If you haven’t seen these then basically they comprise of a Powermat (charging station) and some kind of adapted device to allow it to get charged by the Powermat. The adaptation, initially, was an external case for the iPhone or a new backing for some of the Blackberry devices. They have since added a huge range of products to their line so you can charge digital cameras, smart phones, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, iPod etc. Some of these require the Powercube which contains various adapters to plug into your device (so not really wireless anymore but at least it means less chargers to carry with you!). Continue reading »

I have been trying to unlock my 3GS for some time now. The first attempt failed completely. I had my confirmation email but then after nearly a month nothing had happened. I phoned O2 and after some time I got through to customer services representative who told me that for some reason my original form had not been sent through to the correct dept. He sorted that out and told me it may be up to 14 days before my phone would be unlocked.

I had a text from O2 which I thought was telling me I had been unlocked. Foolishly I upgraded my iPhone from its YellowSn0w jailbreak/unlock to OS 3.1.2. Then I found that my phone had not been unlocked… I checked the text from O2 again and realised it was not the unlock confirmation…
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Tesco finally announces tariffs for for their iPhone offer due to go on sale on abouts 14th December. They are only currently offering three options, Pay as you go, 12 Month contracts and 18 Month contracts for the 3G, 3GS 16Gb, & 3GS 32Gb. These are £20 pm and £60 pm.

Downsides are having to buy the iPhone upfront, but the upside is only being tied into a 12 month contract. And if you compare this with the Orange offerings on a like for like basis the Tescos option looks to be the smart choice, although the draw of not having to buy the iPhone upfront may be a win for Orange.

Decide for yourself. Tesco – Orange

Released shortly after the surge of zombie-based games that plagued the AppStore around Halloween, Westbright’s ‘Zombies’ breathes a breath of fresh air and comedy into a somewhat stale genre.

Zombies is a turn-based game where your aim is to, rather unsurprisingly, kill the zombies. This is not, however, the usual gore-laden shooter commonly associated with zombie games but, rather, an amusing little gem that is so addictive in it’s simplicity. How many other zombie-based games have the lead character saying in their best British accent ‘oh dear’ when devoured by the living dead?!

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We all know about the crazy sales called “Black Friday” in the USA the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, well ALK have hit the road early with a huge $15 discount on the CoPilot Live GPS Navigation App. Normally sold for $34.99 the price has been reduced to $19.99 from now until midnight on Monday 30th November.

This special offer pricing applies to both the iPhone app in the Apple AppStore and the Android app from Android Market. Happy Holidays!!!
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After the two relatively harmless SSH worms to hit the iPhone it was only a matter of time before someone would use the security hole for malicious intent. We must point out that this worm can only infect Jailbroken iPhones with the OpenSSH app installed, and the advise is to ensure you change the default password immediately or uninstall the app if you don’t use it.

The previous worms were just a stunt to warn users of OpenSSH, that their phones were unsecure by harmlessly changing the wallpaper. The second worm specifically changed it to the portrait of the singer Rick Roll which has now become an internet gag for being caught out or punk’d.

This new infection is far more dangerous, with the ability to steal important information from the iphone, possibly from a banking app, but also has botnet functionality to recruit other infected iphones for botnet attack. This new worm is only the tip of the iceberg where the harm is only limited by the imagination of the attacker.

The simplest of fixes it to remove the OpenSSh app as mentioned before or to change the SSH default password of  ’alpine’ to something new. Details on how to do this can be found HERE.

Remember that these worms can only affect Jailbroken iPhones with OpenSSH with the default password set!

Yesterday the latest iPhone navigation app to hit the Apple App Store was Magellan RoadMate US and Canada. This is a full featured Turn by Turn application, including advanced features such as text to speech, lane assist, and roadsigns. With mapping provided by Navteq it also supports a Pedestrian Mode and 3D landmarks. It also has in-app iPod controls. At an introductory price of $79.99 it is cheaper than Navigon and TomTom’s apps.

A second item on the same Press Release mentions a Premium Car Kit. This is an Active cradle for the iPhone with its own GPS receiver, internal amplifier and bluetooth hands-free. This is an adjustable design to allow the iPhone to be used with skins and cases in place. It is also compatible with the iPhone classic and iPod Touch enabling these devices to be used for navigation. At $129.99 it is slightly more expensive than the TomTom cradle ($119) and is expected to be shipping in December.
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Is this evidence of Apple’s controversial Killswitch in action?

Please note this now appears to be a bug which is being fixed.

A recent app that I, like many others, bought on the AppStore with real money appears to have suddenly stopped working. A simple application called Night Stand, which is now copied by other app developers in true AppStore style, designed to simply display the time and alarm while dimming the screen. Not exactly a controversial app to say the least and has been available for some time! Now it seems that you can load the app but it simply won’t run.

This app has also been tested on a colleagues phone with the same results. This is not as a result of any updates as it was seen to work recently and, stranger still, the app has been pulled from the AppStore itself. As of this moment I have not yet been able to find any reason for it’s disappearance, but am more concerned about the fact that any app can seemingly be pulled from your device without warning or reason.

I paid good money for that app, all be it 59 pence but it is mine, or is it?

The guys at RouteBuddy have been busy this month. Hot on the heels of the 1.1 release of Atlas for iPhone comes news of the availability of Ordnance Survey maps of Great Britain at 1:250k and 1:50k scales.

These maps allow iPhone users access to complete details OS maps of the entire UK.

The 1:250k map is available at £7.99 for the whole of Great Britain or as one of eight regional maps at £3.99 per region.

The 1:50k map gives much more detailed coverage with the whole of Great Britain coming in at £99.99 and regional maps, again available in eight regions available at £39.99 each.

With RouteBuddy Atlas now featuring much better planning and routing support as well as full support for GPS and iPhone 3GS compass it is fast becoming a very useful tool. RouteBuddy have committed to continuous improvements to the application based on user feedback and requests and it is unique on the iPhone as being the only off-line solution for viewing Ordnance survey maps.

As a bonus, if you own RouteBuddy for Mac OS X then you can also view the same maps on your Mac.

store.routebuddy.com

Apple have released an update for the iPhone and iPod Touch update to take them to OS 3.1.2.

The release notes claim that 3.1.2:

• Resolves sporadic issues that may cause iPhone not to wake from sleep
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart
• Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming

The update is available from iTunes in the usual way!