New Liquipel Coating Waterproofs Your iPhone, Android Phone Without A Case [VIDEO]

If you work in an environment where your smartphone is constantly in danger of getting water-damaged, you can either a. get yourself a heavy, rugged phone like the Motorola Defy or, starting today, b. apply a waterproof, internal coating from Liquipel!

The news comes from our friends over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (or TUAW, as it is more popularly known) in the form of a short post in which they discuss how the technology-in-question works and how you can get use it with your own iPhone.

The waterproofing technology is called Liquipel (liquid repel) and it completely waterproofs your smartphone. Instead of using a traditional, external case, Liquipel uses a a nano coating that repels water at, well, the nano level. As TUAW puts it, it acts like a wax paper that simply refuses to absorb water.

From TUAW:

Yeah, it sounds too good to be true. But that really is an iPhone in the cylinder above. Liquipel claims to make your smartphone water resistant by bonding it inside and out with a "nano" coating which repels water. While this isn’t for deep sea diving, it appears to be an ideal solution if you are clumsy or happen to be around water quite a bit.

Now, there is both good news and bad news. The good news is, it is available in the marketright now and costs just $59; a small price to pay, really, when you consider the potential water damages that you may have to incur. The bad news is, you can’t just apply the nano coating yourself. You have to send in your device to Liquipel, their people apply the coating and then you get your device back within 1-2 days.

Liquipel supports the Apple iPhone 3G/3GS/4/4S, HTC EVO 4G, EVO Shift 4G, MyTouch 4G, Thunderbolt, Motorola Droid X/X2 and the Samsung Charge.

There are a couple of very important, unanswered questions though: firstly, how does Liquipel apply the coating? Is the device disassembled? Secondly, will using Liquipel on a device void its manufacturer warranty? We don’t have answers to these questions yet, so you may want to wait for the official statement before sending in your device.

Liquipel hopes to work with manufacturers directly so their coating can come pre-installed.

See Liquipel in action in the video embedded below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XtsSPZCGmuY

Export Images From iOS Photo Albums To Your iCloud Photo Stream Using Cloudy Exporter For iPhone

Apple’s Photo Stream is potentially one of the most useful new features that Apple added to iOS 5 for iphone, iPad and iPod touch. It takes everything that is saved to your Camera Roll, including newly taken photos and images that have been saved and then synchronizes it across iOS devices.

Photo stream also syncs wirelessly to all your Macs running iPhoto and any Apple TVs you own, too. It’s great if you own a selection of devices and don’t want to have to manually keep them all in sync.

A new app called Cloudy Exporter, just available on the App Store, now makes it easy to take images that are on your iOS device – say, in albums, and add them to your Photo Stream. This is great if you have images that for some reason haven’t found their way into Photo Stream by the usual means.

Cloudy Exporter allows you to export items from photo albums stored on your device, directly to your iCloud Photo Stream. This means, that the photo’s you export, will automatically sync with all your iCloud enabled devices, be it a ipad , computer or your Apple TV.
Requirements:
iOS Device running version 5.0 or later
An iCloud account
Photo Stream will need to be setup on devices.

The best part about Cloudy Exporter is its price. You can download the app from Apple’s App Store right now for absolutely free. There are ads at the bottom of the screen, but considering you aren’t going to spend that long actually in-app, that is a small price to pay.

We are surprised Apple hasn’t added this kind of support to iOS 5 yet, so we are glad to see a third-party developer taking the initiative. That said, as is so often the case with iOS apps, it is surely only a matter of time until Apple takes Cloudy Exporter’s cue and brings Photo Stream uploading to iOS.

Turn Web Pages Into eBooks With dotEPUB Extension For Chrome [VIDEO]

There are some awesome web pages out there. Not wanting to be big headed or anything, but we like to think that we manage to come up with the odd pearler here every once in a while, too. But sometimes you just don’t have time to read that long-form article. Sometimes you just need to actually do some work at, you know, work.

There are already some brilliant web apps for taking web content and making it accessible offline, or at least a way to bookmark everything for reading later. Instapaper is probably the most popular, and is a personal favorite of more than a few of us here at Redmond Pie.
But what if you’re one of those EPUB kinda guys? Want to put all your favorite web pages into the Kindle app, or whatever app is your EPUB viewer of choice?

That’s where dotEPUB comes in.

