It’s been a pretty wild week here at iMore. Plenty of iPad 3 rumors, Apple patent battles, podcasts and so much more. If you missed out on any of the great content, go ahead and get yourself caught up. Once you’re done that, if you’re still looking for more iOS goodness then check out the iMore forums. You can register now to get started today and while you’re at it, check out some of the threads below:

• XBox 360 Kinect giveaway – closing soon!
• iPhone 4S – Make the jump or wait?
• Mountain Lion wallpapers for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
• New 4S… JB now or wait until 5.1 is JB?
• Swype Style text input?
• iPad 3 or iPad 2S

If you’re not already a member of the iMore Forums, register now!

In the latest chapter of the AT&T unlimited data throttling debacle, a small claims court judge in California has awarded an AT&T iPhone user $850 in damages due to AT&T significantly slowing the user’s data speeds to “manage usage on it’s network”. The unidentified user, who was grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan, claimed to be throttled each billing cycle at approximately 1.5 GB to 2 GB of data. Reuters reports:

Pro-tem Judge Russell Nadel found in favor of Matt Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi Valley. Spaccarelli filed a small claims case against AT&T last month, arguing the communications giant unfairly slows speeds on his iPhone 4′s unlimited data plan. Nadel’s ruling could pave the way for others to follow suit. AT&T has some 17 million customers with “unlimited data” plans that can be subject to throttling, representing just under half of the company’s smartphone users.

AT&T does have the option to appeal the courts decision but it is not yet known if they will choose to do so. The company’s main argument in the case was that they have the right to modify or cancel customers’ contracts if their data usage negatively affects their network. What makes this judgement interesting is the fact that it has the possibility to open up quite a few additional small claims lawsuits against AT&T.

That means thousands —and possibly hundreds of thousands— of people who feel abused by AT&T’s policy could seek to challenge the company, one by one, in arbitration or small claims court. The customer contract specifies that those who win an award from the company in arbitration will get at least $10,000. Spaccarelli picked the same amount for his claim. Judge Nadel instead awarded him $85 for each of the 10 months left on his contract.

We’ve said it before, and we will say it again – AT&T needs to stop this data throttling. Some of their most loyal customers are the ones being inconvenienced by their actions and it’s just not right. Perhaps this lawsuit will open some eyes to help get this accomplished. Before it goes class-action.

Source: Reuters

Apple iPad vs. Blackberry PlayBook 2.0, which should you buy?

BlackBerry has just released their new PlayBook 2.0 OS upgrade and CrackBerry has done an unbelievable job covering every pixel of it. Most interesting to iMore readers is Gary Mazo’s incredibly comprehensive, finely detailed iPad 2 vs. BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 comparison. Gary covers everything you need to know about user interface and experience, apps an organization, multi-tasking, personal information management, media handling, email/messaging, eReading, photography and videography, web browsing, and gaming.

Here’s Jared DiPane’s multi-tasking comparison video.

Overall, each does certain things better than the other, and that means each will better suit a different type of user. If you’re heavily invested in the Apple or BlackBerry ecosystem, that will no doubt influence your choice as well.

The scores might change slightly in a month, when Apple’s iPad 3 is out and on the shelves, but the core truth will remain the same — the iPad is the dominant tablet on the market, but for it’s price, the PlayBook packs an incredible punch. Arguably, if you want a 7-inch, lower cost tablet, the PlayBook now packs the most punch, and best value on the market.

Gary nails this:

At $199.00, the PlayBook is a steal. No, it doesn’t do everything the iPad 2 does. However, it does much of what the iPad does and does it better. In other areas, the capabilities of the PlayBook will only grow. With iPad 3 around the corner, we still don’t know how high the bar will be set in the future but we are eager to find out!

Check out his complete knock-down, drag-out, function-by-function iPad vs. PlayBook comparison, as well as Adam Zeis’ full BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 walkthrough, and then come back and let us know what you think — does PlayBook 2.0 make Blackberry a tablet contender?

Source: CrackBerry.com

Apple co-founder, guiding mind behind the iPhone, iPad, iTunes, Apple Retail, Pixar, and literally a lifetime of other culture- and industry-changing innovations, Steve Jobs was born 57 years ago today. He passed away last October right after the introduction of the iPhone 4S and Siri, leaving Apple under the guidance of Tim Cook.

Under Cook, the iPhone 4S and iCloud has shipped, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has been announced, and the iPad 3 launch is all but upon us.

But the man who shaped consumer electronics this generation, who relentlessly drove the mainstreaming and democratization of technology, who made form matter to function, and who smiled and wrung his hands on the keynote stage as he prepared to announce “one more thing…” is no longer here to enjoy it with us.

