iPhone Dev Team’s MuscleNerd has announced via twitter that Comex’s Userland Tools can be used to keep all Apple A4 chipset-based, Jailbroken iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads untethered for all future firmware releases. Coupled with Geohot’s limera1n exploit which will work on all current A4 devices for the duration of their lifespan, and iPhone Dev Teams custom pwnagetool which will keep your baseband unlockable, Jailbreakers can look forward to being up to date with all current firmware releases without any worry of losing their Jailbreak or Unlock status.

• Pwnagetool lets you create custom firmware with older baseband to preserve unlock (iPhone 4 owners can also use TinyUmbrella)
• Comex Userland Tools are built into both limera1n and greenpois0n to keep Jailbreak untethered.
• Geohot Exploit is a bootrom-level exploit that can’t be closed without new hardware from Apple.

Does this make you more likely to Jailbreak? Tell us what you think below or visit our Jailbreak Forum for more.

[@MuscleNerd]

by Farbod

Geohot exploit + Comex userland tools to keep Apple A4 iPhones Jailbroken and untethered Forever is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Noosy, an accessory maker based out of China, has posted an HDMI adapter for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on their website. This would allow iOS device owners to output 720p video directly to the HDMI inputs on their HDTVs, instead of using the $50 Apple component A/V cables.

What remains to be seen is how it will handle copy protected material, which requires HDCP and has been a source of considerable frustration for users of Apple’s VGA adapter. If they’re simply converting the analog component out to HDMI it shouldn’t be a problem. If they going for true digital signal, Hollywood might interfere.

They have yet to announce an availability date or pricing at this time but this sure looks to be an exciting new product. I for one will be ordering as soon as it is available! What about you?

[Noosy, TUAW, Thanks to forum member fresh1 for the tip!]

by Brian Tufo

HDMI adapter coming for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

It looks like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg recently sat down over dinner to talk Ping. The LA Times reports:

Apparently Jobs invited Zuckerberg for dinner at his house to talk about Ping two weeks ago. That’s when a tipster spotted them on a stroll in Palo Alto.

A passerby also reportedly saw the two taking a quick stroll around the block afterwards. Hopefully they were able to smooth things over a bit, and we also suspect as much, as Facebook CTO Bret Taylor recently stated that he felt “very confident” Facebook and Apple should be able to work out their relationship related to the two social/music networking services.

Ping, which launched with the release of iTunes 10, was supposed to include Facebook integration to help the new service garner quicker traction. There was speculation that the two companies had discussed a partnership up to 18 months prior to the launch of Ping. But this relationship quickly fizzled after Facebook blocked Ping’s Facebook Connect feature shortly after the service was made available to iTunes users, and Apple quickly removed it.

So do think Apple and Facebook will come to terms with an agreement? And more importantly, do you think Google’s Eric Schmidt will be upset his last coffee date is now having dinner with his arch rival?

[LA Times, image via Engadget]

by Andrew Wray

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg have dinner, talk Facebook for Ping is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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New York band Atomic Tom had their instruments stolen, so they rocked out with their back-up instruments – their iPhones! Each member of the band used an app on their iPhone to play a different part (drums, guitar, bass, keyboard, vocals). They gave a great performance on the New York subway; passengers can be seen bobbing their heads and getting into the music. This is the kind of thing I would love to see in person!

Video after the break!

[Wired]

iPhone band performs on NY Subway [Saturday fun video] is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Rumors strongly suggest Apple’s Back to the Mac October event will feature the introduction of an all-new, perhaps all-different MacBook air, the first in a post-iPad world. And that has got me thinking — how does Apple still keep it relevant?

Apple originally introduced the MacBook Air as the ultimate ultra-light, bereft of optical drive, reduced to a single USB port, yet still boasting a full-sized 13-inch screen and keyboard. Light and impossibly thin but powerful and a fully capable Mac. It was the anti-netbook.

Throughout 2008 I used a second-generation MacBook Air as my main blogging computer. I took it everywhere from my room to the coffee shop to Macworld 2009. The second generation model, with Nvidia graphics, ran Photoshop like a champ and was perhaps the best text and photo blogging machine on the market at the time.

Now we have the iPad. Also no optical drive, but without a single USB port (camera adapter notwithstanding) or hardware keyboard whatsoever. It most certainly can’t run full-on Photoshop, or drag and drop between multiple windows, or maintain persistent SFTP and other connections, or do any of the million things Mac OS X excels at. But those things the iPad does do, like movies, web, email, games, books, etc. it does very well, at a much lower cost, with far more intimacy and immediacy, and with 10 hours of battery life.

Apple’s ultra-portable category suddenly had two very different contenders, and that’s a problem because if there’s one thing Apple likes more than stunning design its simple product lines.

Upon his return to Apple it’s said Steve Jobs drew a grid with only 4 boxes, portables and desktops, consumers and pro — what’s now known as MacBook and MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro. It’s more complicated these days, but compared to any and every other company it’s still ridiculously simple and intentionally so. When you go to Apple to buy something, they don’t want you confused over what you should buy. They just want you to buy it. Need portable, get portable, Need pro, get pro.

Even today while iPad has cut deeply into netbook and cheap laptop sales it doesn’t seem to have hurt MacBook’s much if at all. That’s because iPad is a viable option compared to a $500-ish netbook or laptop. It’s not a viable option compared to a $1000-plus MacBook, much less a $1500+ MacBook Air.

So what happens if Apple re-invents the Air? If it gets smaller and lighter, like the iPad, if it goes NAND Flash, like the iPad, if the price drops — though nowhere near the iPad’s — enough to make it compelling?

Is a 11-inch MacBook air with a hardware keyboard at $1000 a viable option compared to a 7-inch iPad with multitouch? A $800-plus fully tricked out iPad 3G 64GB?

And what if Apple removed the multitouch differentiator from iPad? What if the MacBook Air got multitouch as well?

It may not this year, not if it runs OS X. OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard simply isn’t built for multitouch and even if OS X 10.7 Lion is sneak previewed next week with multitouch support it probably won’t reach GM status until WWDC in June, 2011, and consumers sometime thereafter. The new MacBook Air will likely ship this year in time for the holidays.

Could it be a hybrid, however? Could it run OS X but have a multitouch iOS layer on top of it? Could it have iOS come up instantly when it boots if all you want to do is surf the web, check email, watch a movie? Could it have iOS slide up, fade in, or carousel around instantly in place of the almost abandonware layers that are now Dashboard and Front Row? It sure would increase responsiveness, never mind battery life.

Think about it: iOS is what Apple has spent so much time on as of late. It was what all but bumped OS X from its traditional place at the last WWDC and it’s what has been driving more and more of Apple’s profits. It’s even replaced OS X 10.4 Tiger on the Apple TV. Eventually, it has to move onto the Mac.

It would post some challenges — how would a device with a fixed keyboard handle rotation to portrait mode, for example? — but it would have definite advantages as well. Maybe not right now, but maybe by the time iOS 10.7 Lion ships later next year?

iOS comes from OS X, could it return back to that source and become the next leap forward in Apple’s OS evolution? How the new MacBook Air could be relevant in a post iPad world is by being the first step in that next leap — the first Mac to bridge the gap between iPad and MacBook.

How will Apple make the MacBook Air relevant in a post-iPad world? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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