The evasi0n iOS 6.x jailbreak now available
The lack of an untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.x has been frustrating for many iPhone/iPod touch/and iPad users desperate to liberate their devices, install all their beloved jailbreak apps, and apply their favorite tweaks. A friend of mine is keen to buy an iPhone 5, but hasn’t purely because he’s been waiting to make sure of an iOS 6 jailbreak.
Well the good news for him, and other users keen to remove the limitations on their Apple devices, is the evad3rs team has rolled out its highly anticipated evasi0n hack for all Apple hardware running iOS6-iOS6.1.
Enterprises embrace Apple like Microsoft
During the mainframe era, you could hear phrase: "No one is fired for buying IBM". In the 1990s and 2000s, the same could be said about Microsoft. As the so-called Post-PC era pushes forward, soon same can be said about Apple, if some IT organizations don't already. Gartner predicts that by 2014, enterprises will accept the fruit-logo as much as Windows, which is something scary for the company owning that market segment.
Consumerization of IT -- or bring your own device to work -- forced Apple on unwilling IT organizations. Now, after tasting the fruit, they like it. More of them than ever are willing to deploy Macs, which encroach on territory Microsoft seeks to claim for Windows 8.
Android is winning the mobile platform wars
Some days the sorry state of news reporting really baffles me. Today I read numerous headlines claiming that Android tablet share surged past 50 percent in Q4, usurping iPad -- all using numbers I wrote about a day earlier. The one on CNN -- "IDC says Android is the new king of tablet market share" -- got to me. Immediate reaction: "What did I miss?" But in looking over the numbers, nothing really jumped out that IDC said any such thing. Sure iPad shipment share fell to 43.6 percent from 51.7 percent annually and from 46.4 percent sequentially. I chose to ask the analysts rather than follow the feeding frenzy.
"Android actually passed the 50 percent mark in 3Q 12", Tom Mainelli, IDC research director for tablets, says. Whoa, there's no new king at all. Android took the crown last summer. Still, that's a phenomenal achievement, setting me to write a story I couldn't imagine a year ago.
You can steal -- ah, still get -- Windows 8 Pro cheap
I owe a commenter an apology. Let me explain. Two months ago I wrote about a Microsoft error that allowed anyone the Windows 8 Pro upgrade for $14.99, which is supposed to only be available to those who have purchased a Windows 7 PC after June 2, 2012. I took a lot of heat from our kind readers for pointing out the flaw. Microsoft also contacted me and assured me that the loophole would be fixed.
It is an easy fix, honestly. Require the user to enter a Windows 7 key and then check against the database to ensure that it was activated after the required date. It is really that simple. But, Microsoft didn't close the loophole.
iPhone wins the U.S. (kind of), but Android rules the world
Americans love their iPhones, finally enough to topple Samsung's long-time leadership. During fourth quarter, Apple nudged ahead of the South Korean electronics giant, with 34 percent share, based on shipments, according to Strategy Analytics. To be clear, the numbers are for all mobiles, not just smartphones. The distinction is important for several reasons. The American company only ships smartphones, for which demand rages. Related: Overall phone shipments fell for the year.
"Apple has become the number one mobile phone vendor by volume in the United States for the first time ever", Neil Mawston, Strategy Analytics research director, says. "Samsung had been the number one mobile phone vendor in the U.S. since 2008, and it will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4".
HTC Windows Phone 8X -- Purple madness [Review]
The HTC Windows Phone 8X is a smartphone that you will either love or not want to touch even with a 10 foot pole. Part of the arguments for and against it stem from the operating system of choice, Microsoft's latest (and greatest) Windows Phone iteration. Sure, the device has good build quality and the software is fluid and responsive, but the app selection is currently lacking compared to rivals like Android and iOS. So where does one draw the line between success and failure?
I've been using the Windows Phone 8X for almost two weeks and the early impressions are still on the positive side. In my initial review I touched on a number of points that I found revealing for my brief time with it, but the real test is how the Windows Phone 8X fares over a longer period of time. My main and initial gripes concern the limited app selection and general usability issues of Windows Phone 8 when coming from the stock flavor of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. The real question is this: Is it good enough?
Surface sales suck
Or do they? If you listen to some analysts, Surface, and other slates running Windows 8 or RT, started slow out of the gate. Considering how much tablets sapped PC shipments in Q4, slow forebodes trouble ahead. Or does it?
"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul", Ryan Reith, IDC program manager, says. "However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company’s Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best". He estimates that Microsoft shipped just 900,000 Surfaces during fourth quarter, which means to stores and not actual sales to customers.
Google invites you to explore the Grand Canyon
Google Maps and Street View provide detailed coverage of much of the world, and today the search giant is adding the Grand Canyon to its list of fully explorable locations.
