Much like the jailbreakers, the Xbox modders are nothing if not persistent. Yesterday, Microsoft went after the estimated 1 million Xbox owners that had tampered with their systems. The ban locked out the installation of games on the hard drive, stopped Windows Media Player from working, wrecked the gamertags stored on the Xboxen in question, and blocked the consoles from logging in to Xbox Live.

There are two fixes currently being worked on, one from iXtreme LT, which isn’t ready yet, and one from Xbox-Scene which works, but is extremely complex. And you need to know your CPU key, which can be difficult to obtain, particularly if you’re already banned.

[via Daily Tech]

Interestingly, since I hacked 2.x, I don’t really want to do this update. If you guys try it, let me know. I may give it a go this afternoon.

Apple Introduces Apple TV 3.0 Software With Redesigned User Interface

Enjoy iTunes Extras, iTunes LP & Genius Mixes on Your HD TV

CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV. You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

“The new software for Apple TV features a simpler and faster interface that gives you instant access to your favorite content,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV customers, and with Apple TV 3.0 they get great new features including iTunes Extras, Genius Mixes and Internet radio.”

The redesigned main menu on Apple TV gives you instant access to your favorite content. Recently rented or purchased movies, as well as other content including TV shows, music, podcasts, photos and YouTube, are accessible directly from the new main menu. The new software also allows Apple TV users to enjoy stunning fullscreen iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, including great new movie titles such as “Star Trek” or classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and albums such as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Platinum Edition)” and Jack Johnson’s “En Concert.” iTunes Extras gives movie fans great additional content such as deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album, delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

Now Apple TV users can enjoy Genius Mixes through their home theater system and listen to up to 12 endless mixes of songs that go great together, automatically generated from their iTunes library. Customers can also enjoy Internet radio, allowing them to browse and listen to thousands of Internet radio stations, as well as tag favorite stations to listen to later. Apple TV’s support of HD photos is enhanced with iPhoto Events, which simplifies finding your favorite photos on Apple TV, as well as iPhoto® Faces, which gives access to photos organized by people identified in iPhoto.

Apple TV users have direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 Hollywood films on iTunes including over 2,000 in stunning HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes to purchase directly from their Apple TV or browse and enjoy the iTunes Store podcast directory of over 175,000 free video and audio podcasts. Purchases downloaded to Apple TV are automatically synced back to iTunes on the user’s computer for enjoyment on their Mac® or PC or all current generation iPods or iPhones.* iPod touch® or iPhone® users can download the free Remote app from the App Store to control their Apple TV with a simple tap or flick of the finger.

via Giz

…Marie T. from Maryland! Won’t you all join me in congratulating our winner!

No? You’re going to be like that, eh? Fine. I see how you are. You didn’t win a $1700 notebook and now you’re going to be a jerk about it. Well, I’m glad you didn’t win then. Marie would have probably congratulated you. She sounds like a very nice person so be happy for her. Maybe you’ll win something else in the future.

So, what is blackra1n? blackra1n is a 30 second ALL device 3.1.2 jailbreak. Even the ipt3, but the ipt3 is tethered. In order to boot it, just rerun blackra1n. As far as donations go, they are much appreciated, but not until after blackra1n works for you. I never ask for donations before the tool is released.

Warning 3g and 3gs unlockers, do not upgrade to 3.1.2 using iTunes if you want to keep your unlock. Baseband cannot be downgraded. Check out the dev team’s offerings. Also blackra1n doesn’t hacktivate.

Also, the secret word for today is FORDS. Just thought you might like to know.

A small, California-based company by the name of Apple had an event today where it unveiled many new things. In case you were AFE (away from Earth) for the past few hours, here’s what you missed.

• The iPod nano now has a digital camera. It also has FM radio capability for the first time ever, finally ushering Apple into the year 2002. Neat: Live Pause lets you utilize a cache of as much as 15 minutes. I wonder if it’ll no longer be cool to like the band Phoenix now, seeing as though they’re so prominently featured in the glossy iPod photos.

