LS-HACKS

New pictures claiming to be of the next iPhone show video chat and an inward facing camera.

The new iPhone may sport a built-in 3D graphicschip, operate on a higher-speed network, and hit mid-July, according toa Kotaku report.

Their sources revealed that the iPhone will beavailable on July 17th and it will feature a 3D graphics chip meant toimprove the gaming experience.

Also mentioned was improved bluetooth support as well as 3.5G network capabilities.

Kotakuhas not been able to confirm these specifications; however, they dofall in line with the general Internet chatter on the matter.

Sprint today announced pricing and nationwideavailability for the Palm Pre phone, offered exclusively from Sprint.Palm Pre will be available nationwide on June 6 in Sprint stores, BestBuy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com for$199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-inrebate. Running on the new Palm webOS mobile platform, Pre bringstogether your important information from where it resides ? on yourphone, at your work or on the web ? into one logical view.

Forthose who juggle life circa 2009 ? bouncing from conference call to carpool schedule, from doctors? numbers to doctoral thesis data, fromsocial calendars to social networking ? Pre marks a new wirelesscrossover standard. Before Pre, you had to compromise when selecting awireless phone. To get the business features you needed, you had tosacrifice the personal entertainment features you wanted. Preconsolidates your important information ? professional, social andpersonal ? into one revolutionary device using an operating system thatredefines the experience of living and working wirelessly.

?Theargument that you need one phone for work and another phone for play,or that you have to make compromises between business and lifestyleproductivity, is over,? said Dan Hesse, president and CEO of Sprint.?With Pre, compromises of the past are history.?

Palm Pre willrun on America?s most dependable 3G network and come with Sprint?sindustry-leading, value-oriented Everything Data plans that offersavings of up to $1,430 over two years vs. comparable AT&T andVerizon plans for smartphones and PDAs.(2)

?The Palm Pre takesfull advantage of Sprint?s Everything Data plans,? said Avi Greengart,research director for Consumer Devices at Current Analysis. ?The Prehas been expressly designed for multitasking among multiple web pagesand applications. It also builds on Palm?s heritage in PDAs by managingyour digital information ? whether that?s on a corporate server or onthe web.?

"The Pre's dynamic 'activity cards' approach tohandling and navigating multiple applications is a great advance, butthe core breakthrough is the integration of information across multipleapplications on and off the phone," said Andy Castonguay, director ofMobile & Access Devices Research, Yankee Group. "With socialnetworking and messaging being so important to consumers, the device?snew ?Palm Synergy? functionality ? which gives Pre the ability toautomatically pull friends' contact details, messaging addresses andpersonal calendars from different applications online and on the phone? will greatly simplify people's ability to communicate with theirfriends and colleagues the way they want."

Pre: A New Kind of Phone

Thenew webOS platform introduces Palm Synergy?, a key feature that bringstogether your personal and professional calendar, contacts and e-mailinto one centralized view, making transitions between work and personallife smooth and easy to manage.

With Palm Synergy, users get:

* Linked contacts ? With Synergy, you have a single view that linksyour contacts from a variety of sources, so accessing them is easierthan ever. For example, if you have the same contact listed in yourOutlook(3), Google and Facebook accounts, Synergy recognizes thatthey?re the same person and links the information, presenting it to youas one listing.

* Layered calendars ? Your calendars can be seen ontheir own or layered together in a single view, combining work, family,friends, sports teams, or other interests. You can toggle to look atone calendar at a time, or see them all at a glance.

* Combinedmessaging ? Synergy lets you see all your conversations with the sameperson in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and you want toreply with text messaging. You can also see who?s active in a buddylist right from contacts or e-mail, and start a new conversation withjust one touch.

Palm webOS lets you keep multiple activitiesopen and move easily between them like flipping through a deck ofcards. You can move back and forth between text messaging and e-mail,or search the web while you listen to music. You can rearrange itemssimply by dragging them, and when you are done with something, justthrow it away by flicking it off the top of the screen.

Findingwhat you need is also easy with universal search ? as you type whatyou?re looking for, webOS narrows your search and offers results fromboth your device and the web.(4) WebOS crushes the barriers to truemobile computing.

?Pre is truly a new phone for a newweb-centric age,? said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executiveofficer. ?We?re a mobile society, and we want our people, calendars andinformation to move with us. With Pre?s exquisite design and the uniquewebOS software, running on Sprint?s fast broadband network, we?rechanging the perception of what a wireless phone can be.

