The Spirit jailbreak for iPhone 3.1.3, iPod touch 3.1.3, and iPad 3.2 was released today, and uses a userland exploit that Apple can easily patch, so take advantage of this jailbreak while you have the chance!

As with all jailbreaks, there are some specific instructions to follow and you should carefully read the developer’s website to ensure that you have all of the necessary information before beginning.  From the SpiritJB.com website:

• Spirit is an untethered jailbreak for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the latest firmwares.
• Spirit is not a carrier unlock.
• If you currently are using a tethered jailbreak, you have to restore to use Spirit. Do not upgrade if you use an unlock on an iPhone 3G or 3GS. (You can, however, restore to 3.1.2 if you have SHSH blobs for that version.)

Remember! Back up your SHSH First!!

Download the Spirit Jailbreak 3.1.3 here

2003: Apple opens the iTunes Music Store and starts to revolutionize the music-recording industry, one song at a time.

Between the mid-1980s and late 1990s, the media were undergoing a massive conversion from analog to digital. The music industry hated it.

Much to the chagrin of the Recording Industry Association of America, internet users quickly caught on to digital music as a free alternative to paying for albums. In fear of declining album sales, record labels filed lawsuit after lawsuit against online services Napster and MP3.com for hosting digital music, as well as Diamond Multimedia, a Korean company that released an MP3 player called the Rio. Clearly, for the recording industry, change wasn’t easy.

In stepped Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO harbored a vision in 2002 of an online music store hosted by Apple that would be easy to use, complete in selection and reliable in performance. These factors, Jobs thought, would be enough to convince customers to pay for something they could otherwise obtain for free illegally. The store, then, would enable record labels to compete with pirates rather than pursue a futile attempt to destroy them.

But in order for online music to work, Jobs believed his store would have to allow customers to purchase music in a completely different way: a la carte. Convincing labels was hardly easy.

“When we first approached the labels, the online music business was a disaster,” Jobs told Steven Levy, author of The Perfect Thing. “Nobody had ever sold a song for 99 cents. Nobody really ever sold a song. And we walked in, and we said, ‘We want to sell songs a la carte. We want to sell albums, too, but we want to sell songs individually.’ They thought that would be the death of the album.”

Jobs started his talks with the big players first: Warner Music and Universal. Apple flew the firms’ teams up to Cupertino, California. In a boardroom at One Infinite Loop, Jobs proceeded to present his plan.

Jobs first reeled in the labels with one crucial proposal: Apple would sell songs through iTunes, music-player software that was then available only for Macs. After all, how could Apple, whose Mac operating system held only single-digit market share, ruin the record business if the iTunes Store took off?

After a series of long and painful negotiations, the two labels ultimately agreed they would play, but only after Apple agreed to bake in some restrictions (aka digital rights management): iTunes-purchased songs would be limited to being playable on three “authorized” computers, and a playlist could only be burned on a CD seven times.

Labels BMG and EMI soon followed, and later Sony hopped on board. Apple opened the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with 200,000 songs. (Simultaneously, Apple released its third-generation iPod.) In the first week, iTunes Store customers bought more than a million songs. Six months later, Apple convinced the labels to allow iTunes to be shared with Windows users.

Apple announced at its final Macworld show Jan. 6, 2009, that iTunes would cease selling songs encumbered by DRM restrictions. Though a significant step for Apple, Jobs was not present to make the announcement — he was on medical leave. The Wall Street Journal later revealed that Jobs successfully underwent a liver transplant. He resumed his post in June 2009.

The iTunes Store has expanded to include movies, TV shows and the App Store providing third-party software for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad customers. To date, the iTunes Store has served more than 10 billion songs, 200 million TV shows, 2 million films and 3 billion apps.

Sources: The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, by Steven Levy; Wikipedia

Photo: Apple CEO Steve Jobs (June 2007)
Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Read More http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/04/0428itunes-music-store-opens/#ixzz0mOdMgIsx

Kyle Conroy put together an aesthetically, if not financially, appealing spreadsheet showing what your worth would be if you had bought Apple stock instead of Apple products… the results are interesting, to say the least…

See the original post at http://www.kyleconroy.com/apple-stock.php

Nokia releases iPod challenger N8

Nokia today revealed its latest iPhone challenger, the exciting Nokia N8 smartphone.

