Earlier this week, in the Norwegian town of Rakkestad, 13-year-old Walter Eikrem was walking home from school when he crossed paths with a pack of wolves. With his life on the line, he had to think quick. He blasted Creed. More »
Apple doesn’t want to let you inside your iPhone, even if all you want to do is fix it.
That’s what repair company iFixit claims, at least. The company recently discovered that Apple has quietly switched the screws in the latest shipments of the iPhone 4 from a basic Phillips head to a tamper-resistant screw that you can’t remove with any screwdriver you’d buy at a hardware store.
The screw in question is called a “Pentalobe” (see right), a five-point head with a round shape resembling a daisy.
“They chose this ‘Pentalobe’ fastener specifically because it was new, guaranteeing repair tools would be both rare and expensive,” said Kyle Wiens, iFixit’s CEO. “The iPhone 4 originally shipped with Phillips screws, but Apple has transitioned completely to this new security screw. Shame on them.”
It’s not unusual for manufacturers to use obscure screws and strict software security on their products to prevent people from tampering with their devices.
Sometimes tamper-resistance is designed for protecting company profits. In the case of software, Sony, for example, baked extra-strict security into the PlayStation 3’s operating system, which hackers recently infiltrated to install pirated software on the console. In a lawsuit, Sony asked a court to remove all traces of the PS3 hack from the internet, claiming it violated copyright law and would eat into PS3 game sales.
And when it comes to odd screws keeping you out of hardware, it’s most likely to get you to buy new stuff sooner. On Apple products, obscure screws began showing up on the mid-2009 MacBook Pro to prevent you from removing and replacing the battery, according to iFixit, and it’s been a recurring trend ever since. In this context, Apple would rather you buy a brand-new MacBook Pro when its battery dies than simply purchase a new battery, Wiens suggests.
Wiens added that if you own an iPhone 4 that came with Phillips screws and you take it to an Apple store for repair, Apple employees will replace the screws with the Pentalobular screws to prevent you from getting inside.
“This move is a part of Apple’s strategic plan to increase the rate of obsolescence of their hardware,” Wiens said.
If your iPhone is tainted with those funky screws, you’re in luck: iFixit is selling the Pentalobular screwdriver for $10.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Photo of an iPhone 4 with Phillips head screws: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Illustration courtesy of iFixit
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Kristian Ulrich Larsen’s “Flip” phone is deceptively named. With its three-sided construction it’s a shape-shifter for sure, but it’s definitely no Razr clamshell.
Gadget Lab favorites Yanko Design have brought us yet another piece of industrial design porn with Larsen’s tripartite concept smartphone, the Flip.
In its triangular position (seen above), the phone rests on flat surfaces elegantly, reminiscent of a bedside alarm clock at some futuristic Motel 6. But if you don’t have plans to dream of electric sheep any time soon, the Flip can shift into a slimmer version of itself, collapsing and tucking away one of its three super AMOLED screens between the outer two.
Each of the Flip’s three sides are connected by steel mesh links, so snapping it apart comes as no easy feat. And if you absentmindedly happen to sit on the phone, the Gorilla Glass screen covers can withstand a good ass whupping.
Aside from the novelty of your phone being able to double as a flower vase — seriously, watch the embedded video below — the Flip’s design addresses enough practical smartphone user issues to make it an intriguing product concept. For one thing, the Flip’s ability to morph from one shape to another could come in handy, say, when you feel like reading an e-book on an actual dual-sided, open-faced surface.
Or if you have the sudden desire to work on a teeny-looking laptop, you can flip one screen up to a 90 degree resting position and type away on the LED-backed keyboard. And with the front facing video camera, shifting the Flip back into the triangular shape means hands-free video chatting.
My favorite part? The Android OS the phone is running. Froyo, anyone?
Check out the video below to see more of the Flip in action.
What is being creative? from Kristian Larsen on Vimeo.
Photos: Yanko Design
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Look out Angry Birds, there may soon be another suite of addictive smartphone games battling for gamers’ attention. Global electronics giant Sony is said to be planning its own game-playing smartphone release, to be debuted at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona come February.
It’s only been about two months since Sony CFO Masaru Kato hinted at the company’s continued push into mobile gaming, but according to Bloomberg mobile development sources, that push will bring the gaming phone as well as an updated version of the company’s previous mobile gaming product, the PSP (Playstation Portable).
“The PSP being a proprietary platform was more concentrated I’d say on the core gaming segment than the light game,” Kato said in last November’s earnings call, “but now we are addressing that market as well.”
Also on Wednesday, Nintendo announced the upcoming March 27 launch of a 3-D mobile gaming device, the Nintendo 3DS. Like Sony’s PSPgo, the 3DS will cost $250.
Although we dug Sony’s PSP and PSPgo in terms of gadgetry, sales have been lackluster compared to that of Nintendo’s mobile gaming platform, the Nintendo DS. Research group NPD says Sony trails Nintendo in U.S. sales by tens of millions of units.
Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sony’s original PSP used games launched on a proprietary storage system developed by Sony, the universal media disc. Like Sony’s previous attempt at proprietary storage cartridges with the MiniDisc of the 1990’s, widespread adoption of the UMD failed due to the format’s proprietary nature as well as the lack of read/write devices available. Sony’s follow-up device, the PSPgo, tried to improve upon this system with an on-board hard drive on which gamers could store media, and no optical disc. Instead, Sony distributes all games digitally, and customers download them over Wi-Fi connections.
Stronger emphasis on Sony’s push into the smartphone gaming space signals the company’s willingness to take on competitors like Apple and Android OS-based manufacturers. Still, the cheap prices for games in Apple’s App Store or the Android Market may be difficult to beat. And if Sony were to launch its own app store with the device, differentiation might prove to be an issue as well. Who the hell can keep up with all the app stores out there today anyway?
Photo: The Sony PSPgo/Sony Corp.
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Visit a Starbucks and you can now forget about cash or cards: Just flash your phone to pay.
Starting today, iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry users will be able to pay for coffee and coffee-themed products in 6,800 of Starbucks’ own stores and in 1,000 Starbucks outlets in Target stores. The scheme has been tested since last year in a handful of stores, and is now available nationwide.
The app doesn’t bother with complex in-store machinery or NFC or RFID chips in the phones, for obvious reasons. (Sorry, Nexus S users.) Instead, you just tap the number of your Starbucks Card into a free app and load the app up with funds from either your credit card or, for iPhone users, PayPal. When you’re ready to pay, your phone displays a QR code on screen, and the barista can scan it using a standard reader.
In effect, it makes your smartphone into a virtual version of your Starbucks card, saving you from carrying around another piece of plastic and giving you the ability to see your balance and add funds as necessary.
Apart from convenience to you, the customer, using a phone to pay should speed up the lines in-store. Especially as most of the people in front of me are already jabbering on their phones instead of actually paying any attention to the staff at the counter. Then again, maybe hunting for the Starbucks icon on your home screen will becom the new hunting for change in your wallet.
Mobile Payment Debuts Nationally at Starbucks [Starbucks]
Starbucks Card Mobile App for iPhone [Starbucks]
Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry [Starbucks]
I use my iPhone constantly. Compulsively, even. It’s with me wherever I go. But you’ll rarely catch me talking on it. I hate phone conversations. And nothing has made it easier to ditch phone talking than the self-nullifying smartphone itself. More »
This article was written on April 21, 2008 by CyberNet.
Regularly making phone calls Internationally can get pretty darn pricey these days! Coming to the rescue of those callers is Skype who today, just announced new unlimited calling plans to overseas phones for an extremely reasonable price. When I say reasonable, it’ll only cost $9.95 per month to make a phone call to 34 different countries around the World. You really can’t beat that price, can you?
Countries included with this new “Unlimited World” calling plan include most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia (view the full list here). What’s nice is that users will be able to call the landline phones of friends and family for that price. So for example, I (living in the United States) can call the land line of my cousin living in the United Kingdom or the landline of my friend living in Portugal and talk to them for as long as I want in a month’s time for $9.95. Crazy, isn’t it?
Worth pointing out is that their “unlimited calling” isn’t actually unlimited. They’ll give you up to 10,000 minutes, but who really needs more than 10,000 minutes in a month? Because there are no long term contracts, this ought to be a really enticing option for people who call overseas frequently.
Overall, people still use Skype the most for calls made from one computer to another. In the first three months of this year alone, users called phones for around 1.7 billion minutes. On the other hand, over 14 billion minutes were used from those making computer-to-computer calls. This new Unlimited World plan may change that and we’ll see more people calling landline phones over the next coming months.
Source: AP
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A survey suggests a huge chunk of AT&T iPhone customers plan on defecting to Verizon, but that seems unrealistic.
Research group ChangeWave on Friday released results of a survey polling about 4,000 customers. Most notably, it found that 26 percent of AT&T iPhone customers plan to switch to Verizon, and 16 percent of all AT&T subscribers overall say they’ll switch to Verizon because of the Verizon iPhone.
ChangeWave adds that AT&T has made significant progress improving its network to decrease dropped-call rates, but it says that isn’t enough to prevent a mass exodus to Verizon.
“The findings suggest AT&T is now taking concrete steps to try to improve long-standing service issues,” ChangeWave said in its report. “But can it do so quickly enough to forestall large-scale defections to Verizon? Not according to our ChangeWave survey results.”
Ever since Apple and AT&T released the iPhone in 2007, tech observers have squabbled about the day Verizon would score the coveted handset. Verizon has consistently ranked higher than AT&T in customer-satisfaction surveys because customers found the network to be more reliable. Therefore, it’s easy to assume that a Verizon iPhone would result in a devastating blow to AT&T.
