While there’s no reason to think Huberty didn’t meet with Apple executives recently, the fact that the notes she’s passed on are all tied to “could” and “is believed to” and “may” should give you a clue to how much was actually revealed to her. With that in mind, feel free to go wild with acceptance and faith in the possibilities!

“We believe Apple could charge either developers or users for some of these services, which could boost Apple’s annuitized revenue stream and better monetize its large user base. For example, Apple could offer a streaming music service using a freemium model.” – Huberty

You’ll find Apple being suggested to create an internet-based service the likes of which could be a music service by the name of “iRadio” and might be working on deals with Warner Music and Universal Music Group as we speak. Also suggested once again is the iPhone 5S along with distribution plans for NTT Docomo in Japan and China Mobile (in China).

The “killer iOS app” spoken about by Huberty has been described as quite possibly as important as Apple’s adoption of Siri with the iPhone 4S. This could be the introduction of mobile payments, integration being started already with the app Passbook brought fourth in iOS 5. Conflicting reports in the past have suggested Apple’s inclusion of an NFC payment system in the next generation of iPhone products as well.

Sound realistic to you? How about that multi-colored plastic iPhone, eh? Have a peek at some other recent Apple tips and suggestions in the timeline below, and let us know what you think!

[via Apple Insider]

Earlier this week we reported that over 15% of devices had been updated within the first 24 hours, which may sound like a small number, but compared to updates on Android — is actually quite high. Add in the fact that it was just the first day, iOS 6 has been doing exceptionally well.

Today reports are coming out from multiple analytics companies, and reports from TechCrunch state the overall upgrade and adoption rate for iOS 6 is massive. iOS 6 adoption rate is significantly higher than iOS 5, to the tune of around 122% faster. This time around it’s also an over-the-air update, making it a much simpler process for the millions and millions of iOS users.

Finally being able to update OTA and not requiring a cable and iTunes makes this a very simply and easy processor for the masses. If you’re already enjoying iOS 5 you simply can update right on your device. This could be a large part of why the adoption and update rate is seeing such massive numbers — but that isn’t all either. iOS 6 brings tons of fantastic features to everyone. If you sadly can’t get the latest and greatest with a 4-inch screen, you’ll surely want all those new Siri, Passbook, Maps, and other features that makes the iPhone and iOS 6 so excellent. We are also hearing many developers praise the update, saying the transition has been smooth and support for iOS 6 has been easy.

If you haven’t bought the iPhone 5 today or are rocking an older device, have you updated to iOS 6 yet?

The iPhone 5 will be sold in three different internal storage sizes, with each of the three sizes being offered by each major retailer right out of the gate. The 16GB version will be arriving for $199, the 32GB version will be appearing at $299, and the largest version is the 64GB version at $399 USD. These prices are what the devices will cost attached to a 2-year mobile data agreement with the carrier of your choice.

Off-contract prices depend on how you’ll be picking a device up. If you’re looking to upgrade from your on-contract iPhone before your contract is up, you’ll be paying full off-contract prices: $649, $749, or $849 depending on the internal storage size. If you’re changing over after your contract is over, you’re looking at $449, $549, or $649 USD.

If on the other hand you’re looking to buy an off-contract phone with AT&T, you may be eligible for a discount – the discount here makes the device cost the on-contract price plus $250 USD. More release pricing such as this may be available in the days between pre-order beginning and the device being available in stores later this month. Stick around and see!

Meanwhile have a peek at our iPhone 5 tag portal and our Apple portal for more mobile action than you can handle! We’ve got a hands-on experience with the iPhone 5 as well that’s not to be missed!

The iPhone 5 will be reaching 100 countries on 240 carriers soon and will be working with a “dramatically simpler” iTunes for all your media needs. The iPhone 4 was announced to be taking the place of the iPhone 3GS as the Free segment of the iPhone family while the iPhone 4S has been pushed down to $99 USD range at just one size – 16GB. The iPhone 5 sits therefor at $199, $299, and $399.

The iPhone 5 will be working with Photo Stream as its own social network for photos. You’ll find three microphones on the iPhone 5 for HD recording galore. The way you’ll connect your iPhone 5 to any other device (aside from wirelessly) is with the Lightning dock connector, 18 pins of reversible glory connected with USB.

There’s a lovely new 8 megapixel camera under the hood with enhanced abilities and a thinner profile. The 4-inch Retina display up front of the new iPhone is just as wide as the iPhone always has been, this allowing you still to be able to work with it with one hand. This device is, again, the “world’s thinnest smartphone” at the moment, and you’ll find several of your favorite LTE carriers working with the iPhone 5 in the near future.

You’ll get the newest A6 chip in the new iPhone 5 with twice the performance in both CPU and graphics. And of course we’ve got our first iPhone 5 revealed post up for your perusal as well – hands-on with the iPhone 5 coming up soon!

iOS 6

First for you mobile-minded folk out there, it’s time to get real about the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 6. This upgrade is available for developers today but will be coming later this summer for everyday average users. You’ll find Guided Access to be one of the brand new abilities of iOS 6 with UI-disabling features coming with it. Another new app is Passbook, complete with your cards and tickets for movies, airplanes, coffee shops, and more.

You’ll be doing a whole lot more Photo Stream sharing with iOS 6 as well as FaceTime over cellular on the fly! Of course Apple wouldn’t have started any of this without first telling us about how amazing iOS 5 has been and how widely it’s been adopted thus far – the same goes for the iTunes App Store – explosive!

Facebook Integration

Perhaps one of the most important distinctions iOS 6 will have from its predecessors is the fact that it has deep Facebook integration. This integration will spill over to OS X Mountain Lion as well, but it’ll be extremely noticeable here in the mobile operating system world first and foremost.

Apple Maps

Apple has truly come on in a big way with their Google-Maps-ending Apple Maps software which includes turn-by-turn navigation, 3D viewing of buildings, and a whole lot more. This will without a doubt give Google a run for its money – even if Google did make a valiant pre-release effort this past week.