A new Google Chrome extension, dotEPUB does exactly what you’re thinking it does – it turns web pages into usable EPUB eBooks, perfect for pulling into the app of your choice for viewing on smartphones, tablets or pretty much anything else that can open an EPUB.
When installed, the dotEPUB extension will strip all images and links out of the web page before turning it into an EPUB, assuming you select the ‘immersive’ mode. Even using the standard mode, images may not be carried over depending on the web page in question.
As we’ve already said, we are big fans of the work that Marco Arment has done at Instapaper, and being big iPhone and iPad users as well as the odd Android device, we are never faced with not having the Instapaper app close to hand. If you do find yourself often without an Instapaper app nearby though, then going the EPUB route may well be a better way for you to save your web pages for reading later.
If you do go with dotEPUB then you can install it from here, and as is to be expected the extension is completely free for Chrome.
Though the extension might be very swift to use, but we are somewhat more inclined towards Flipboard for iPhone and iPad or the latest offering from Google which goes by the name Currents. Currents on the other hand, allows users to cache pages and articles for offline reading, but it is limited to handheld devices only.

Check the video at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HtXc6NK7tVA

White Galaxy Nexus Landing In The U.K. Next Month, Now Up For Pre-Order

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the latest touch screen devices to be released to the masses running the latest 4.0 version of the Android operating system, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. For those of you out there who aren’t fanatical about all things Android, the Galaxy Nexus is a device developed collaboratively between the Korean giant Samsung and Google.

The Galaxy Nexus takes its name from a combination of the Samsung Galaxy and the Google Nexus and is released as a third generation successor to the Nexus One and Nexus S. It seems to be a common trend in the mobile telephone industry for manufacturers to produce a sleek white version of their devices, although it is something that has only really been thought of as positive since Apple started releasing white versions of the popular iPhone even though other companies have been doing this long before.
Historically speaking, the Nexus range of devices has never benefited from the white washing treatment until now. The collaboration with Samsung has obviously been a catalyst to follow market trends. Mail order distributor, Clove Technology has taken the first step of listing the white Galaxy Nexus for sale on their website, advising that the first stock is due on the week commencing on 6th February. After being released in its original color in November 2011, the white version comes almost four months later.
So what’s all the fuss about? And why should you part with your hard earned cash for this device? Well, in my opinion the devices look so much better in sleek, awesome white, which is certainly the case with the iPhone and iPad 2. If that isn’t enough for you, the specification are pretty hot too:

• Android 4.0 – Ice Cream Sandwich
• 1.2GHz dual-core processor
• 4.65 inch super AMOLED display
• 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front facing camera
• 16GB internal storage
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, NFC
• Face unlock, Android beam
• 3.5mm audio jack
• 1GB RAM

Clove Technology has the 16GB version of the device currently listed for £498.00 (inclusive of VAT) and is available to order now as a pre-order. Alternatively, MobileFun have the device listed as being available a few days prior to Clove, but at higher cost of £519.95 for exactly the same 16GB version of the device.

RPon How To Unlock / Lock Bootloader, Root / Unroot Verizon Galaxy Nexus In One-Click Using Root Toolkit

While we’ve already published a post on how to root Galaxy Nexus on Android 4.0.2 ICS using Chainfire’s CF-Root, a new toolkit has been released today that makes unlocking and rooting a one-click process. Details and instructions available after the jump!

The news comes from Phandroid – a blog dedicated to covering all things Android – in the form of a short post in which they discuss the newly-released toolkit.
Developed by WugFresh over on Galaxy Nexus Forum, Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit is a simple, straight-forward program that lets you set up drivers and the Android SDK, as well as unlock (bootloader) and root and even lock (bootloader) and unroot in just one click.
From Galaxy Nexus Forum:

Unlocking, rooting, re-locking and un-rooting simplified!
This program contains all the files you need to unlock and root your device, or flash it back to stock and re-lock it.
My goal was to make the entire process as smooth and simple as possible through automation.

DISCLAIMER: Redmond Pie will not be held responsible if you lose data or your device gets damaged in the following of this guide. Proceed at your own risk.
NOTE: WugFresh’s Root Toolkit only works for the Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus. Support for GSM version will be included in a later update.
Step 1: Download GnexRootToolkit.sfx.exe [Goo.gl [1], [2], [3]].
Step 2: Click on the downloaded file to extract its contents under Program Files. Launch Galaxy Nexus Root Toolkit from there.
Step 3: Click on Drivers + SDK to install the latest device drivers and the Android Software Development Kit which is required for unlocking and rooting process.

Step 4: Connect your Galaxy Nexus via USB.
Step 5: If you want to unlock the bootloader of your Galaxy Nexus and root it, simply click on the Unlock + Root button and follow the on-screen instructions. This will unlock your device’s bootloader, root it, install SuperUser and flash ClockworkMod Recovery.
If you followed the steps correctly, your Galaxy Nexus will now be rooted.

Apple iPhone Celebrates Its Fifth Birthday

I never thought that this would be something I’d ever say, but the device that changed my life celebrates its fifth birthday today. Yes, the retroactively named original, or ’2G’ Phone was first announced by an enthusiastic Steve Jobs during a keynote speech at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9th 2007.

