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Comex has once again updated his jailbreakme.com website with the picture seen here teasing yet again that the iPad 2 jailbreak might finally be here by July 4th. Again, this is just my guess as no one knows for sure. The iPad 2 went on sale in March and being the only iOS device without a jailbreak it is hard to underestimate the demand for it. Back in the beginning of May hopes were up that GeoHot would rain down a jailbreak as it looked like he accepted a challenge from p0sixninja. Sadly, he later decided not to do it and has since been spending his time working for Facebook. P0sixninja was working on a jailbreak, but has been quite lately. Back on May 23, the Chronic Dev team said it would be ready in weeks. A month later and all is quite. If you goto jailbreakme.com right now you’ll see notes implying that comex has been working on a jailbreak for ten months – much longer than the iPad 2 has even been out. On top is the text, “It’s been far too long.” You said it brother. Whether it’s comex or p0sixninja, if there isn’t an iPad 2 jailbreak by July 4th it will be a sad one for me as my belief in power of capitalism will be put in doubt. Continue Reading…

We reviewed HBO Go back in May when it came out and were impressed. Recall HBO Go gives you access to their entire library of content to watch on your iPhone, iPod, iPad or Android device provided you are an HBO subscriber. It’s the only app I can think of that gives you every show on demand. Hulu and Netflix are quite limited in what I consider the more current in demand content. Today HBO went over 3 million downloads for the app which is impressive given they only have 28 million subscribers. Expect downloads to continue as they are releasing new episodes to hit shows on the app a week before they air. Not sure if this will continue, but it’s an interesting move. It certainly will increase demand and viewership on the app, but since the episode will be leaked to websites, will their television viewership go down as potentially millions of people watch on other devices before the shows air on TV? Time will tell. In the meantime, check the TV Shows page for links to episode 2 of True Blood which airs Sunday. There is a mov file which drops right into iTunes and will play on your iDevice. It’s quality is great and I recommend you download that one. I also put an mp4 link which is fine, but slightly darker just in case your device can’t get the mov file to work. Enjoy!

Why do I keep downloading word games when I’m soooo bad at them?? Oh well, Zynga, the makers of the hugely popular app Words With Friends earlier this month released Hanging With Friends. The game is similar to the classic hangman, with a twist. First you build a word to send to your opponent to play hangman with. You are given 12 letters to make the word and it has to be four to eight letters in length (see photo to the left). Then you send it and they try and guess before creating a word to send back which you play hangman on. When you get a new word you can hit replay and see which letters your opponent picked in trying to guess your word and whether or not they got it right. Not interested, then just start playing hangman and attempt to get their word. Each character is hanging by five balloons. Miss five words and you lose. Continue Reading…

I read a ton of iPhone blogs and websites. It can get quite redundant as the same basic story is posted on each one. However, I find it is often helpful to read different authors to get a better understanding of how the iPhone and iPad work. That said, one area where this isn’t true is rumors. They really annoy me for two reasons. One is that they are posted constantly and two is that much of it is quite obvious (unlike trying to predict when the next jailbreak will come out which is practically impossible). With that said let me offer a quick review of the rumors running around about the iPad 3 and iPhone 5. I’ll also tell you what’s really going to happen. Continue Reading…

Chillingo Ltd. has done it again. The makers of Cut the Rope have released another physics based puzzle game called Feed Me Oil, $0.99. Like Cut the Rope the object of the game is to feed weird creatures (this time they want to eat oil). You are given different objects to place on the board before turning on a pipe to release the oil. If you placed them correctly the oil runs into the mouth of the creature and you advance to the next board. The first few boards are simple and involve placing blocks and windmills. However, as you advance you are given magnets, fans and more to try and beat the increasingly difficult levels. If you get stuck no problem, there is a hint button to help you move along. If you look at the picture you can see a board I used right as the oil comes out of the pipe. From there two windmills spin it up in the air where it drops on the other side to where a fan blows it into the creatures mouth. It’s quite difficult to visualize and I’m using the help button often. Feed Me Oil spent numerous days as the number one paid app in the App Store, but has since dropped out of the Top 25. It’s with good reason as it’s quality, but I don’t like this as much as Cut the Rope. It may grow on me after time, but there is something not quite as addicting.

