Last week, I noticed Apple started sending me emails about people following me on Ping. Yes, Ping: remember it? Apple’s “interesting” attempt at doing social networking within the iTunes Store. Something that has received awards like worst product of 2010. Still, back to email notifications. It looks like Apple turned these on by default recently, without asking for user’s confirmation, apparently. Another little trick to remind us Ping exists, I guess. Indeed, the Ping homepage features these new notifications as “What’s New In Ping”. Read more
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Turn Off Ping’s Annoying Email Notifications
FUNDED: Kickstarter Project Adonit WRITER
Back on January 26, I posted about the Adonit’s WRITER, an iPad case + keyboard. At the time, they were trying to raise $10,000 to fund this project and had $7,000. Well, I was doing a checkup on the Kickstarter project a few days ago when it ended and the Adonit team ended up getting 268% of the funding that they needed, or over $26,000. I’m glad to see a great iPad accessory get the money it needed to move forward with production. Read more
Verizon iPhone Teardown: Dual GSM-CDMA Chip, iPhone 5 Likely To Be Worldphone
The folks over at iFixyouri and 9to5mac have taken a look at the internals of the Verizon iPhone and found out the device is running a dual-mode GSM-CDMA-capable Qualcomm Gobi chip. This Qualcomm’s chip enables worldphone capabilities with GSM and CDMA support on all carriers, but of course the Verizon iPhone won’t be able to accomplish this due to the lack of a SIM slot.
The Qualcomm Gobi MDM6600 modem supports GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, HSDPA, HSPA (up to 14.4 Mbps) and EV-DO (up to 14.7 Mbps), as well as GPS.
Rumors about integrated dual-mode Qualcomm chipsets in the next-generation iPhones and iPads have been floating around for a while now; at this point, it seems very likely that, at least the iPhone 5, will support multiple networks in a single device capable of switching from GSM to CDMA. Read more
Verizon iPhone Jailbroken
Well, that was fast. The Verizon iPhone has started arriving today to some people who pre-ordered it and it looks like the device has already been jailbroken. As you can see from the photo above, the iPhone is running Cydia and it clearly says “Verizon 3G” in the status bar. We guess the special iOS 4.2.6 version the iPhone is running was jailbroken through Greenpois0n, and a new version of the jailbreak tool with official CDMA iPhone support should come out soon.
So fear not, Verizon iPhone owners: you too can have Cydia. And by the way, here are some apps and tweaks you should install. [via]
Gmail’s Priority Inbox Comes To The iPhone
Great news from the Google Mobile team today: the Gmail webapp for iPhone has now Priority Inbox support built-in. Priority Inbox for mobile will import all the sections you have created on the desktop and it will also display the “important and read” or “important and unread” markers you’ve got used to see in Gmail.
Now, once you set up Priority Inbox in the desktop version of Gmail, you’ll see Priority Inbox sections when you visit gmail.com from your phone’s browser and click on the ‘Menu’ screen. You’ll also see importance markers in your inbox, so you can quickly identify which messages are important.
The new feature is available to Android and iOS devices. iOS 3 or later is required.
Fake iPhones and iPods Worth $10 Million Seized By L.A. Police
The Los Angeles Port police has seized thousands of fake iPhones and iPods coming from China in an operation that prevented these counterfeit models from ending up on the U.S. market and generate $10 million in revenue. The models, shipped from China as “replacement parts” and re-assembled to look like old Apple devices, were so similar to the original ones buyers could recognize the scam only when trying to sync them with iTunes.
Two brothers were charged for the sale of counterfeit goods and bank account records also revealed the operation had already generated $7 million in revenue. That’s quite a business for fake Chinese iPods. Apparently, the guys behind these devices thought it might be a good idea to replicate older iPods and iPhones rather than the most recent iterations.
We have seen lots of fake Apple products in the past, and it’s good to know police is always working to prevent them from ending up on customers’ hands. With the iPad 2 coming soon, I guess we’ll see several fake “used iPad 1” in 2012. [via Cult of Mac]
Apple’s Next Initiative: Eliminate Retail Box Inventory
With the recent popularity of the Mac App Store and continued success of iTunes App Store, Apple’s long term future sales for software are going to be digital distribution. MacRumors is saying that Apple is planning on making the move to all digital sooner that expected at their retail locations. They want to rid of boxed software and focus sales directly through the Mac App Store. Read more
Smartr Twitter App Is Like Flipboard for iPhone
I was surprised when I found this app in the App Store last week. Smartr, a free app by Factyle, is a full-featured Twitter client that, unlike the usual Twitterrific or other Twitter apps, is entirely aimed at letting you read in an uncluttered and mobile-friendly view all the links shared in your timeline or lists. In fact, Smartr might just be the closest thing to a “Flipboard for iPhone” we’ve seen yet. Read more
Score Good Grades & Touchdowns with an iPad
Apple is in talks with legislators in Georgia to adopt iPads as textbook replacements in public schools. Think of it - the school system would save a lot of money in textbook costs over one device that could store all the student’s textbooks on one device. Imagine how much lighter your book bag would be every day. NFL coaches must play way too much Madden on their iPads, because now NFL coaches in Dallas are looking at replacing their paper playbooks with iPads as well. Read more