The Moon – Breaking News and Facts about the Earth's Moon | Lunacorp.com

by Thomas Penberthy

iphone unlockers, while costing Apple millions in subscription-derived revenue that the company shares with authorized carriers, are playing a vital part in growing the iphone market. Owners of unlocked iphones are the epitome of “early adopters;” customers who try current technology ahead of the wave, influencing buying decisions in their peers and stoking demand ahead of Apple’s official entry into a given market. They collectively represent an international beacon of sorts, offering Apple marketing assessment and revenue with no associated marketing or support costs.

Both Apple COO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer have acknowledged this benefit, even though each “locked” iphone brings Apple somewhere between $288 – $432 in monthly subscriber fees from the worldwide mobile carriers with which Apple partners.

(more…)

With the introduction of an Interface Builder and revised APIs, which debuted in Apple’s second beta edition of the iphone software development kit (SDK) yesterday, developers have a more complete set of tools for putting their code into realistic operation under the included “Aspen” Simulator.

Below is a video demonstration of PhotoBoard, an application that started its life under the “Jailbreak” umbrella, and was then ported to the official SDK. The program presents a grid surface upon which photos from the user library can be laid. The grid can then be navigated, and photos rotated and manipulated. It’s essentially akin to Microsoft’s Surface in look and feel.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

Daniel Eran Dilger
In back to back press releases with payloads of sensationalized misinformation, two apparently unrelated groups launched attacks on Mac OS X’s reputation for delivering better real world security for its users compared to Microsoft’s Windows. In the first, a contest held at the CanSecWest Applied Security Conference, sponsored in part by Microsoft, suggested that hacking a MacBook Air was faster than hacking a Sony or Fujitsu Windows PC laptop. Thousands of miles away, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology engaged in Vulnerability Numerology to declare that Apple’s operating system had fewer promptly patched software vulnerabilities compared to Windows. The premise behind both widely publicized stories are wrong, here’s why.

(more…)

Apple’s newly released iphone SDK revision (beta 2) includes an updated iphone Emulator that runs iphone OS 2.0 build 5A225c. The previous edition of the iphone SDK included iphone OS 1.2 build 5A147.

Other than a series of under-the-hood code handling changes, the new revision utilizes an updated version of WebKit — build 525.15 — to render pages in Safari.

As such, we expect that a downloadable edition of iphone OS 2.0 will be made available to developer program members shortly.

iphone20simulator.jpg” alt=”" hspace=”5″ vspace=”5″ align=”middle”>

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

Time Capsule, announced at this years’ Macworld Expo, serves as a simple rebranding of the AirPort Extreme with an integrated hard drive and power supply. Apple sells the new Time Capsule next to last years AirPort Express and the compact AirPort Express. This segment, the first of six exploring Time Capsule in depth, highlights the differences between the members of Apple’s AirPort family.

Continues: Exploring Time Capsule: how it fits into Apple’s AirPort family

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac

Apple has released a new build of the iphone SDK to registered developers. The new release includes much-anticipated support for building iphone user interfaces using the Xcode Interface Builder tool. This tool allows developers to graphically design application elements using drag-and-drop (from templates), and then to link these graphical controls to writeen source code.

More details to follow…

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

Daniel Eran Dilger
Jefferson Graham of USA Today reports that Amazon’s MP3 store “has quietly become No. 2 in digital sales since opening nearly six months ago,” behind Apple’s iTunes. That idea is being widely publicized by the big music labels, who hope to gain some leverage against Apple in order to push their own plans for the future of music sales. But is it accurate, is Amazon any threat to Apple’s iTunes, and what effect will the rumored plans for iPod-bundled music have on the online music industry? Here’s a look.

(more…)

<p>A forthcoming, major iphone OS revision — dubbed 2.0 by Apple but currently number 1.2 — may soon leak to the public, iphone Atlas has learned. The update is currently officially available only to those who have been accepted into Apple’s $99 iphone Developer program or who have been selected to beta test the release’s enterprise functionality. </p>
<p>Installation of the iphone OS 1.2 beta generally requires a special signature from Apple, but an underground team has discovered a method for bypassing this signature and installing a modified edition of OS 1.2. This installation method requires the use of “Pwnage,” a tool that leverages an exploit found in the lower levels of the iphone/iPod Touch bootloader. Exercising the exploit allows these devices to run unsigned code. With this capability in place, Pwnage can modify the iphone OS 1.2 IPSW (installation file), pre-activating and pre-jailbreaking it. </p>
<p>Only iphones that are already unlocked (not tethered to a sanctioned cellular network) can retain phone functionality after receiving the unauthorized. custom 1.2 update. </p>
<p>Ominously, Apple’s developer documentation states: “Once you install the pre-release iphone OS on your device, such device may only be used for development and testing purposes until the final (GM) version of the iphone OS is released. In addition, you will need to install new versions of the software from time to time throughout the beta period. Failure to install the most current version will, after a period of time, put your device in a deactivated state. Updating to the most current version will re-activate your device so that you may continue testing”</p>
<p>Apple also says that installing the pre-release software on unregistered iphones will render the devices inoperable. With the custom firmware and unlock mechanisms currently available, it appears — uncertainly — that hacked iphone OS 1.2 devices may be immune from this self-destruct mechanism. </p>

<p>According to our sources, we could see a public leak as early as this weekend.</p>
<p>Feedback? <a href=”mailto:info@iphoneatlas.com”>info@iphoneatlas.com</a>.</p>

Daniel Eran Dilger
Blogs have been buzzing about an article in Mechanix Illustrated from 1969 that made a series of predictions for life in 2008: flying cars that whisked commuters to work on autopilot at the speed of bullet trains, supersonic rocket planes, homes automated by a central computer, a society fed seaweed that tastes like steak, intelligence pills, and other science fiction ideas. Nobody has pointed out that the main prediction that has become a reality is represented by the iphone.

(more…)

A new service converts any well formed XML RSS feed to an iphone-optimized version with the typical sliding style interface. For instance (if you’re on an iphone right now) here’s the iphone Atlas feed, and here’s the Google News feed.

Jim Liddle, one of the creators of the service, told iphone Atlas “You can book mark the generated site and use it to host your own content and reference it from your own site.”

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.