ChangeWave’s survey may back that idea, but it’s not that simple.
AT&T last year noted that 70 percent of its subscribers are on family plans and 40 percent are part of corporate plans. (There is some overlap between the two types of plans.) That means multiple devices are tied to these plans, and it would be difficult for them to transition to another network. Also, in a business scenario, it’s unlikely a corporation is going to switch all its employees to Verizon just because it now has the iPhone.
Add to that the fact that many AT&T iPhone customers are still tied to two-year contracts. To switch to Verizon, they’ll have to pay an early-termination fee and shovel up even more money to pay for a phone that they probably already have. In June 2010, AT&T increased the early-termination fee from $175 to $325.
Long story short, AT&T has made switching for many subscribers a pain in the butt, and that’s part of why we’re unlikely to see a big switch.
The one major feature that the Verizon iPhone has, which the AT&T iPhone doesn’t, is hotspotting — the ability to turn the handset into a Wi-Fi connection for multiple computers to connect to — and that doesn’t seem like a killer feature to make you switch. The latest iPhone beta software reveals that the hotspot feature is technically available for AT&T iPhones; now it’s up to AT&T to decide if it wants to support it. I’m guessing AT&T will in order to compete.
The one major feature that the Verizon iPhone doesn’t have that the AT&T iPhone does, is the ability to simultaneously use data and voice. So if you’re on the phone, you can’t switch to the Yelp app to look up an address, for example, and then return to the call. That’s a limitation of Verizon’s CDMA network, and for some, that will be a big minus.
Suddenly the prospect of switching to Verizon doesn’t sound so appealing, and for many iPhone customers it probably won’t be worth the effort and money.
As a few other tech observers have pointed out, the Verizon iPhone poses more of a threat against Android phones on Verizon than it does to AT&T. Prior to the Verizon iPhone launch, an early survey suggested that a substantial number of current Verizon customers would switch to an iPhone.
That seems more believable, because I can’t name a single person who voluntarily switched to Verizon because of Android, but I can name several people who switched to AT&T just for the iPhone.
Photo: Sam Gustin/Wired.com
Chart: ChangeWave
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Apple this week released a beta version of its next mobile operating system, iOS 4.3, for app developers. We got an early look at the OS, which has not been released to the public yet.
Among a pile of minor interface modifications, there are a few major new features under the hood.
Some new multitouch-gesture controls on the iPad are the biggest goodie. In the developer release we saw, at least, the feature is hidden until you use a Mac app to enable it. This new feature is awesome, and it’s definitely something to look forward to when iOS 4.3 officially ships. (Apple has not disclosed a release date, but we’re guessing soon).
The rest of the changes we found were interface-related — modifications to the iPad keyboard and the iOS multitasking tray, a new notebook font and more.
Here’s a rundown of what’s new in iOS 4.3 beta.
All photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
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The BlackBerry seems like the smartphone of yesteryear, but leaked info on two new devices suggests that BlackBerry parent company Research in Motion isn’t giving up without a fight.
Pictures of the next generation of BlackBerry Curve codenamed “Apollo,” and another device named the “Dakota,” have been making the rounds this morning, first reported by Boy Genius Report.
The two new devices tout an impressive lineup of specs, many of which contend with the latest Android-based hardware to recently hit the market. Both have 5-megapixel cameras and NFC capability (just like Samsung’s Nexus S), Bluetooth 2.1 and Wi-Fi, and both will run BlackBerry OS version 6.1.
The new BlackBerry Curve, codenamed "Apollo," by Research in Motion. Photo by Boy Genius Report.
From here, says Boy Genius Report, the phones deviate. The Apollo (above) will be running on a Tavor MG-1 800-MHz processor with 512 MB of RAM. Its 480×360 HVGA display will sit just above its QWERTY keyboard. It’s a nice update to RIM’s middle-of-the-road smartphone offerings.
A leaked photo of the BlackBerry Dakota by RIM. Photo by Boy Genius Report.
The Dakota, however, is aimed at the higher end of the smartphone market, and it’s got the specs to back it up. HD video recording capability, 4GB of built-in storage with 768MB of RAM, a 2.8-inch capacitive touch screen and an accelerometer all make the Dakota a force to be reckoned with. And yes, it does have 3G mobile hotspot capability.
The spec lists on the devices signal RIM’s willingness to change up their existing device configurations in order to compete with current smartphone market options. As iPhones and Android-based devices have lured away BlackBerry customers over the recent past, RIM has tried to fight for its once-burgeoning customer base. Last year, the company decided to overhaul the BlackBerry’s clunky OS and browser, and has also made efforts to woo developers by supporting Flash-based content on BlackBerry devices.
No price points or release information have been made available yet.
Photo: (top)Seany/Flickr and Boy Genius Report
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