iPhone News, Current Events, Announcements, and Opinions

Thanks to the combined efforts of AriX and westbaer, they are releasing a version of GeoHot's purplera1n jailbreak for the 3GS for the Mac. Both Windows and Mac versions have also received payload stability improvements, updating the the Windows version from RC2 to RC2a (although there's no reason to use it if you already have RC2 installed). You can get both the Mac version and the new Windows version at purplera1n.com.

Ngmoco, the iPhone game development studio responsible for Rolando [iTunes link] and Rolando 2 [iTunes link], today updated the original Rolando game to version 1.7.

The horror stories of the iPhone 3GS discoloration have been circulating across the Internet since last week, but before you slap a case on your precious device, you might want to read what frenchiPhone.com is reporting about certain cases and the white iPhone 3GS.

Geohot has updated his purplera1n jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS, which adds the following: support for Vista, Windows 7, International, and 64-bit; Less flakiness in the payload; Cydia tar cleaned up; Improved logging with slightly more useful errors; New kernel patches, codesign errors gone. Props posixninja; and Added vm_map +x, passed vm_check. He added that it will be up to Saurik to add support for winterboard. You can download the new purplera1n here, and get instructions here.

Yesterday we reported on a security vulnerability found in the iPhone OS that could potentially allow an attacker to gain access to your phone via a flaw in the SMS application/protocols. Today, the UK's Telegraph tells us that Apple is in the process of preparing a fix for this security risk.

MacRumors has found several new pattent applciations from Apple showing three new technologies for use in future touchscreen devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. They include a possible solution for providing haptic tactile feedback, fingerprint identification, and the integration of an RFID reader.

As we all know copy & paste finally made its way to the iPhone in 3.0, but it was missing ONE BIG THING. You couldn't copy information from contacts! Honestly Apple, how the heck did you miss that one? Sure, you could hit "Edit" and copy the number out that way, but it was so inconvenient. Thankfully iPhone OS 3.1 beta (seeded to developers earlier this week) has added this oh so important feature. When it drops, you'll be able to copy out phone numbers and addresses and even someone's name, email address, photo, and just about anything else!

And yes, we even have a pretty picture of it in action for you to check out below.

In response to the Dev Team's decision to wait until OS 3.1 to release a jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS, George Hotz, aka Geohot, has released his own jailbreaking tool for the iPhone 3GS called purplera1n, as he announced on his site. Right now it's only for Windows, but he says a Mac version is next on his list. It's still in beta, and many of the comments on his website are from people experiencing issues like frozen iPhones and compatibility problems with Vista, but an equal number of comments say it works just fine.

Ngmoco has released Rolando 2: Quest for the Golden Orchid for the iPhone and iPod touch, sequel to their hit game, Rolando. In the new game, you lead your round companions through 46 levels of game play "as they face tribes of savage new enemies, cunning physics puzzles and an exciting, tropical world with a fresh new look." featuring graphics from pop illustrator Mikko Walamies and music from renowned break-beat artist Mr. Scruff. It also connects to ngmoco's Plus+ Network, adding a new social network for gamers.

Security researcher Charlie Miller claimed at the SyScan conference in Singapore that he has discovered a new significant exploit in the iPhone's SMS system. The flaw may "allow an attacker to remotely install and run unsigned software code with root access to the phone."

The iPhone Dev Team has posted a notice for iPhone 3GS owners hoping to jailbreak. A jailbreak will be released relatively soon, they say, but certain files will be needed. They have a new, more reliable method for obtaining these files, but it will only work if you do it before Apple releases another update and if you don't have the OS 3.1 beta. It should also be noted that this method may update you to the 3.1 beta if it's on your computer, which would remove your chances of using Ultrasn0w in the future.

Glyphboard, a small web app that's seemingly more than a web app, just might change the way web apps are looked at. Previously web apps could only be used while in Safari and connected to the Internet, but this application is much different. That's because Glyphboard can install itself as a webclip on your iPhone or iPod touch and launch just like a native application.

Apple has added a couple of improvements to their cloud service, MobileMe, adding improvements to Mail, Gallery, iDisk, account settings, push contacts, and calenders, and Back to My Mac. Among the changes are the ability to forward or reply to an HTML or rich text message while retaining the format instead of converting to plain text.

An internal memo from AT&T has been intercepted by MacDailyNews saying that the week that the iPhone 3GS launched, several company records were broken. Interestingly, one of the more unexpected records broken in the memo had nothing to do with the iPhone, and everything to do with the late Prince of Pop, Michael Jackson. You can check out the full text of the document after the break.

More reports of users with iPhone 3GSs that have had problems with overheating, resulting in some cases with discoloration of the plastic back case of the device. Wired later reported that the issue may be tied to faulty battery cells in the device, and may lead to a large-scale recall by Apple.

The Facebook crew has announced an update for their Facebook app for the iPhone and iPod touch to be available "very soon". The update is "98% done", and adds 15 new features to the app, including many optimizations for the features available in OS 3.0. It also sports an impressive new interface that should make navigating the app a great deal easier.

One of my personal favorite bands, The 88 [iTunes Store], recently recorded an entire single using nothing but an iPhone and their instruments. The app they used is called FourTrack [our review] and the song is called "Love Is the Thing" [iTunes]. We could honestly go on and on about how cool it is that they published a song recorded entirely on the iPhone to iTunes, but it may be more succinctly explained in the video below. Enjoy!

Yesterday Apple seeded a beta of iPhone 3.1 to developers to test with their applications. Although not listed with release notes, iPhone 3.1 comes with quite a few noticeable improvements as well as bug fixes. Forum member 370GT pointed out that 3.1 now comes with the option to save edited video as a copy instead of overwriting the original. He also pointed out that the phone vibrates when you start moving icons, and Voice Control now works through bluetooth headsets. We've also noticed that boot time has been greatly improved.

Also noted yesterday, MMS is enabled by default in 3.1, although the required service option hasn't been enabled by AT&T.

The University of Florida will be requiring students to own either an iPhone or iPod touch to enroll in their PharmD curriculum this fall, the school announced recently. "All entering PharmD students must have a iPod touch (or iPhone) and a computer meeting minimum UF and College of Pharmacy (COP) requirements," they said in an announcement on their website.

Apple has begun airing two new TV ads for the iPhone 3GS. The first is titled Voice Control, and demonstrates the new Voice Control feature on the 3GS for both calling phone numbers and playing music. The second ad, called Copy and Paste, demonstrates the copy and paste functions now available with the OS 3.0 update. The ad demonstrates this new feature being used for phone numbers, formatted text and images and web pages, and maps between apps on the device.