?

Precomes with a charger in the box, but for anyone tired of plugging acord into their wireless phone, Palm introduces the Touchstone?charging dock, the first inductive charging solution for phones,available exclusively for Pre. Simply set Pre down on top of the dockwithout worrying about connection, orientation or fit. Pre is activewhile charging, so you can access the touch screen, watch movies orvideo, or use the speakerphone. Set Pre on the charging dock whenyou?re on a call, and the speakerphone automatically turns on; when youtake a ringing Pre off the dock, Pre automatically answers the call.Other mobile operating systems allow multitasking, but Palm hasdeveloped an intuitive method of switching between "cards,? whichresemble clicking different tabs on a Web browser. New applications canbe launched easily using the "Launcher" software button at the bottomof the home screen, and users navigate between different applications.

Withnearly every wireless device today you have to exit one applicationcompletely before you can use another. That?s not what people areaccustomed to; think of your PC and all the applications you can haveopen at one time.

Pre: The latest NOW Network milestone for Sprint

Pre also lets you access feature-rich Sprint content on the Sprint Now Network, including exclusive applications such as:

* Sprint Navigation(5)

* Sprint TV

* NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

?

Sprint?sNow Network brings you America?s most dependable 3G network, thelargest push-to-talk community, and in selected markets Sprint is theonly national carrier bringing 4G to life in 2009,?(6) Hesse said. ?TheNow Network is more than just a physical network ? it?s also data plansthat are all-inclusive, eliminating fear of data overages and a perfectfit for Palm Pre users.?

Sprint?s networks are now performing atbest-ever levels, and Sprint?s high-value Everything data plansconsistently beat AT&T?s and Verizon?s comparable plans in savingsby hundreds, even thousands, of dollars over two years. With therevolutionary launch of Ready Now, which Sprint pioneered, customersleave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phonesthey?re about to take home. As a result of these measures and more,Sprint customer satisfaction indices ? from first call resolution tobilling satisfaction, from customer care response time to service andrepair ? have all significantly improved during the past year.

Pricing and Availability:

ThePalm Pre phone will be available from Sprint on June 6 for $199.99after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year service agreement on anEverything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Dataplan. An array of compelling accessories also will be available forPre, including the Palm Touchstone charging dock. The Touchstone?Charging Kit, which includes the Touchstone charging dock andTouchstone back cover for Pre, will be available June 6 for $69.99. TheTouchstone charging dock and Touchstone back cover also are availableseparately from for $49.99 and $19.99, respectively.

AppleiPhoneApps has heard detailed informationon the specs and release date of the next generation iPhone from asource that they deem reputable.

We have checked thesource?s credentials to the best of our ability and at this point deemthe source as reputable. Of course we cannot guarantee the accuracy ofthe source?s claims since Apple will neither confirm nor deny anyfuture product releases, including if a new phone will even be released!

The specifications provided are listed below. Which do you think are realistic?

- 32GB and 16GB to replace current capacities

- $199 and $299 price-points to be maintained

- 3.2 Megapixel camera

- Video recording & editing capabilities

- Ability to send a picture & video via MMS

- Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device

- OLED screen

- 1.5X The battery life

- Double the RAM and processing power

- Built-in FM transmitter

- Apple logo on the back to light up

- Rubber-tread backing

- Sleeker design

- Built-in compass

- Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps to identify photo and inform about photo locations.

- Turn by turn directions

- July 17th, 2009 release date

Read More [via 9to5Mac]

Recently it has been speculated that Apple willuse a second event to launch the new iPhone; however, there is anargument for a new iPhone at WWDC

Daring Fireball author John Grubar strongly believes the announcement will be made at WWDC: That’dbe goofy. Last year’s iPhone 3G was announced at WWDC in early June, sowhy wouldn’t this year’s? Plus, if there are any new hardware features— like say a video camera or magnetometer — that means new APIs, and ifApple wants to have WWDC sessions for the new hardware-specific APIs,they have to announce the hardware first.

AppleInsiderhas made some arguments of their own noting that on average Apple hasannounced availability dates for its iPhones several weeks ahead oftime so that launch information and procedures can be made withoutextensive safeguards and so that customers have time to plan theirpurchases.

