Weekly wrap-up: March 14th-21st
Last week’s weekly wrap-up was a busy one, with iPhone 3.0 on the horizon along with a new 3rd-generation iPod shuffle. A week later, we’ve learned much more about iPhone 3.0 and it’s new features the public will get their hands on come June. This week was another exciting one in Apple dimensions - so let’s dig in:
iPhone 3.0 preview
On March 17th, Apple demonstrated a live preview of what to expect when Firmware 3.0 is released to the public next June. Among all the features mentioned, copy-and-paste was the one update that stood out from the rest. It’s a feature that shoud have been around since the beginning, but at least it’s finally here. Up until now, jailbroken utilities such as Clippy have sufficed.
Many updates and changes were made to the YouTube application including the ability to sign in with your YouTube account. After doing so, you can now comment on, rate or report videos. You can also watch videos from other YouTube users that you are subscribed to.
Firmware 3.0 will be released June 2009 - free for iPhone, $9.95 for iPod touch. It’s compatible with both generations of the iPhone and iPod touch, but the original iPod touch seems to be left in the dust as many features require a speaker or other hardware that the device lacks.
Firmware 3.0 can be jailbroken
In a blog post made by iPhone Dev shortly after the iPhone 3.0 preview, we’re glad to be able to say that Firmware 3.0 can be jailbroken. The team has not released a method or a GUI yet, but they’re giving the A-OK that is is possible.
And for those wondering, yes the 3.0 OS is jailbreakable on all devices. It’s just those using 3G yellowsn0w that have to show some restraint and wait for PwnageTool to create a custom IPSW that avoids the baseband update.
Rumor: New iPhone and iPod?
According to Gizmodo, Firmware 3.0 makes mention of a new iPhone (actually, more than one) and new iPods too. It has to do with modeling conventions, but we’ll let you read it yourself:
A quick rundown on Apple model naming conventions. The original iPhone is known as iPhone1,1 and the iPhone 3G is iPhone1,2. The first number refers to the overarching model, so when it changes, it indicates a a genuinely new product, not simply a bump in storage capacity (or even the mere addition of 3G). So that the models referenced in the iPhone 3.0’s OS are iPhone3,1; iPod3,1; iFPGA; and iProd0,1 is is worth noting—we’re talking significant hardware updates to the iPhone and iPod touch worthy of a new model number.
iPhone2,1 was first discovered back in October, though it’s not the first mysterious Apple device to turn up in sites’ traffic logs.
The iFPGA model is likely something never to be released, reckons Ars. But what of the mysterious iProd? The string 0,1 indicates it’s a prototype or codename, since products are released at 1,1. Could this generic iProduct—if it’s not in fact a touchscreen cattle prod, which would be excellent—be that long-fabled Mac tablet/netbookwet dream? Or maybe it’s something else altogether, like magic French toast. Mmmm.
You can read the full story on Gizmodo.
HD movies reach iTunes
If you have $20 to spare, you can put that money towards purchasing an HD movie off of iTunes. That’s right: HD movies are now available in iTunes. $4.99 to rent; $20 to buy. Previously, this was an Apple TV-exclusive. This, along with the soon-to-come $0.69 and $1.29 music pricing levels bring a new look to iTunes that we haven’t seen before. And for all you Twilight fans, you can purchase the movie off of iTunes. And you guessed it: in HD.