Apple enthusiasts wishing to remember and celebrate his life will be gathering at prominent Apple Stores and similar locations. He was just a man. But he dented a lot of universes.

Happy birthday, Steve. And thanks again.



• End of Act Two
• Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011
• One more thing…
• iPad Live 77: Requiem
• Celebrating Steve Jobs event

Rene, Georgia, and Seth talk legislated privacy disclosures, iFactories investigated, OS X Mountain Lion, iPad 3 rumors, Screens VNC, and apps and accessories to keep you fit and healthy. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
• Subscribe via RSS: Audio | Video
• Download directly: Audio | Video

Meta

• How to check for water damage before purchasing a used iPhone 4
• How to take great looking portraits with your iPhone camera

News

• Apple agrees to disclose app privacy permissions before download or purchase
• Nightline goes inside Apple's Chinese iFactory
• iPhone 5 rumored to be keeping to fall release schedule for 2012
• Apple rumored to be improving fast Camera access in iOS 5.1
• Apple announces OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion preview, 100 new features, huge iPad influence
• Back to the iPad: What Apple should take from OS X Mountain Lion and give to iOS 6

Spotlight: iPad 3

• Rumored iPad 3 glass and digitizer images reveal no major changes from iPad 2
• iPad 3 rumored to have 8 megapixel camera, more tapered casing
• Supposed photos of iPad 3 compared with iPad 2 confirm thicker design, more tapered edges
• Rumored prototype iPad 3 logic board shows Apple A5X chip
• 2048×1536 pixel Retina display examined, rumored to be iPad 3 bound
• Updating interfaces for iPad 3: Why your favorite app might take a while to go Retina

Apps

• Microsoft denies Office for iPad rumor, says earlier information is inaccurate and picture is fake
• Screens 2.0 review: The best designed, easiest to use VNC app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• The App Store and the scam app invasion
• Apple rumored to be working on complete iTunes Store and App Store redesign
• Fitness month

Accessories

• Fitness fun!

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)
• Georgia (@GeorgiaTiPb)
• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We’re here every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT at www.TiPb.com/live

For all our podcasts — audio and video — including iPhone and iPad Live, ZENandTECH and Superfunctional, Iterate and Girls Gone Gadgets and more… see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven’t already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore iPhone Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

For today only, the iMore iPad store has the Seidio ACTIVE Case for iPad 2 on sale for only $38.95! Get it before it's gone!

Shop Seidio ACTIVE Case for iPad 2

Created for those that have and want to maintain their active lifestyle, the ACTIVE case provides great shock absorption while adding minimal bulk to your iPad 2.  This two-layer case features a compact and lightweight rubber polymer with a precisely positioned hard skeleton for added protection on the corners and sides.

Additionally, the multi-purpose protective cover can be placed over the screen to protect your device during transit and can be easily removed and used as a stand to prop up your device. Features:

• Interior casing made from durable polymer
• Shock absorbing
• Hard exterior skeleton
• Light weight at 3.5oz
• Shock absorbing
• Multi-purpose case
• Built-in stand to prop up iPad 2

Does looking through your tweets make you cringe and despise the impression that it gives of you as person? Tweeticide is here to give you a fresh start! With just the tap of button, Tweeticide will delete all your tweets. You can now relax about being judged by that potential employer!

Although Tweeticide deletes all of your viewable tweets, it’s worth mentioning that Google’s cashe may still pick a few of them up for awhile. Also, don’t forget that deal Twitter made with the U.S. Library of Congress – undeleted tweets that are more than 23 weeks old get sent to the Library of Congress for archiving, so even if you delete them from your stream, they will forever be in the hands of the US Government. To exclude individual tweets from this archival process, just include #noloc in your tweet.

$0.99 – Download Now

We’re a few days into the Lent 2012 season and what a better way to have an excuse to not give up your iPhone and iPad than collecting a few apps that help, encourage, motivate, and inspire you to give up something else during this time.

Here’s a few apps we think think will do just that.

Magnificat Lenten Companion 2012

This universal iPhone and iPad app is designed to help you live all the graces of lent through daily prayer, liturgy, meditation and inspirational essays and poetry. The content is presented in a day-by-day format, similar to a devotional.

The layout of the app is very simple and strait-forward. However, I think the font size on the iPad is too big and there isn’t a way to adjust it.

$0.99 – Download Now

40 Days – Lent Observance Tracker

With Lent, comes commemorations, and 40 Days – Lent Observance Tracker offers a way to stay true to your vow to abstain from chocolate, candy, beer, and whatever else you decide. With each of your commitments, you assign a dollar value and every time you slip up and sneak that piece of chocolate, you must record it in 40 Days – Lent Observance Tracker with the idea that once Lent has passed, you donate your total to charity. This, of course, is not a requirement, but if you commit, it’s a great way to stay motivated (or forgive yourself for those few times you do slip up since it ultimately benefits charity).

