Apple released an update to iTunes today bringing it to version 10.7. The update contains the following:
-Support for iOS 6 running on compatible iPhone, iPad and iPod touch models. This update also adds support for the latest iPod nano and iPod shuffle models.
To check for an update if it doesn’t automatically pop up is go to App Store > Updates
It only took an hour for the initial pre-orders of the hot new iPhone 5 to sell out. If you weren’t one of the lucky ones to get your pre-order in the first hour you may have to wait a bit longer. Availability times are now showing 2 weeks on the Apple site. This is unofficially at the moment the fastest pre-order sellout for Apple’s iPhone to date – the iPhone 4S took 24 hours for initial pre-orders to sell out. Were you able to get yours? Which model did you end up choosing?
So you want the new iPhone 5 but didn’t see any pricing options for an Unlocked model? The online store at Apple Canada has posted the same pre-order information beginning Friday, September 14, with the difference being a starting price of $699 as well as information about why to “Buy your unlocked iPhone from the people who know it best”. The US store site shows only the same $199/299/399 contract pricing they announced during the keynote. There is no other information at the time on the actual model pricing, but I think its safe to assume the prices will be as follows:
16 GB – $699
32 GB – $799
64 GB – $899
Which color/size will you be getting?
;
Update 9/13/12 : Pre-orders will be live at 12:01 AM PST/2:01 AM CST/3:01 EST
Update 9/14/12 2:50 AM CST: While the Canadian store was still down at the time of typing this, I was able to preorder using the Apple Store App. The process was simple and took less than a minute to complete. If the store is not working for you, I suggest giving the dedicated App a try.
Company – Spigen SGP
Product – SGP Neo Hybrid 2S Pastel Series
Price – $31.99
Spigen SGP has done an excellent job of taking the time to make their packaging of their products look just as good as the product itself. When you receive the product, you feel like you are purchasing something of premium quality. Included with the case is a Steinheil Ultra Crystal front LCD screen shield as well as an Ultra Crystal back shield and a Micro Fiber fabric cleaning cloth. As with all products from SGP you receive the warranty card which includes a serial number for your product that you can register on their site which can be used for warranty purposes if required. It is available in 8 different color options, five being solid colors with both the inner and outer pieces being the same color and three of them having a white outer frame. They have gone even a step further recently and are now offering the option to purchase either the inner silicon shell or outer polycarbonate shell in a variety of colors so you can mix and match to your preference. Keep in mind that purchasing the two pieces individually will not include the front and rear screen shields.
The design of this case is very similar to that of Apple’s bumper case that they offer for the iPhone. Well Apple’s case is a one-piece molded plastic and rubber design, this case features a two-piece design; the first being a silicone enter followed by a poly carbonate outer shell that holds the two pieces together firmly. Well some may view this as a minimalist approach to protection, someone to be able to still enjoy the beauty of the phone well protecting it at the same time. The Neo Hybrid 2S does just that. It is very comfortable to hold in the hand and found myself many times forgetting that I even had a case on at all. The inclusion of a front and rear shield also allows you to protect as well as show off the beautiful design of the phone.
It features precise cut outs for the dock connector as well as the sleep wake button, headphone jack, speaker and microphone. One issue I had in regards to the cutout was that the headphone jack was too small for my L-shaped Beats Solo headphone connector. I was disappointed that I was unable to use the headphones in conjunction with this case as I use these headphones on a daily basis with my iPhone. I would have liked to have seen a larger cut out to be able to accommodate all headphone jack sizes. The inner silicon provides a raised lip on both the front and back all around for a nice lay on the table design silicon/polycarbonate combination will provide some shock protection from drops that could happen should it hit the corner, but will not provide protection from cracking the glass on the front or back, the inclusion of the front and back shields protect from scruffs and scratches from every day use. To some, this may be looked at as a deciding factor on whether or not to purchase, but by them including a front and rear screen shield, it should help ease your mind.
Aside from the headphone jack cutout not being large enough, I had nothing but a positive experience using this case. Using this on a typical day-to-day use, I had no worry that I was going to damage my phone, which in the case of it hitting the floor and shattering the screen, but not many cases will protect from that. Spigen SGP has done an excellent job creating a quality product as well as including extras and providing different color options for an overall great user experience.
Apple has finally announced it highly anticipated event set to debut the new iPhone 5, on Wednesday, September 12. The event is being held at the Yerba Buena Center in San Fransisco and will begin at 10:00 am PST/12:00pm CST / 1:00pm EST. We will be updating you with information about the new information Apple is set to unveil. Stay tuned! Next week can’t come soon enough!
*Note the ‘5’ shadow that underlines the 12th. This gives a pretty good indication that the next iPhone will indeed be called the iPhone 5.
The long awaited update from Android 3.2 Honeycomb to Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich for the Rogers Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has arrived. You can find the update by going to Settings > About Device > Software Update. You will want to make sure that your connected to Wifi as the download is approximately 230 mb.