The multimedia focused Symbian smartphone features a 12-megapixel camera and HD video recording, obviously far superior on paper to anything an iPhone can offer. Beyond the hardware, though, the N8 is the first phone to feature the latest iteration of the Symbian OS.

One of the most exciting aspects of the phone is its HD camera, which offers Dolby Digital Surround Sound through plugging the handset into their home theatre system. The handset also enables access to local and global Web TV services that deliver programs, news and entertainment from channels like CNN, E! Entertainment, Paramount and National Geographic.

Social networking seems also to be one of the key focus points of the Nokia N8. Users can update their status, share location and photos and view live feeds from Facebook and Twitter in a single app directly on the home screen. The Nokia N8 also offers multiple personalisable homescreens which can be loaded with apps and widgets.

The Nokia N8 comes with free global Ovi Maps walk and drive navigation, guiding people to places and points of interest in around 70 countries.

Not much is known about Symbian’s new operating system, Symbian ^3, According to Nokia’s press release, Symbian ^3 introduces “several major advances” including support for gestures such as multi touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom. The new 2D and 3D graphics architecture in the platform “takes full advantage of the Nokia N8’s hardware acceleration to deliver a faster and more responsive user interface.”

Announcing that Cal Stach, the developers of PIC-SAFE, has launched a unique app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users. The application offers users an exclusive tool and cutting edge picture sorting and privacy technology for iDevices. It is the only app that removes the need for cutting and pasting, replacing it with fast and easy, drag and drop action. PIC-SAFE has built-in sharing and security features, essentially offering a well organized photo vault.

The developer has created the program to increase the ease and speed of tucking pictures away in a secure environment. Users can reveal only photos that they want to share with others, without people realizing that some are left out or accidentally seeing a snapshot that the owner would rather they didn’t.

Using the PIC-SAFE app is easy enough for everyone. All a user has to do is create a folder, select as many photos as they want to put into that folder then drag and drop the pictures into it. Each folder can have its only password protection to keep out prying eyes. Viewing snapshots is also easily done, just by touching and holding for one second. The usual pinch and pull motions will enlarge the photograph, if desired. PIC-SAFE also allows users to email photos directly from within the application.

The photo up there is a new iPhone 4G hardware prototype with iPhone 4.0 software. The Verizon iPhone release date is still unknown, but analysts say that Apple plans on releasing a Verizon iPhone either this year in June or next year (2011). Apple is currently providing their iPhone phone on AT&T, but it would be wise of them to offer it on multiple carriers just like Google offers their Android smartphone, the Nexus One on multiple carriers as well.

The new iPhone 4G that’s launching in June has a front facing camera, as revealed by the pictures a popular tech blog named Gizmodo posted. Gizmodo may be in trouble for buying a stolen iPhone 4G and then posting pictures of it on their blog, but that’s another story. The new iPhone 4G will be big for the front facing camera alone, and the added multi-tasking support.

TUAW recently reported that iPhone OS 4.0 includes a new application that makes use of an “iPod Out” feature that could be used to control the iPhone or iPod Touch when used in a car.

According to sources that TUAW spoke to, the “iPod Out” functionality is built over the iPod Accessory Protocol (IAP). The report claims that the application contains references to several strings like IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonNotification and IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonTypeKey that hints at the use of the “iPod Out” functionality in automobiles.

According to TUAW’s source:

“the application might be used in an Apple-branded car kit, where the user docks his iPhone or iPod touch and gains full access to the onboard audio libraries (no video at this time). The car kit could include both a video screen to show the menus and custom physical buttons that would produce the notifications to allow the user to move through those menus, and select from them.

Other hints in the application point to hands-free phone integration as well (kCTCallStatusChangeNotification). Incoming phone calls would be routed into the same system, allowing users to answer calls without having to pick up their device.”

An Apple branded car kit could truly revolutionize the way users consume audio content from their iPhones.

It will be interesting to see if Apple ends up unveiling the car kit, which makes use of this new application when iPhone OS 4.0 is released this summer.