iPad Causes Netbook Sales to Be Halved in Best Buy Claims CEO

 

When the iPad was announced last January, the was many arguments about the point of the iPad between Apple fanboys and Apple haters. The fanboys said that the iPad is the replacement to the netbook, yet haters say it is pointless because it lacked features such as a USB port or a camera. Since, then the iPad has become a huge success but the question remains, by how much? 

Well according to Best Buy's CEO, Brian Dunn, a lot. As Dunn has told the Wall Street Journal that in Best Buys stores, the presence of the iPad has halved all netbook sales as customers are preferring newer, lighter and more portable devices. 

Brian Dunn also said that will the holiday season looming, they are going to increase it's stock of portable devices such as tablets, e-readers and smartphones, while reducing the amount of PCs and TV's in store. But the big question is, by how much will the iPad dominate this Christmas, and will this be the end of netbooks and the rise of the tablet?

Source Wall Street Journal | Digital Trends

Hackers Come Together: Cydia Merges with Rock

 

They have been rivals for a year and a half, but Cydia and Rock unite, as SaurikIT (the makers of Cydia) have acquired Rock and will be moving everything from Rock over to the Cydia store. And, not only will the stores combine, but all the software engineers will be combine as well. Which will make a much better Cydia as all of the knowledge and expertise come together. This is a great thing for all jailbreakers, I'm sure, but users running 4.1 will have to wait a bit longer to see the new Cydia Store as there is still no jailbreak yet. 

Source Cydia | Rock

iOS 4.1 Available for Download

 

Well iOS 4.1 is finally here after Steve Jobs announced it's new features last week at the annual Apple music event in San Francisco. Mr Jobs announced many things in iOS 4.1 including bug fixes to do with the proximity sensor and iOS 4 running incredibly slow on the iPhone 3G. But the main features of the new update are HDR photos and the debut of Game Center, Apple's version of Xbox Live. 

HDR photos basically takes  3 photos, one over exposed, one under exposed and one that is normal. It then combines these and takes the best parts of each of the photos, i.e. the details in the shadows and the brightness of the sky to make a very detailed photo.

While Game Center is Apple's take on Xbox Live. There are many similarities to Xbox Live, such as Achievements and online multi-player with other iOS users. There are no games available that are combaitable with Game Center as of yet but expect them soon. Also, feel free to friend me on Game Center, my user name is patrickrigby01.

It is available for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 2nd gen, iPod touch 3rd gen, and the iPod touch 4th gen, so go download it now if you already haven't!

iOS 4.1 Jailbreak Ready

It is not even out yet, but the good people over at the iPhone Dev Team have managed to Jailbreak iOS 4.1. ?Comex, the creator of the Spirit and jailbreakme.com jailbreaks is saying that he has already located 2 exploits in iOS 4.1. The first one is similar to the jailbreakme.com jailbreak as it uses a loophole in iOS itself, which makes it simple for the user to impliment, whereas the second one is in the bootrom of the iPhone at the hardware level. Which makes the second jailbreak will be much harder to impliment than the first, but as the second one is deep down within the iPhone, it will be much harder for Apple to lock it down.

Look for it to be available the same day that iOS 4.1 is, which is rumoured to be September 8th.

iOS 4.1 Coming on September 8th

 

According to Apple's UK website , iOS 4.1 will hit devices on September 8th. Which will probably mean that the brand new iPods announced on Wednesday along side iOS 4.1 will be released on that day.

iOS 4.1 brings many bug fixes to do with ?proximity sensor issue, Bluetooth, and iPhone 3G performance but it also brings many new features such as HDR photos, TV show rentals, HD video uploads over WiFi and Game Center.

Source

Apple TV Comes Back in Black for $99!

Steve Jobs does the famous "One more Thing" with the long overdue update to the Apple TV. There were rumours that the new Apple TV would look just like an iPhone except without a screen, but as it turns out it is a fourth of the size of the original and it is black, black plastic. Which is most likely one of the reasons why Apple lowered the cost. Apple's A4 processor now powers the new Apple TV for effortless streaming without any stutters or freezes. 

This update is a drastic change from the previous model, as no content is stored on the device, all of it is downloaded straight from iTunes as rentals. On the back of the new Apple TV, there are inputs for one HDMI cable, power cable (no more power brick as the power supply is now built in), optical audio and ethernet. You can control the Apple TV by the supplied aluminum remote or by the Apple Remote app using your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch via AirPlay. You can get all the fine details here. 

To give you an idea of how small this box really is, you can fit it on the palm of your hand.

iPod Touch Becomes Even Better Because of Cameras, Facetime and Retina Display

Alongside the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle announcements at the Apple Music Keynote this morning, the iPod Touch also got redesigned with long-lusted after features which makes this new iPod Touch basically exactly the same as the iPhone, except for the phone part. As it has front and rear facing cameras, FaceTime, HD video recording, gyroscope and the 1GHz A4 chip. What's more, it is even thinner! Now as you'd expect, you will have to pay a lot more for all of this compared to the other iPods, but you do get a lot more. Prices start at $229 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB. Shipping starts next week and pre-orders start from today.