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.
Apple said Tuesday that it would spend $3.9 billion onto securing supplies of an undisclosed technology that it believes would be important for the company as well as for the industry at large. The company declined to disclose the type of the technology as well as its intention.
Apple has underestimated demand for the iPhone 4 and is facing shortages of its iconic device, but has refused to commit to saying when its supply chain issues will be resolved.
In a question and answer session with financial analysts following its Q1 earnings announcement, Apple COO Tim Cook - currently running the firm as Steve Jobs prepares to take a medical leave of absence - said that Apple had not done enough to address demand for the iPhone 4.
On Tuesday the FBI arrested and charged two men in their mid-20s for their involvement in last year's attack on AT&T servers that mined over 100,000 e-mail addresses from iPad 3G owners. Andrew "weev" Auernheimer and Daniel "JacksonBrown" Spitler were taken into custody and charged in federal court with one count each of fraud and conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.
"I've got a feeling that Steve Jobs isn't going to return to Apple. I don't have any inside information on the medical leave that he announced on Monday morning. Just consider my thoughts to be educated speculation based on watching the company for years.
Oh, brother.
The news that Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave from Apple is ominous.
Everyone wishes the Apple chief executive the very best. Let's hope this is temporary and he will make a speedy recovery. Apple says Mr. Jobs plans to continue as chief executive while on leave. That sounds hopeful. We will may find out more tomorrow, Tuesday, when the company reports its latest earnings.
As the anticipated announcement of an iPad refresh draws nearer, the tidbits of insider information are seeping out at faster rates.
Among the latest: a report that the next generation of the Apple iPad features a high-resolution Retina display, powered by a dual-core graphics chip. The high-resolution screen and faster GPU would allows the iPad 2 to play 1080p HD video, according to an AppleInsider report citing sources familiar with the matters.
The iPad was a mighty hot commodity when it was released, and it enjoyed great reviews until the iPhone 4 came out. The smartphone didn’t hurt the tablet’s sales, but many users felt like the iPhone’s retina display made the iPad feel, well, dated. Using the iPhone all day and coming home to the lesser resolution screen on the iPad at night felt like a downgrade. This caused many to speculate that the next generation Apple tablet would have a retina display.
US electronics retailer, Best Buy seems to have pre-launched a range of new Apple iPads on its website, although there are no technical specifications to offer hints as to what these new models would be like. The website notes three new models, with retail prices from US$599.99 to US$699.99.
Apple is widely expected to announce an iPad 2 variant next month, and recent reports also suggested a variant of the current iPad will be launched which will offer built-in CDMA support. The current models only offer WCDMA based 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity.
An unofficial version of PwnageTool has just been released which allows you to jailbreak the recently released iOS 4.3 beta firmware. Currently, the jailbreak is supported on iPhone 4 only. Support for other devices will follow soon.
For those of you who don’t know, this version of PwnageTool uses Geohot’s bootrom-based Limera1n exploit which has already pwned all current iOS devices for life!
