Articles by Jeremy Sikora

Early this morning developer of the iPhone Facebook application, Joe Hewitt, posted that Facebook 3.03 is on it’s way to squash a few bugs. Even bigger news is that update will then be followed by Facebook 3.1 which will include push notifications.

Facebook happens to be one of the most used iPhone applications today while push notifications is the most sought after missing feature from the application. Techcrunch brings up a few valid points regarding how these notifications are currently handled and the potential issues that can arise from an application that will pop up more than a few notifications on your screen. The major issue being if you receive more than one notification you are completely lost as to what the previous notification(s) were for.

Personally I tend to turn off the alerts in certain applications that push a lot of notifications to my iPhone. Applications such as Beejive and Twitbit are just a few that I simply leave the “badge” option on so I can just see how many messages I have. That still does not change the fact that I want a better push notification system…

What are your thoughts on the current push notification system and how would you like to see it improved? Sound off in comments below!

Could it be we won’t see iPhone tethering on AT&T’s network until 2010? 9to5mac recently posted a saying to expect tethering on the network before the end of the year. An AT&T spokesman responded with the following statement:

Just reading again – where did anyone promise tethering by EOY? Where did you see that? We promised MMS by end of summer and ended up being a few days late for that…

More bad news for all of us waiting patiently for the official service, but it’s hard to be optimistic after comments like that, isn’t it? Of course, international iPhone users such as Rene have had this feature for quite some time now making a lot of us AT&T users a bit jealous.

Feel free to vent your frustration in the comments below!

[Via 9to5mac]

If cell phone radiation emissions is something that concerns you, you may be interested in taking a look at the Pong radiation-reducing case [$59.99- Web link].

Pong Research was nice enough to send us a sample to check out and, at first glance, it looks like a solid silicone case. It offers good protection while giving you full access to all ports, controls, and the camera. But a quick look on the inside reveals what makes this case so valuable – the Pong Gold PCB Module that reduces overall radiation output by 60%. It is this PCB module that directs an iPhone cell signal and radiation through the back of the phone, keeping it away from the user’s head.

While the price is not cheap, if you are in the market for a silicone case and want protection from radiation, it’s worth a look.

Ross Miller of Engadget is giving more credibility to some of the reports of iPhone MMS on AT&T’s network being a little wonky. It seems as if some users sending MMS messages are having their pictures delivered, but with the message on the recipients end displaying an incorrect phone number for the sender.

We’ve done some research on the issue and at the moment there is no viable explanation from AT&T, and no resolution (including the recently released AT&T 5.6 carrier file). Have any of our readers experienced this MMS behavior?

Sound off in the comments!

[Via Engadget]

PhoneView is a desktop companion that fills in the holes left by iTunes for any iPhone user on the Mac (sorry Microsoft faithful). Some of PhoneView’s features are as follows:

• Use your iPhone as a disk
• Play and export music
• Create, edit and save notes
• Search and save SMS/MMS messages
• Download camera photos
• Save voicemails
• View and export call history
• Play and save voice memos
• Export synced photos
• Export Contacts

We often see folks in TiPb’s forums looking for more syncing functionality than what iTunes provides. Could this be for you? PhoneView is available to demo for free and $19.95 to purchase a license. Be sure to check out this video for a quick tour of PhoneView’s features and functionality.

UPDATED: According to @geohot on Twitter, blackra1n for Mac is now live.

ORIGINAL: When George Hotz released his all iPhone/iPod 3.1.2 jailbreak application for Windows, blackra1n, he was unsure whether or not he would write a Mac OS X version. According to a recent post on Twitter it seems as if he’s had a change of heart.

blackra1n for mac coming soon…actually reuses code…NSRunAlertPanel causing crashes…and can anyone blackify the purplera1n mac icon?

It would be nice if this upcoming Mac version includes an exploit for the new bootrom but the probability of that happening is highly unlikely. For the latest news and tips for jailbreaking/unlocking your iPhone, visit our iPhone Jailbreak/Unlock forums.

iClarified is reporting some very unsettling news for those of you looking to pick up a new iPhone 3GS as they say Apple is now shipping iPhone 3GS devices with a new bootrom blocking the 24kpwn exploit. Devices with the iBoot-359.3.2 bootrom began shipping last week and are now being sold in Apple and AT&T stores. This means if you are unfortunate enough to land one of these new devices you will not be able to jailbreak until the Dev Team or George Hotz can come up with a solution.

For those of you who can’t wait to jailbreak your new iPhone 3GS, we suggest you listen to iClarified and try to pick up a refurbished unit or try to locate some older stock. The race is now on, who will be the first to find a new exploit to take advantage of – George Hotz or the Dev Team?

The cat and mouse game has just got a bit more interesting…

[Thanks for the tip mysterio!]

The Dev Team has just released PwnageTool 3.1.4 for Mac OS X. This release supports the 3.1.2 iPhone software for the following devices: iPhone 2G/3G/3GS and iPod Touch 1G/2G.

• The iPhone 3GS is now supported out of the box in PwnageTool 3.1.4 (or if you have upgraded to 3.1.x in iTunes)
• The iPod 2G is still supported in PwnageTool 3.1.4 but you must already be jailbroken (we’ll update this if there’s a big demand from non-jailbroken ipt2G owners)
• The iPod touch 3G is NOT supported

If you’ve Unlocked your iPhone under 3.0, and want to maintain your unlock, it’s vital to remember:

This release allows your baseband to remain unlocked at 3.1.2, but it does not unlock a new baseband put there by restoring to official 3.1.x. It is super important that people who need the unlock to understand they can keep it only by starting at 3.0 (or earlier) and updating solely to custom IPSWs that don’t update the baseband.

If you used some other method, including blackra1n that involved upgrading to Apple’s 3.1.2, your baseband has also been updated and there’s no unlock until (if?) someone figures it out, and the Dev Team has no time table for that.

For the full details please visit the Dev Teams blog and read carefully as TiPb is not responsible for your jailbreak outcome, good or bad.

Need more help? Visit TiPb’s iPhone Jailbreak/Unlock forum.

For those of you who are not familiar with our Apps for Less posts, they are a great way for us to point out a few good iPhone (and iPod touch) applications available in the App Store that are currently on sale, or ones that have come down permanently to a price that we feel are worth mentioning to our readers.

For those of you looking for some freebies, today happens to be your lucky day. You can now download all 16 applications that developer Chilli X has released to date for free. This deal ends by the end of today so act fast. You are bound to find a few of the 16 apps that you may be interested in. To see a complete list of what is available simply search for “Chilli X” within iTunes or directly from within the App Store on your iPhone.

If you see any other great weekend deals, let us know in the comments, or send them our way any time for inclusion in a future Apps for Less!

This one will be painful to watch for the good folks over at Precentral.net. Heck, even we feel a bit bad about this one but It seems as if the owner of this particular Pre had some major screen issues that he couldn’t live with any longer – 3 cracked screens in the span of 3 months.

Rest be assured, this device will be replaced with a new iPhone 3GS. At least that’s what his friends told him…

[Via Gizmodo]