Remember antennagate? When the iPhone 4 was released there was tons of press about weak signals and dropped calls from covering the bottom corner of the iPhone. Apple gave free bumpers to everyone to “solve” this problem. I wrote back then that it wasn’t a big deal at all and that the biggest problem with the iPhone 4 was the proximity sensor. This would cause your cheek to accidentally press the mute button, hold button or hangup a call by mistake. For me it was the mute button, at least once per week. Apple claimed iOS 4.1 fixed the proximity sensor and while I agree it got better, I still accidentally mute a call every so often. If you are having this problem there is a fix that works 100% brought to you by the jailbreak community of course. CallLock, $0.99 from BigBoss, locks your iPhone screen during a call preventing you from accidentally hitting any buttons. Set it to automatic and within about 5 seconds from making or answering a call the iPhone screen locks. Now there is one minor drawback. If you want to access the keyboard, speaker, mute buttons etc. you have to slide to unlock and make that screen available again. Also, to end the call you have to slide to unlock and then press end. There is a manual setting you can choose to enable the call lock only on selected calls. Like maybe when talking to your boss so you don’t hang up on him/her. There is a similar app in Cydia called Dialer Shield that pretty much does the same thing for $1.49. Take your pick.

If you like skee ball then a free app called Ramp Champ, The Iconfactory, might interest you. Slide your finger to toss the ball up the ramp and knock over the various items to score points. The best thing about this app are the variety of board themes and how visually attractive they are. Clown Town is a classic theme, Breakwater Bay is an underwater theme of course and Space Swarm reminds me of playing Space Invaders. The audio on the app is nice as well as it definitely has a carnival feel. The downside of the app for me is that it’s too hard. Each board presents you with tasks to complete (like knock down all the fish). This requires taking out multiple pins with one ball. While I can do this it has to be done multiple times in each nine ball game. I guess this could be seen as a positive as the time required to win this game is quite a lot which if you like it is a great thing. However, I just get frustrated and move on to another game.

Like they have for years in most of the world, Apple is finally selling a factory unlocked iPhone in the United States. Now before you get excited this IMO is virtually useless. First, it is only the GSM model meaning it won’t work on Verizon or Sprint. Even worse, while it will make voice calls on T-Mobile, due to T-Mobile AWS frequencies 3G data won’t work on T-Mobile. Who would want an iPhone with no 3G data support? Thus, this “unlocked” iPhone doesn’t fully work with any of the big 4 United States carriers other than ATT. It is not different than a locked ATT iPhone 4 in that respect. Of course it is more expensive. Both black and white unlocked iPhone 4 will cost you $649 for the 16GB model and $749 for the 32GB. This is $50 more than a no contract iPhone 4 and $450 more than a two year contract subsidized iPhone 4! Now there is of course one advantage to the unlocked iPhone 4 – international travel. Continue Reading…

How many times have you used your iPhone as a flashlight? For me it’s at least once per week. Usually it’s sneaking into bed trying not to wake my wife as I move around the dark room. Other times it’s been when we’ve lost power at our home or when out at night with the kids and they wanted to see a bug. What’s really nice is this flashlight is always in your pocket. No need to go looking in a closet or garage. The only problem has been getting the flashlight on. With my iPhone 4 this envolves opening the camera, moving the slider from still photo to video and then tapping the flash. Not too hard, but the camera app is slow and there are apps that provide a better faster way to do the same task. My favorite is a free app called illumination, Erik Storili. For an iPhone 4 it uses the LED flash on the back and for iPhone 3G/3GS and iPad is uses the screen. All you have to do is launch the app and tap flashlight. It’s much faster and if like me you are doing this on a weekly basis it’s a nice app to have. The app also comes with a Tap Mode, but I don’t find this necessary at all. For fun there is a Strobe Mode if you want to try and give your friends a seizure. There also is a Morse code mode, but I have no idea if it works or not. I’ve never been on a submarine and had to learn this.

7 Little Words, Blue Ox Technologies Ltd. Free, is a great app for those that like crossword puzzles, word finds and other word games. My wife loves Words With Friends so I figured this would be right up her alley and I was right. I had her download it when we left Atlanta and she played all the way back to Nashville. The game is simple to learn. Each board consists of 7 word clues (similar to a crossword puzzle) and 20 groups of letter tiles. Place tiles to make one of the seven words for which you have clues. There is no penalty for guessing wrong. Words are anywhere from six to ten letters. As you can see in the photo so far on this board I’ve gotten two words correct. The game comes with 30 puzzles/boards and you can buy another one hundred for $2 ($0.99 for each set of 50). I’m not a big word game person as my spelling is horrible. If you read this blog I’m sure you are aware of that fact. Thus, I get killed at word games and tend not to play for that reason. This is my favorite one. It’s not too hard and the competition is myself. If I get stuck I try placing tiles next to each other in a guess. A very clean simple app that I think many of you would like.