Siri

The personal assistant known as Siri will be coming to several new countries around the world and will also be pushed to the iPad 3, aka the iPad 3rd Gen with Retina display. Siri will also be upgraded to include several new features including sports scores very soon.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air lineup has been refreshed with 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, both of them i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge. This upgrade also has you gaining a USB 3.0 port (which of course is also backwards-compatible with USB 2.0), a Facetime camera with a new 720p quality to it, and 8GB of RAM inside with 512GB of flash storage. These ultra-thin, ultra-light models will continue to be the most portable notebooks in the Apple range.

MacBook Pro 2012 refresh

Keep it all straight and notice this: there is a MacBook Pro 2012 refresh lineup as well as a brand new MacBook Pro model with Retina Display. We’ll go ahead and call this refresh the “classic” MacBook Pro while the Retina version is one section down. This Classic refresh includes Intel Ivy Bridge processors, for starters, keeping the optical drive that was rumored to be dropped, and comes in at a price that’s slightly cheaper than the Retina model as well: 13-inch for $1,199 or 15-inch for $1,799.

New MacBook Pro with Retina display

The New MacBook Pro with Retina display brings not only a high-definition display that’s to be envied by all your past-generation MacBooks, but upgraded hardware all around as well. There are new air vents at the sides of this device, there’s a new thinner “MagSafe 2″ port for power, and you’ve got both a thinner and lighter notebook than any MacBook Pro before. It can even roll out with Diablo III with no trouble at all, imagine that! This notebook sits between the MacBook Pro 2012 refresh and the MacBook Air for thickness and offers a slightly more powerful option for those of you looking for the sweetest notebook on the block.

We’ve had our own eyes-on look at the Next-Gen MacBook Pro with Retina quality display under a glass case thus far and will see it much closer up soon enough.

Meanwhile you can order this notebook starting today and starting at $2199 – with upgraded models adding on several hundred dollars to that price.

OS X Mountain Lion software and Applications

While there weren’t too many things in OS X Mountain Lion today that we hadn’t seen before in our own hands-on preview, we did see a swath of new options that will have the whole hardware range looking mighty good when they’re upgraded this summer. This upgrade will include AirPlay Mirroring and 1080p streaming to TV as well as integration with the thus-far mobile-only Game Center ecosystem.

For your web browsing needs you’ll be checking out the brand new Safari complete with Unified Search, iCloud Tabs, and Tab View as well. The application and software integration known as Power Nap was revealed as an always-active bit of silent-doer for tasks you’d otherwise have to do while your computer is fully awake.

Apple has also brought on a tiny bit of Siri (though it’s not quite called that yet) to OS X Mountain Lion with Dictation and iCloud integration will be larger than ever, and not just in your browser window this time around.

You’ll be able to pick up Mountain Lion for just $19.99 USD in July if you feel so inclined – and if you’ve purchased one of the devices revealed today, you’ll be getting the upgrade for free – 200 features and counting, so they say!

After-event Updates

After the keynote was over, it became apparent that several news bits did not make the big event cut. The first of these was the dropping of Apple’s 17-inch MacBook Pro from the big lineup. Next you’ll find the Apple AirPort Express update to be bringing a new form factor and set of abilities. The iPad has gotten a new iPad Smart Case and the mighty mighty desktop hero Mac Pro has been pushed up the hill incrementally as well.

Stay tuned to our WWDC 2012 portal for all the news as it continues to pop up through the day and through the week as well – Apple updates galore!

In a demonstration of the application, one instance showed a baseball game ticket, another showed a cash card for Starbucks. Another showed a remaining balance for your Apple Store account, while another showed off an Amtrak ticket. This application has your device pulling up each individual brand name ticket when you move nearby one of those stores or locations, all of this very location-based.

“The best way to get all of your passes and tickets together in one place.” – Apple on Passbook

This application will certainly be appearing with iOS 6 and will be on the next iPhone as well as very possibly the current legacy devices as well. As of now it appears that Passbook will only be on the iPhone, but we’ll see! Stick around all day for more Apple WWDC 2012 news through our WWDC 2012 portal as well as our life feed!

This upgrade will have users able to use Siri when connected to the web and Siri will also be upgrade to include such lovely features as sports scores. This upgrade will be free to all new iPad users and you can expect Siri to hit your device sometime extremely soon. The software iOS 6 will be coming this summer and Apple has not yet announced a release date.

Stick around for more Apple, iPad, iOS, and more as we cover WWDC 2012 in its entirety here on SlashGear. See our live portal here and our WWDC 2012 portal for full news posts as they come up! Also check the timeline below for all things Siri!

Next Apple spoke on how 140 million iMessage users existed, and how 1 billion messages were sent every single day. Out of the top 100 social apps, Apple noted that they had 84 of them working with Notification Center, and that 7 billion notifications were being sent per day. The Game Center was shown to have 130 million accounts with 67 of the top 100 games adopting it. Twitter showed 10 billion tweets inside iOS 5 alone.

This has all lead to the next big gun: iOS 6 for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Stick around as we continue our liveblog as well as our WWDC 2012 portal all day long! Check out our live feed at http://live.slashgear.com/ and stay tuned!

High Definition Retina Display

First of all, there’s been so much news surrounding the idea that this version of the iPad will have a massively improved display panel that it’s essentially impossible at this point that it wouldn’t. This model of the iPad has been rumored to be having a Retina quality display at 2x the quality of the current model iPad 2. With 2048 x 1536 pixels jam packed into the same physical display size as previous models, this feature fits in perfectly with the tagline for this event:

“We have something you really have to see. And touch.”

The touch bit we must simply conclude means that this is, indeed, a touch-screen device as it always has been and that it wont be a television or something absurd like that, no touching allowed. There is a chance that there may be some improvements made on the technology behind the touch screen interface, but it is unlikely.

