Hasta La Gadget!

We know what you’re thinking: not another iPod / iPhone speaker dock. Maybe, but it’s way more than that if you listen to Logitech describe it. According to the boys from Cali, the $149.99 S715i “sounds like a beast” with 8 custom-designed, laser-tuned speaker drivers that deliver “next generation,” “professionally tuned acoustics” capable of “filling a room” with “bold sound.” So yeah, it’s just another iPod speaker dock, although that 8-hour rechargeable battery is nice. Full PR and video overview after the break.

Continue reading Logitech S715i rechargeable iPod / iPhone speaker unleashes next generation hyperbole

Logitech S715i rechargeable iPod / iPhone speaker unleashes next generation hyperbole originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 06:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Library of Congress made it legal, MuscleNerd showed us it was a go, and now Comex and company have delivered the long-awaited jailbreak to the fourth rendition of iPhone. According to their new page JailbreakMe, the hack works right on the iPhone 4 (or 3GS, or 3G, or iPad, or…) itself, using via the handset’s Safari browser to reportedly break into most any iOS device. The servers are getting slammed pretty badly, and only a few Engadget editors have so much as seen the page pictured above so far, but rest assured we’re testing this as we speak and will have more details up soon.

Update: Sorry folks, we’ve tried repeatedly, but apparently the servers just can’t handle the load — Comex tweets that the purple screens we’re seeing are evidence of server fail. Here’s hoping for a Cydia celebration when the stampede is over.

Update 2: Comex says you might want to reboot if you got stuck staring at that purple screen, and you could also try their backup server (click our second source link) to help the Dev Team divide the load.

Update 3: We successfully got the jailbreak to start working, but it crashed Safari. Upon reboot of our phone we’ve got… nothing but the Apple logo. Take note, this can brick your phone, so proceed with caution! Video of the experience after the break. After a reset, our phone is giving us nothing but the Apple logo. (Update to the update, the phone has been restored).

Update 4: Our intern Sam has successfully jailbroken his iPhone 4 according to this pic, so it can be done!

Update 5: Comex reports that iPads running iOS 3.2.1 aren’t presently working properly, and that MMS problems after jailbreak are a known issue.

Update 6: Good news? Saurik (of Cydia fame) has pitched in to secure JailbreakMe some better hosting. Bad news? Reports indicate that FaceTime doesn’t work after jailbreak, either.

Update 7: Seven updates? You bet, because it’s looking like there’s already a fix for the missing FaceTime and MMS features. Head on over to Redmond Pie (in more coverage below) for instructions to install the Cydia package that brought video chat back to two of our iPhone 4 handsets. If you’re just downloading JailbreakMe for the first time though, you shouldn’t need to do a thing, as Comex claims both have been fixed in a new version of the hack that just went live.

Continue reading Official: iPhone 4 jailbreak hits from iPhone Dev Team (updated with video)

Official: iPhone 4 jailbreak hits from iPhone Dev Team (updated with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh sure, VoIP on the iPod touch is hardly breaking news these days, but what if you could actually slap on a regular SIM card and make calls on said device? That’s what Yosion’s appropriately named Apple Peel 520 claims to do. Powered by an Infineon baseband chip, this adapter not only offers voice calling and text messaging (presumably requiring a jailbroken iPod touch for the apps; GPRS not possible yet), but it also doubles up as an 800mAh battery and provides 4.5 hours of call time or 120 hours of standby juice. We’re told this cheeky hack’s coming out in China as early as this week for somewhere between ¥300 ($44) and ¥500 ($74), although the lack of an official website, full spec sheet or compatibility list means we’ll have to remain skeptical with this potentially vaporware company. Maybe the demo video after the break will keep us believing.

[Thanks, Bong]

Continue reading iPod touch becomes iPhone using Yosion’s Apple Peel 520?

iPod touch becomes iPhone using Yosion’s Apple Peel 520? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple just posted up its third quarter earnings — its first full quarter selling the iPad — and, well, it’s raining cash in Cupertino. The company posted a record profit of $3.25b on record revenues of $15.7b, which is up from $1.83b and $9.73b from a year ago. The big stat? Apple sold 3.27 million iPads, nearly matching the 3.47 million Macs sold — and Mac sales were up 33 percent from a year ago to set a new quarterly record. Yeah, damn. iPhone sales — including the first few weeks of the iPhone 4 — were up 61 percent from a year ago to 8.4 million, and the iPod continued its slow decline, down eight percent to 9.41 million units sold. Over half of the Apple’s sales — 52 percent — were international, and Jobs is quoted saying “we have amazing new products still to come this year.” Not a bad way to head into back-to-school and the holidays, we suppose — we’ve got a feeling those iPad numbers are just going to go up. The conference call to discuss all this is at 5pm ET, we’ll be covering it live right here.

Update: The call is all done — the full liveblog is after the break. We didn’t learn too much apart from the fact that Apple’s selling every iPhone and iPad it can make (Tim Cook repeated this over and over), and that Apple’s setting aside $175 million in revenue to cover the free iPhone 4 cases. Of course, given that Apple added an additional $4.1 billion in cash to its warchest this quarter for a total of $45.8 billion, that’s pretty much pocket change, but there’s the number.

Continue reading Apple posts record $3.25b profit in first full quarter of iPad sales, says more ‘amazing products’ coming this year

Apple posts record $3.25b profit in first full quarter of iPad sales, says more ‘amazing products’ coming this year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s ugly. It’s buggy. It requires a Windows PC. But PlayOn for iPhone actually works, slinging Netflix, Hulu, CBS and more to your waiting Apple device over WiFi and (occasionally) 3G. Using the same PlayOn desktop client that presently redirects video-on-demand to your game console or a media streamer attached to your TV, subscribers can download an app on July 15th that transcodes content for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad as well, and is today the only way to get Netflix on your phone.

We spent some quality couch time with the program over the last couple of days, and with a powerful PC, fast internet and WiFi connection, we found video quite watchable on our iPhone 4, and there’s no knocking PlayOn’s breadth of content available, with loads of TV, a good deal of anime and your entire Netflix streaming queue available on the phone. The interface is barely there, though, just a series of poorly-spaced nesting menus, and it can take quite a few touchscreen presses and a bit of thought to find what you want to watch. There are a few bugs too, like one that kept shooting us back to the main menu randomly upon a button press, and another that locked us into a particular piece of content until both app and desktop server were restarted. Some content could have looked better on the 3.5-inch Retina Display if only we’d had the option to press the HD button, but the only controls Media Mall provides are forward, backward and volume, and even with full bars we’re afraid we couldn’t get 3G playback to work reliably. Since the company still offers a free 14-day trial of the service, the software’s definitely worth a try, but if you want Hulu or Netflix on the go (or even around the house), we imagine you’ll eventually end up using their dedicated apps instead.

Update: PlayOn’s PR team tells us some of the exact bugs we found have already been fixed for tomorrow’s launch, including crashes that return the user to the main menu, and system states that chain the user to a previously selected video. That’s an impressive turnaround!

Update 2: The same team just pinged us again, and it looks like they’ve hit a roadblock. Apparently the app is once more “in review” under Apple’s watch, so only Cupertino knows when exactly it’ll be released to the world. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear more.

PlayOn for iPhone brings a wealth of streaming video to iOS, we go hands-on (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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