Clearing Up iPhone 5 Rumor Confusion

As Apple’s next media event draws near, rumors are flying left and right about when the event will take place, what will be announced, etc. When it gets this close to showtime, the rumor mill goes into full throttle. Various news sites and tech pundits share their knowledge of Apple’s secret plans through unknown, “reliable sources” that always seem to be “familiar with the matter.”

You probably already know this, but Apple is going to release a new iPhone soon. Some even think that Apple will release two iPhones soon. Most think that Apple’s next announcement will be iPhone-centric, and the event is definitely going to take place before the holidays.

But honestly, that’s all anyone knows right now. Still, let’s try to clear up some of the confusion…

It’s easy to get caught in the rumor crossfire when you read Apple sites, and sometimes it helps to take a step back and look at everything from a 10,000 foot view.

This past Friday is a great example of how confusing and contradictory the Apple rumor mill can be. In one day, a rumor came out that Apple’s next media event would take place on September 7th. This report was then followed by a debunking of that rumor within hours from a more credible source. In the same day, a separate rumor was published that Apple’s next event would take place on October 7th. AllThingsD then felt the need to reiterate its previous report of an October date, by saying that “it’s all coming” in October.

Whew. If you follow Apple rumors/news as closely as I do, that’s one confusing day.

Why are Apple rumors so contradictory? And why are so many sites publishing — for the most part — far-fetched speculaton that will never actually come true?

It’s simple:

1. People love speculating about Apple.


2. Apple missed it’s typical iPhone announcement date this year at WWDC, and people are itching for what’s next.


3. Nothing has leaked or been hinted about from Apple about plans for the next media event.

Last year, there was the infamous iPhone 4 leak at a certain bar near a certain fruit company’s headquarters. This year, short of a few rumblings that don’t really mean anything, nothing has been explicitly uncovered about what Apple has planned for the next iPhone.

Here’s what the iPhone 5 will most likely be like:

1. It will have a faster, A5 processor.


2. It will have a better camera (probably 8 megapixels).


3. It will differ from the iPhone 4 design-wise.

That’s all we really know. And, honestly, even those three things could be wrong.

Then there’s the wild conspiracy theory that Apple will release a second iPhone modelalongside a new flagship device. As Apple’s next announcement draws nearer, the rumor of a cloud-based, cheaper iCloud-Nano-Lite-iPhone hybrid is gaining more and more traction. There’s a very good chance that Apple will unveil a new iPhone to take on a cheaper market, although that device could end up being a 3G-equipped iPod touch.

(All I’m saying is that, if a second, cheaper iPhone does come out, I called it back in April.)

In terms of when Apple will unveil it’s next iPhone, here’s what we know:

1. The next iPhone(s) will come out before the holiday season.


2. iPhone hardware will be the main focus of the next Apple event.


3. The event will probably take place by mid-October.

Apple has always held it’s music/iPod event in September, but the unusual nature of Apple’s product announcement dates in 2011 hints that the next event will be different. Apple won’t announce new iPods before a new iPhone, because that would make investors go nuts. Apple also won’t wait until after Christmas to announce a new product, because that would hurt their potential bottom line on top of making the investors go nuts.

With all this said, it’s important to reiterate that no one really knows anything. This is all informed guesswork based off history and industry intel.

Here’s what we know:

1. People love to speculate about Apple.


2. There will be a new iPhone eventually.


3. What we don’t know about Apple is why we love Apple so much.

Apple Releases iTunes 10.5 Beta 3

Following the release of iOS 5 beta 3 earlier today, Apple also updated iTunes to version 10.5 beta 3. Needless to say that this update is for developers only, although it seems stable enough for anyone to use, assuming you know where to get it.

If you just downloaded iOS 5 beta 3, you will need to install iTunes 10.5 beta 3 in order to install the latest iOS version on your device. From what I see, iTunes 10.5 beta 3 is safe for jailbreakers so there is nothing to worry on that side…

You can download iTunes 10.5 beta 3 from your developer account.

iPhone Tracks Down and Helps Arrest Burglars

We love these types of stories on iDB. When the iPhone is used to thwart criminals, it’s always fun to read about.

The story of Lilli Gordon and her missing iPhone details how the smartphone’s GPS was used by authorities to track down the thieves and Lilli’s stolen valuables. Hopefully stories like this will teach would-be-prowlers that smartphones aren’t the best items to steal…

Lilli Gordon, her mom, and her aunt stopped at a park on the way to the airport in Multnomah County, Oregon.