Improved Processing Architecture over the A5 chip

Inside every computer is a processor, or an SoC (System on Chip), the iPad 2′s current processor being the dual-core A5 chip. The same generation chip is also on the iPhone 4S, though the builds are ever so slightly different due to their needing to work on different hardware. What the iPad 3 has been tipped to be carrying is one of two possible chips: the A6 or the A5X. The less likely of these two is the A6, a hypothetical SoC with four CPU cores and improved graphics processing technology.

The more likely option is an A5X chip, this bit of architecture still dual-core and having the ability to work with 4G LTE connectivity for data. This version of the chip would also include more powerful GPU cores to work with all the new pixels this iPad has in action.

Cameras

Both the front and the back-facing cameras on the iPad line have been tipped to be set up for improvement, this quite likely due to Apple’s big push for better photos in the iPhone 4S as well as the relatively unimpressive quality of the iPad 2′s current shooters. The iPad 2 currently features a 1-megapixel camera on the back, while the improved model iPad 3 could very well have a 3 megapixel camera on the front and an 8 megapixel camera on the back to keep up with the rest of the highest-powered tablets on the market today. The front-facing camera has also been tipped as possibly having the ability to work with 720p video chat through iChat.

The Rest

For the rest of the odd rumors I must show you the timeline below. What we’ve got here is tips on everything from a set of three units, each with different sizes, to a triangular tablet ala The Office. Of course you’ll be able to decipher which of these 10 “winners” are realistic and which are complete hooey, but do know this: they’re all entertaining. That’s for sure!

The Real Deal

We’ll be at the event for the release of this device this Wednesday at 10AM PST sharp. We’ve got both a liveblog at live.slashgear.com and news coming through to the main SlashGear news feed as well all throughout the event, and you can bet you’ll be getting top notch reporting and perfect photographs from the event all event long. This may well be the biggest iPad release yet – be there or be square!

As you advance through the grid, you’ll find that your ability to move to different squares changes based on what move you made last. If you head straight through several of your moves, you may find yourself crashing into a wall because you don’t have the ability to gain a great enough turn radius. If you don’t advance enough squares by moving as far from your current space to the next, your opponents may out-race you.

And your opponents can block your moves as well. Any player can potentially figure out where their opponent is going to land next by checking the amount of squares and direction they last moved. Blocking an opponent is as simple as moving into the selection of points your opponent was bound to head into next. Once you’ve mastered the art of blocking, you’ll be good to go to win almost any race.

This game is out on the iTunes App Store right this second for a grand total of $0.99, and its worth every penny. You can play against a robot, against an opponent you’ve got sitting next to you by switching your phone back and forth between one another, opponents on a wi-fi network, and opponents through the web on Game Center. It’s fun stuff!

Meanwhile, there’s also another new feature that everyone can enjoy, in the shape of a camera shortcut on the iOS lock-screen. As well as the usual slide-to-unlock bar – the patent behind which is causing Motorola headaches in court - there’s also a button to take you straight to the camera app.

Interestingly, it seems there’s no need to actually hit the button itself. Instead, the lock bar now gets a second dimension of movement, and sliding it all the way up or down unlocks the iPhone and takes you direct to the camera. Given Apple did plenty of work speeding up the load times of the iPhone 4S camera itself, that could be a real time saver for impromptu photo opportunities.

Public release dates for iOS 5.1 are still unknown, though the latest rumors suggest there are no lingering issues to the build and it could be pushed out as an OTA update in the next few weeks.

[via Android Community]

iOS 5.1 includes a myriad of upgrades and bugfixes, most notably improvements to battery life on the iPhone 4S and improvements to Siri’s voice dictation. Smaller touches abound, like the ability to remove images from the iCloud stream manually, better assisted touch, an Arrow Slider option on the lockscreen and many more interface tweaks. One of the most important changes for social users will be Facebook integration, allowing a Facebook username field in the Contacts app and direct uploading form the camera roll. Various freeze issues on the homescreen and Music app will have to wait for the next major revision.

5.1 has been in beta testing since November, so it’s certainly due for a public release. We keep hearing news of a revised iPad for early March, and Apple loves to release new software and hardware at the same time, so take that as either an indication for either if you like. Apple’s been updating their App Store policies in the last few weeks as well, perhaps preparing for an influx of updates to the apps themselves.

[via Cnet]

The software on the two devices we’re looking at here is the most updated version from either software group, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich from Google, and iOS 5 from Apple. The devices we’re looking at are the iPhone 4S from Apple and the Galaxy Nexus from Samsung. The iPhone 4S is the same as each iPhone before it in that Apple uses it as a hero device for its software, while the Galaxy Nexus is a special case for Google because they do not currently produce their own hardware, this one produced with Samsung to be the hero for Google’s software. In this way these two devices are the best examples for Apple and Google’s Android for this feature story.

Applications

Both Android and iOS are built with a basic user interface which includes a grid of icons, each icon connected to an app. All Android devices you’re going to purchase from a carrier here in the United States and the iPhone are connected to app stores where apps can be purchased or download free. If you switch from Android to iOS or back the other way around, you will need to download a whole new set of applications. This is true of any switching between devices, but if you stick with one software, like switching from Android to Android, you wont have to re-purchase applications like you would when switching from iOS to Android and back again.

Multi-tasking

The question of multi-tasking is one we’ve been writing about and hearing about for years, ever since the birth of this mobile environment in smartphones. The newest versions of Android and iOS both have a very basic but fairly effective means of switching back and forth between apps. For the iPhone you’ll be double-tapping on your home button and a row of applications will appear at the bottom of your display – each of these are able to be opened or, if you hold down on one of them, closed entirely. A similar situation happens with Android 4.0 when you tap the “Recent Apps” icon, this being the double rectangle on the far right – the applications pop up here with a preview and an icon, each able to be opened, closed entirely, or have its App Info accessed.

Pull-down Menu

Both Android and iOS now have a pull-down menu that can be accessed by sliding your finger down from the top of the display. Both have status updates from applications and are organized a bit differently from on another, and Apple’s version has a couple of widget-like selections at the moment not unlike what Android has on its several home-screens. Both menus’s individual updates can be tapped to access and can also be closed with a simple action: an x-out or a push to the left.