Captured as part of Google’s Trekker project, the 9,500 interactive -- and at times frankly breathtaking -- panoramic images cover more than 75 miles of trails and surrounding roads. If you’ve always fancied hiking along the canyon but have never had the time, money or stamina, you can now do it from the comfort of your own home.
Apple's idea of innovation is premium-priced iPad?
Yesterday morning, when I rolled out of bed (West Coast time) and saw colleague Wayne Williams' headline on 128GB iPad, I thought: "Well, good for Apple! This should bring down the price and raise storage capacity of other models". But the details wiped away all enthusiasm. This thing sells for as much as $929. What the frak? Who will pay that much for a tablet in a market pining for considerably lower prices, like $199?
Apple's idea of innovation is to double storage and charge considerably more for it. Perhaps CEO Tim Cook and company read too many blogs about supposedly overpriced Microsoft Surface Pro, which iPad gangbangers insist competes with the fruit-logo tablet. Not so -- Microsoft priced against Windows ultrabooks and MacBook Air. But based on that faulty comparison, Apple can claim bragging rights. The new iPad ships February 5, four days before Surface Pro -- that's no coincidence -- and by comparison for less but with more. With 128GB storage, Microsoft's slate is $999, while the other isn't just $70 less but packs 4G LTE radio, too. Reasonable comparisons stop there, and no one should be fooled, although many will be.
Will you buy the BlackBerry Z10?
Today, the company formally known as Research in Motion, unveiled the BlackBerry 10 platform, and first two supporting devices -- the touchscreen Z10 and physical keyboard-packing Q10. The new products are quite literally a corporate relaunch, which includes ditching moniker RIM for BlackBerry.
While the Z10 and Q10 are officially launched, BlackBerry provides little information on the keyboard phone, while plenty on the other. The screen is smaller (3.1 inches versus 4.1 inches) and the battery is larger (but BlackBerry doesn't say by how much). So for today, I'll stick with what we know something about, and that's the Z10.
Microsoft Surface Pro has a BIG storage problem
Microsoft is no stranger to controversy, even attracting negative attention when it comes to the advertised storage of its own Surface tablet lineup. The interwebs buzzed after the company admitted the shortcomings of Surface RT, which only comes with 16GB of user-accessible storage in 32GB trim, and now the same issue is raising its head all over again with Surface Pro, just days before the big launch.
As most knowledgeable Windows users will concede, Microsoft's latest consumer operating system does take up quite a bit of storage space due to its fully-fledged nature. For example, on my personal computer running Windows 8 Pro 64-bit, the "Windows" folder by itself uses just over 16GB. So it's not overly difficult to imagine Windows 8 Pro will take up a lot of Surface Pro's free space. Of course this is something that educated pundits surely know (or at least they should).
Microsoft and I agree -- Office 365 is the future
This doesn't happen every day. Microsoft, which serves as both my daily computing platform and bane of my existence, does something I completely agree with. It is not the first time -- I am an unashamed Windows 8 lover. I also love Office, and the product has steadily improved and become easier to use with each iteration. But desktop software is quickly becoming old-school. I find myself using more and more web apps and storing more data in the cloud.
Today, Microsoft officially launched Office 2013...sort of. Yes, the software suite is out there, available to everyone, as we knew it would be. What we didn't realize was that the actual software suite would be downplayed. A lot.
Microsoft joins the party, warns users against Java
Oracle has had no shortage of headaches recently, thanks to Java. The exploits have been running wild lately, making attempts to fix the problems resemble a game of whack-a-mole. In fact, the troubles even resulted in the United States Department of Homeland Security being forced to post a warning against using the platform.
In a post to the government website, the DHS warned that "by convincing a user to load a malicious Java applet or Java Network Launching Protocol (JNLP) file, an attacker could execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system with the privileges of the Java plug-in process".
Samsung rolls out a limited edition Garnet Red version of the Galaxy Tab 2
Red seems to be the in color for mobile devices at the moment. First Verizon gave the world a red edition of Nokia's mid-range Lumia 822 smartphone, and now Samsung has introduced a Garnet Red version of its popular Galaxy Tab 2 slate. This isn't the first Samsung device to come in the bloody hue -- AT&T offered a Garnet Red edition of the Galaxy S III last summer.
Currently only available for the US market, the striking tablet comes with a matching case and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean onboard, in place of Ice Cream Sandwich. All the other specs remain the same, such as the 7 inch 1024 by 600 screen, 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, and 8GB of internal storage.
There's something you should know about Apple
Panic in Cupertino: Headless chickens run around smacking into one another, because they don't know they're dead.
That's the fundamental problem with Apple, and this situation is largely independent of recent stock price declines that analysts, bloggers, reporters and other writers can't opine enough about. Falling shares are part of a necessary correction, as reality displaces perception. To understand what's happening now, you need to look into the past -- three years, which by Internet counting is like a lifetime.
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