iPhone

An employee for Foxconn in China has reportedly stated production of a device dubbed the iPhone 5 is about to go into production.

The source also revealed to 9to5Mac there are several sample handsets doing the rounds, but all differ slightly from each other. It is not clear which, if any, is the final device.

Some similarities between all the samples have been noted, including a screen which is 4-inches (or larger) in size, a different form-factor – hinting that Apple is going to move away from the 4/4S design and the devices are longer and wider than previous iPhones.

In a blog post by the iPhone Dev team, at least 950,000 Absinthe A5 untethered jailbreak devices accessed the Cydia app store between Friday, January 20th and Monday, January 23rd. The Absinthe A5 untethered jailbreak is meant for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices powered by the fifth generation iOS platform.

Absinthe is the newest untethered jailbreak tool which was released about 10 months after the launch of iPad 2 and three months after the iPhone 4S. GreenPoisOn released this jailbreak tool on Friday.

The Chronic Dev Yeam’s Absinthe jailbreak tool for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S owners has been updated to version 0.3. This latest update brings Linux support and minor cosmetic changes. A small bug fix for Windows users has also been included.

Tweeted by Chronic Dev team member @pimskeks, Absinthe v0.3 can be downloaded from this direct link for Mac users. Windows users can download it here. The Linux tool is also now available. If you’ve already jailbroken with Absinthe, then there’s no need to re-jailbreak with the updated version. Over 1 million people have already used the tool.

The iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners waited patiently, then they waited some more, and finally after a little more waiting welcomed the Absinthe jailbreak software to the community. Produced by the famous Chronic Development Team, and supported by the conjoined efforts of Pod2g and the iPhone Dev Team, Absinthe offers users the ability to jailbreak iOS 5 and 5.0.1 into an untethered state.The supported devices and firmware for Absinthe are:

    iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0, 5.0.1 (9A405 and 9A406)
    iPad 2 Wifi/GSM/CDMA running iOS 5.0.1

Ever since the December release of @pod2g’s “corona” untether for iOS 5.x on A4 and earlier devices, all eyes have been on the attempts to extend it to the A5 devices: the iPhone4S and iPad2.  Due to the combined efforts of @pod2g and members of the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team, we’re nearly ready for a general release!  All technical hurdles dealing with the underlying technique have been overcome, and it’s now all about making the jailbreak as bug free as possible.

The fight to jailbreak Apple's A5-chip-powered devices, specifically the iPhone 4S and the iPad, is nearing its end. Hacker "pod2g" and his crew of iOS exploit seekers have released photos and videos of a jailbroken iPhone 4S and a jailbroken iPad 2, both running iOS 5.0.1.

iOS jailbreakers who happen to own an iPhone 4S or iPad 2 may be going through withdrawal. After all, it’s been a while. The iPhone 4S has been locked down since its birth in October while the iPad 2 only had one brief summer fling with a jailbreak. The dry spell, however, may be about to end. Hacker extraordinaire pod2g has announced that the untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1 (on devices running the A5 chip) should be available in a matter of days.

The iPhone 4S has a number of security flaws, due to the popular and newly introduced voice recognition driven digital assistant Siri.

The most glaring error it would seem, is the ability for anyone to be able to use Siri to make calls and so forth that picks up the device, even if it’s locked with a passcode.

After struggling to gain an edge over its competitors with its BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, Research in Motion has conceded some ground to Apple and Google with the announcement of Mobile Fusion, upcoming security software for the iPhone and Android.

Waterloo, Ont.-based RIM said on Tuesday that the device management software should arrive in the late March. Though the company declined to provide a price for the application, RIM vice-president for enterprise product management did say that it will be "competitive" with rival offerings.

Anxiety over the public snooping of police radios using smartphones is persuading a growing number of US police forces to take the controversial step of moving their communications to fully-encrypted operation.

The Washington D.C. police department has become the latest to adopt radio encryption after mounting evidence that criminals were listening in to police conversations using cheap applications running on mass-market phones, the Associated Press has reported.