Samsung recently announced a new, nameless phone at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show which runs on Verizon Wireless’s new 4G LTE service. It has a 1GHz processor, an SD-card slot, a front- and back-facing camera, and a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus screen.
This phone currently has no determined launch date or pricing.
Verizon Wireless had a press conference earlier today where they announced a plethora of new technologies capable of running on their new 4G LTE network and they hope to have 2/3 of the U.S. covered by LTE by mid-2012 with 10 new LTE devices launching by mid-year (4 phones, 2 tablets, 2 mobile hotspots, and 2 netbooks).
One of the major devices announced at the event was the HTC Thunderbolt. It can act as a 4G mobile hotspot capable of connecting to 8 devices. Rockband Mobile was also announced giving users the ability to play with up to 4 friends.
Samsung debuted 3 new devices – 4G Galaxy Tab, 4G mobile hotspot, and a new phone. The phone has a 4.3 Super AMOLED Plus display which features improved sharpness and outdoor visibility (which the iPhone definitely lacks unless one is willing to pay for an anti-glare screen shield). It also has an 8MP camera, HD video recording, 1.3 MP front-facing camera.
The new Galaxy Tab will feature a 1.2 Ghz Hummingbird processor (faster than the Snapdragon processor found in most smartphones) and will be launching in the first half of 2011.
It also turns out that some of these new LTE phones will support simultaneous voice and data at launch while others will not. Unfortunately no word was mentioned regarding the purported Verizon iPhone.
If you’re a proud iPhone owner, you’ve probably noticed the fact that Apple has a stranglehold over the Applications Store. Apple has the first and last say over the programs that make it into this outlet, and if the Powers that Be decide that your application is a threat to the company, it will simply not be accepted.
For determined iPhone users, however, there is a route around this virtual monopoly. A jailbroken iPhone is capable of running code for programs that don’t originate in the App Store, opening up programming to anyone and everyone who can string together some code. This new development threatens to give computer programmers across the world the ability to develop applications without fear of being rejected by Apple.
Any of the iPhone models can now be jailbroken, including the newest model, the 3GS. A quick search will bring up your options. Choose wisely, of course: look for a program that can be erased to leave no trace, as you should be forewarned that jailbreaking an iPhone automatically voids Apple’s standard warranty.
So what applications can you look forward to enjoying once you’ve become an owner of an unlocked iPhone? Perhaps the most talked about and most downloaded is Fring. This one has AT&T (the only cell phone company licensed to sell and provide service for the iPhone) absolutely terrified, and for good reason. Once downloaded, Fring allows you to run Skype from your iPhone. Why does that have AT&T so freaked? Well, if you can use Skype rather than your cell phone minutes, suddenly your wireless company isn’t pulling in all that revenue from you going over your plan. Another app that falls into this “scare the crap out of AT&T” category is SkySMS, which allows you to send text messages for free. For folks who constantly go over their rationed number of text messages each month, that could be enough of a reason to jailbreak right there.
There are some other cool apps out there for those lucky enough to own a jailbroken iPhone. Take BossPrefs, for instance. This exciting application gives you much more precise control over your iPhone’s preferences, including the ability to customize icons. With that kind of functionality, you can have the coolest jailbroken iPhone on the block in no time at all.
A jailbroken iPhone also gives you the ability to add ringtones and change your phone’s wallpaper, functions that are impossible on units that haven’t been modified.
As competition keeps increasing in the mobile phone sector, you can expect Apple to continue to blacklist more and more applications. Take Google, for example. Now that the G-Men are developing Android, Apple is spooked, and they’re running for cover. That means more and more applications developed by Google are being rejected from the Apps Store. We can only expect this trend to continue. Luckily, with a jailbroken iPhone, you can use any of the applications you want.
Quote (via iPhone Dev-Team):
We’re pleased to release PwnageTool 4.1 for Mac OS X (free of charge, blog ads, and donation requests — as always!). Today’s big new addition to the jailbreak family is AppleTV 2G, which was first shown jailbroken in its release week!
Through a combination of the recently released geohot limera1n exploit , @comex’s recently released pf kernel exploit, and our original pwnage2 exploit, PwnageTool 4.1 works untethered on these devices at firmware 4.1:
- AppleTV 2G
- iPad (firmware 3.2.2)
- iPod touch 4G
- iPod touch 3G
- iPhone4
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 3G
PwnageTool allows you to restore to a custom IPSW file. For instance, you can restore to a pre-jailbroken firmware while simultaneously maintaining your current baseband (and thus your ultrasn0w carrier unlock). You can also add whatever packages you want in the “Expert” mode of PwnageTool, if you wish to pre-install Cydia packages. iPhone 3G users get the additional benefit of selecting their own boot and recovery logos, and features like multitasking and battery charge percentage.