$0.99 – Download Now

Days Without

If assigning dollar values to your commemorations isn’t your thing, Days Without is an app that simply keeps track of how long it’s been since you gave something up. It’s not specifically designed for Lent, but still a great motivator nonetheless. Watching the number grow as the days pass will make you feel proud of your accomplishments.

Days Without allows you to track multiple goals and includes an automatic counter. The icon will display a badge that tells you how many days it’s been for the selected goal.

$1.99 – Download Now

Your favorite Lent app?

Have you run into any other apps that you’ve found useful during this lent season? Do you have a favorite Bible app? What are you giving up for lent? Share and encourage in the comments below!

The new Gevey Ultra S is now available for pre-order and will unlock your iPhone 4S without the need for a jailbreak. Your order will come complete with one Gevey SIM tray and an Ultra S SIM which should be plug and play and require no emergency dialing for it to work.

It’s worth noting that the Ultra S is only compatible with the GSM version of the iPhone 4S which means if you’ve got a Verizon or Sprint model, you’ll have to sit this one out. Gevey also claims that the Ultra S will operate under a 3-volt standard which allows for less battery consumption. Basically, you shouldn’t lose any battery life due to the unlock. It will also be completely untethered so no worries about rebooting and losing the unlock.

While the Ultra S will unlock 2G and 3G bands on all networks, in some cases you may still be restricted to 2G access. This is common with unlocked AT&T phones on T-Mobile who only have EDGE access. The Gevey Ultra S boasts the following feature set –

• GEVEY™ True Plug-and-Play Unlocking SIM Interposer
• No Need to Dial International Emergency Number 112
• Untethered Unlock with no Jailbreak Required
• Compatible with all GSM iPhone 4S SIM Cards (Does not work on CDMA iPhone)
• Complete Unlock with all 2G and 3G data services
• No SIM Card Cutting or Physical Modifications
• Works on iOS 5.0, 5.0.1
• Works on Baseband 1.0.11, 1.013, 1.0.14
• Guaranteed Better Reception than Previous
• Decreased Power Consumption

It’s worth noting that this unlock doesn’t require you to alter or cut your SIM card, which is a plus over other unlocking methods. You can hit the link below to pre-order a Gevey Ultra S for $54.99 via applenberry. Much cheaper than paying international roaming fees on your native carrier when traveling overseas. Any of you planning to pick one up?

Source: applenberry

Apple announced the App Store way back in spring of 2008 as part of the iPhone SDK event, and now 4 years later it’s the biggest thing to ever hit mobile applications, but it still has a lot of issues. If you could wave a magic wand and have Apple add one thing to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad App Store, what would it be?

Would it be better ways to fight scam apps so the App Store isn’t littered with fakes, ripoffs, and other junk that make good apps even harder to find? Should Apple just get more reviewers and do a better job curating the App Store? How about a demo period, where we could return apps within a day, heck, even 15 minutes, of discovering we were ripped off could go a long way to taking the money — and hence the incentive — out of the scams. It would also probably thin out the paid crap apps as well, if less than ethical developers knew customers could return them.

Is better search the answer? Apple just bought Chomp, supposedly to improve discoverability. Do you want social sharing, so your friends and people you follow can help you find the good stuff (no Ping for apps joke, please!).

What about ways to help good developers make more money so they’re encouraged to make better apps and games? Right now they have to give away upgrades for free or make a separate app and charge us again. How about paid upgrades as a fair middle ground? How about a premium section in the app store so higher production value apps and games aren’t pitted again $0.99 or freemium apps in the top 10 lists?

Or do you want to go completely in the opposite direction and have Apple curate even less, so more stuff comes in, good and bad, but the choice is yours? Maybe just expand the content with an adult section for more mature titles, or a theme store where you could buy whole new looks for your iPhone or iPad?

If you had to pick one thing you’d want Apple to change about the App Store more than anything else in 2012, what would it be?

Unfortunate and possibly infuriating news for German iCloud and MobileMe users today, as Apple has apparently been forced to turn off push email as a result of a lawsuit by Motorola Mobility. Apple told Engadget:

This ruling only impacts customers in Germany who use a Push setting to get their MobileMe and iCloud email. These customers will still receive email to their devices. Apple believes [Motorola's] patent is invalid and is appealing the decision.

