Blurry off-angle photo? Check. Recycled tag line? Check. Recycled hero artwork? Check. Photoshop? Check.
Yes, folks, Jon4Lakers appears to have iPhone Nano fakes just in time for Macworld? And could it be from the same fine folks who brought us the fake Mac Mini poster?
Sure, case makers have made iPhone Nano rumors all the rage again, but just shrinking down the screen’s physical size making capacitive targets difficult for beefy fingers to hit doesn’t make much sense, does it?
With Apple, anything can happen, so the only question is, what’s more likely? Phil Schiller whipping out an iPhone nano at Macworld, or tons more fakes before he ultimately doesn’t?
(Thanks to Kurt Lyon for the tip!)
A week ago we linked to a story that brought fresh iPhone Nano rumors to the foreground. Today those rumors are picking up a tiny bit of speed. Seems the folks who brought us leaked iPhone 3G and 4th gen iPod Nano cases are listing an iPhone Nano case.
Of course, an iPhone Nano presents certain problems. Would Apple just stuff a standard 320×480 iPhone screen into a tighter package, like the iPod Nano? (Or BlackBerry Bold for that matter). They’d need to do something to avoid fracturing the mobile WiFi platform they’ve taken so much trouble to establish. And capacitive touch screens, for all their responsiveness, require beefy enough targets to hit with a finger. Would certain features be cut that just couldn’t scale down effectively? Or would this truly be phone-and-iPod only (see mock up, above), leaving the “breakthrough internet device” space for the full featured, full sized model?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Could just be the lack of Macworld hype making the intertubes all crazy. Macrumors, for their part, says:
To add more uncertainty into the mix, we’ve heard that some of Apple’s initial plans for Macworld may have been delayed. So, even if an iPhone Nano was originally in the works, we’re not sure when we’d actually see one.
At a special event, on Apple’s schedule, on Apple’s terms, with Steve Jobs on a stage maybe?
For anyone who has been waiting for a software unlock soltution for their iPhone 3G, it looks like you patience will be paying off in a short few weeks. As Dev Team member MuscleNerd stated “Target date is a few days after Christmas”.
With this good news comes some bad news… in order to be one of the first to be able to unlock your iPhone 3G it will be required that you are running the 01.45.00 baseband. Which would mean you are on 2.0 firmware. Now who is actually running the 2.0 firmware at this moment in time is beyond me but we have to take what comes our way. There is a possibility that a unlock will come for the 02.11.07 baseband (2.1 firmware) as well but that is not for certain. And if you are running the 2.2 firmware currently you must have followed our guide to jailbreak 2.2 firmware on a Mac while preserving the baseband. The Dev-Team did warn you and we relayed the warning numerous times.
Here is what the Dev-Team had to say recently:
Right now for 02.11.07 we have some untested ideas. Ideally we’d have something solid by the end of next week, but if we don’t then it would be a staged release, with 01.45.00 first out of the gate.
Here is a list of the iPhone firmware versions and their matching basebands…
- 2.0.0 Firmware & 01.45.00 Baseband
- 2.0.1 Firmware & 01.48.02 Baseband
- 2.0.2 Firmware & 02.08.01 Baseband
- 2.1.0 Firmware & 02.11.07 Baseband
- 2.2.0 Firmware & 02.28.00 Baseband
Those of you lucky enough to still be on 2.0.0 or the 01.45.00 baseband will be able to unlock first. If you are at 2.1 or used PwnageTool to update to 2.2 then you will have the 2.11.07 baseband. This will be the second baseband to receive an unlock.
Those on the 02.28.00 baseband will likely have to wait a while before an unlock is released so make sure you use a tutorial on our site to jailbreak and update rather then using iTunes directly.
If this has totally confused you, accept our apologies. An iPhone 3G software unlock should be here before New Years for the first baseband of the device. Other unlocks for later basebands should come shortly after. Keep hanging in there, the Dev-Team will take care of you!
[Via iPhone in Canada.ca]
With Macworld fast approaching, the rumor rate should begin increasing exponential. iTablets will be hot once again, of course, as will the iPhone Nano. Says MacRumors:
[iDealsChina] claims the product will be announced at Macworld San Francisco 2009. iDealsChina, however, has a very mixed track record. In August, it passed off renderings of knock-off iPod clones as the real thing and also claimed that the new iPod Touch would have GPS (it did not). The site, however, did previously have access to Griffin case moldings that appeared to be real. The sizes could correlate with smaller touch screen photographs that iLounge published in June.
