You knew that the hackers of the world would be anxious to jailbreak their fresh new iPhone 5’s, and the feat’s been accomplished just a day after older hardware running iOS 6 was similarly set free. Grant Paul posted the picture you see above on Twitter, confirming his new, elongated iPhone is, indeed, running Cydia. Unfortunately, the jailbreak isn’t available to the rest of us just yet, but it shouldn’t be long before the masses gain access, too. Vivalaliberté!
The wonderful devs who jailbreak iPhones have appeared to have already jailbroken the iPhone 5. Yes, the iPhone 5 that just came out today. According to Grant Paul aka chpwn on the jailbreak scene, he’s already got Cydia—the de facto jailbreak App Store—running on the new iPhone. More »
Call it a hunch, but we suspect that at least a few of you picked up an iPhone 5 today, or at least made the leap to iOS 6. If you’re in either position, you may be wondering just what apps to feed Apple’s flagship (or that fresh new firmware) once it’s ready to go. We’ve got a quick-hit list of titles that have been updated to take advantage of the tall display and new OS that go beyond Apple’s own work. The biggest upgrades of the lot come from keynote darling CNN as well as Flipboard: both have done more than add extra columns on the iPhone 5, offering an interface you won’t see on any mere 3.5-inch iPhone. Some bread-and-butter apps have made the launch week cut as well, such as Facebook and Twitter.
There’s even more if you’re willing to dig deep. Third-party Twitter client Tweetbot beat the official app to the punch by days, and we’ve likewise spotted updates to Evernote, its rival Remember the Milk and Yelp. We know some apps aren’t fully iPhone 5- or iOS 6-native — Instagram, for example, and most anything from Google — but it’s apparent that the holdouts are increasingly the exception, rather than the rule. Did you catch any other noteworthy apps that received a boost in recent hours? Let fellow owners know in the comments.
The new iPhones are here for AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint and at long last, they’ve got 4G LTE. So which iPhone 5 is fastest? And does it make any difference that it supports both 5GHz Wi-Fi in addition to 2.4GHz. There’s pretty definite winner, but more importantly a very clear loser. More »
With a lot of folks getting their hands on the iPhone 5 for the first time today, there are understandably a lot of drop tests hitting YouTube. One of the more interesting drop tests comes from the folks at Android Authority, who pitted the iPhone 5 against the Samsung Galaxy S III. The results of the test are definitely surprising, so this is one that you’ll absolutely want to check out.
In an effort to make this drop test as realistic as possible, the phones were dropped from various heights. First, the phones were dropped from a height around two-and-a-half feet to simulate a user dropping their phone while pulling it out of their pocket. In the second part of the test, the phones were both dropped from a height of four feet, which simulates a drop while you’re putting the phone up to you ear to answer a call. With the third round, both phones were dropped from ear height, which is about 5’6″ in this case. Finally, the iPhone 5 was dropped from a height of around 5’10″ – the Galaxy S III sat this test out, sadly.
After the first round, both phones were still on an equal playing field. Though the cases on both suffered some scratches, neither phone showed any damage on the screen. The second test wasn’t so kind on the Galaxy S III – while the iPhone’s screen remained unscathed after the second the test, the Galaxy S III landed on its upper left corner, which shattered the top part of the screen. The good news is that the Galaxy S III’s touch screen was still functioning after the impact, so at least there’s that.
With the third test, the Galaxy S III suffered even more damage while the iPhone 5 remained in tact. The battery cover on the Galaxy S III flew off when the phone hit the ground, and the drop caused the screen to crack even more. When it came time to drop the iPhone 5 from 5’10″, once again the screen didn’t give. At the end of everything, the iPhone 5 held up suprisingly well, with only a few scuffs on the sides and corners and a few dents in the aluminum on the back.
Of course, with drop tests it’s always a crapshoot. Sometimes phones will drop on a corner, which is usually enough to crack the screen, and other times it won’t, making it hard to gauge just how well a phone holds up when dropped. Still, this drop test should give us a general idea of how resilient the iPhone 5 is, and it seems to safe to say that it’s quite a bit tougher than the delicate iPhones of the past. What do you think of this head-to-head drop test?
The Bronx: home of J. Lo, sulfur fumes, and crooked iPhone sales? It seemed that way while waiting at the Bay Plaza shopping mall this morning, where one retail chief didn’t seem to play by the rules. More »
Hey so you have a new iPhone 5, which means that there’s some extra screen real estate in the form of a fifth row of icons. And I know you agonized about what you crammed onto the first screen of your old iPhone (which only had 4 rows for icons. So what new additions are going to make the cut this time around? More »
Apple’s new baby in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 has been getting plenty of attention, and with good reason. Aside from a few hiccups with Maps, iOS 6 has been doing extremely well across the board. When it started rolling out as an over the air update earlier this week, Apple users were excited and updating by the millions.
Earlier this week we reported that over 15% of devices had been updated within the first 24 hours, which may sound like a small number, but compared to updates on Android — is actually quite high. Add in the fact that it was just the first day, iOS 6 has been doing exceptionally well.
Today reports are coming out from multiple analytics companies, and reports from TechCrunch state the overall upgrade and adoption rate for iOS 6 is massive. iOS 6 adoption rate is significantly higher than iOS 5, to the tune of around 122% faster. This time around it’s also an over-the-air update, making it a much simpler process for the millions and millions of iOS users.
Finally being able to update OTA and not requiring a cable and iTunes makes this a very simply and easy processor for the masses. If you’re already enjoying iOS 5 you simply can update right on your device. This could be a large part of why the adoption and update rate is seeing such massive numbers — but that isn’t all either. iOS 6 brings tons of fantastic features to everyone. If you sadly can’t get the latest and greatest with a 4-inch screen, you’ll surely want all those new Siri, Passbook, Maps, and other features that makes the iPhone and iOS 6 so excellent. We are also hearing many developers praise the update, saying the transition has been smooth and support for iOS 6 has been easy.
If you haven’t bought the iPhone 5 today or are rocking an older device, have you updated to iOS 6 yet?
Well this is an interesting bit of news: iDownloadBlog’s Jeff Benjamin has discovered that Verizon’s iPhone 5 is indeed GSM unlocked. The way he discovered this was by cutting up an AT&T micro SIM card and putting it in his freshly-acquired iPhone 5 from Verizon. To his surprise (and ours), the iPhone picked up an AT&T signal, and he was able to hop onto the carrier’s HSPA+ network and do a little bit of surfing.
Verizon later confirmed to him that their version of the iPhone is GSM unlocked, which in theory means that you could pick up a micro SIM from AT&T or T-Mobile and take advantage of their networks. That’s going to take a bit of work though, as it sounds like Benjamin had something of a rough time getting that AT&T micro SIM to fit into his Verizon iPhone 5.
What’s even more exciting is that Verizon is giving these phones to people who are on contact. Benjamin says that he attempted this micro SIM switcheroo on the same day that he picked up his iPhone 5 from Verizon (today), which also happened to be the day that he signed up as a Verizon customer for the first time. This, obviously, is good news for travelers, as it means that they can potentially switch between networks if they need to while on the road, despite signing a two-year commitment to Verizon.
The fact that the iPhone 5 comes in three different models that support various LTE bands has proven to be a headache for some consumers, and we’ve been talking about how it highlights a broader LTE problem since the different models were revealed. After all, this LTE issue isn’t only limited to the iPhone 5, but thankfully Verizon has at least done something that helps with it a bit. What do you think? Does this help sway you more toward Verizon as your iPhone 5 carrier of choice?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
