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Posts tagged with "iOS 5"

iOS 5 Already Jailbroken

As tweeted by MuscleNerd an hour ago, the screenshots above show an iPod touch 4th generation running the iOS 5 beta seeded to developers last night and already jailbroken to install Cydia. According to MuscleNerd, there aren’t “many surprises” here, as the device was jailbroken using the existing limera1n code and a tethered boot from a computer.

What this means for jailbreakers is still unclear. There have been jailbreaks for early iOS betas in the past, though in most cases the Dev Team preferred to wait for a public release before unleashing the necessary code to install Cydia on iOS devices. Furthermore, the exploit that allowed MuscleNerd to jailbreak his iPod touch is likely based on bootroom holes found in the past months on the iPhone and iPod touch – meaning, there’s no confirmation whatsoever iPad 2 users will get a proper jailbreak once iOS 5 comes out this fall / more betas are releases throughout the summer. Still, the images above show the new iOS 5 with Newsstand and Reminders running alongside Cydia – that’s a good start.

The Big WWDC 2011 Keynote Roundup

Apple unleashed a volley of updates this afternoon to iOS, OS X, and introduced the new iCloud that’s bound to make an Apple user blush with excitement. With notifications, over the air updates, AirDrop, and wireless file syncing, Apple is addressing nearly all of the complaints I can think of from users across the board.

We’ve covered a lot on MacStories this afternoon between our detailed posts where you can learn more about new and popular features, to our live blog where we consolidated all of the news into once place. Below, you’ll find a briefing on what’s new in all of these components, and how they fit together in Apple’s vision of the future.

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Apple Releases iOS 5 Beta 1: Details, Screenshots, And More

Apple just updated the iOS Dev Center with the first beta of iOS 5 – registered developers can start the download now. However, as the Dev Center is coming back online as we speak, there might still be errors when trying to download the DMG files.

Update: the Dev Center has come back online for (almost) everyone, and the first news about iOS beta 1 are starting to come in. Notably, some users are already tweeting from iOS 5 as you can see from the screenshots below. Twitter reports “via iOS” as the client that sent the tweet, but redirects to twitter.com when clicking on it. Photos are hosted on Photobucket as part of Twitter’s recently announced photo service.

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“Automatic Downloads” Lets You Push Purchases Over The Air

Revealed last week with a leaked screenshot from iTunes and officially announced earlier today at the WWDC keynote, the “Automatic Downloads” feature for iOS device is now live and accessible from the Store menu inside the Settings app on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 4.3. Here’s how it works: once enabled in the Store menu, the new functionality will allow you to beam apps, books and songs across devices – Macs, iPhones and iPads. For a first test, I enabled the menu on my iPhone, and started downloading a free app on my Mac. Within the seconds, the download started on my iPhone, which wasn’t connected via USB – it was an OTA download based on the fact that I hit “download” on my MacBook Pro.

The iPad, which was not enabled to have Automatic Downloads, alerted me to say I had to activate the feature if I wanted to see purchases becoming available on it.

Once activated on the iPad too, I downloaded an app on my iPhone and it started downloading both on the iPhone and iPad, automatically. But what about updates, not new purchases or free downloads? The system seems to be a bit unstable now: I had three app updates on my Mac, and I downloaded them. Those updates were showing up on the iPad App Store app with a red badge, but the download didn’t start automatically as with a new purchase / download. However, as soon as I opened the App Store on my iPad, those updates were gone – as if the device downloaded them in the background without me seeing a loading indicator. Maybe Apple simply needs a better UI for app updates (again, not new purchases) or better integration with iTunes 10.2.2 on the desktop (the announced iTunes 10.3 is not available yet).

To test the new Automatic Downloads for iOS and Macs, go to the Store menu on your iPhone and iPad and turn the switches to “on”. You can also decide to use cellular data when not on WiFi.

iCloud: Photo Stream

Another cornerstone feature of iCloud that was just unveiled was ‘Photo Stream’ which will bring all your photos to the cloud. It works so that as soon as you take a photo with your iPhone, that photo will instantly be whisked away to the cloud and then pushed back to all of your other devices - whether it be a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or even a Windows PC!