• The iPod touch got a storage bump, with 8GG, 32GB, and 64GB models. The 64GB is also marginally “faster” for some inexplicable reason.

• The iPod classic is not dead, and now (again, actually) has a 160GB hard drive.

• iTunes 9.0 was released. Manage your iPhone Apps right from iTunes! Watch videos and consume all sorts of bonus content from the music and movies you buy with iTunes LP! Transfer music and movies throughout your house with Home Sharing. And Genius Mixes creates up to 12 Genius playlists automatically.

• iPhone OS 3.1. Genius for all your Apps (which means that it’ll recommend new Apps for you to try based on your current collection). And you can now buy ringtones from the four big record labels for $1.99 a pop. (Note: you’re a darn fool if you actually buy ringtones.)

3.1 will also include ready-made iTunes ringtones from 4 labels. Each cost $1.99 each. The new iTunes supports app management within iTunes, ensuring you get a better and more logical look at all your apps. The app management works just like you think it does – the app pages appear and you drag them around the page.


3.1 is available now for download. Update away. Touch users note: this is a free update for all.

iTunes 9 is here (almost) and she sure does look pretty. Now you can pick up LPs from the store that includes lyrics, notes, videos, photos, and more. Plus, the store has been cleaned up in a Snow Leopard fashion along with a bunch of other small features including sharing what albums you’re interested in on Facebook. (Kevin Rose got his wish)

Now you can peruse the store in a full screen mode and simply roll over a song to activate Quick View that lets you purchase without leaving the page. This works with songs, albums, music videos, movies, and TV episodes. Plus, iTunes Extras bring all the features you get on a DVD to the iTunes store; everyone loves director commentary. The new Home sharing tool allows users to easily share and copy their media over five select computers. So if you Pop is a deadhead, you can easily try out his Grateful Dead tracks and copy them over to your machine if you dig it.

But it’s the app management that we are so excited about. We’ll hold off to pass judgement until we try it out, but my goodness, it seems to be exactly what we have wanted: drag, drop and sync. Awesome.

She writes in the lawsuit:

“Millions of customers, as a result of the false and deceptive representations and concealments of Apple and AT&T purchased the 3G and 3GS, waiting for the wonderful day in June 2009 when the new application would be available which would allow MMS,” the court filing states. “Unfortunately, after downloading the new 3.0 Software Update application, MMS still did not work on both the 3G and 3GS.”

While the lawsuit is clearly batshit insane, the plaintiff, Deborah Carr, does have a point: we were supposed to get MMS in late summer and summer, according to WWDC and they’ll release MMS when they damn well feel like it – but it’s nice to see someone holding good old arbitrary Apple to some of its PR claims.

Sorry, Wii and PS3 owners. You ain’t getting Netflix streaming despite other claims. Microsoft has inked an exclusive deal with Netflix to keep the movie streaming on the Xbox 360.

Netflix Partnership

This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers**, at no additional cost.

From the Netflix Web site, simply add movies and TV episodes to your instant Queue, which will appear automatically on the TV screen via Xbox 360. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds. In addition to instantly streaming Netflix movies to the TV, Xbox LIVE Gold members can browse and rate movies, fast-forward, pause and rewind, all using either their Xbox 360 Controller or Universal remote.

If you don’t have a Xbox 360, there are a ton of ways to stream Netflix. The service is available on everything from Windows Media Center, Plex, Roku boxes, TiVo, Samsung and LG Blu-ray players along with Vizio and LG HDTVs. Oh, and Sony Bravia HDTVs are getting the access too. Or you can always, you know, use the traditional mail-order DVD service to get your Netflix on.

Can Microsoft’s latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you’re talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I’ve been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own.

You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don’t interest me much. I don’t really care to see an artist’s bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don’t need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch.

With that being said, please enjoy the short video that I took of the Zune HD in action. One thing I failed to capture was the on-screen keyboard. MS has taken a different twist, which may or may not be unique to the Zune HD, but it’s different than most other on-screen keyboards that I’ve seen. Unlike the iPhone (or any other device that lacks a physical keyboard) when you’re tapping away at the Zune HD’s on-screen keyboard; characters don’t pop up by themselves. Tap a character and its neighboring chums to the right and left will create a small arch with the center character popping up just a little more than the rest. It seemed to work well, but the firmware isn’t final so I’m unable to fully comment.

