.
Dev-Team today released a new and updated version of PwnageTool. The new version is PwnageTool 3.1.5, and is able to crack the iPhone OS version 3.1.3. Here’s a take from the Dev-Team Blog:
On Tuesday, Apple released firmware 3.1.3 for the iPhone and iPod touches. Unless you’ve personally observed a problem with the reporting of your battery percentage, there’s no reason to update to 3.1.3. We know some of you will want to anyway. Superbowl Sunday’s PwnageTool 3.1.5 for Mac OS X will let you do so safely, preserving your jailbreak and ultrasn0w unlock. (If you use the blacksn0w unlock (at baseband 05.11.07), you need to stay at 3.1.2.)
iPhone 3G and 3GS unlockers should always be very wary to update their firmware. This is no exception. If you make a mistake along the way you may find yourself updating to official 3.1.3 in which case you will lose your unlock, possibly forever.
iPhone 3GS users (regardless of unlock) should stay away from this and all 3.1.3 jailbreak tools unless you know you have your “SHSH hashes” backed up via Cydia. That’s because if you make a mistake you may find yourself stuck at official 3.1.3 with no way to jailbreak or come back down to 3.1.2 to jailbreak.
If you really truly feel that you need to update, this version creates a custom 3.1.3 IPSW for you to restore to on your iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS with early bootrom, iPod touch 1G, and iPod touch 2G with early bootrom. If you don’t know if you have an early bootrom or not, please avoid updating until you learn more.
To download this, head over to the Dev-Team blog here.
A report from Flurry shows that the Google Nexus One sold only 80,000 units in its first month. We earlier reported that they sold 20,000 during the first week, so exactly one fourth of the whole months sales. Nexus One’s sales are quite bad if you compare them to the first months sales of the iPhone or the Droid. The Motorola Droid sold 525,000, and the first generation iPhone sold 600,000 during their first month.
One of the reasons for this, could be that the Nexus One isn’t carrier bound, and only sold by Google. Also, Google didn’t advertise the phone much. If you think back in time on the announcement/release of the first iPhone, you can maybe remember the crazy Apple hype that went on. It was almost like everyone was crazy about this phone. Same thing was done with the Motorola Droid. Crazy Ad campaigns and hype around the launch.
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In the summer 2008 when the iPhone was released in Japan, there were numerous talks that it will flop and that it is not suitable for the Japanese market. Softbank’s CEO has another opinion about this, and he confirmed that the iPhone is selling massive amounts in Japan. Here is a take from the Wall Street Journal:
For Softbank’s chairman and chief executive, the company’s role as the only official supplier of the iPhone in Japan gives it a strong attraction in a consumer market characterized by a fascination for gadgetry. ”When we launched the iPhone [in the summer of 2008], some people said those phones were not suited for Japanese cellphone users,” said Masayoshi Son at a news conference. Most Japanese cellphones are smaller and lighter than the Apple device. ”But those [skeptics] have been proven completely wrong … The iPhone is selling so well that we are really feeling the boost from it,” Mr. Son said. He declined to say how many iPhones Softbank had sold, but described the handset as “the biggest contributor to third-quarter handset sales,” and “a major contributor to growth in data communication revenue.”
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Engadget has found out that the next iPhone is currently codenamed the N89, and that the next iPod Touch is codenamed N80. This was found from the recently released iPhone SDK 3.2.
Phone Arena presents you with a side by side comparison of the iPhone 3GS and HTC Nexus One, so you can get a good idea of their similarities and differences, and in the end, hopefully you will have a better feel for which one is right for you, assuming you haven’t committed yet to one of them.
Hit read more for the review video, or to read the full review following this link.