Home Screens

Android has two layers to its containment of applications, while Apple’s iOS has one. Android has a set of home-screens where you can add apps as well as a wide variety of widgets, widgets being anything from a simple picture frame to a stock-ticker like you’re seeing in the pull-down menu on iOS. Android also has an App Drawer where applications are placed in a basic grid and can be pulled up and out to Android’s home screens. Apple’s iOS has home screens which are essentially the same as Android’s App Drawer. Both operating systems have the ability to pack several apps in one app’s grid spot in a “drawer” for a simplified way of organizing, both having this feature on home screens.

Taking Photos and Video

The photo-taking experience on Android and iOS is basically the same. You’ve got a viewfinder that’s nearly the whole display large, you’ve got one button that takes the photo or the video, and there’s are at least a few options on both interfaces. The camera on iOS 5 has options for your flash or lamp (for video), tap to focus, and have a single button to flip between front and back cameras.

Android has the same set of options but also has a selection of special effects here on the Galaxy Nexus, including a panoramic mode for long photos. As far as the devices we’re looking at here, the iPhone 4S has the better ability to take fabulous photos as its 8 megapixels strong over the Galaxy Nexus’ 5 megapixels. Both devices claim to have the fastest shutter speed in the west, but the iPhone 4S has a much better shot-to-keeper ratio from what you humble narrator has experienced.

Sharing Photos and Video

The iPhone is limited in its capability to share a photo or a video directly from the gallery – if you open a photo and want to share it, you can email it, tweet it, text message it, assign it to a contact, make it your wallpaper, or print it. With Android, you can do all of these things plus more – Android connects your gallery to any and all applications that are able to share images. For iOS you’ve got to go into each of those applications outside the gallery to share. This simple difference will drive you nuts when switching from Android to iOS if you’re a big sharing sort of person.

Settings

Bot operating systems have a basic Settings menu, both of them able to work with items like Wifi, screen brightness, and settings for your main account – or multiple accounts with Android. With the Android version here specifically on the Nexus device you’ve got a set of developer options you wont get with any other Android device. Both operating systems have access to individual app settings, but only iOS has the ability to access GPS settings for each individual app. When switching back and forth between operating systems, you’ll definitely have to do a bit of searching before you find each of the bits you’re used to working with, but it’s all there for the most part between the two.

Ecosystems

There are massive followings surrounding both the iPhone and Android devices, with the Android Community being both a developer and a hacker group and Apple’s being just one gigantic set of people of all types. When you need support for an iPhone, you’re going to want to head to an Apple store. When you want support for an Android device, you’ll be encouraged to go to your carrier. Both choices have a big online support community comprised of users from around the world that want to help out their fellow compatriots with problems big and small.

Wrap-Up

A few years ago I’d have said that the iPhone had a much more massive and impressive developer base for applications than Android, and you know I’d have been right. At this time both groups have an ever-expanding world-sized set of developers working for them. You absolutely cannot judge one device over the other based on this simple factor, nor should you choose one over the other trying to compare them based on one specification. The whole package is what you’re going to want to see here.

I’m going to continue using the iPhone 4S as one of two daily devices. I’m in a unique place here as a tech writer and reviewer of devices where I don’t have to drop hundreds of dollars down a month to have service and new devices, and as it’s my job to stay updated on the trends of the day, I’ll also need to keep an Android on hand. I’ll continue to watch and review the other operating systems as well, but at the moment it’s not quite as important for me to carry one along at all times. The app, case, skin, and service reviews and hands-on for the iPhone 4S will continue into the future right here on SlashGear courtesy of yours truly.

According to the Dev Team, all of the “technical hurdles” around the jailbreak have been overcome. What remains is making sure the end package is as bug-free as possible; to that end, and to suit all levels of users and systems in the wild, there will be several ways of actually using the Corona A5 jailbreak tool.

A simple GUI for Mac and PC is promised, along with a command-line interface (CLI) that can be used to guide novices through the process, debug, and set different options along the way. Corona is also expected to be eventually integrated into the existing redsn0w tool, offering a slightly different GUI and broadening compatibility.

As for compatibility, the iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 (9A334), 5.0.1 (9A405) and the other 5.0.1 variant (9A406) will be supported, along with the iPad 2 on iOS 5.0.1 (9A405). The recommendation for iPhone 4S owners is that they stay on iOS 5.0, if they haven’t already succumbed to the lure of the upgrade.

The iPhone 4S can be seen significantly surpassing the Lumia 800 in performance in all tests, which include Browsermark tests, Speed Reading test, Sunspider, Acid3, and HTML5. The iPhone 4 also didn’t do too shabby, beating the Lumia 800 by a smaller margin in most of the browser tests.

The iPhone 4 is running iOS 4.3 while the iPhone 4S is running iOS 5. The tester notes that with the Speed Reading Test, iOS 5 on the iPhone 4 gives it a big boost up in speed. You can take a look at the video for yourself or catch the complete scores below. A higher number is better in most of the tests, except for the Sunspider Test where a lower number is better.

iPhone 4 – iOS 4.3
Nokia Lumia 800 – WP 7.5 (aka Mango)
iPhone 4S – iOS 5

Browsermark Test: Higher is better
iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3) – 37 503
Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5 aka Mango) – 30 452
iPhone 4S (iOS 5) – 86 702

Speed Reading Test:
iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3) – 2 fps (iPhone 4 with iOS 5.0 – around 37 fps)
Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5 aka Mango) – 40 fps
iPhone 4S (iOS 5) – 60 fps

Sunspider Test: Lower is better
iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3) – 4018.2 ms
Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5 aka Mango) – 7188.7 ms
iPhone 4S (iOS 5) – 2266 ms

Acid3 Test:
iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3) – 100/100
Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5 aka Mango) – 100/100
iPhone 4S (iOS 5) – 100/100

HTML5 Test:
iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3) – 210
Nokia Lumia 800 (WP7.5 aka Mango) – 141
iPhone 4S (iOS 5) – 296

[via MyNokiaBlog]

MuscleNerd, a figurehead in the iOS jailbreaking and hacking community, tweeted today that the iOS 5.0.1 update from today made iOS 5 on the iPhone 4 “(to clarify: wide open for inspection from a Mac/PC…not wide open security wise :) Can get Siri files and such without piracy)”. Previously, to legally run Siri, one would have to have access to an iPhone 4S unique identifier, and the key would need to be rotated every 24 hours to avoid being detected. If a large enough number of these devices start calling on Siri from one 4S identifier, Apple will be able to see the activity and kill the port permanently.