The update offers some visual changes along with updates to various Samsung applications. The most notable change is the tablet is much more fluid. Whether Samsung will upgrade the tablet to 4.1 Jellybean is unknown, but we can only hope.
It seems the the past few weeks have been filled with leak after leak of alleged parts for Apple’s upcoming ‘iPhone 5’ with the latest photo leaking being that of a new USB cable to 8/9 pin dock connector. Whether all of these leaks are real or not are up for debate but let me give you my thought on the current situation.
Design
9to5mac reported a few weeks back what are to be leaked images of the upcoming iPhone 5 casing. It is featured to have an aluminum backing, smaller dock connector as well as the headphone jack moved to the bottom of the phone. While the image looks real, and I hope it is, i’m not holding my breath.
4″ Display
The only thing I think that’s safe to assume is that the next iPhone will include a new, larger 4 inch display: a much needed upgrade from their current 3.5″ retina display. The iOS 6 beta has revealed in its code as well to support automatic upscaling to a larger 640 x 1136 from 640 x 960.
LTE/ 4G Radio
This is looking like a real possibility as the amount of LTE towers is rapidly increasing across North America, I think the only thing that would hold Apple back from including it would be its ability to get the battery life optimized to what is acceptable for them to release in a phone. Current generation smartphones that are LTE equipped notice a much faster drain than HSPA+ speeds. This is common sense, but Apple being the way they are, if it isn’t perfect, they wont include it.
Battery
The current iPhone 4S is equipped with a 1430 mAh battery. Recently leaked images(source: 9to5mac.com) of a what is proposed to be the new battery, features a slightly larger 1440 mAh battery. How much of a difference a 10 mAh increment will make doesn’t seem like a lot in my opinion.
Processor/RAM
Recent leaks of the proposed motherboard have suggested that Apple will include the A5X dual-core cpu that is in the current 3rd generation iPad. While these are merely a speculation, I would take this one with a grain of salt. It also has been rumored to include 1 gigabyte of RAM – this one as well is nothing more than speculation and is good as anyone’s guess. My thoughts are that this will be the minimum Apple will include their next generation iPhone.
Front/Rear Camera
Leaks of the proposed front panel show that the camera has been moved to the centre, just above the earpiece. Apple’s current generation iPhone 4S includes a VGA camera which I think will be upgraded to something that will be able to support HD FaceTime. Apple kept the same VGA camera in the front since the iPhone 4 and makes sense for them to upgrade as they are focusing on advertising FaceTime more than ever with iOS 6 including the ability to FaceTime over wireless. This may or may not have an impact on the camera they choose. They may limit the camera to VGA over FaceTime to improve quality in slower connection areas and enable HD for when connected to WIFI.
The rear camera is anyones guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept the same, 8-Megapixel camera that is on the iPhone 4S, with possibly some more advancements done to it. In my opinion there isn’t really a need to go above the 8MP and would be better to improve on what they already have done a great job with.
NFC
Prior to the iOS 6 announcement, I would have bet that this would for sure be included. When they announced Passbook and how it is mainly barcode based, I’m not so sure. Other than using it as a payment system, such as what Google Wallet has done, I don’t see a big use. Android has their NFC share option called ‘Android Beam’, and is nothing more than a fun gimmick in my opinion, I don’t think Google Wallet has taken off to what it had hopes of. Take this along with the fact that many businesses still aren’t PayPass/touch pay enabled, I don’t see Apple rushing into including this. They don’t look to be interested in the mobile payment game when it comes to using your credit card for making payments, and more for storing gift cards, movie tickets, sporting events etc. As of writing this, I don’t think Apple will be including NFC in its next iPhone.
Storage
16/32/64 GB are the current options. Will they be including a 128GB option for the iPhone 5? Who knows, but what I am confident of is that the 3 current options will be available.
Final Thoughts
As many leaks as there has been, and while its entirely possible, I find it extremely hard to believe all the parts all real. Has Apple, the king of secrecy, lost its touch? At this point, almost the entire phone’s parts have been leaks and while I understand the theory of ‘controlled’ leaks as well as the fact that a lot of parts are made by third party manufacturers, I don’t believe Apple believes in it. Why not? Because they don’t have to. They know the hype that is self-built around their products and as a suggested release date nears, the amount of fake parts manufactured spring out left and right. Yes, I understand the iPhone 4 was found in its whole, prototype form, but this was merely an employee mistake. While the odds are good that a lot of these parts will end up being real, don’t be surprised if its entirely different. If I know Apple, I wont be.
Feel free to share your own thoughts and comments and please, respect others opinions.