“Gordon said the parking lot was busy with people walking around.

“There were people all around,” Gordon said. “We felt very safe.”

The group left Gordon’s car to stretch and take in the park’s view, and all of Gordon’s valuables were left in the car. Her iPhone, MacBook Pro, and other expensive items were stolen out of the car by two burglars, Nicholas Barnard and Lonnie Rogers. When Gordon and her family returned to her car, she noticed that her car had been broken into and her valuables were missing.

Needless to say, Gordon immediately contacted the authorities,

“Gordon said she thought her stuff was gone. Deputies told her the chances of them recovering the items were low. At the airport, Gordon and her mom tried to get on another flight to California. It’s then, Gordon said, she remembered that she had installed an app on her cell phone that allows the user to track the phone’s location.”

While the Fox 12 report doesn’t mention the exact app that was used to track down the perpetrators, the story does make it seem like it could have been Apple’s own Find My iPhone service.

“From the airport, Gordon called her father in California who logged onto his computer and started looking at the location of the phone. Lowell Gordon said he saw the phone had been at his sister-in-laws house which he expected. However, he said he grew suspicious when he noticed the computer said the phone was in North Portland.”

As the authorities and Gordon’s father worked together, they got closer to finding the fleeing thieves. This is where the story starts getting good:

“Lindstrand said deputies along with two Portland police officers went to the home in the 3900-block of North Kiska Street. There, police were allowed to search a vehicle in the driveway where some of Lilli’s stuff was found.

“The iPhone was still missing,” Lindstrand and said.

Deputies were given the log-in information by Lowell Gordon and a short time later, he noticed the phone was “moving.” He called deputies and they went to the phone’s location near North Lombard and North Chicago in Portland. The deputy looking at the G-P-S tracking information on his mobile computer in the squad car was able to direct a third deputy to a specific spot at that intersection, Lindstrand said. The deputy at the intersection met up with three adult males who were sitting underneath a tree.  The deputy speaking to the three men requested the deputy tracking the phone to “send an alert” and the stolen iPhone rang in one of the male’s pocket, Lindstrand said.

Deputies arrested Barnard and Rogers.”

Can you imagine being the idiot dumb enough to leave a stolen iPhone turned on and fully operational in your pocket while being questioned by the police? These guys deserved to be caught after acting so clumsily.

Barnard and Rogers were promptly arrested and Lilli Gordon presumably got her valuables back. Way to go, iPhone.

So, what’s the moral of the story? – Don’t steal an iPhone if you’re going to be dumb enough to leave the GPS on. Better yet, just don’t steal.

[image via Fox 5]

How to Get Back on AT&T’s Unlimited Data Plan

AT&T no longer offers its new or existing customer’s unlimited data. This is unfortunate, but not permanent. This method will allow you to have unlimited data for use with any phone on any account on the AT&T Wireless network.

This guide is the culmination of several people’s struggles in getting AT&T to give them back something they deserve. Originally posted back in October and updated a little while after, we’re back to give it to you again! This time with an easier to follow guide!

The following is a guest post by my good Twitter friend Mathew Rice.

Prerequisites

• One first generation iPhone (aka iPhone 2G)
• One unactivated or valid (working) microSIM card or Standard SIM card (deactivated SIM cards will not work)
• Free time to deal with potential issues that may arise (resolutions detailed below article)

The Process

The first thing you need to do is obtain a First Generation iPhone, commonly known as the iPhone 2G and how we will refer to it from here on out.
Once you’ve obtained an iPhone 2G, you’ll want to give it a full restore in iTunes. You can do this with your SIM card installed or without. You’ll have to put your SIM card in later anyways, so if you don’t need to use your actual phone while the process completes, then install your SIM and save yourself a step later.

Once the restore has completed, iTunes will bring you to the phone activation screen (assuming your SIM card is installed, if it’s not, disconnect your iPhone, insert the SIM card and reconnect your iPhone). Fill in the required account info and proceed. Whatever options you choose during activation won’t really matter as certain account features you already have will override, like unlimited family messaging and the likes. As well, the great part about this portion of the process is that Unlimited data is non-optional :p – At the end of the activation process, iTunes should tell you something like, “You’ll receive an email when your activation is complete”. Once you’ve got the email, all is well and you now have an Unlimited Data plan.