No one really knows why Apple has left such a wide opening for hackers to exploit when the notion of a Siri port has been such a hotly discussed item as of recent. We’ll keep you updated when whether there’re further updates from Apple about Siri, or development fron third-party groups and developers.

[via Cult of Mac]

Check out the entire list of codenames and their corresponding OS versions below for reference. See how many names you recognize (or rather, how many you don’t, cause I can barely recognize half of them, being from sunny California myself). Perhaps you should have gone for surf towns or beaches, Apple, well, you being from California yourself (Cupertino, to be specific).

1.0: Alpine (1.0.0 – 1.0.2: Heavenly)
1.1: Little Bear (1.1.1: Snowbird, 1.1.2: Oktoberfest)
2.0: Big Bear
2.1: Sugarbowl
2.2: Timberline
3.0: Kirkwood
3.1: Northstar
3.2: Wildcat (iPad only)
4.0: Apex
4.1: Baker
4.2: Jasper (4.2.5 – 4.2.10: Phoenix)
4.3: Durango
5.0: Telluride
5.1: Hoodoo

Personally speaking, I think it’s a bit more obscure to the average person, and nowhere near as sweet as Google’s Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwiches, nor as aggressive as Apple’s Lions and Tigers (perhaps Bears, one day?). Perhaps the guys in Cupertino could spice things up a little. What do our readers think? Feel free to your imaginative naming schemes in the comments section below. Have fun coming up with some crazy names!

[via The iPhone Blog]

You’ll be installing H1Siri in a flash right after you’ve got your jailbreak on, and though that bit may be more than a couple steps when it comes down to it, can you put a price on having the software that at the moment is only otherwise allowed on the iPhone 4S? There are some drawbacks of course, like the possibility that your camera will break or that you’ll get a mass of errors once you start trying to access the servers Siri relies on to bring you all of its infinite knowledge, but heck! It’s a bunch of fun anyway, right? Have a peek at the system here working on an iPhone 4:

So here’s your situation — follow the directions at InTech if you do so dare to try it all out, but don’t be surprised if your device doesn’t like what’s being done to it, as none of this is sanctioned by Apple. Then see what you could have, of course, if you just go ahead and purchase the full real deal in our review of the iPhone 4S. Also remember we’ve got a review of iOS 5 if you want to take a look at that, and don’t skip the Siri video there as well. It’s Siri for all!

[via Verge]

The first video surfaced as a response to Microsoft’s claims that most of the functionality found in the recently launched Siri feature has been available on the Windows Phone since a year ago. However, TellMe in its current iteration is very much command-driven and not as advanced at recognizing natural speech. Hence, the first video made TellMe look rather inept.

This latest video of a “fair” comparison, shows TellMe performing well at speech recognition, searching for weather, searching for photos, sending text messages, finding a restaurant, and playing music. The user doing the comparison had a heavy Hungarian accent and it appears TellMe was better at understanding it. Siri is seen several times fibbing at getting speech recognition right due to the accent, but still has a smoother faster response to commands.

Siri was introduced with the launch of iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S back in October. The feature, however, is still in beta and is restricted to the iPhone 4S for now. Microsoft’s TellMe feature has been part of its Windows Phone platform for some time now and the company recently demoed new speech recognition improvements that should make it a better rival to Siri.

The controversy was tipped off in late November, when an Android user began warning other users about a little known software he discovered pre-installed on handsets that could track user data. The data-collection company behind the software, Carrier IQ, then threatened legal action but has since retracted its cease-and-desist. But that got the snowball rolling with several companies having to issue clarifications, including Verizon, Vodafone, Rogers, O2, and Nokia.

Carrier IQ had allegedly inked deals with the major handset manufacturers and carriers to provide this data collection service for the purpose of diagnosing service issues, such as dropped calls, battery problems, and any other network issues to help make customer service more efficient. Reports claimed that the data collected could be as much as every keystroke, although Carrier IQ has strongly denied this.

Reliable sources from the Verge insist that the original Nexus One, Nexus S, and the most recent Galaxy Nexus as well as the Motorola XOOM tablet are all clean from the Carrier IQ software, but that there is evidence that iOS was utilizing the software. Apple has finally stepped out with their own statement as follows:

We stopped supporting CarrierIQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.

[via AllThingsD]

What the new iOS beta doesn’t tell us is exactly what the updated Apple TV brings to the table. The current model is a super-compact set-top box, limited to 720p HD and using Apple’s A4 1GHz single-core chipset as in the iPad and iPhone 4. The third-generation version, however, could well shift to the Apple A5 dual-core, as in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, with 1080p Full HD playback among other improvements.

We’d also go unsurprised if Apple finally introduced App Store access to the Apple TV, something the company has been rumored to do for some time now. That would position the STB as a more comprehensive Google TV rival, Google having added Android Market access to its recent v2.0 release.

Of course, the new Apple TV might not be a STB at all. Rumors of a full-sized Apple television running iOS and using Siri for easier navigation of local, streaming, broadcast and other content have proliferated over the past few months, with the HDTV said to be one of Steve Jobs’ final projects at the company.