MacRumors thinks such an iPhone Nano may break App compatibility with the existing iPhone and iPod Touch due to screen size and resolution. Shrinking the screen down using a higher DPI, like the iPod Nano would lessen part of the problem (though hitting tinier capacitive touch targets would no doubt be an interesting exercise in frustration).
What do you think? iPhone Nano for Macworld? And is it a Good Thing?
Apple Insider has published a rumor saying Apple’s iTunes service is about to match Amazon MP3 by going DRM free. This follows on a previous story saying Apple was in negotiations to do just that.
Since the introduction of iTunes Plus (the name given to the higher-quality 256 bit DRM-Free music), only EMI has allowed Apple to carry their music in that format, with Warner, Sony, and Universal refusing to do so, instead only offering them to iTunes competitors like Amazon, Napster, etc.
What’s changed? Maybe nothing. Or maybe iTunes has just kept growing stronger and is now in a position where they can negotiate the same, consumer friendly deal?
The rumor says we may see the change as soon as tomorrow, December 9th.
Moments after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld 2007, Nokia showed off the “Tube“, an iClone so convincing some thought they’d simply managed to score a demo unit. While the “Tube” eventually faded into a “comes with music” device, and Nokia has now zigged instead of zagged with the N97, BGR has just come across a slide that shows Nokia’s iClone plans may still be alive and unwell.
What is it? When will we see it? Since the N97 isn’t even shipping until June-ish 2009 (likely just in time for a WWDC launch of the iPhone 3.0 — iPhone HD?), who knows when we’ll see this new device. All we can hope for is that is doesn’t cosign itself to mindlessly cloning iPhones past, but actually tried to innovate something more for the future.
If they do, what you want to see on the Nokia next-gen touch?
A while back we posted about the iPhone 3G coming to Wal Mart. BGR originally said to look for it to hit the retail store on November 15th, and more recently to look for it early next year.
Well BGR is back with yet another Wal Mart rumor, this time that a $99 4GB iPhone 3G will be available. Keep in mind that price is with a 2 year service agreement. Also, take this rumor with a very large grain of salt as BGR does not sound too convinced by the “source”.
A lot of people were expecting a 32GB to drop in the new year, not a 4GB… So what say you? Is it worth going back to a 4GB iPhone just to save a hundred bucks? Sound off in the comments!
[Via Boy Genius Report]
(Thanks to The Reptile for the tip!)
MacRumors is passing on… well… rumors from MacBlogz of a 32GB iPhone! Says MacRumors:
The reason the largest iPhone (16GB) currently has 1/2 the memory of the largest iPod touch (32GB) is that the iPhone can only house a single NAND Flash chip while the iPod touch can accommodate two. The additional space in the iPhone is taken up by its communication hardware. In August, Toshiba announced that they would begin mass production of higher density 32GB chips in the 4th quarter of 2008.
Intel, they go on to say, may well bump the capacity even further — to a startling 64GB — by early next year. Sound crazy? Heh. With Macworld coming in just over a month, we ain’t seen nothing yet on the rumor front.
Still, 32GB is drool worthy, and something we here at TiPb are predicting for next year as part of a third generation iPhone HD, so you know we wants it.
How about you? Is 16GB enough, or is it always going to be a case of the more, the better?
That Russian website post about accessing a pre-pre-release of iPhone OS 2.2.1 and finding Push Notification Service and Notes Sync? Turns out not so much. BGR says:
The site that houses the forum has posted an update to the blog post that brought attention to the push notification claim, and has stated the original posting was indeed a fake.
So we can all go back to our regularly complaining about PNS being late again, b’okay?
MacRumors has linked up RussianiPhone.ru which claims to have gotten a pre-release look at the upcoming first beta for 2.2.1, which is said to include both the long-delayed Push Notification Service and something Mike first discovered way back with Mac OS X Leopard’s release: Notes sync.
Rightly, they point out how easy to fake something like this is, and we won’t know anything for certain until a public beta is actually made available for 2.2.1 (or 2.3, Apple hasn’t done minor point bumps for the 2.x architecture yet, so why now?)
But even if it’s not real, just how desperate have we become for these long overdue, or mind-boggling-ly missing features that we’ll fall all over even fake news about them?
Battered consumer syndrome much?