You can verify this many ways like dialing *DATA# from your phone. You’ll then receive a text message with details about your data plan where it will indicate you have unlimited data. You can also log-in to your AT&T account online and go to the features portion of your account to see unlimited data for whichever phone line you used during activation.

Read on for info on known issues and for answers to frequently asked questions.

Known Issues

If the iPhone 2G you are using is still assigned to another AT&T account, activation might not complete, you might not receive the activation complete email and after a long wait, you will get an, “unable to complete activation email”. This is the most common reason for failed activations. If you know the account assignment status of the iPhone 2G, make sure you replace the iPhone 2G on that account with another phone first. This means AT&T has to have the replacement phone on-file for the account that once had the iPhone 2G you are using.

Resolution – You’ll need to call AT&T and have them manually activate the phone for you. It helps to tell them you were trying to activate your unlimited data iPhone plan through iTunes with your iPhone. As well, you can go to any company owned AT&T store and they can get you setup as well. Make sure to bring the iPhone 2G with you and that you are or have with you, the primary account holder.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What if I am on a Family Plan?
Answer: The process is the same, just make sure you are or know the account info of the primary account holder

What if I am on an Employee Plan?
Answer: The process is the same, just make sure you are or know the account info of the primary account holder

My microSIM card does not fit in this iPhone 2G!
Answer: That’s right; you’ll need to get a microSIM adapter or a Standard SIM card. You can get the latter from any company owned AT&T store. They can also take care of the whole process for you too. So if you go that route, have them set you up. Make sure to bring the iPhone 2G with you.

I got a text message from AT&T telling me they switched my data plan!
Answer: This is normal, if you place your SIM card into an AT&T known smartphone like an iPhone 3G or newer, AT&T will automatically switch you to the $30 unlimited data plan. This is because the iTunes quoted $20 unlimited data plan is only qualified for iPhone 2G devices. No worries though, you still have unlimited data! Go on, check, dial *DATA# :p

Your Guide Sucks, it didn’t work for me!
Answer: This guide is for reference only. There are no guarantees nor where there any given. However, are you sure you followed all the steps and read carefully? Are you or do you have the primary account holders info? Make sure you are or do! You can also check out the original article and sift through the comments to see if anyone else has had a similar issue like yours.

Apple takes baby steps with iOS 5

Just as promised, Apple unveiled iOS 5 today at the keynote address of the company's 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. CEO Steve Jobs opened the event, but he turned to Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iOS, to show off 10 of the promised 200 new features for the iPhone 4,iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPod Touch. Developers will get their version of iOS 5 today, with customers receiving the update this fall.

Though not every predicted feature came to pass, the update includes long-rumored additions like a better notifications system and wireless software updates. Some of the new features are cool, and a few were a long time in coming, but the update remains incremental when compared with previous iOS updates. That's not to say that the additions aren't useful, but most are relatively small.

Notifications
Forstall started by announcing this update, which drew a lot of applause from the audience. Instead of the current system of pop-up menus that interrupt your work, a new Notification Center will combine messages, missed calls, app updates, a stock ticker, and the current weather in a single place. You can access it by swiping your finger downward from the top of the screen (sound familiar?) and notifications will appear on the lock screen as well. You then can jump directly to the related feature for each notification and delete items by tapping the small X next to each line.

A look at iOS 5 (photos)

    

Though not exactly original--the pull-down menu has long been a hallmark feature of Android--the ability to see all notifications in one place is nonetheless welcome. Since the first iPhone's debut four years ago, the iOS notification system has remained largely unchanged. It's simple, yes, but the current application is unusable until you dismiss the message, and several messages in a row quickly became annoying. So it's about time we got this change.

Newsstand
This app will bring together magazine subscriptions in a central place. The concept is similar to iBooks, even down to an icon that looks like the periodicals shelf at your local library. As you subscribe to a publication through a new channel in the App Store, new issues will be delivered in the background, eliminating the need to manually grab them when they publish.

Twitter
Thankfully, users now will be able to post photos to the social networking service without leaving the image gallery or camera application. It's a nice change given that it will end the need to take a photo, switch to the iPhone Twitter app, and then post the photo. You'll be able to add a location, sync Twitter with your contacts list, and tweet directly from YouTube, Safari, and Maps.

