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.