Looking back on the event, I don’t think anyone could predict the effect that the device would have on the industry, especially considering this was a first generation device from a company with no previous experience in that particular sector. During the speech, Steve Jobs defined the iPhone as a mix of a "Widescreen iPod with touch controls", a "revolutionary mobile phone" and a "breakthrough internet communicator" which he promised would reinvent the phone.

After three years in the making, from concept to launch, Apple released the device to queues containing hundreds of people on June 29th, which at the time was an unfamiliar site for a launch of a consumer gadget, but has since become a common occurrence around the world for Apple product launches.

The launch of the iPod range of devices in 2001 has been credited as being one of the main catalysts in Apples rise from the ashes to the top of food chain where they currently sit. However, the iPhone is now sitting on the fifth release and is widely considered to be the companies defining product, spawning opportunities to introduce additional products to market such as the iPod touch which followed shortly after the original iPhone and the iPad tablet device.

With approximately 6.1 million units of the original iPhone sold, just why was it so popular? Was it because it featured an elegant, beautiful design which integrated a purposely built OS to perfectly compliment the hardware? Was it because it featured a multi touch display with hardware sensors such as an accelerometer to capture user movements? Could it be because it represented a shift in the companies direction and represented a new era for Apple Inc?

Well, in all honesty for me it was an amalgamation of all of those things. But perhaps more importantly, using the iPhone proved to be an entirely unique experience from other devices the industry had seen. A combination of the touch gestures, responsiveness of the OS and the beautiful screen animations achieved something that no other device had achieved. When I purchased the first iPhone in 2007 I didn’t want to put it down, using it just felt ‘right’.
Happy birthday iPhone, here’s to the next five.
Steve Jobs Presentation in following link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uW-E496FXg&feature=player_embedded

Apple Seeds iOS 5.1 Beta 3 For iPhone, iPad, iPod touch

In the November of last year, Apple seeded the initial beta release of iOS 5.1, which as usual was available to registered members of the iOS developer program. The first beta build of 5.1 (9B5117b) was available as download for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2 and the third and fourth generations of iPod touch.

The release notes provided did not contain any specific feature additions, therefore making it difficult to determine what is likely to be included in iOS 5.1 when it is publicly released. However, it has been rumored that Apple is planning on adding some additional functions to the intelligent voice assistant, Siri. The first beta release of iOS 5.1 also saw the release of Xcode 4.3 (build 4D1002) to developers.

Two weeks before Christmas day, the company then released beta 2 of iOS 5.1 which was given build number 9B5127c. One update included in this release was the ability to delete images from a users photo stream which is a definite bonus addition consider the previous alternative was delete all or nothing. As per all beta releases it was available for download to registered developers.

To allow further testing and development, the Cupertino based company has today seeded iOS 5.1 beta 3 to all developers on the program. The latest version is given build number 9B5141a. At the time of writing the update was only available as an over the air update via the device and was not showing up in the developers portal via the website. The latest beta weights in at a 76.3MB download and it looks as though Apple are giving nothing away with what it contains with the release information saying "This beta version of iOS 5.1 contains bug fixes and improvements."

If you are currently running iOS 5.1 beta 2 it may be worth while checking your settings application to see if an over the air update is available for you. Make sure to connect to Wi-Fi for the download so as to not receive any cellular data charges due to the relatively large download.
If the update is not showing by either method, stay patient, it should be added to the developer program website imminently.

Android 4.0 ICS Face Unlock System Ported To iPhone

Probably one of the most talked about features on the latest iteration of the Android operating system is the facial recognition unlock software that comes bundled with it. The ability to use your own face to unlock your mobile telephone or tablet is one of the coolest new updates we have seen implemented into a mobile operating system in recent times, but questions will always surround how secure this actually is.

Various reports and experiments have spread around the world wide web since the release of Ice Cream Sandwich which show that the facial unlock system can be bypassed using only a photograph of the owner which does pose certain security risks. However, with this being the first time that this type of technology has been integrated into a mobile operating system there it can be treated as novelty item while the bugs are being worked out.
The exciting thing is, that when the bugs and inefficiencies are removed, I can see this being an extremely exciting technology and feature which has plenty of innovative applications built around it. It could certainly prove to be the future of mobile device security, just as biometric retina and fingerprint scanners are becoming the norm for door access systems across the world.
In the early part of 2011, I can remember hearing murmurings around the iOS jailbreak community about a developer who was attempting to produce a tweak which used the front facing camera of the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th generation to scan a users face and grant access to the device based on the scan. This tweak was eventually given the name ‘RecognizeMe’ and released onto the Cydia store to mixed reviews. The tweak revolved around training the device to recognize your face using a training application, but essentially offered the same core functionality that the facial recognition software in ICS does.
However, it seems now that the ability to use your face a device unlock tool may be about to gain some legitimacy by making its way onto the iOS App Store. Various sites are reporting that a new application is in development which aims to duplicate the features within Ice Cream Sandwich. The video below shows the application in operation, including approval and rejection recognition attempts. I am pretty sure that this application would prove immediately successful in the App Store should it manage to get passed the strict guidelines and testing engineers at Apple.