Safari
The mobile version of Apple's Web browser will get the Reader option that was announced at the 2010 WWDC. As you'd expect, it will streamline multipage articles in an RSS-like view while stripping out ads (but leaving photos). You'll also be able to e-mail the entire text of a Safari page to a contact (presently, you can send only a link).

In other Safari news, tabbed browsing will come to the iPad at last and you can bookmark a Web page on a Reading List list for future perusal. The latter feature can be synced between multiple Safari devices and should work very similarly to browser add-ons like Read It Later and Instapaper.

Reminders
This handy addition will let you store multiple to-do lists with dates for each event and categorize reminders by location. So, for example, if you have a reminder of "Call home when I leave work," the app will use GPS to note when you're on the move and send the reminder. Reminders can be shared between devices and sync with iCal on the Mac with CalDAV, and on Windows with MS Exchange.

Camera
iOS 5 will add a shortcut on the lock screen that will launch the camera immediately, even bypassing the lock code. You then can use the volume control to snap the photo. Inside the camera you'll get grid lines, pinch to zoom (instead of using the slider bar at the bottom of the screen), autofocus, and the ability to change the exposure and add granular controls.

After taking photos, you can edit your shots with crop, rotate, and red-eye reduction. Also, one-click enhancements from iPhoto will add quick color correction. Though we welcome these additions, Apple is late to the photo-editing party as this functionality has long existed on basic phones. We'll have to see how Apple makes it all work when iOS 5 is available, but we doubt it means the demise of third-party apps like Photoshop Express.

Mail
Coming to the mail app are rich text formatting, better indent control, flagging of messages, and the ability to drag addresses between to, cc, and bcc lines. Also, you now can search within the body of a message instead of just in the from, to, and subject lines. Thanks for that.

'PC Free'
Arguably the most notable change, "PC Free" will bring over-the-air software updates and device activations. So as on Android, Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry OS 5 devices, you'll no longer have to plug your device into a computer or even own a computer at all. The updates will serve only the changes, so they'll be shorter, and you'll be able to sync, back up, and restore your device using the new iCloud feature. You'll also find new features within apps, like wirelessly editing photos, managing e-mail folders, and creating and deleting calenders.

Game Center
Additions for gamers include profile photos, achievement point comparison, friends of friends, recommended friends and games, support for turn-based games, and a way to buy games directly from Game Center.

iMessage
Apple takes a shot at BlackBerry with this instant messaging app that will work across all iOS 5 devices. As with BlackBerry Messanger (BBM), you'll be able to exchange unlimited text messages, photos, and videos with your friends, family, and colleagues. Also, your messages won't cost you anything and they won't count against the monthly allotment of messages form your wireless carrier.

Other features include group messaging, an indicator to see if someone is typing to you, delivery and read receipts, secure encryption, and conversation syncing that is pushed to multiple devices. iMessage will work on 3G and Wi-Fi networks.

What else
Forstall quickly mentioned a selection of other updates. They will include new multitasking gestures for the iPad, hourly weather forecasts, Wi-Fi sync with iTunes, a split keyboard for the iPad, a new iPad music app, an iTunes ringtone store, AirPlay mirroring for the iPad 2, a personal dictionary, alternate routes in Maps, Emoji emoticons, and custom vibration patterns.

A big deal or no?
Compared with previous WWDC keynotes, there's no escaping the fact that this one was quite low-key. Unlike in the last three years, we didn't get a new iPhone and we still have no clue as to when the iPhone 5 (or is it the iPhone 4S?) will get here. Even when you consider the software only, iOS 5 isn't terribly exciting either. Sure, it adds some welcome features that will benefit users, but it's not quite the whopper that iOS 4 or even iOS 3 was.

What's more, even the most die-hard Apple fans have to admit that some of the new features simply bring the iPhone in line with options we currently see on other smartphone operating systems or in third-party apps. On the other hand, Apple has always excelled at taking existing features and creating a different user experience and that may be the case here.

Indeed, we'll have to use iOS 5 before we give a real assessment of its features. There may be more spectacular changes that Apple has yet to announce, but we don't see iOS 5 as a reason to switch to iOS if you haven't done so already. We'll stop short of saying that we're disappointed, as even Apple doesn't have to wow us every time it has an announcement. It's just that you tend to get your hopes up for events where Jobs is scheduled to appear.

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