Jealous of Nexus S users with NFC built into their phones? Want to be able to pay with your iPhone just by tapping it onto those new fancy credit card terminals? If your bank provides smaller credit cards with NFC chips, you can seamlessly add one to your iPhone 4
The current iPhone 4 doesn’t have NFC built in, but you add it via a small modification that’s compatible with your bank of choice. Some banks can issue you an NFC card (with an embedded chip and radio antenna) that can be used to make payments, and if we were as savvy as Unplggd’s Vivian Kim, we’d be placing these cards in-between the battery and the glass back in your iPhone. The hack is “impressive and fun” she writes, and can be a great way to impress your non-geek friends or that gal behind the counter. Even more impressive is the great photo she took showing off just how this works — you’ll have to click through to see how she pulls this great trick off.
Skyfire has a new Flash player on iOS that queues up video you want to play on your iOS device by sending the video request through email! Yeah it’s old technology meets… old technology, but lets not dwell on the fact that we do want to watch Flash videos, and that iOS can’t play them. You have your YouTube and your Hulu, but those Funimation videos aren’t gonna play themselves. So whether you see a Flash video on the latest startup from TechCrunch, or you want to watch a segment of The Daily Show, VideoQ is there to convert your Flash video to a format compatible with your iPhone or iPad.
I gave VideoQ a chance on my iPod touch, and the first thing Skyfire asks is for you to send an email from an address you want to register with the company. Also sent in the email is your devices unique ID, which I find somewhat odd. I think that’s a bit skeevy, and I don’t know why Skyfire needs a device identifier, but it’s whatever right? With the email sent, you wait a few seconds to be registered, then VideoQ presents you with a tutorial you can watch to learn about the app.
So it breaks down like this: whether you use Safari or another web browser on iOS, you can email that webpage to Skyfire so you can playback that Flash video in VideoQ. VideoQ will show you the videos you’ve queued up (and you can also casually browse hot videos via the appropriate tab). Video playback isn’t spectacular: video is grainy, audio is muffled, and sometimes Skyfire can’t find the video, but in a pinch you can get your Jon Stewart fix on your iOS device. It’s not a replacement for a Mac or PC that can run Flash well, but it can give you some relief while traveling or when mobile. It works most of the time — it’s not perfect — but video is passable despite whatever conversion process Skyfire processes on their servers before serving the content back up to you on demand. I’d say if you watch a lot of flash video (and especially if you want to do it on the iPad), give VideoQ a try.
US carrier AT&T today reported its second-quarter financial results, which broadly speaking has seen some strong growth. The company’s consolidated revenues were up $680 million (2.2%) to $31.5 billion year-over-year and AT&T added a total of 1.1 million new subscribers during the quarter.
AT&T also saw its best ever second quarter for smartphone sales, which were up 43% year-over-year with a total of 5.6 million smartphones sold. The loss of iPhone exclusivity doesn’t seem to have affected AT&T too much because 3.6 million (or 64%) of all smartphones sold were iPhones, which is identical to last quarter in which AT&T sold 3.6 million. To give that figure some perspective, of all iPhones sold in the last quarter (globally), AT&T sold 17% of them. Also interesting is that a quarter of the iPhones sold by AT&T were to new subscribers.
Jump the break for AT&T’s full press release on their earnings.
I think it’s clear that Apple is keeping a keen eye on the community when it comes to UI concepts and other imaginative implementations from the jailbreak community, and it’s possible they could at least snatch one good idea from this latest mockup. A concept video created by a charming Jan-Michael Cart shows off some pretty rad improvements, including being able to select a WiFi network in the Notification Center, improved popovers, and a multitasking bar whose icons rotate with the iPhone’s orientation (my favorite).
Check past the break to see the concepts in action — I think the WiFi notifications are really nice.
Today is June 24, 2011. Believe it or not, it has already been one year since the iPhone 4 went on sale across the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan to literally millions of people who eagerly waited in line to get their hands on the latest and greatest iPhone yet. The history of the iPhone 4 has been remarkable, controversial and fascinating, filled with prototype leaks, criminal investigations, amazing technology, scandals, mystical white unicorns, new carrier allegiances and more. Come along with me as we mark the one-year anniversary of the iPhone 4 with a walk down memory lane.