Watch The Video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFLuZkXf6-A&feature=player_embedded

Nokia Lumia 900 Announced: Specs, Pricing & Availability – Everything You Need To Know

Nokia is going big with the whole Windows Phone thing, which is probably something to do with that infamous deal it struck with Microsoft last year. As part of the Finnish firm’s newfound love for all things Windows Phone, Nokia has now announced its first WP7 handset to be made available in the United States.

If the specification list is anything to go by, the new Nokia Lumia 900 is a beauty, and could well be the handset that the Windows Phone 7 fans have been waiting for.

Specs
Packing a 1.4GHz CPU, and support for AT&T’s LTE network the Lumia 900 has just about everything it needs in the speed department, especially when you remember how slick Windows Phone 7 is in its Mango guise.
All that power will be pushing pixels around the new 4.3-inch AMOLED display, which is a decent jump up from its little brother – the Lumia 800 sports a 3.7-inch LCD screen.
The two cameras are as we expected, with the rear-facing affair being the same 8-megapixel shooter that is inside the Lumia 800, and the front-facing part being there mainly for video conferencing duties rather than providing top-notch shots.
Data is taken care of by the built-in 16GB of storage, and the 512MB of RAM will see Windows Phone 7 remain nice and zippy no matter how many apps you throw at it.

Pricing & Availability
Nokia Lumia 900 will be exclusively available on AT&T in US in the next couple of months, with March 18th being tipped as the expected launch date by well known Microsoft enthusiast Mary Jo Foley. No official word on pricing or International availability yet.
This coming year is a big one for both Microsoft and Nokia. The two joined forces during 2011 with the aim of a mutually beneficial partnership. Microsoft needed a hardware partner it could push around, and Nokia needed a current mobile OS to adorn its impressive hardware. Just how that will pan out through the next twelve months could well prove to be very important for both parties.

We are expecting great things to come of the Windows Phone 7 platform though 2012, and we certainly hope Microsoft can give Apple and Google a run for their money in the smartphone arena. More competition helps all of us, and with RIM fading away, Microsoft needs to take up the reigns and keep the two runaway leaders honest.
The Lumia 900 looks like a pretty decent start!

You Can Watch This video in following Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k3Nfh9bl0Z8

OnLive To Now Stream Windows 7 To iPad, Android Devices, And More

In a move that came a little out of the blue for us, OnLive has announced that it will be launching a new app for the iPad which will allow users to stream an entire Windows 7 desktop experience to their tablet.Set to be made available on Thursday the 12th, OnLive Desktop will offer a desktop experience on an iPad, with Android and Windows/Mac clients also in the works for release at a later date.

OnLive Desktop will use the same streaming technology and server farms that the company’s current gaming service uses, with the huge amount of computing power involved rarely fully utilized for gaming. With so much spare power, OnLive sees offering this new desktop streaming services almost as a way of getting its money’s worth out of all that equipment!
The new OnLive Desktop comes in various flavors, with a free version being available for those who don’t need a premium service. Users of the free version will receive 2GB of online cloud storage, with a limited suite of office applications available to them.
Those wishing to pay will also be given the option, with a $10 a month subscription getting them 50GB of storage, priority server access (during peak times users of the free service may find themselves waiting for a slot) and addition applications.

A third option dubbed "OnLive Enterprise" will allow companies to build their own package, allowing available application to be taylor made for their individual requirements. Perfect if your company has a unique set of applications that it needs access to, for example.
When running, the iPad almost appears to be running Windows 7, with the Start Menu, Recycle Bin and all the usual Windows bits and pieces in attendance. From the videos we’ve seen, responsiveness looks to be on a par with OnLive’s gaming services, which is to say it is more than good enough assuming you have a decent internet connection behind you.

Apple’s Tablet Plan For 2012: iPad 3 With Retina Display In March, iPad 4 In October?

The iPad 3 rumors and reports are coming in thick and fast just now, with the latest trying hard to re-ignite the notion that Apple will indeed launch two new tablet devices in this calendar year.