Image courtesy of Ben Patterson

“Intro” by The xx

The only other misstep I noticed was with the home button and Internet browser. When you’re navigating through every other feature of the Zune HD, a single tap of the home button brings you back to the main page, but when tapping the home button from within the browser it chorks hard. It takes two or three taps to get back to the home screen. But, again, the Zune HD I took a look at was definitely not final in any way. Also, the Wi-Fi at our meeting location was spotty.

Things are looking good for Microsoft and the Zune team with the HD, but I’m still waiting to hear what they have in store for the device because everything else is old hat.

Remember last year when everyone was stoked about the new touchscreen BlackBerry called the Storm? Oh man, the hype was huge. There was iPhone-ish lines, media coverage, the works. But then the first reviews came out and we all realized the truth: the phone sucked. It’s now a lot better thank to firmware updates, but the upcoming BlackBerry Storm 2 will hopefully recapture some of the original anticipation.

The BlackBerry Zone is reporting that Verizon will launch the BlackBerry Storm 2 around Black Friday in November. Also, Vodafone in the UK will release it in October which hopefully means if there are any issues, RIM will quickly work them out before launching the phone in here. WiFi and OS 5.0 is expected to be featured in the second Storm, and yes, the SurePress screen will be there too. (I like the clicky screen btw) Now, the only question left is what price point the phone will launch at: $99 or $199.

[via CrackBerry]

Pushfix is a homebrew app that “repairs” push functionality on Jailbroken apps. The iPhone Dev Team, the same folks who unlocked the iPhone in the first place, created it to help us lowly users but they left a fatal flaw in the program. It seems they used a single UDID – Unique Device ID – for the fix. This in turn creates a sort of broadcast network of multiple jailbroken phones running Pushfix that report back to the push servers with the same UDID. The result? When you push to one, you push to all.

Obviously this problem will be seen in a few rare cases – and it could have already been fixed – but this brings up an important point about cloud-based computing: What happens when the cloud is broken? Because Apple chose to run this dog and pony show called Push from its own centralized server, there is no guarantee that anything will go anywhere – just a warm and fuzzy expectation that Apple just wouldn’t screw up.

This exploit/problem has come about because a user did something unsanctioned and unexpected on the iPhone. While the average user doesn’t even know that Pushfix exists – I certainly didn’t – these homebrew solutions are like slime mold infecting the delicious mozzarella cheese that is Apple’s Push technology. Sadly, these problems will crop up more and more in closed, black box systems and we will often be none the wiser – until it’s too late.

The Interweb is a tizzy over the 3GS unlock/jailbreak and the Dev Teams decision not to release it until there is a new firmware update immanent. Why would they do this? Well, if they release now, Apple can close the hole with the new release, something they’d be loathe to do if the unlock happened closer to launch. While this isn’t very nice, it’s amazingly practical and forward thinking.

Write the commentors:

How long will the line be at Apple to return the 3gs today?????

_

DEV TEAM;

I respect the reasons you are doing this, but why not keep both sides reasonably happy. Announce a date that the new jailbreak will be released (presumably sometime in the next two months) and say that if you wish to have a jailbreakable 3GS, then it would be advised they buy before this date.

Therefore, even those who still have the 1st iphone have a chance to update (even if they have to pay for two phones for one or two months). Anyone past the date will simply have to assume that their device will not be able to be jail broken.

As a 3GS owner, i do not mind waiting, as long as i know how long i am waiting for and i would think that other early upgrades would appreciate a date to look forward to.

BY ANNOUNCING A DATE, BOTH SIDES CAN BE HAPPY.

_

WE SHOULD HAVE A POLL ON WHEN IT SHOULD BE RELEASED. THE MAJORITY SHOULD WIN RIGHT?
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”
people who have 3gs and want to jb now vs. people who have 3gs and want to wait vs. people who dont have the 3gs and who want to wait.