Finally!!! I have finally updated my old guide and edited it to now make a new guide on how to update your ‘Yakjuux’ build Galaxy Nexus to the new ‘Yakju’ build running the latest version of Android, Jelly Bean 4.1.1. I have left the old guide up for those who want to be able to get the update OTA from Google, but if you choose to bypass the OTA and go straight to the latest version, this is the guide for you. I have left all the old information regarding what the ‘Yakjuux’ and ‘Yakju’ builds are for new users who may not have seen the old post so skip down to the bottom for the instructions. I will also be adding a FAQ section soon as I have received many of the same questions and will save you some time even though most of the questions are answered in this post.
So you’ve purchased a new Galaxy Nexus phone from Rogers, Telus, Fido, Bell, AT&T or any other GSM with hopes of having the latest updated; it turns out that there are two different builds, ‘yakjuux’ and ‘yakju’. The main differences between these two builds is that the ‘yakjuux’ build is pushed out by Samsung and the Yakju build is pushed directly from Google. The benefit from having the ‘yakju’ build is that you will receive the updates much faster as they are being pushed from Google directly.
The current pushed versions of Ice Cream Sandwich:
YAKJUUX – 4.0.2
YAKJU – 4.1.1 (JRO03C)
In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to update your build from the ‘yakjuux’ to ‘yakju’ build of Jelly Bean 4.1.1 on Mac OS X. I am using OS X lion 10.7.3.
Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any damages you incur to your phone by updating. I am merely writing a how-to guide and everything is done at your own risk.
Make sure you backup anything on your phone as this process will wipe everything.
First you will need to download the fastboot file which is located inside the ‘Nexus’ folder. That file can be downloaded https://www.dropbox.com/s/lkaey1tajd0ttnx/Nexus.zip
You will want to place the Nexus folder onto the desktop as the commands below require it.
Inside the “Nexus” folder, you will find the file “fastboot”. Open this up the way you would an application and let is run. It will ‘install’ whats needed. If you don’t, you will receive a permission denied reply when you try to run the fast boot commands.
Next, download the Factory Image for Android 4.1.1 here: Link
You will want to download UnRarX in order to extract the Android 4.1.1 tgz file. Once you are ready to extract the file, extract the contents to the ‘Nexus’ folder located on the desktop.
Next download the Android File Transfer software for mac from http://www.android.com/filetransfer/ and install.
At this point, you should have everything extracted into the ‘Nexus’ folder on the Desktop and we are ready to start the process.
We are going to start by unlocking the boot loader. This is needed so that we can install the ‘yakju’ image files. Note: This is not the same thing as rooting your phone.
First you are going to want to plug-in your Nexus and make sure that the Android File transfer recognizes the phone. If it does, power down the phone with it still being connected to the computer.
Next, boot the phone into recovery mode. To do this, power down the phone and restart it by holding the power and volume up/down buttons until you see the recovery screen.
Next, we will unlock the Bootloader. To do this, open up Terminal(located in your Applications->Utilities folder)and type the following commands.
1.) cd ~/desktop/Nexus (hit enter after typing each one if these commands)
2.) ./fastboot devices
If everything is installed correctly, you should see xxxxxxxxxx fastboot(the numbers represent your serial number)
3.) ./fastboot oem unlock
4.)Your phone will ask you if you want to unlock the bootloader. Use the volume up button to ‘yes’ and select it by pressing the power button.
NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR PHONE. Your bootloader is now unlocked.
Next we will install the new files:
5.)type ./fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-maguro-primelc03.img
6.) type ./fastboot reboot-bootloader
7.) type ./fastboot flash radio radio-maguro-i9250xxlf1.img
8.) type ./fastboot reboot-bootloader
9.) type ./fastboot -w update image-yakju-jro03c.zip
At this point, the phone will automatically restart. Once the phone has booted to the factory startup screen, power down again and and boot into recovery mode.
We are going to now re-lock the bootloader. Keep in mind that if you choose to lock it and want to update to a future version, you will need to re-unlock it and thus erase everything again. If you decide that you need to send it in for warranty, you will want to re-lock it.
To lock the bootloader:
In the Terminal, type the following:
1.) type ./fastboot devices
2.) type ./fastboot oem lock
Your bootloader is now locked again.
3.) ./fastboot reboot
Your phone is now updated to the latest firmware, Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean. As well, you will now also be able to receive the future OTA updates directly from Google.
Wow, the page views have exploded over the past few days. I never would have guessed that I would get such a positive response to what I thought was ‘just another guide’. Thank you all for the comments on if its helped you or anyone else. Anyway, I’ve been getting a lot of post/emails about making a update guide similar to my Yakjuux to Yakju guide, but for Jelly Bean. Once the factory image for Jelly Bean is released, I will make a new guide and upload the proper files for you to install. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog or followed me on Google+ or Twitter, be sure to as I will post updates there about where I’m at with things.
Indeed you are. Thursday was a good day as I became the owner of a new HTC One X International unlocked smartphone. Ever since seeing the phone at the MWC in Barcelona, I have been wanting to get my hands on it. I will be updating this week with a first impression of the phone as well as do some comparisons between it and the Galaxy Nexus.
Filed under Updates
Digital Igloo 
