News

Hackers Unite! Cydia Merges with Rock

For jailbreakers of the iOS platform, these two stores have been the gate way to pissing Steve Jobs off. But now, after a year and a half of being rivals, Cydia and Rock unite, under SaurikIT. (the makers of Cydia) SaurikIT acquired Rock and will be moving not only the apps and licences from Rock over to the Cydia store, but also all of the software engineers will be combined as well to create the biggest and best unofficial app store on the iOS platform. This is a great thing for all jailbreakers, I’m sure, but users running 4.1 will have to wait a bit longer to see the new Cydia Store as there is still no jailbreak yet.

Posted by: Patrick

[ Post Tags: Apple, iOS, iOS 4.1, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, tracyandmatt.co.uk, Cydia, Jailbreaking ]

The iWatch Is Here

Let’s face it, it was going to happen. Somebody was going to make the iWatch and here it is. Made by ?Incipio, the Linq enables you to put the brand new iPod Nano on your wrist and wear it like a watch, and as far as I am aware, this is the first of many watch straps for the iPod Nano which will come to market. Not much to say execpt the strap is velcro and interchangeable, and your new iPod will be protected on your wrist as it protected by Incipio’s next gen polymer material which makes the housing nice and strong. Oh and it is available in 5 colours, in Black, Grey, Blue, White and Pink.

I was never really an iPod person, as all my media and music was stored on my phone, but this makes me really want to get one of the new Nanos! There is no word on pricing yet but expect it to be around the £20-£30 price point.

Posted by Patrick

[ Post Tags: Apple, iPod, iPod Nano, iWatch, Accessories ]

ARM detail new Cortex-A15 core processor design

Think your shiny new device with an Apple A4, a Sammy Hummingbird or Qualcomm Snapdragon is powerful? Well ARM are back once again to restore that feeling of inadequacy with the ridiculous new ‘Eagle’ SoC; the Cortex A15. Capable of up to 2.5GHz speeds, address up to a terabyte of memory, and with 4 cores (four!) the A15’s 32nm and 28nm fabrication means that these potent little chips are also more power efficient. Sadly, A15’s destined for smartphones will most probably be ‘only’ single or dual core versions at ‘only’ 1 to 1.5GHz. The faster quad-core versions mark ARM’s intentions to break into a bigger market, as these are destined for tablets, cars, set-top boxes and even small servers. It doesn’t stop there either – versions with eight cores or more are possible, though they would only live in enterprise infrastructure solutions. The named licensees so far include Texas Instruments, Samsung and ST Ericsson.

Now all we need are super-batteries to juice these up.

Posted by: Vince

Blaq for Twitter is coming

If you are a BlackBerry user you may have heard about a cool new Twitter app coming soon – called Blaq.

Well, if all goes to plan then it will be tomorrow that the app is launched and I can tell you that it is rather impressive.

We were lucky enough to be one of the few tech sites chosen worldwide to get an early copy to review so if you are going to consider downloading Blaq tomorrow you may want to check back with us in the morning as our full review will be online.

If you have been waiting to the app for sometime then all I can say is “Good things come to those who wait”.

Tomorrow is Blaq Friday!

Posted by: James

iOS 4.1 Available for Download

Well iOS 4.1 is finally here after Steve Jobs announced it’s new features last week at the annual Apple music event in San Francisco. Mr Jobs announced many things in iOS 4.1 including bug fixes to do with the proximity sensor and iOS 4 running incredibly slow on the iPhone 3G. But the main features of the new update are HDR photos, 720p upload over Wi-Fi and the debut of Game Center, Apple’s version of Xbox Live. See detailed description of new features here. .

iOS 4.1 is available for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 2nd gen, iPod touch 3rd gen, and the iPod touch 4th gen, so go download it now if you already haven’t! Still no word of Jailbreak yet though…

Posted by Patrick

Post Tags: Apple, iOS, iOS 4.1, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, tracyandmatt.co.uk

Coming soon to Three – Samsung GALAXY Tab

Three has confirmed it will be ranging the Samsung GALAXY Tab (GT-P1000). Samsung’s Android flagship Tablet.