Apparently, the third iPad will launch in March – a full calendar year after the current iPad 2, whilst an iPad 4 will arrive around October. Having got wind of some inside info via Taiwanese component makers, DigiTimes also reckon Apple’s third tablet installment will feature a that crisp Retina display we’ve been holding a vigil for, whilst the fourth iPad will be more of a significant improvement – launching in October with, and I quote, "killer applications."
What on earth ‘killer applications’ are, we’ll leave to your imaginations. Given Apple’s past release patterns, it would seem somewhat unlikely the fruit company would release two new tablets scarcely six months apart, although DigiTimes suggests the iPad 4 is releasing so soon thereafter to fend off a possible Google-branded tablet as well as any devices running Microsoft’s keenly-anticipated Windows 8. Reports to the contrary – a notion to which our better judgment forces us to subscribe, cast the iPad 4 rumors off as "completely made-up nonsense."
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber really went to town on the Digitimes report: "Wait a minute. What’s going on here?" he responded, "A DigiTimes report about Apple and the iPad that’s completely accurate? No completely made-up nonsense? Is something wrong with me?"
As much of a stitch Gruber is, it’s actually rather disappointing to see the likes of DigiTimes producing reports so overtly unrealistic. The trend of citing “sources familar” has certainly increased during the post-iPhone era, and although some find rather interesting scoops often bearing fruit, it does seem as though it’s being used as a cover for certain sites to produce whatever they like.

Gruber reckons if Apple were to release to new iPads, one would be an entry-level model sporting the 1024-by 768-pixel screen seen in the current iPad 2, whilst the high-end model would have the Retina display
Until something a little more concrete arises, we’ll go with the more likely eventuality of a new iPad 3 in March, leaving the $399 iPad 2 to play the role of noble steed

MathAlarm Plus For iPhone Requires You To Solve Math Problems To Disable Or Snooze Alarm

If you are anything like me and millions of others around the world, then you without any doubt made a ridiculous New Years resolution, which if history is anything to go by you have no hope whatsoever of keeping. For those keen to know, my particular resolution this year is to release an iPhone game which actually sounds somewhat achievable, but time will tell.

For those who have yet to make a resolution, or who wish to change across to one that may actually prove to be feasible, then why not opt to improve your arithmetic skills? Bear with me, there is some method to my madness. If you are an iPhone owner the the chances are you use it day in and day out. Chances are also pretty high that you use the device’s alarm clock function to wake you from your sleepy slumber each morning. It just so happens that prominent iOS developer Ryan Petrich has you covered.
As part of the Daily Tweak Week challenge, Ryan released a small tweak known as ‘MathAlarm Plus’ which does exactly what it says on the tin and integrates mathematics with the alarm clock feature of the device. The tweak itself is very simple with no additional icons or settings entries being added to the device, instead it hooks directly into the existing clock application to alter the behavior of the alarm clock.

When a set alarm is triggered, instead of having the previous options of ‘Snooze’ or ‘OK’ to disable the alarm, MathAlarm Plus provides a familiar UIAlertView; prompting you to solve an arithmetical problem before you can dismiss the unwelcome morning wake up. The questions range in complexity and will get your day off to a fabulous start by requiring some mental input.
MathAlarm is available on Cydia now through the Big Boss repository. This premium version of MathAlarm costs $2.99 for the configurable options it offers.

You will obviously need to have jailbroken device to run it.

ShakeToUnlock Lets You Unlock Your iPhone By Shaking Gestures – Updated To Work With iOS 5

Regardless of you opinion on whether or not people should jailbreak their devices, one thing I’m sure we can all agree on is that we have seen the rise of some great development talent due to the community that has been created around the art of jailbreaking. The innovation, creativity and dedication that goes into producing some of the finest tools and utilities that exist within Cydia is commendable, even more so when you consider that a good proportion of them are available free of charge.

As with most walks of life, the individuals who are prepared to invest the time, effort and dedication to make something great are the ones who generally take the headlines. The same applies to the jailbreaking community, even though hundreds, if not thousands, of developers release work into the Cydia store, if I asked you to name a handful, the chances are people would produce the same names. One of those developers for me, is Yllier, who people may know from his release of Firewall iP and ScreenDimmer. Firewall iP blocks outgoing connections from the device, protecting apps, data and privacy and is billed as the only firewall available for the iPhone. ScreenDimmer, perhaps predictably, allows users to preserve battery life by automatically dimming the devices screen after a user defined set of time.
One of Yllier’s other tweaks that exists within Cydia is known as ‘Shake To Unlock’ and once again, no prizes for guessing what this tweak offers. With the recent release of version 1.09 the developer has extended the scope of this tweak to work with all devices running iOS 3.2 and above, which includes iOS 5. Shake To Unlock may seem like another simplistic tweak which has been thrown together, but upon closer inspection it actually has a very good feature set, making it a very accomplished and useful tool:

• Unlock device using shake gestures (one or two shakes, even directional shakes are supported).
• Unlock all of the time – stays alive even when the screen turns off.
• Has a low battery consumption
• Override the passcode if you desire.
• Undim the device without unlocking – this is particularly useful for users of LockInfo or IntelliScreenX.
• 5 settings for shake sensitivity.
• An included toggle for SBSettings.