They also note that Apple will be facing competitionfrom the Palm Pre device rumored to launch a day or two before thestart of WWDC. It wouldn't make sense for them to allow a fledgelingrival weeks of headlines when it could easily eclipse any excitementfor the Pre with its own headlines.

Its also pointed out thatApple may need to demonstrate it can successfully launch a major newproduct without the leadership and showmanship that only Jobs wouldbring to the keynote.

Gruber concurs with this saying, "My gutfeeling is that we’ve seen the last Steve Jobs keynote address. I don’tthink he’s leaving the company — and his medical leave has beenscheduled to run through the end of June — but I wonder if he’s done asthe company’s spokesman."

If you have anymore arguments for a WWDC announced iPhone you can let us know in the comments...

Do you have a Twitter? If so then you might want a Application for your iPhone/iPod Touch for your Twitter. Then you’ve come to the right place. TweetStack is a great way to organize your tweets, and keep them in order.

The Design:

One thing i like about TweetStack is its SMS/iChat look. It has the chat bubbles for its Reply, Tweet, and Direct Messages sections. Another thing i really do like is its sending screen. When sending a Tweet it has the iPhone SMS sending screen that makes it really cool.

Stability:

In the settings you can set TweetStack to refresh every time you log on. Now for some apps this causes a stability issue, but not for TweetStack. It can still hold up.

I really recommend you get TweetStack. Not only is it organized, but it has features that are incredible! If you would like to get it, see the App Info below.

Price: $2.99

BeejiveIM is a simple, reliable service for IM services Like AIM, Mobile Me, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Windows Live, MySpace IM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Facebook IM. The thing that brings most people to this IM service is the look. The style of this App provides an iChat/SMS style interface to the table. People who have a Mac or iPhone know and love this Chat style. Besides the look Beejive (Pronounced Bee Hive) has many other features as well. One is the ability to send Links, Pictures, Videos, and now Voice notes. As well as being able to change the background of your chat session so that you have a relaxing customized feeling. Another custom feature is changing the color of your chat bubbles. Organizing your buddy list has not been so easy. You can add/edit Names of the people in your buddy list so that you can remember them. You also have to ability to add people to a favorites list so that you can access their name easier. Another thing i like is the search feature. Why scroll through your buddy list and find the person your looking for? Why not type in their name and get them easier? I think im going with two, and Beejive did as well!One of the other features i liked is the Badge notification. If you don’t know what that is then ill tell you. Its puts the a number badge on your home screen icon telling you how many unread IMs you have, sort of the same as the Mail app. Another feature is the easy to use Landscape keyboard function you can enable in settings

The Cons:

Although i would say this app is the BEST, there are a couple of things that i think they should add. When your in a IM you can’t see when the other person is talking, and often change subjects when your friend is still on others. Also, no matter what IM service the receivers on when your using Beejive They can’t see when your Typeing, and when your typing a lot they won’t think your talking. Now i don’t know about you, but i think that needs to change. Another thing is that when you have several IMs going and you use Landscape it gets very laggy, and for me crashs. I do love BeejiveIM, but they need to change this.

About two weeks ago 3.0 beta 3 was released for developers and was later leaked on torrents and uploaded to the net. Now 3.0 beta 4 has been released for paid developers in the iPhone Developer Program. It was released yesterday and has been leaked already on torrents. The Non-Dev Team jailbreak hasn’t been released yet so if you want a jailbreak don’t upgrade yet!

Note: We’ve gotten reports that developers must install the iTunes 8.2 pre-release before attempting to install iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 4.

For the people who update ModMyi tell us that the store settings are working now. This means people who upgrade will be able to buy from the iTunes Store and App Store on there iPhone or iPod Touch.

Search results can now be shown or hidden and the order adjusted (Unchanged from Beta 3)

SMS messages that fail to send now appear with an exclamation mark. Demonstration of deleting and forwarding of individual SMS messages. Has been available since beta 1 but never shown on World of Apple before.

We also have found out that in MMS when taking a picture from your camera, it will ask you if you want to take the picture, want to save it or want to re-take it again. I’m not sure if this also goes for the camera.

Copy and paste has made its way to the Calculator app.

Remember before upgrading to 3.0 beta 4 you must do it the right way, by not connecting to the Internet. Please read this post before upgrading, please don’t do this if you don’t know what you are doing.