A network built for mobile Internet, Three will provide fast and reliable 3G connectivity for the Samsung GALAXY Tab, making the most of product features such as phone functionality, front and rear facing cameras for video calls, downloading e-books, using GPS and searching the Internet with full Flash capability.

Nigel Field, Director of Devices at Three said, “With both the Android and tablet markets going from strength to strength, we’re proud to be ranging the Samsung GALAXY Tab. More than 97% of Three traffic over the network is data, so more than ever consumers need to make sure they’re on a network that can cope with the demand when buying mobile Internet devices like tablets. With both SIM and Wi-Fi connectivity, Samsung GALAXY Tab users on Three can get the most out of the product knowing they’re with the UK’s number one mobile broadband provider.”

Galaxy Tab – UK & EU prices confirmed, rest of world confused

While we’ve just got a confirmed price for Samsung’s hotly awaited Galaxy Tab, it seems the rest of the world is still in confusion. UK retailers Clove.co.uk have price the 16GB version at £616.88 (inc VAT), that just over $800.  This price is for a SIM-free version so it does appear that the device will be priced rivalling a high end phone (which are always expensive) as opposed to rivalling the Netbook sector that tablets are expected to eclipse next year.  Similar high prices are popping up in the EU with Amazon.de having the device for €699 and €799 for the 16GB and 32GB versions respectively (that’s over $800 or $1000!), which is perilously close to the price of the Apple device it’s meant to be rivalling.

These seem to be upper estimates though, as O2 Germany later confirmed a price of €99 for the device and a further €27.50 for the line rental over 24 months.  This ties in closely with Samsung executive Hankil Yoon’s figures of $200 and $300 given in the Wall Street Journal.  This would seem more accurate as at this price point, the Tab’s closest contract rival now becomes Dell’s Streak, a device that has already laid the table for Android tablets and mobile operators.  Of course, the Tab betters in most departments and with the right contract and initial outlay, UK operator Vodafone could have a worthy alternative to Dell and Apple’s devices.  Galaxy Tab tariffs are expected to be announced next month on Vodafone throughout the EU.

Posted by: Ian

O2 release HTC Desire Froyo update – wait, no they didn’t

In a strange display of corporate confusion, O2 today released the long awaited Android 2.2 firmware update for the network’s Desire handsets, only to pull it shortly afterwards.  Why did the network pull the update so quickly?  Well it appears that not all Desires took to the update well, with O2 stating some handsets were experiencing issues.  While it’s clearly frustrating – especially as the vanilla HTC update has been around for a while now, and with many UK networks already having their own version out – firmware flashing is a process that can brick a handset in seconds.  It seems O2 would rather be safe than very, very sorry.  Here’s the situation in their own words:

“As some of you will have noticed the Android 2.2 Froyo update for HTC Desire on O2 went live this morning. While we’re pleased that so many of you have been able to download it successfully and are enjoying the benefits of 2.2, we have seen that a small number of people are having problems installing the update.

While we check out these issues we’re putting the 2.2 update on hold. We’ll update you as soon as possible and would like to thank our HTC Desire customers for their patience.”

Posted by: Ian

First Windows Phone 7 Advert

Microsoft have started their marketing campaign by showing a video advert at a one of cinema showing last week.

I’m not sure if we will see this same advert appearing on our TVs but as you will see below the phone displays the words ‘The Revolution is coming’.

Will we all be dumping our iPhones, Android and BlackBerry smartphones for a WM7 device? I wouldn’t have thought so, straight away at least, but you never know.

We will have some hands on time with Windows Phone 7 in the coming weeks so stay tuned for some video.

WP7 advert after the break

iPod Touch an iPhone? Well Apple’s Photoshop People Seem to Think So

The 4th gen iPod Touch is basically just an iPhone without the phone, right? Well someone at Apple’s art department seems to think differently, as they have managed to accidentally include the phone app in the images of the latest iPod Touch.  And it doesn’t stop there, when you search using Spotlight, you get SMS as well. But it does remind you that Apple is not just a heartless company with robots for employees. They do make the occasional mistake *cough* iPhone antenna problems *cough*.

Read on for the images…