Sometime in the past few days, the iPhone 4 became the most popularly used camera on Flickr – two months after TechCrunch noted that it was poised to take the top spot. The Nikon D90 now holds the second spot, although its share of users has remained constant whilst the iPhone 4 has surged to the front. The next three spots are taken up by various Canon EOS line cameras including the 5D Mark II, Digital Rebel XSi and Rebel T1i.
In terms of smartphones the iPhone 4 took the lead a long time ago but it continues to extend its lead. It is followed by the iPhone 3G, 3GS and then the HTC Evo 4G. Surprisingly the iPod Touch rounds out the top smartphone cameras at number 5.
The iPhone 4 becoming the most popular camera in the Flickr community comes after the iPhone 3G held the top spot for just over a year. It lost the top spot earlier this year as it saw a significant reduction in users as the iPhone 4 surged in popularity (just see the above graph and the drop-off in 3G users).
One day earlier than was predicted, Apple has finally offered consumers the ability to purchase an unlocked iPhone 4 in the United States. At the moment only the GSM variety is available but you’re free to choose it in either white or black styling and in 16GB or 32GB variety.
Regardless of the color you choose, the iPhone 4 in 16GB variety starts at $649, whilst the 32GB is $749. It doesn’t come with a micro-SIM card so you’ll need to activate one yourself from any supported GSM carrier (worldwide). Whether you plan on using an iPhone extensively overseas or just on an alternative carrier, the unlocked iPhone may be your best choice – at least if you don’t want to go down the jailbreak and unlocking road.
You can purchase an unlocked iPhone 4 from the Apple online store here, and it is expected that Apple retailer stores will have them on sale from today or possibly tomorrow – we will update when we know for sure.
After everyone got their part numbers straightened out, it appears that unlocked iPhone 4s could be hitting American soil on Wednesday, possibly opening up the freedom of choice between carriers and allowing US consumers to easily grab a SIM overseas without incurring expensive roaming fees. This is big news for the United States, where unlocked phones aren’t typically sold in stores (while you can buy a phone in full, you’ll still end up being locked into a carrier). International travelers from the U.S. will finally be able to hot swap SIMs overseas, but could this be the only benefit? T-Mobile and AT&T run on GSM, but aren’t completely compatible with each other (they work on different bands), and Verizon is on its own with CDMA. The iPhone 4 does currently have a capable GSM-CDMA Qualcomm MDM6600 inside, although Apple currently hasn’t utilized the dual-mode functionality.
MacRumors reports that the unlocked iPhones have shipped to Apple Stores, and they’ll be available on store shelves starting Wednesday. They’ll cost you $649 an $749 a pop for 16GB and 32GB models: consumers who pay up front will have the benefit of avoiding carrier lock-in.
For those paranoid about both losing their phone and having your information be susceptible to criminal eyes, you probably lock your iPhone with a four digit PIN. While even I could tell you that ’1234′ isn’t the finest choice in password security, Daniel Amitay took a moment to see what his customers were locking their phones with in his free app, Big Brother Camera Security for the iPhone. The passwords were recorded anonymously, and Daniel takes a look at everything from the most common passwords to suspect birth years in his results. Heck, the guy even built “heat maps” of the most digits pressed.
Naturally, 1234 is the most common passcode: mimicking the most common internet passwords. To put this into perspective, these 10 codes represent 15% of all passcodes in use. Most of the top passcodes follow typical formulas, such as four identical digits, moving in a line up/down the pad, repetition. 5683 is the passcode with the least obvious pattern, but it turns out that it is the number representation of LOVE (5683), once again mimicking a very common internet password: “iloveyou.”
With 15% of all passcodes represented by just 10 of these common passwords (out of a possible 10,000), Daniel concludes that 1 out of every 7 iPhones can be unlocked if a thief simply went through the list. Dear commenters, I now ask you, “Do you use one of these common passwords?” The results are fascinating, and I encourage anyone interested in keeping their iPhones secure to hit the source link for lots of juicy details.
US carrier AT&T today reported its second-quarter financial results, which broadly speaking has seen some strong growth. The company’s consolidated revenues were up $680 million (2.2%) to $31.5 billion year-over-year and AT&T added a total of 1.1 million new subscribers during the quarter.