That's right: they're calling for free elections. Sadly, this isn't Iran but a bunch of weenies who want to unlock their iPhones 3GS. As Rob at BBG notes:

Would you like some whine with that sense of entitlement, sir?

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/29/users-angry-that-dev-team-wont-release-the-3gs-unlockjailbreak/feed/ 4 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/23/iphone-30-unlock-is-go-dont-try-it-on-your-3g-s-though/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/23/iphone-30-unlock-is-go-dont-try-it-on-your-3g-s-though/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:16:14 +0000 John Biggs http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=96749 The dev team has released their latest carrier unlock, ultrasn0w, It requires a quick using redsn0w and then the installation of ultrasn0w through Cydia. If you've already jailbroken your iPhone 3G simply add repo666.ultrasn0w.com to your repositories list and download ultrasn0w. What does this do? It carrier unlocks the iPhone 3G. Sadly, it doesn't yet work on the 3G S. It is also safe to update to the latest 3.0 version. ]]> The dev team has released their latest carrier unlock, ultrasn0w, It requires a quick using redsn0w and then the installation of ultrasn0w through Cydia. If you’ve already jailbroken your iPhone 3G simply add repo666.ultrasn0w.com to your repositories list and download ultrasn0w.

What does this do? It carrier unlocks the iPhone 3G. Sadly, it doesn’t yet work on the 3G S. It is also safe to update to the latest 3.0 version.

Quickpwn writes:

It’s safe to update to the current iPhone 3.0 baseband – ultrasn0w will work with it, but for future updates such as firmware 3.0.1 (or whichever # the next firmware is) you should hold off on updating and check here first to see if it’s safe to update. Apple may be able to make a baseband update that permanently locks your firmware just as they did with firmware 2.2.1 users.

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/23/iphone-30-unlock-is-go-dont-try-it-on-your-3g-s-though/feed/ 30 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/17/are-you-ready-for-some-baseball-your-iphone-can-stream-live-games/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/17/are-you-ready-for-some-baseball-your-iphone-can-stream-live-games/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:56:06 +0000 John Biggs http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=95826 A $10 At Bat app for the iPhone will stream "out-of-market" games to the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The first game will be the Cubs-White Sox at 2:20pm today and then the Tigers-Cardinals game at 8:15pm. You can also listen to the game and watch live illustrations but if you live in New York, for example, you won't be able to watch Yankees or Mets games. ]]>

A $10 At Bat app for the iPhone will stream “out-of-market” games to the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The first game will be the Cubs-White Sox at 2:20pm today and then the Tigers-Cardinals game at 8:15pm. You can also listen to the game and watch live illustrations but if you live in New York, for example, you won’t be able to watch Yankees or Mets games.

This requires the new 3.0 firmware, which is launching today, and it should work over 3G although Wi-Fi is preferred. They described this app at the WWDC keynote during a video run-through of future exciting apps. Needless to say the crowd of uncoordinated Mac nerds did not go wild.

Incidentally, I don’t follow baseball at all so please excuse any mistakes including the image above via the Albion Historical Society.

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/17/are-you-ready-for-some-baseball-your-iphone-can-stream-live-games/feed/ 1 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/16/dev-team-shows-off-iphone-30-carrier-unlock-i-make-a-little-water-in-my-pants/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/16/dev-team-shows-off-iphone-30-carrier-unlock-i-make-a-little-water-in-my-pants/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:14:47 +0000 John Biggs http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=95654 Next TuesdayToday the Dev Team will post - but not release - a demo of yellowsn0w running under iPhone 3.0 firmware. NB - This is not a carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G S but for the 3.0 firmware that will appear on Tuesday. UPDATE - Sorry. Weird day today. Fixed the date. This should also work for the first gen. ]]>

Next TuesdayToday the Dev Team will post – but not release – a demo of yellowsn0w running under iPhone 3.0 firmware. NB – This is not a carrier unlock for the iPhone 3G S but for the 3.0 firmware that will appear on Tuesday.