As you can see from the feature list above, the tweak contains a substantial array of possibilities, all of which can be configured from within the Preferences application on the device. One thing which caught my eye is the declaration that Shake To Unlock has a low battery consumption. One thing which always concerns me with certain tweaks is the additional drain they place upon the devices battery. The release notes within Cydia claim that Shake To Unlock requires approximately 20 – 25% of the devices battery per day to function. To me that seems like a quite a severe drain, especially considering the battery issues reported in iOS 5.
Shake To Unlock is available as a free of charge download through the Big Boss repository within Cydia.
You will obviously need to have jailbroken device to run it.

Untouched Camera Pictures from iPhone 4S 8 Megapixel Shooter; This May Just Be The Best Mobile Phone Camera Ever! [PHOTOS]

Sample shots taken using the iPhone 4S’ powerful camera have emerged online today and they look absolutely stunning. You can view them after the jump!

 The sample photos come straight from the iPhone 4S page on Apple’s official website.
After months of speculation and rumors, Apple finally announced the iPhone 4S yesterday at their Let’s Talk iPhone media event which was held at Apple Town Hall inside the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Besides packing a powerful processor and an interesting voice recognition technology, the iPhone 4S packs an 8 megapixel camera which Apple believes is good enough to replace dedicated point-and-shoot cameras.
From Apple:

With 8 megapixels and all-new optics, this just might be the best camera ever on a mobile phone. It just might be the only camera you’ll ever need. And if you think that’s amazing, wait until you see your photos.

We really find it hard to refute Apple’s claims. If the sample shots are anything to go by, the iPhone 4S’ camera may just become the best mobile phone camera when it releases on October 14th. Megapixel-wise, the iPhone 4S’ camera is on par with offerings from Motorola and Samsung but megapixel-count isn’t the only thing that matters.

Apple has taken special care in ensuring that the differences between the iPhone 4’s and iPhone 4S’ camera isn’t just 3 megapixels, but also how much light the sensor can take and just how good a photograph it can take at the end of the day. iPhone 4S’ camera, according to Apple’s own claims, takes in 73% more light than the iPhone 4 thanks to the next-generation backside illuminated sensor and the wider aperture. There is also the Hybrid IR filter which apparently gives more accurate and uniform colors. All these features add up to a camera that, we think, will give the camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S II a run for its money.

Anyway, let’s see the photos themselves:

Apple Set To Launch iPhone 4S In China And 21 Additional Countries On January 13

The iPhone 4S, a device frowned upon by many when the specifications and aesthetics were announced in October 2011, but then went on to sell over four million units in the first three days of availability. For those statisticians out there that equates 1,333,333.33 million units a day, 55,555 units each hour or 926 units each minute. Not bad for a gadget which, according to some offered very little over its younger brother, the iPhone 4. The first day sales figures obliterated the previous record of held by the iPhone 4 which shifted over 600,000 pre-orders in its first day.

The initial launch date of October 14th 2011 saw it being made available for sale in seven countries with these being the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan, France and Canada. The following eight weeks saw another five official release dates with the iPhone 4S being made available to an additional fifty five countries across the world including Austria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Moldova and India.
To welcome in the New Year; Apple has released a press statement confirming that the iPhone 4S will officially be launched in China and twenty one additional countries on Friday, January 13th. Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook had this to say, excerpt from official press release:

“Customer response to our products in China has been off the charts,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With the launch in China next week, iPhone 4S will be available in over 90 countries making this our fastest iPhone rollout ever.”

History has shown that the Chinese market are very quick to adopt new technologies and previous Apple launches in the country have been met with wild excitement. Due to the current political set up in China, it seems that it is usually one of the last countries to experience the rollout of new devices, but is always one of the more successful sales areas after launch. Other countries set to benefit from the New Year’s launch are Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Ecuador and Trinidad and Tobago.

This exciting launch will see the current iPhone available in over ninety countries with more than one hundred carriers offering the device worldwide. With over 200 new features embedded in the 4S including Siri, the dual-core A5 chip, an 8MP camera and 1080P HD video recording; the gadget is sure to be a huge success after launch.

Apple Reportedly Looking To Seal A Multi Billion Pound Deal To Stream English Barclays Premier League

If the Charles Sale from the Daily Mail is to be believed, then Apple are planning to put together a package in order to try and win the rights to stream the next set of Barclays Premier League games. The tender package for the games is set to be released before the end of the current season, which ends in May.