The release notes for the build do not give any specific information on what new features are in the beta. However, there has been mention of “iPad 2,4″ found in the code, and this could be a sign of a 3G iPad 2 that will work on Sprint’s networks in the U.S., seeing as how Sprint is the latest carrier to get the iPhone 4S. Currently, the iPad 2 3G is only compatible with AT&T and Verizon.

It was previously believed that the next update to come before the year’s end would be 5.0.2, which was to further fix the battery performance that seems to be affecting many users. Seeing as how the 5.1 beta has now been released, it seems likely that Apple is solely focused on this update, and not another minor patch like 5.0.1. Apple has a pattern of putting out two or three developer betas before an update is completed, so it will probably be a few weeks before 5.1 is available for users to download.

[via Cnet]

An excerpt from the article about the J1/J2 (as well as more device findings):

Since Apple demands that the new iPad model will need to be thinner than the iPad 2, while raising the machine’s screen resolution to 2048 by 1536, upstream component makers have been working aggressively to adjust the device’s LED and panel module designs to satisfy these demands, but the work has affected the launch schedule of the new tablet PC. Apple is currently giving two tablet PC projects codenamed J1 and J2 to its upstream partners for development. The sources revealed that the major differences of the new tablet PCs compared to the previous model are their size, specifications and technologies. Since the new tablet PCs have a higher resolution, Apple has demanded the design of the light source to be changed from a single LED light bar to two LED light bars on the left and right sides of the machine, but since the method of adopting two LED light bars has created difficulty in shrinking the machine’s thickness, some vendors have come out with designs that only adopt one light bar, but are packing two LED chips into one package. The sources pointed out that the J2 project seems to be an upgrade version of the J1 and although Apple has not yet decided which project will be used for the final launch, Apple is likely to make the final decision based on its needs. As for the upstream side, the component suppliers have already conducted pilot production and prepared for mass production.

The report essentially states that Apple hasn’t made a decision between the J1 and J2 models, but it seems likely that the J2 model is actually the 3G model, and it’s quite possible that there is indeed a J1, but it hasn’t been found in the iOS 5 code yet. The J2 model of the iPad 3 having been uncovered in iOS 5 code means that the device is actually in testing right now against an iOS 5 software release.

In fact, according to 9 to 5 Mac, the J2 codename has been hovering around since the initial betas of iOS 5.0, and as you can see in the screenshot, there’s an unknown T39 device also in stages of testing. We’ll get back to you later about this whole situation when we have more concrete information, which should be in the very near future, since Apple’s probably due for another new iPad launch soon.

[Digitimes via 9 to 5 Mac]

Apple has already released the iOS 5.0.1 update that was aimed at fixing the battery life issues. However, the problem persists for some users and it’s believed that Apple will release iOS 5.0.2 with the aim of providing iPhone 4S users 40 hours of standby time and 10 hours of active use time. The update is expected to arrive no later than next week.

The more significant update to iOS 5.1 is believed to bring many new Siri features to the iPhone 4S. Some of those features include being able to use voice commands to activate functions like taking photos, recording videos, enabling and disabling Bluetooth, or turning on and off WiFi. But the source claims that the update won’t arrive until the end of 2011 as work on Siri is very costly.

[via AppleInsider]

Android sits sandwiched in-between, though both smartphone and tablet developer interest dropped in the three month period. 83-percent of developers said they were “very interested” in producing apps for Android phones, and 68-percent for Android tablets (versus 88-percent for the iPad). Apple’s iOS 5 release was deemed the most important news of the quarter, followed by Samsung taking the smartphone top-spot.

RIM’s results are less impressive again. Those saying they were very interested in developing for BlackBerry phones dropped 7-percent to 21-percent, while PlayBook developer interest dropped 6-percent to 13-percent. Smart TV platforms are also not finding favor, with Google TV interest falling to 20-percent from 44-percent last year. That could change as Google TV 2.0 rolls out in the coming weeks, with support for the Android Market.

iTunes Match was first announced back at WWDC 2011, when Apple also revealed the iCloud and iOS 5, which were all set to launch this fall. The iCloud and iOS 5 have both been released last month along with the iPhone 4S, but the iTunes Match feature has remained in developer beta testing since the end of August.

The service costs $24.99 a year and is designed to be an optional feature that allows users to stream via the iCloud both iTunes music as well as songs that they’ve purchased or acquired elsewhere. iTunes Match will attempt to find the song in Apple’s vast music library and if it’s already there, the service will automatically stream from the Apple master copy at 256kbps. If the song cannot be found then it will be uploaded to the user’s iCloud account for streaming.

[via MacRumors]

However, Apple is billing the device not as a way for T-Mobile customers to get some iPhone-shaped fun, but for frequent travelers to make calls and get online cheaply while abroad. Instead of relying on AT&T, Verizon or Sprint’s expensive roaming fees, those with the unlocked iPhone 4S will be able to slot in a local micro SIM and take advantage of generally more affordable pre-paid tariffs in their destination country.

Unfortunately, the roaming support doesn’t extend to CDMA networks, so even though the unlocked iPhone 4S has a CDMA radio inside, users won’t be able to get online via Verizon or similar networks abroad. GSM is the standard of choice in Europe, however there are several CDMA carriers in Asia, none of which will work with this particular version of the Apple smartphone.

Apple took the unusual step of confirming it would be offering an unlocked version at the same time as carrier sales began in the US in October. Elsewhere, the company has been selling unlocked models for some time, now, with a fierce grey market of exports springing up to satisfy iPhone 4S demand in countries where the handset isn’t officially available.

For more on the iPhone 4S, check out the full SlashGear review.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

The company has not specified exactly what iOS 5.0.1 does to fix the power problems – the release notes merely say it “Fixes bugs affecting battery life” – and was slow to even acknowledge the issue in the first place. “A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices” an Apple representative admitted earlier this month. “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case for all users. Some are reporting battery drain of almost 1-percent a minute, while others have found that allowing the smartphone to run down fully and then charge to 100-percent seems to help. On the flip-side, however, other iPhone 4S owners have seen their problems fixed with no tweaks or recalibration required, using the new software.