Motorola and Apple have been suing and counter suing each other for years, though generally court decisions along the way haven’t had direct impact on either’s customers. For their part, Apple believes Motorola (and Samsung) are misusing FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) patents pledged to standards pools in an effort to force Apple to cross-license non-FRAND patents in return. In other words, Motorola (and Samsung) are trying to gain access to Apple’s proprietary multi-touch patents by unfairly and potentially illegally using standards-based 3G and other networking patents as leverage. The European Union is investigating the situation, and Microsoft has recently made similar complaints against Motorola. (Google simply bought Motorola to avoid similar lawsuits against Android, but seems content to let Motorola continue potential FRAND-abusing litigation against other companies for now.)

So, to sum up, it’s yet another case of one giant company litigating another giant company which will inevitably result in one incredibly rich group of people swapping money and/or licenses with another incredibly rich group of people, harming only non-giant, non-rich customers along the way.

Apple for their part, has posted a support document for German users detailing how to switch MobileMe and iCloud email off of push and onto fetch mail protocols.

For iCloud Mail:

• From the Home screen, tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
• Tap Fetch New Data
• Select a time interval for Fetch
• Push can remain turned on to continue push service for Contacts and Calendars.
• With these settings, your iCloud Mail account will fetch new messages at your set interval while you are inside Germany. Push email service will continue to be available outside of Germany.

For MobileMe Mail:

• From the Home screen, tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
• Tap Fetch New Data
• Select a time interval for Fetch
• Tap Advanced
• Tap a MobileMe account in your account list
• Change Select Schedule to Fetch
• Tap Advanced to return to the prior screen
• Repeat steps 5-7 for each MobileMe account on your device.

IMPORTANT NOTES: Disabling Push for a MobileMe account will also apply to the Contacts and Calendars service associated with that account. To maintain push service for Contacts and Calendars, leave Select Schedule set to Push and continue to check email manually.

Once a MobileMe user has accessed their MobileMe Mail account from Germany, push email will be disabled indefinitely. Unlike iCloud Mail accounts, push will not be automatically re-enabled upon leaving the country. Users can move their MobileMe accounts to iCloud to re-enable push services outside of Germany.

Source: Engadget, Apple Support

If you are feeling nostalgic or just have some time to kill, you can now re-live every single advert that Apple has made for its iPhone device.  The iPhone was first introduced back in 2007 and the first advert to hit our screens was called "Hello". It made its first appearance during the night of the  Oscars and featured scenes with famous actors all on the phone. Apple has continued to produce some great ads for the iPhone and that number has now reached a staggering 84 to date.

The iPhone campaign is now entering its sixth year, and is up to 84 spots and counting. “Get a Mac” was beloved for its characters and wry humor. And while the iPhone work may lack that same level of charm—it is, at its heart, merely a series of product demonstrations—it is just as exquisitely produced and in many ways more varied. It’s hard to think of a product that’s had a greater impact on the culture in the past five years than the iPhone.

Adweek has put together a gallery featuring every one of these fantastic ads; they are all in order of air date and each set of ads has a bit of background. If you have some time to kill, make sure to check them out. We have the original "Hello" ad for you below, just to whet your appetite.

Source: Adweek

Earlier today we posted a story about Apple moving to replace the 30-pin dock connector with a new “micro dock” to save precious space in the next generation iPhone.

On one hand it’s a bold move, dumping something everyone’s familiar with for something new, which is very typically Apple. On the other hand, it’s not dumping it for something really, truly new, like Palm-style inductive wireless charging.

While a lot of accessories would continue to work as long as they or Apple provided an adapter, some might not, and then you’d have to buy them again. And if you have a lot of accessories or even cables, it’s either impractical to get an adapter for each one, or annoying to keep having to switch the adapter.

Rene laid out a good case for why Apple could be getting ready to pull the trigger on a smaller dock connector, so now we want to hear what you think about it. Do you want Apple to ditch the current dock? Pro or con or couldn’t care less?

Apple has acquired Chomp, a search and discovery app for the iPhone that helps users find the best-of-the-best apps in the App Store. Apple plans to utilize Chomp’s proprietary algorithms and technology to improve discoverability and user experience, presumably both on the mobile and desktop versions of the App Store.

According to M.G Siegler at TechCrunch:

This is not a cheap "acqui-hire", Apple has bought the Chomp team and technology and plans to use both to completely revamp App Store search and recommendations, I hear.

This follows a recent 9to5Mac report that Apple had plans in the pipeline for a complete revamp of the iTunes and App Store environment, with emphasis on app and music discovery. The Chomp acquisition would no doubt play a roll, potentially a large one, in the rumored redesign, especially server-side where right now there are far too many scam apps and poor quality search results to effectively find quality apps.

Whether or not it would replace, or merely reinvigorate the Genius recommendation system is unknown.

There are currently over 500,000 iOS apps available for download and purchase, and Apple is already preparing for 25 billion app downloads. There’s also a growing number of OS X apps in the Mac App Store. This is something Apple simply has to address.

Source: TechCrunch