For any of our readers around the world who may not know, the English Premier League is professional league for association football clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea FC and Newcastle United Football Club. The league is contested by twenty clubs and operates within a promotion and relegation system. Due to the history of the English game, the pace of the league and finances involved the Premier League is widely regarded as the most exciting and prosperous soccer league in the world which obviously attracts a lot of attention when the streaming rights become available.
The Daily Mail is reporting that Apple see the Premier League as exactly the type of popular, premium content that would see the Apple TV, and any future updated Apple branded television device, established in the United Kingdom. They are also reportedly hoping that the securing of the content would boost iPad sales. The fact that the iTunes subscription infrastructure is already in place means that the transition to providing this type of content, on this scale, would be minimal.
The current rights holder, BSKYB, are certain to be in the hunt once again looking to secure the package for another term. Other guaranteed bidders are the sports giant ESPN along with Middle Eastern network Al-Jazeera who may seem like a surprising bidder, but are one of the few networks who have the resources to pull off the coup.
In direct contrast, the Football Association have had to accept what equates to a 30% drop in the price of a two year deal with British network iTV to show FA Cup and England international matches. In an economic climate where other sports contracts have taken a decline in revenue, the Premier League looks certain be the center of a healthy bidding war, and although, I personally am a subscriber to Sky Sports; I am mildly excited about the prospect of my favorite company providing my favorite sport to me via their array of beautiful devices.

Android Market Breaks The 400,000 App Barrier, Still Lagging Behind The iOS App Store In Absolute Numbers

App Store Analytics website Distimo has reported that the Google Android Market has breached the 400,000 applications barrier in a rise that has seen the total number of apps on the Market double since April 2011. In April of last year; the Market rose to have an approximate of 200,000 applications, with that figure rising to 300,000 in August 2011 taking four months to gain an additional 100,000 applications.

The Android Market contains applications made up from roughly 100,000 developers releasing an average of four applications each to make up the total number of applications available. Although Distimo are reporting that the Markets rate of growth has caught up to that of the Apple App Store, the absolute number of applications in the App Store is still higher than that of the Android Market, totaling approximately 543,000 if the 148apps metrics are to be believed.

As a market place, the iOS App Store reached the 200,000 available applications in twenty one months in comparison to the thirty one months Android took. However, it took Apple an additional eight months to hit the 300,000 count, which the Android Market place managed in four. The comparison however perhaps isn’t a fair one as it isn’t comparing apples with apples (no pun intended). It is a well known fact that Apple test and inspect all submitted applications to make sure it does exactly what it says; it doesn’t contain any nasty surprises, whereas the Google model is somewhat more open, allowing for a faster submission time.

One trend which appears to be present across most mobile app stores at the moment is the consumer reluctance to pay for mobile software. Reports are indicating that approximately 68% of the applications within the Android Market are free of charge downloads which shows a rise of 8% since April 2011. Both market places have seen an insurgence of what is dubbed as freemium applications. Basically software which is free of charge to download but then requires an in-app purchase to unlock additional or premium content.

One interesting point to note is that well known development labs such as Rovio (creator of Angry Birds) and ZeptoLab (creators of Cut The Rope) have preferred to opt for the freemium model due to Android users reluctance to pay for apps, and also in an attempt to combat users not paying for paid apps. However, additional developers such as Epic Games and id Software have made a conscious decision to boycott bringing their software to the Android platform altogether due to the high piracy rate.

Make Tweets with New Application

As a social network, Twitter has become a big player in the last year with over 200 million active account holders accounting for over 1.6 billion search queries each day. Unlike networks such as Facebook, Twitter exists to connect users to the combined knowledge of the world by allowing them to follow friends, experts, companies and celebrities.

If you are an iPhone or iPod touch user then you will of no doubt trawled the App Store for a Twitter app, testing out a few and then settling for your favorite. One of the beautiful things about the combined Twitter and iOS community is the diverse opinions that people have about the available Twitter applications. Though there are tons of apps already out there to choose from, but coming across the right one is somewhat a challenge.
But what happens when you find yourself in an unexpected situation and you want to send out a quick tweet to your followers? You could load up your favorite application, wait for the timeline to refresh, dismiss any errors that may occur due to poor cellular data signal and then find yourself totally side tracked by all of the features. Its an annoyance we face from time to time don’t we? Yes we do, at least I do.
Alternatively, you could just download and open up the Tweet Time application which enables a quick and efficient tweeting experience for devices running iOS 5 and above. By making use of the new Twitter framework, Tweet Time pulls directly from your configured Twitter accounts meaning no horrible third party log in screens or worries about sharing passwords.