Has iOS 5.0.1 fixed your iPhone 4S battery drain issues, or are you still suffering shortened runtimes? Let us know in the comments!

The autocorrect bar does look a lot like the Android one when enabled, so much so that I half expect a massive lawsuit to pop up. To enable the alternative correction bar you need to download iBackupBot and then backup your device in iTunes. Then you use iBackupBot to find and load that backup you just made.

Then go into library/preferences/com.apple.keyboard.plist and open the file up. Then you need to add in a bit of code that reads KeyboardAutocorrectionListsYES. After that you restore from your tweaked backup and you should have the new bar. Let us know if this works.

[via 9to5Mac]

Since Apple launched Siri last month as an iPhone 4S exclusive, many have been questioning the motivations behind that restriction. It didn’t help that hackers were able to tinker around to get Siri working to some degree on both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. But now, there’s at least one good hardware reason why Apple would not want Siri on older devices.

The iPhone 4S uses a new proximity sensor that seems to be constantly active. In contrast, the proximity sensors on older iPhones only switched on during calls. This may have something to do with Siri’s “Raise to Speak” feature that lets you raise your device towards your face to initiate Siri queries. This would require the proximity sensor to be active almost all the time to constantly attempt to detect the phones distance to your face.

The purchase was revealed in an SEC filing that surfaced today. Although the filing doesn’t name Amazon directly, it shows that Yap had merged with a company called “Dion Acquisition Sub” that also happens to be headquartered in Amazon’s Seattle building.

Yap seemed to have been doing quite well with its voicemail-to-text service and owned a good chunk of speech-recognition intellectual property that has been in development since 2006, further fueled by a $6.5 million Series A round of R&D funding in 2008.

Amazon will be launching its Kindle Fire tablet this month and although it’s not considered to be in direct competition with Apple’s iPad, it is expected to reach more consumers than any Android-based tablet has so far. Plus, the company has already emulated Apple with its own app store, mp3 download store, and cloud storage and streaming, so having its own Siri counterpart sometime soon won’t be too surprising either.

[via TechCrunch]

It appears that these select customers are those who have complained about battery life issues in iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S. A long discussion thread has been growing since last month on Apple’s support site regarding iPhone 4S battery draining issues with some customers being contacted directly to install a diagnostic tool to help Apple engineers determine the issue.

However, customers who participate in the early release program will not be able to downgrade to iOS 5 and must wait for the final release of iOS 5.0.1. Apple says that there’s only a small number of users that have experienced the problem and that the final iOS 5.0.1 update should resolve the battery issue and bring new improvements to Siri, multitasking gestures to the first-gen iPad, and other bug fixes.

Apple has also sent out memos to Apple Stores, instructing Geniuses not to replace the iPhones with battery life issues, but to tell customers to wait a few weeks until the company releases a software fix.

[via 9to5 Mac]

Of course to find this feature, you’re going to need to jailbreak your device, and for those of you unfamiliar with that term, it means hacking is involved. The vast majority of iPhone users have never even considered hacking their device because doing so doesn’t show as much promise for a great time as never having to answer to an Apple Genius does, but those select few can find the feature with a bit of digging. You’ll need iOS 5, Firebreak from Cydia, and all you’ve got to do is tap your screen inside the camera app. Imagine that!

Of course this is aside all the other Panoramic apps already in the market, note that you can grab these at a moments notice instead of hacking, once again. What you’ve got here on the other hand again is an officially created-by-Apple feature though, so check it out! But don’t hack, because hacking is bad. That’s our official stance on the subject.

[via 9to5Mac]

What you’ve got is two devices aiming at doing the same thing for you, the consumer. Both devices can be considered what was once a popular term before smartphones arrived, PDA or Personal Digital Assistant, I’d argue that the Galaxy Player, at least the 5.0 version, is much closer to that description than either the 4.0 version or the iPod Touch. In that you can successfully tap away at the digital keyboard on the Galaxy Player 5.0 without worrying about how large your fingertips are no matter HOW close your fingers might be to sausages, the 5.0 gets the first point.

Both devices are marketed at media players. That means they’re meant to play music and videos and games. In that the iPod Touch and the Galaxy Player 4.0 are both small enough to fit in anyone’s pocket whereas the 5.0 is too large to fit in anyone’s pocket without consideration for emptying out of all the contents including your billfold, the smaller devices have the upper hand. A music player, better known still as an MP3 player today, should always be able to fit in your pocket easily.

For video and games, on the other hand, here the TFT LCD on the 5.0 player really shines the brightest. Not literally, mind you, as the pixels are much more densely packed on the iPod Touch at 640 x 960 pixels on a 3.5-inch display, but even at 480 x 800 pixels on a 5-inch display there is much to be said about the extra space. The space of course comes in handy when you want to actually see the detail in your Transformers movie rather than a highly-packed jumble of intensely colored tiny, tiny bits. It also comes in rather handy when you want to use on-screen controls for games – on the iPod Touch and the 4.0 Galaxy Player, you’ll be blocking quite a bit with your thumbs.

Of course then there’s the different markets you have access to. The iTunes app store and iTunes as a media store are much more diversely packed with high-quality applications, movies, TV shows, and music in one place than the Android Marketplace. Google’s offering is growing every day, of course, and might be a contender someday if a reliable music purchasing component can be rustled up, but for now there’s no better one-stop for everything than iTunes. Note though, that even if the iTunes market has it all, you don’t necessarily need it all, especially depending on what you plan on using the device for. If you already have all the music you need and otherwise import music from CDs, both devices are pretty good for that, though you’ll find the iTunes app on your desktop computer the best for that again.

If you plan on using the device for its ability to store notes for you and/or display images that you’d otherwise carry around in a wallet or a small portfolio, the Galaxy Player 5.0 is the clear choice. The size is currently unique at 5-inches and the color and detail is certainly more than good enough for both taking and displaying notes as well as any photos you’ve got and/or visual works you want to show off to colleagues – especially if its video-based.