UPDATE – Sorry. Weird day today. Fixed the date. This should also work for the first gen.

On Tuesday evening (just before the big Apple release) we’ll do a live demo of the yellowsn0w carrier unlock working on official 3.0 firmware. The actual link for the feed will be twittered by @MuscleNerd and also placed here when the feed starts. The demo should answer everything you need to know about the new yellowsn0w. But it’s good news for iPhone 3G unlockers everywhere.

Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of testing our PwnageTool and QuickPwn tools, which will work with iTunes 8.2. The jailbreak of course continues to work on 3.0 for all devices it ever worked on, thanks due the Pwnage 2.0 technique released last summer. Our tools will be released no sooner than the Apple release (just in case!).

via Giz

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/16/dev-team-shows-off-iphone-30-carrier-unlock-i-make-a-little-water-in-my-pants/feed/ 10 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/14/onone-updates-canon-dslr-support-nikon-support-in-v11/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/14/onone-updates-canon-dslr-support-nikon-support-in-v11/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 04:27:36 +0000 Peter Ha http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=95131

Portland-based onOne Software has updated their list of supported Canon DSLRs for the DSLR Camera Remote app for the iPhone. Nikon owners should take note that the iPhone app will soon support Nikon DSLRs when v1.1 gets pushed out next month.

FireWire
* 1D Mark II
* 1Ds Mark II [1 ]
* 1D Mark II N

USB
*Your camera must be set to PC Connection and your Firmware must be up-to-date*

* Rebel XT/350D/Kiss Digital N
* 20D
* 5D

USB
*Your camera must be set to Print/PC (PTP) as the communication mode*

* Rebel XTi/400D/Kiss Digital X
* Rebel Xsi*/450D*/Kiss X2*
* Rebel XS*/1000D*/Kiss F*
* 30D
* 40D*
* 50D*
* 5D Mark II*
* 1D Mark III*
* 1Ds Mark III*

The following Nikon DSLRs will be supported in v1.1.

* Nikon D40
* Nikon D40x
* Nikon D60
* Nikon D80
* Nikon D90
* Nikon D5000
* Nikon D200
* Nikon D300
* Nikon D700
* Nikon D3
* Nikon D3x

Nikon D2 users – Unfortunately, the support for this camera is not documented in the Nikon SDK and as such, we cannot confirm that our iPhone app will work with any variation of the D2 camera body.

Canon Update [onOne]
v1.1 [onOne]

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/14/onone-updates-canon-dslr-support-nikon-support-in-v11/feed/ 3 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/04/heres-whats-wrong-with-the-palm-pre/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/04/heres-whats-wrong-with-the-palm-pre/#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:21:53 +0000 Nicholas Deleon http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=93254 The Palm Pre—you may have heard of it—comes out on Saturday, but all sorts of media “outlets” have already published their reviews; I don't know when our review will go up. And since it's my feeling that most of you already assume the phone is “good,” I've gone ahead and collected a few excerpts of the more critical points. You know, the part of the review that goes something like, “Now, the Palm Pre isn't perfect; we found a few problems with it. And they are...” That part. So let's get on with it.]]>

The Palm Pre—you may have heard of it—comes out on Saturday, but all sorts of media “outlets” have already published their reviews; I don’t know when our review will go up. And since it’s my feeling that most of you already assume the phone is “good,” I’ve gone ahead and collected a few excerpts of the more critical points. You know, the part of the review that goes something like, “Now, the Palm Pre isn’t perfect; we found a few problems with it. And they are…” That part. So let’s get on with it.

From the Wall Street Journal :

The Pre’s biggest disadvantage is its app store, the App Catalog. At launch, it has only about a dozen apps, compared with over 40,000 for the iPhone, and thousands each for the G1 and the modern BlackBerry models. Even worse, the Pre App Catalog isn’t finished. It’s immature, it’s labeled a beta, and Palm has yet to release the tools for making Pre apps available to more than a small group of developers.