Tweet Time has been designed primarily for those quick tweets that all Twitter users send on a daily basis. Built upon an official framework with a beautiful and elegant user interface, Tweet Time has the following features:
· Quick and efficient Tweeting capability.
· Embed a Google Map with current location taking from the devices GPS coordinates.
· Tweet out a random, inspirational quote from Tweet Times comprehensive database.
· Tweet Now Playing directly from your iPod, including album artwork.
· Tweet to win. The possibility of winning iOS accessories as well as all future apps by the developer.
· Ability to tag a Tweet with current location.
· Multiple Twitter account support.
Tweet Time is no doubt a beautiful looking application which mixes elegance and simplicity but it does lack in a few areas. The development team are currently working on an update which will add the ability to upload photographs direct from the device’s camera or camera roll. Its particularly something which I’m looking forward to, since I’m a big fan of uploading random images on Twitter for no obvious reason. Don’t we all?
For a price of just one buck, I believe its worth it! Head over to the link embedded below and give Tweet Time a spin
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

iPhone 5 With LTE Likely To Be A Bigger Catalyst Than iPad 3 Or Rumored iTV

It was only a matter of time until rumors relating to the iPhone 5 started, after all, we have had the iPhone 4S now for nearly three months. Speculation has been rife recently about the potential features and specification of the proposed iPad 3, set to be launch toward to end of the first quarter of 2012.

We have also been hearing rumors about the possible release of what is being dubbed the ‘iTV‘, which analyst Peter Misek reports; will go into production at the Sharp factories in Japan in February 2012, utilizing Sharp display panels to produce a début Apple High Definition television. The rumored production of such a television set seems to have foundation, yet the possible inclusion of Siri will need to be seen or confirmed to be believed.
The iPad range has been a huge success for Apple since the maiden launch in April 2010. The original device sold a reported 40 million units, with the iPad 2 also producing some impressive figures. So just what does 2012 hold for the next generation iPhone?

Considering the iPhone represents an estimated 44% of the Apples business, it is important that they get the design and specification right to capitalize on the total addressable market of approximately 1.5 billion mobile phones. Sterne Agee analyst, Shaw Wu, has informed his clients that he believes the launch of the next generation iPhone is most important to the company that the iPad 3 or the proposed iTV is. He predicts that both products will be big hits for the Cupertino company but that the iPhone 5 will represent the largest chunk of Apples income stream and profit in 2012.
The next generation device is expected to receive a major overhaul in terms of design and aesthetics, complete with a thinner case, a slightly larger screen and compatibility with the world’s faster, 4G LTE networks. This should really come as no surprise however, as the iPhone 4S featured the same design as its predecessor and it is highly unlikely that the design would make it through to the next release.
The report from Wu is keeping in line with an early article written by him and seems to be in keeping with reports from Brian White, who is an analyst for Ticonderoga.

TidyTilt Is A Smart Cover For Your iPhone 4S, Doubles As A Kickstand, Mount And An Earbud Holder

Most iPads these days are laden with some variation of Smart Cover, which not only serves to protect the world’s number one tablet, but is, well, smart.

The iPhone hasn’t seen such a popularization of these covers though, and you could be forgiven for assuming smart phone and smart cover would be as apt a combination as Batman and Robin. That trend could be about to change though with an rather impressive new cover range, which goes by the name of Tidy Tilt.

Having already eclipsed its Kickstarter funding goal, TidyTilt has many little extras which render it much more than a mere padded protector. It owes its name to its ability to deal with that frequently tangled, hard to undo earphone cord (tidy), whilst also doubling up as a stand for watching movies and video clips free stand at a slightly tilted angle, not bad we believe. With essentially all iPhone docks and stands adding extra bulk to your pocket if you regularly roam, having one built into the sleek, smart cover makes Tidy Tilt a real gem. Check out the screenies below:

Like the many millions of iPad covers doing a similar job, it holds the device up in a landscape manner, which makes sense since there’s not much benefit to viewing anything in portrait – unless of course it’s a slideshow.
Practicality and style are two common denominators in this particular field, and we reckon Tidy Tilt ticks both boxes with distinction. With the minimum pledge of $19, it’s none too cheap, but it does seem consumers – after donating vital organs to fund their devices – are opting for the more expensive, proven protective suits from the likes of Gear4 and Snugg as opposed to the cheaper iterations which last about as long as the iPhone’s battery life.
TidyTilt currently boasts 600 backers and has accumulated a whopping $28,000 on the idea-funding website. If you fancy backing it, you can preorder yours in blue, green, pink or black by following this link for a price of just $19 as we mentioned before, although don’t expect shipment for at least a month.