The speakers and headphone output on both devices are essentially equal, as far as my ears can hear. The one difference that can be instantly seen (and heard) on the Galaxy Player 5.0 is the two speakers on the back, one speaker grille for each. Not many smart devices these days have two speakers, much less one good one, and although the iPod Touch does have a decent speaker in it, it’s still just one, and it still has to play through either metal or glass to get out from under the casing.

The camera on the Galaxy Player 5.0 is much nicer than the one on the iPod Touch, both in practice and in number: 0.7 megapixels compared to 3.2 megapixels, while their front-facing cameras are equally terrible when it comes to anything outside basic video chat.

If I was only allowed to carry one device around for the rest of my life, which one would I choose? The Galaxy Player 5.0, simply because I can use the larger display for more than just controlling my music and watching the tiny, tiny videos that the iPod Touch is able to show on its tiny, tiny screen, and the speakers are the best. That said, there’s one reason that makes me think the iPod Touch (4th generation only) is the better choice: the fact that it works with the Apple HDMI converter cord that allows you to play things like Netflix through an HDMI cord to your television. I already do that with my iPad 2, and I can tell you right now: it’s pretty boss.

Check our the rest of the review series of the Galaxy Player 5.0 we’ve got going here on SlashGear inside the Galaxy Player portal!

This update was posted this morning, today being November 4th, 2011, and should you be a signed-up developer with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch of many different flavors, you’ll be getting this update over the air. On the other hand, you could head on over to the iOS Developer Center and download it without waiting. This version is identified by codename 9A404, while yesterdays release was 9A402, and more than likely the changes between the two are rather tiny.

In other iPhone news, this week we’ve found that >US Cellular almost had the iPhone, yesterday’s iOS 5.0.1 beta 1 release enabled iPad gestures, and the battery issues are real. Also be sure to check out how Tim Cook is turning down the heat at Apple and GarageBand is released for iOS. Believe it!

Another group that doesn’t carry the iPhone and has let known its reasons for doing so is T-Mobile, the last of the four biggest carriers in the United States to not have the device on their network. So what’s the deal with US Cellular that they had the option to carry the iPhone and opted out? Money, that’s the deal, plain and simple, money and risk. Have a peek at this tidbit spoken by US Cellular CEO Mary Dillon to investors on a conference call this Friday:

“the terms were unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.” – Dillon

Of course this was a similar situation with big yellow as they’d have to go into loss mode for several months before gaining any real profit from their new iPhone deal. Meanwhile US Cellular stays strong on the Android front, getting devices like the dual-core Motorola Electrify in their collection to keep up with the bigger guns. As for the iPhone 4S: it’s selling quite well, thank you.

[via USA Today]

iSmashPhone first noted the series of tweets with most folks getting the message that Siri cannot connect to the network. The problem seems to have affected some users for a good part of the day and continues to be spotty. Apple hasn’t confirmed any issues with the service and it’s not clear if only iPhone 4S users in certain regions are experiencing the problem.

Since Siri requires communication with Apple servers to complete all its tasks, even simple voice transcription tasks are failing to work for some users. This also doesn’t seem to be the first time the service has been down, as one user tweeted “Siri is down again,” but it may be the most extended outage thus far. Siri is still in beta. Have you had any issues with Siri today?

[via VentureBeat]

Meanwhile, 9 to 5 Mac reports, the much discussed security flaw on the iPad 2 affecting the official Smart Covers has been addressed. Users found that, with either a Smart Cover or indeed a simple magnet, along with some button presses in a specific combination, the iPad 2 lock could be bypassed and access granted to whatever app was active when the tablet was last secured.

That loophole is no longer present, along with some bugfixes for Documents in the Cloud and improved dictation support for Australian users trying to get Siri to figure out what exactly they’re saying. No word on when, exactly, the public release will be, but if Apple runs to previous form it should only be a matter of a week or so before it’s pushed out to owners.

For those iOS 5 users still struggling with the battery bug, we found that turning off the Setting Time Zone option was a workaround, at least until Apple pushes the general version of v5.0.1 out the door.

[via Pocket-lint]

The fix that we’ve found is to simply flip the Setting Time Zone switch and you should see instant results. As for what Apple has noted, the following was sent out to Jim Darlymple earlier today:

“A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices. We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.” – Apple Representative

Have a peek at the fix from earlier, let us know how that goes, and otherwise wait for the big bug update to be coming inside a few weeks. Aside from the bug(s) found here, the iPhone 4S and the rest of the iOS 5-laden devices appear to have quite good battery life. Have a peek at our original iPhone 4S review for more information on Apple’s newest smartphone.

[via The Loop]

This is one of those projects that was once a Kickstarter sort of situation, where before it had enough cash to get started, the designer headed to the world forum to get money from people who wanted to see the design become a reality. As it stands, this project has 1,300 backers with a total of $68,201 raised, so you know good and well that people thought the idea rocked. What’s going on right now is that the design rests with BiteMyApple where they’re currently in the process of getting more OLLOCLIPS shipped in from the manufacturer.

The three lenses start with the Fisheye – in this lens you’ve got an approximately 180 Degree field-of-view that’ll have your aquatic friends wishing they could breath without gills so they could see the results of the photos taken with the lens inspired by their own eyes. Next there’s the Wide-Angle lens which lets you see double the field of view that the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S can see – pump up the visual volume! Finally there’s the Macro lens which is a 10X multiplier that lets you get inside 12-15mm of your subject with clarity.

The Fisheye and the Wide-Angle lens sit on opposite sides of the OLLOCLIP while the Macro lens is concealed within the clip, able to be used once you unscrew the Wide-Angle lens that is normally attached to it. To switch between either the Wide or the Maco lens and the Fisheye, you’ve only to flip the entire clip around to the other side. Simple as can be!

This little monster can be found over at BiteMyApple for $67.99, and again, at the time this post is made, they’re currently awaiting a new shipment so they can sell them to YOU!