Hasta La Gadget!

Looking for a jailbreak for your iPod touch or iPhone running iOS 4.1? Your chariot is named limera1n — assuming you’re willing to risk your device on a software developer showdown. The infamous Geohot just upstaged the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team by releasing a reportedly buggy beta exploit of his own, which you can find at our download link immediately below. It only works on Windows at the moment, hacks only official releases and iPhone 3GS isn’t supported right now, and it claims to be an unpatchable, untethered release for those of you who appreciate what those terms mean.

As you can imagine, rival developers aren’t terribly happy that Geohot’s back in the limelight. MuscleNerd (of the iPhone Dev Team) claims that limera1n will re-lock iPhones that were unlocked by his team’s ultrasn0w software, and recommends you skip limera1n, but the main reason the iOS hacking community is angry at Geohot is because if more than one exploit is released simultaneously, Apple can fix them both in one fell swoop. By releasing first, Geohot has allegedly forced other teams to decide between the good of iPhone users over the short term (by releasing a different, more stable exploit) or over the long term (by saving their exploit for future use) and so far it looks like both teams have chosen to prolong the fight — the iPhone Dev Team is asking folks to withhold its Shatter exploit, and Chronic Dev Team says it will modify its greenpois0n jailbreak to use Geohot’s hack instead. What a weird, wild world we live in.

Update: How might this work on an iPad, given that beta versions of iOS (like 4.2) aren’t currently supported? Good question. We’ve struck all references to iPad accordingly, until the powers that be figure it out.

Update 2: Video after the break! Also, we’re hearing that some folks have jailbroken their iPads successfully with limera1n, and we personally got it working quickly on a pair of iPhones with iOS 4.1… but one of the two was missing icons upon restart and didn’t regain App Store, Maps, Game Center and Calendar even after a restore. Be careful, now!

Sam Sheffer contributed to this report.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Limera1n jailbreaks the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1, angers dev community and neuters one of our phones (video)

Limera1n jailbreaks the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1, angers dev community and neuters one of our phones (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you’ve got some fundamental issue with Apple’s upcoming AirPlay, or just a fifth-gen iPod nano you’re unwilling to part with, here’s a handy little adapter for you. Produced by Cywee and likely to be sold for around $99 by PCD in the US, this RF streamer plugs straight into your iDevice’s dock connector and then beams video, pictures, games and the like over to its nearby base station, which in turn hooks up to your television by a set of RGB cables. Any app that utilizes Apple’s video output API is a candidate for having its visuals sent over, though resolution is unfortunately capped at 480p and you’ll need line of sight at a distance of no more than 15 feet for everything to work correctly. Just to make sure we’re all appropriately underwhelmed by its current product, Cywee promises an 802.11n WiFi variant that’ll handle 1080p and output via HDMI for next year. Great, we’ll just wait for that one, why don’t we?

Continue reading PCD’s $99 wireless streaming adapter will beam iOS or older-gen iPod nano content onto your TV

PCD’s $99 wireless streaming adapter will beam iOS or older-gen iPod nano content onto your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s getting hard to keep track of, isn’t it? The way we hear it told, most of these patent disputes and overlaps in the mobile space used to be settled in quiet ways, mutually assured destruction-style, but lately there’s a whole lot of nukes going off. Motorola is now suing Apple over a wide range of technology patents which it claims Apple is infringing on with its iPhone, iPad, “iTouch,” and even some Macs. The company is leveling three complaints which include 18 patents on “early-stage innovations” by Motorola, covering a pretty wide swath of the mobile landscape, including WCDMA, GPRS, 802.11, antenna design, wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization. Outside of the devices, Apple’s MobileMe and App Store services get called out specifically. At the end of its press release Motorola makes a very similar claim to the one Nokia made at the outset of its own lawyer salvo against Apple:

We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the U.S. and worldwide. After Apple’s late entry into the telecommunications market, we engaged in lengthy negotiations, but Apple has refused to take a license. We had no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple’s continued infringement.

We’ll of course be digging deeper as we get more info, and covering the blow by blow with perhaps just a little too much enthusiasm. Oh, and before you go, riddle us this: do you think this is a preemptive strike on Motorola’s part, afraid of another Android-related lawsuit from Apple, or has Apple been holding off for precisely the threat this lawsuit represents? Or maybe Moto’s still mad about that antenna thing? Perhaps we’ll never know.

Continue reading Motorola suing Apple for patent infringement

Motorola suing Apple for patent infringement originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix brings video out support to iPhone 4, fourth gen iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Relax, new iPod Touch owners: no longer does your player have to go unprotected (or looking less than cool). GelaSkins, which makes artist-designed thin coverings for a variety of devices, is now offering them for the new iPod Touch. You can choose from 120 artists in the GelaSkins catalog. You can even get a matching screen to use as your lock screen, helping to define the look.

While you’re on the site, be sure to check out the GelaSkins create-your-own options, which lets you upload the image of your choice to make a one-of-a-kind skin.