PwnageTool’s main advantage to ramdisk-based methods (limera1n, greenpois0n, redsn0w) is for unlockers — those that need to keep their current baseband and preserve their ultrasn0w unlock. But in this new age of both bootrom- and userland-based exploits, it’s an excellent platform for continuing the jailbreak through all future firmwares. More on this later! In the meantime, please enjoy this free software and please provide any usage feedback in our comment section below.
AppleTV 2G users: Welcome to the JB family! Right now, about all you can do is command-line stuff via ssh. You also have afc2 available, so you can use tools like ifunbox to move files around. These are the *very* early days of AppleTV 2G jailbreaking, so it’ll take some time for JB app developers to come up with methods to use your AppleTV 2G from the remote, versus the command line. PS: Your ssh password is “alpine”…please change it when you can :)
Expert mode: By popular demand, the IPSW file selection in Expert mode is now completely manual (doesn’t use Spotlight). Just pick your IPSW file directly instead of waiting for the Spotlight search to complete. In Expert mode, the default is to hacktivate (“Activate the iPhone”), so if you have a legit SIM card be sure to deselect that option in Expert mode.
DFU button: That “DFU” button in PwnageTool is more than it looks like. It guides you through the DFU process, but then also runs the appropriate exploit to convince your device and iTunes that all is legit. The DFU button in PwnageTool is not just your average DFU.
Official Bittorrent Releases
PwnageTool 4.1 Torrent - PwnageTool_4.1.dmg.5898597.TPB.torrent
SHA1 Sum = 4f216e5863d191f30f84b6201e8c2bbea031e691
Unofficial Mirrors
The following links are unofficial download mirrors, you download these archives at your own risk, we accept no responsibility if your computer explodes or if it becomes part of a NASA attacking botnet or even worse if your hands fall off mid-way during the use of these files. We do not check these links and we accept no responsibility with regard to the validity of the files, the other content that these links may provide or with the content that is on the third-party linked site.
Always check the files that you have downloaded against our published SHA1 hash.
We would prefer that you downloaded the official bittorrent release that is linked above, but you are welcome to try these if you really must.
Mirror owners should email direct dmg download links only (no rapidshare type sites please) to blog@iphone-dev.org — please don’t place mirrors in the comments as they will be deleted.
- http://www.pyrofallout.com/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://www.ipodtouchmasterfr.com/files/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://www.d4sys.com/download/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://leimobile.com/mirrors/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://claytonbraasch.com/downloads/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://martinkup.com/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://fsckyou.org/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
- http://chronzz.com/dl/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
http://zaone.ro/PwnageTool_4.1.dmg
Today, Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, announced that the iPhone will not be coming to Verizon until it’s 4G (fourth-generation) cellular network is 100% up and running.
Thursday, Seidenberg said he hopes Apple will offer the phone on the carrier’s 4G, or LTE network, which it is just starting to roll out later this year in a few dozen cities, and will not be completely ready until 2012, the same year Apple’s and AT&T’s exclusivity contract expires.
Seidneberg announced,
We don’t feel like we have an iPhone deficit. We would love to carry it when we get there, but we have to earn it.
I think 4G will accelerate the process, and any other decisions Apple makes would be fine with us. Hopefully, at some point Apple will get with the program.
However, as we posted September 22, analysts have claimed that Apple’s overseas manufacturers will begin building CDMA iPhones for Verizon Wireless this December. CDMA is the cellular technology both Verizon and Sprint currently use, while AT&T uses SIM cards. If these reports are true, it is said that Apple will have at leas 3 million CDMA iPhones by January 1, 2011.
To make this short and sweet, iH8sn0w, maker of the extremely popular jailbreak too, Sn0wbreeze, has announced a release date for Sn0wbreeze 2.0. It will be released Wednesday September 23, 2010. Here’s the devices it will jailbreak:
This new version is said to jailbreak iOS 3.1.x, 4.0, 4.0.1, and 4.1.
A new version of iReb is also said to be released. iREB is a tool for Windows and Mac that will bypass any errors while restoring to a custom IPSW in iTunes.