New statistics which show web traffic generated by mobile devices (which was updated in March of this year) show clearly that the iPhone is still continuing to dominate. An example of web traffic is would be surfing through from safari on your iPhone. But we also see something which could be bad for iPhone in the future. That device is the Blackberry, taking up 22% of the chart! This could lead to be a big contender for the web traffic market. Also the new Windows Mobile is starting to show us what it can do, by taking up 11%.

Hopefully iPhone will continue to dominate the chart. And I?m sure the new iPhone, coming out in June - July 2009 will help a lot.

Microsoft and Verizon Wireless are in discussion to release an iPhone rival, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"MicrosoftCorp. is in discussions with Verizon Wireless to launch a touch-screenmultimedia cellphone on the carrier's network early next year, in a bidto compete with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, people familiar with the mattersay,"

-Amol Sharma and Nick Wingfield report for The Wall Street Journal.

"Microsoft'sproject, which is code-named 'Pink,' is aiming to produce a phone thatextends the tech giant's Windows Mobile cellphone operating system,adding new software capabilities. It would also likely includeMicrosoft's new Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a mobile applicationstore along the lines of Apple's, these people say,"

-Sharma andWingfield report.

Read More

Lots of features are being discovered in the 3.0 beta firmwares and this newest one is voice recognition. This new feature is called Jibbler, but it wont be an app you open, it will be built into the homescreen. This new voice feature will be more like an add-on to the new Spotlight search feature in the 3.0 firmwares. We suspect these new voice features will be similar to whats in the newest iPod Shuffle. Adding voice recognition to the iPhone will bring it up to speed with a lot of other phones in that aspect. Although I don’t see any big need for it since voice recognition can get very annoying at times. But the more features the better!

Could this be the new iPhone thats debuting in June of this year? Probably not, but it is an artist rendering of what he thinks the new iPhone will look like. Aluminum backing with a glass front and updated OS 3.0 seem to be present. Click the jump for another pic!

Here is another pic of an artist rendered iPhone idea. This one seems more logical as it adapts the same curved style as the iPod Touch

AT&T is increasing the downlink capacity on its high-speed packet access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 Mb/s through software upgrades at the base station, according to Scott McElroy, AT&T Mobility Vice President of Technology Realization.

Telephony Online reports that AT&T currently has the enhanced networks running in two test markets but plans to extend those capabilities to its entire network. HSPA can theoretically support 14.4Mb/s; however, the report suggest this may never happen...

The next obvious step would be for AT&T to further upgrade its 3G networks and devices to its full 14.4-Mb/s potential, but McElroy said AT&T will most likely skip the final HSPA iteration for two reasons: There have been technical difficulties implementing the final step, and HSPA+ is now ready for prime time. There's little point in migrating to 14.4 Mb/s if AT&T can go straight to 21 Mb/s, McElroy said. HSPA+ actually encompasses a bevy of upgrades, including evolving to a flat IP core and the introduction of smart antenna technology, but AT&T is focusing on upgrades to the baseband, which will dramatically increase capacity without having to fiddle with the elements on the tower or in the core.

It has widely been rumored that the next iPhone 3G expected in June will be able to take advantage of the faster 7.2MB/s connection AT&T is currently phasing in.

Read More

Apple has advised resellers to begin placing on clearance both the Apple Composite AV Cable and the Apple Component AV Cable, according to a PhoneNews.com report.

The site has learned that Apple will replace these with a single cable, which is known simply as the Apple AV Cable. The consolidated cable will support both component and composite output on the same cable.

More interestingly, PhoneNews.com has learned that the next generation of iPhone and iPod touch will offer at least one version of the iPhone and one version of iPod touch with an even higher resolution screen and capable of full HD video output.

Currently the iPhone and iPod touch do not exceed 480i and 480p (respectively) in terms of video resolution. However, the next iPhone and iPod touch will enable full HD playback, with 720p and 1080i output modes.

It is also believed that Apple will provide the ability for users to access their entire iTunes Library from the iPhone via Wi-Fi.

The end result is that a user can sit at their HDTV, using an Apple AV Dock and an Apple Remote, controlling their iPhone much as they do an Apple TV today. This ensures that a new iPhone owner will be able to purcase, for under $100, all the equipment needed to access (via the iPhone) all of their computer-stored HD content, on their HDTV.

Read More