How many times have we taken photos on our iPhone and wanted to share them on the iPad. Wouldn’t it be great if they were already there?

Photo Stream is built right into the iOS Photos app so there is “nothing new to learn” and on the Mac it is built right into iPhoto whilst on a PC it integrates with the ‘Pictures’ folder. The Apple TV won’t miss out either, Photo Stream is integrated straight into it.

Each photo will survive on iCloud for 30 days, at which point old photos will no longer be pushed to devices. iOS devices will be able to keep the last 1,000 photos but Macs and PCs will keep all photos.

Apple Unveils iCloud

UPDATE: You get access to iCloud when you upgrade or buy a new phone. Everyone gets 5GB of iCloud storage for Mail, but don’t worry because Apps, Books and Photo Stream do not count. Developers can try out iCloud from today.

Steve Jobs has just unveiled iCloud and it is a service that frees all your devices from having to connect to your Mac to get updated media and data. The Mac is being demoted, and in its place is the iCloud which will become “the hub of your digital life”. iCloud will be free!

We’ve got a solution for this problem. We’re going to demote the PC and the mac to just be a device. We’re going to move your hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.”

iCloud stores all your content, so that if you have something new on your iPhone it is sent to the cloud immediately, iCloud will then push it back to all your other devices.

And it’s completely integrated with your apps, and there’s nothing new to learn. It just all… works. It just works.

Whether it be new events on your calendar or a new message in your @me account (which will remain), all of it gets pushed to the cloud and then pushed back to all your devices. The App Store, which is integrated within iCloud will let you see all your purchased apps, even if they are from another device. The same will occur for iBooks

Now what about for devices you buy in the future. The cloud downloads it to all of your devices.

Backup too will be dealt with by iCloud, it will take daily backups of all your devices over WiFi including all the purchased music, apps and books, photos, videos and app data. If you ever lose your device or get a new one, it can all be restored from iCloud.

iOS 5: Beta Today, Ships This Fall, Runs on 3GS

After all the previewed features and great news about iOS 5 (OTA updates, wireless sync, new apps, iMessage), Apple confirmed that iOS 5 will ship this Fall (perhaps with a new iPhone?), with a first developer seed available later today. The best part? Just like iOS 4, iOS 5 will run on your iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS (unlike a previous report claimed, 3GS is supported), iPad and iPad 2, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen.

Photos courtesy of This is my Next.

Apple Unveils iMessage For iOS 5

A new service to hit iOS 5 is iMessage, a service that will allow any user on an iOS 5 device to send text, photos, videos, contacts and more to any other iOS 5 user. It’ll work fine regardless of whether they are using an iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch or even a mixture of those devices.

Our customers have been asking us for a new messaging solution. We’re launching a service that works for all iOS 5 customers

iMessages has support for delivery receipts, optionally read receipts, typing notifications and all messages will be pushed to all devices you own, “so that you can pick up where you left off”. It’ll work on 3G and WiFi and everything will be encrypted.

Apple Finally Brings Wireless Sync and OTA Software Updates to iOS

Following direct Twitter integration, Newsstand and all the new features of iOS 5, Apple has just announced what many were hoping for in the months leading up to today’s keynote: wireless syncing. Dubbed PC Free by Scott Forstall, the new feature will allow for a variety of cord-free functionalities such as no iTunes required for activation, over-the-air software updates, Delta updates to only download what’s changed in the new OS.

From This Is My Next:

We said, why do people go back to a computer? Calendars, people create or delete them. You can do that now. Photo editing, you can do it on the devices. Even mail — you can create folders. So if you want to cut the cord, you can. So you no longer need to plugin to update your software. And they’re now Delta updates. Instead of downloading the whole OS, you only download what’s changed.

More on this later when Apple will seed the first iOS 5 beta.

Update: new cloud-based features have also been introduced in the App Store app without needing an update. The App Store application on iOS 4.3 already has a new Purchased tab that, similarly to the Mac App Store, allows you to get a list of all the app you’ve previously bought, also from other devices.