A jailbreak tutorial will be posted here as well as on our YouTube channel on Wednesday showing how to perform the jailbreak. We will also upload a video demonstrating how to jailbreak the iPod touch 4 & iPhone 4 when the exploits are released. Follow @TechGeec to stay up-to-date and if you have any questions, leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
Tomorrow, September 1, TechGeec will be updating this post LIVE during Apple’s media event. That means that you won’t have to constantly hit the F5 key or refresh this page, it will update automatically. The event will be taking place at 10:00 AM PST (1:00 PM EST). Make sure to bookmark this page and come back tomorrow to be updated LIVE on what Apple will be releasing/announcing.
[liveblog]
Recently there have been numerous rumors about the new iPhone that’s supposed to be announced in 2011. The reason why TechGeec hasn’t reported any of these rumors are because they’re still just rumors and we’ve been hearing rumors about a Verizon iPhone for the past three years since the original iPhone came out. But now it seems as if our hopes for this new iPhone might be coming true.
To start off, Verizon Wireless (United States) uses CMDA technology to store information for their phones unlike AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s SIM cards. CDMA technology requires absolutely no cards of any sort. All the information is stored by the cellular company (in this case Verizon Wireless).
John Gruber, a reliable source for Apple “rumors”, announced recently that the CDMA iPhone (again, it doesn’t have to be for Verizon, it can also be released for Sprint who also uses CDMA) is codenamed N92. The current iPhone 4 was codenamed N89 before it was released. Gruber also reported that this CDMA iPhone is in the EVT (Engineering Verification Testing) phase. This phase limits Apple to testing one device inside their labs (or wherever Apple tests the phones before they go out into the wild). The next testing phase would be DVT (Design Verification Test) where Apple employees are allowed to take the phones out into the world to test them (this is the phase in which the iPhone 4 was in when it was “lost”).
Enhancing the rumor of the CDMA iPhone, TechCrunch’s Steve Cheney reported that Apple is ordering millions of CDMA chips from Qualcomm. Assuming Gruber was correct in his claim that Apple is in the EVT phase, then this would be the ideal time for Apple to purchase this many CDMA chips if the phone will be released/announced in January 2011.
Also this week, AT&T revealed in a filing to the SEC (U.S. Security and Exchange Commission) that it is warning it’s investors about possible negative effects when “exclusivity arrangements end” for popular smartphones and the only exclusive and popular smartphone for AT&T is the iPhone. This report does seem to help these rumors develop even more because huge companies would not risk upsetting their investors for no good reason unless they feel absolutely necessary.
The last strong addition to the 2011 CDMA iPhone is that Verizon Wireless’s CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, was selected to give the high-profile keynote address at the 2011 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas this coming January. The head of next years CES reportedly said that he’s “looking forward to hear about Verizon’s next generation of products”.
Now again, none of these facts point directly at a CDMA iPhone in 2011. I, myself, have doubts about this because Apple’s and AT&T’s exclusivity contract ends in 2012, not 2011. For a Verizon (or Sprint) iPhone to be released prior to the contract expiring would mean that either both companies would have to agree on breaking the contract (I don’t see why AT&T would do this) or that Apple would have to buy AT&T out of the contract. And what I find interesting is that no one has said anything about their exculisivity contract and how it ends in 2012. On the other hand, these rumors are pretty convincing and so I’m holding out on replacing my LG Voyager (Verizon) this year until a CDMA iPhone is released (or not released) this coming January.
Be sure to leave a comment on this post telling what you think about these rumors and the January 2011 “CDMA iPhone”.
The Moscone Center Calendar lists a “Corporate Event” from June 28, 2010 through July 2, 2010 in the Moscone West hall. Previous Apple events have been reserved with the same title.
This year, WWDC 2009 ran June 8 through June 12. In previous years, the event has marked the introduction of new iPhone models. This June, Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS.
The original iPhone debuted on June 29, 2007, along with an exclusive contract with carrier AT&T. Since then, it has been rumored that the two parties are locked into a three-year deal due to expire next summer. While AT&T has reportedly attempted to extend that contract, rumors have persisted that Apple will expand to other carriers.
If WWDC could be booked to coincide with the expiration of the current contract with AT&T. Recent reports have suggested that Verizon, the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., could offer a CDMA compatible iPhone next year. Some analysts see Verizon as the best choice for Apple to expand the platform, but others feel technical limitations and different corporate styles could serve as a roadblock for such a deal.
For their part, Verizon officials said last week that their network would be capable of handling the added bandwidth from the addition of the iPhone. They did not, however, imply that the handset was coming to their network.
Another option could be T-Mobile. While the fourth-largest carrier in the U.S. does not have the size or stature of AT&T or Verizon, it is a GSM-based network, meaning compatibility with T-Mobile would be simple to accomplish with the existing iPhone hardware. Given the simplicity of such a move, some have predicted it to happen in 2010.