In fact, during my testing, one of my downloads from the App Catalog caused my Pre to crash disastrously — all my email, contacts and other data were wiped out, and the phone was unable to connect to the Sprint network or Wi-Fi. Palm conceded the catastrophe was due to problems it still has getting the App Catalog to work with the phone’s internal memory, and explained that this is one reason it hasn’t widely distributed the developer tools.

…

There are only a handful of buttons, and my only real criticism of the industrial design is that these were rubbery and protruded too little from the body, making them hard to press unseen. The power button is clumsy to use when the keyboard is open.

…

But the Pre has a few other important downsides. Battery life between charges is relatively weak. While it’s in line with competitors with a claimed five hours of talk time, and matches the iPhone’s claimed five hours of Web surfing time, it offers only half the iPhone’s 24 hours of continuous music playback and claims just five hours of video playback, versus seven for the iPhone.

…

Another downside: the Pre’s autocorrect system, for instantly fixing mistyped words, is puny. Even with a physical keyboard, people make typos, and Palm only fixes about 2,500 common words, like “the.” By contrast, both the BlackBerry and iPhone have tens of thousands of autocorrections built in, including fixes for long, complex words.

From USA Today :

Still, I encountered occasional sluggishness and bugs. At one point, the clock was out of whack. At another, I had to shut down the Pre because the onscreen icons kept dancing around. I also longed for the visual voice mail feature of the iPhone — Pre’s unobtrusive “notifications” dashboard flagging incoming messages, system alerts and such is no substitute. And I wish Pre had more third-party applications at launch.

…

Too bad, as with the iPhone, there’s no video camera.

Pre poses no immediate challenge to the iPhone when it comes to robust apps. Only a dozen or so are available at launch, including Pandora Internet radio, Citysearch, The New York Times and Classic, an emulator that lets you run old Palm (Treo) programs.

From Gizmodo, which must have just finished playing Max Payne:

But the hardware? Cheap. Flimsy. Dangerous even.

…

The first thing you’ll notice as you slide open the Pre is the absurdly sharp ridge digging against your palm. Nowhere—not on the iPhone, the G1, the G2 or any of HTC’s other smartphones—has a phone been so threatening to the integrity of my skin. If you’re pushing up screen from the bottom of the phone, as you’d instinctively want to do, prepare to get sliced. It’s just that irresponsibly sharp… Maybe I’m being a perfectionist here, but this is the one biggest flaw in the hardware; one that’s not a dealbreaker, but really detracts from the overall experience.

…

[The keyboard] is not good enough for a smartphone. Each of my thumbs take up the width of four keys, ensuring that only a fingernail approach would get me anywhere near accurate typing.

…

Dialing is somewhere where Palm’s reliance on Universal Search becomes an over reliance on Universal Search. To dial a contact, you either have to pull up the contacts app and manually scroll down to the person you want (there’s no alphabet shortcut) or start typing. So, when you have hundreds of contacts, your only reasonable choice is to use the search.

…

Opening multiple apps at once really does slow down the phone enough to be noticeable. In fact, if you’re doing something particularly intensive, you’ll actually notice your music stutter, which we’ve never experienced once on the iPhone. Ever. [Me: Remember, kids: one-word sentences look “more important” than multi-word sentences.]

…

Also, the actual act of launching the app is a little frustrating: When you tap an icon, the launcher disappears and all you see is the home screen, as if you did something wrong. You don’t know whether or not your app has opened successfully until it has.

…

The hardware, on the other hand, is a liability. If Palm can get someone else to design and build their hardware—someone who has hands and can feel what a phone is like when physically used, that phone might just be one of the best phones on the market. [Me: Note that that's the complete opposite of what USA Today said (“I can't think of a more comfortable cellphone in my hand.”), which is partially why I think reviews, across the board, are dumb. It's so subjective it's a waste of everyone's time.]

From Engadget:

Besides the standard issues we had with the construction of the phone, we did spot another peculiar problem we hope is just a one-in-a-million fluke with the test device we were given: it physically broke… There is a small flap that covers the MicroUSB port, and while attempting to get the thing open, a thin piece of plastic which runs along the bottom of the casing just snapped. Now, we’re not saying this is a widespread problem—in fact, reps at Palm claimed this was the first time they’d seen it happen—but it was a little disconcerting.

