Hasta La Gadget!

The iPhone has finally caught up with its BlackBerry, Windows Mobile 5.0, and S60 competition, at least as far as Google Latitude is concerned. The stalker-centric program is now available for Apple’s smartphone, but instead of coming as an App Store-approved download, it’s actually just a web-hosted app that grabs your location through Safari — a new trick care of iPhone OS 3.0. As to why, the Official Google Blog explains Apple had some concern that people would confuse it for the native Maps app. We still don’t get why it couldn’t simply be added to Maps itself, but we’re not the multibillion dollar company, here. Go ahead, let your privacy cares away and direct your iPhone to the link below to see what all the fuss is about. Now it’s time to wait (im)patiently for Google Voice.

Read – Google Latitude
Read – Official Google Mobile Blog

Filed under: Cellphones

Google Latitude finally makes it over to iPhone, as a web app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We suspect there’s more than a few chapters left in the story of 25-year old Foxconn factory worker who died in an apparent suicide this month, following the disappearance of a prototype next-generation iPhone. The latest newsbit, this time care of Bloomberg, is that a security official for Hon Hai, a company with 72 percent stake in Foxconn, has been suspended and turned over to Chinese government authorities, with the suspicion / implication here that there’s a direct correlation between this and the suicide. Though unconfirmed at this point, reports circulating say the worker had been harassed by company security prior to his death. Yahoo! Tech has all those details, and the official investigation is ongoing. We’d like to say there’ll be conclusive answers in this case sometime in the near future, but we’re not getting our hopes up.

Read – Hon Hai Suspends Official After iPhone Worker Suicide
Read – China suicide puts spotlight on secretive Apple culture

Filed under: Cellphones

Security official suspended, turned over to authorities in apparent connection to Foxconn employee’s suicide originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re anything at all like us, you were just a tad disappointed by the color “options” of Apple’s newest foray into the world of mobile phones, the iPhone 3GS. After all, who wants to be limited to just black and white these days? Not us, that’s for sure — and ColorWare’s just announced a fix for all that. Pricing for these customs jobs runs $150 for the back of the handset, $20 a piece for the bezel frame and button, and $15 the SIM holder. They’ll also do up your earbuds for an additional $15. A small price to pay for beauty, no? Another shot of a different color combo after the break.

[Via SlashGear]

Continue reading ColorWare outs custom colors for the Apple iPhone 3GS

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ColorWare outs custom colors for the Apple iPhone 3GS originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well that was fast. Orange Boutique in Paris, France did a midnight release of the iPhone 3G S, and the gang at Rapid Repair were there to pick one up and subsequently rip their new toy to shreds. There isn’t much here in terms of analysis of parts yet, it’s more so just a quick and dirty job to get it out to the world, but hey, if you’re into watching someone rip apart brand new, expensive gadgetry, we’ve got just the gallery for you.

Update: They’ve identified the chipset as the SoC S5PC100 from Samsung and thus confirm an ARM Cortex A8 running at 600 MHz (operates at up to 833MHz though) and the ability to record 720p video and handle real-time video conferencing should Apple choose to go in that direction (iPhone 3G S records VGA only). PowerVR SGX graphics and 256MB of RAM too as expected. S5PC100 block diagram after the break.

Read — S5PC100 [warning: PDF]
Read — RapidRepair Teardown

Continue reading iPhone 3G S gets the quick and dirty tear apart treatment, already (update: could do 833MHz and 720p video)

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone 3G S gets the quick and dirty tear apart treatment, already (update: could do 833MHz and 720p video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a pretty good track record when it comes to Apple rumors — remember his spot-on predictions for the unibody MacBook Pro? — so when he’s got a thing or two to say about all the next-gen iPhone chatter, we listen. While not making any promises, he does say he’d wager quite a bit on a new model coming to WWDC, with about twice the CPU horsepower (and possibly twice the RAM, too) as the current model. He also adds some credence to all that talk of video recording, but makes no mention of potential background apps and plays down any surprise tablet or “iPhone mini” cameos. He goes on to add release date would be sometime in July in 16GB and 32GB varieties. We can’t say we’re willing to bet against him, but that doesn’t mean we’ll take his word as gospel. We can safely say, however, that we’re anxiously waiting to see what kind of shenanigans Schiller has in store for next month.

Filed under: Cellphones

More next-gen iPhone whispers: video recording, faster CPU, July release? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 20:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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