…

Touch sensitivity was more than acceptable, though we do take issue with tracking and accuracy in some instances, particularly when you’re close to the edges — taps sometimes go unregistered and your aim can feel off.

…

Our biggest gripe is actually with the software, which omits some no-brainers like double-tap spacebar for periods (though in the phone’s defense, it does have a dedicated period key). Auto-correction is in effect here, fixing your lowercase i’s, un-apostrophe’d contractions, and the occasional misspelling, but it pales in comparison to the iPhone’s intelligent input recognition.

…

Mostly, these gestures are intuitive and helpful, but we do question a few decisions Palm made here. For instance, when you want to bring up the launcher and you’re in an app, you have to swipe up to zoom out to the card view, and then swipe up again to get the launcher up. Why the extra step? We have no idea.

From Phonescoop:

The seams aren’t as tight as they could be, and the phone does have a somewhat “plasticky” feel to it.

…

Because the Pre is covered in shiny black plastic, it’s an absolute magnet for fingerprints. Not just on the screen, mind you, but all over the entire phone, including the back. I can’t think of a phone in recent memory that collected more finger oils and grime. It’s easy to clean off by rubbing it on your jeans, but still, wow does it get dirty fast.

…

OK, the keyboard. First, there is a very sharp edge outlining the bottom of the phone, and it also surrounds the keyboard when the Pre is open. I found this edge very annoying and distracting. Granted, you’re not touching it all that often, but when you do, you sure will know it.

…

On more than one occasion while testing, the “EV” symbol that sits next to the signal strength indicator changed to “R”. The user manual tells me this means the Pre was roaming. In all the years I’ve tested Sprint phones, I have never seen one roam before. The Pre couldn’t perform ANY network-dependent activities when the “R” symbol was present. This is goofy behavior that could be attributed to my review unit in particular and it is likely something that could be fixed with a firmware update.

…

The ringers were not loud enough to suit my tastes. Set all the way up, it would be quite easy to miss phone calls in loud or noisy environments.

…

Palm’s webOS is an absolutely battery hog. Because it is constantly pinging the network for information and data (aka, email, etc.) the battery often drains in less than two days. This was consistent across the whole time we spent with the device. Heavy use drains the battery even faster. I was easily able to kill the battery in one day with heavy web use, camera use, MMS use and some phone calls. Keep in mind, this is with no Bluetooth and no Wi-Fi active.

…

In terms of general usability, webOS ranks below iPhone OS, is about on-par with Android, and rests above S60, WinMo and BlackBerry OS.

…

There’s one major kicker. When the Pre is attached to a PC to sync media, it cannot make or receive calls or text messages!!! What the what?!? Palm doesn’t provide an explanation, but that’s just ridiculous.

…

The hardware comes off as feeling a little bit on the cheap side. That’s unfortunate. Some will find the QWERTY keyboard difficult to use, though I thought it was okay. The lack of expandable memory means it is limited to the 8GB of on-board storage.

Phew! I sure am beat, and I now know more than I ever wanted to know about the Palm Pre’s shortcomings.

I hope this has been educational at best, and time-saving at least.

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/04/heres-whats-wrong-with-the-palm-pre/feed/ 158 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/31/shots-of-the-new-iphones-interface-surface/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/31/shots-of-the-new-iphones-interface-surface/#comments Sun, 31 May 2009 15:22:33 +0000 John Biggs http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=92523 The world woke this morning to the sight of some of screens from the iPhone 3.0 firmware, proving that we must remain vigilant every single day until WWDC next week. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll see images of the iPhone’s biomimetic skin?

These pictures show the compass – in photorealistic color – and a few of the sub screens including video recording and MMS sending. The full post from Hong Kong shows even more goodies including a shot taken with the new phone’s camera.

Maybe I’m just getting old but this is pretty much BFD for me right now. A compass? What am I, Mark Trail?

]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/31/shots-of-the-new-iphones-interface-surface/feed/ 19