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Crux360 iPad 2 keyboard case review
Aluminum Keyboard Buddy Case cloaks your iPad 2 in a MacBook Air duvet Crux Loaded case almost turns your iPad into a laptop for $250 MacBook Air review (mid 2011) Yeah... we know. At this point you're probably clutching your funds tightly, eagerly anticipating the release of the iPad 3. But for those of you who recently purchased version 2.0, or perhaps just discovered your need for a Bluetooth keyboard, allow us to shed some light on the Crux360. Sure this isn't the first one of these we've seen, but the full range of motion in the hinge makes this a nice accessory for your Apple slate. We spent a couple weeks putting it through the wringer, so read on past the break to see what we discovered. %Gallery-131743%
iTunes Match 'streaming' reportedly removed from iOS 5 beta 7
When the beta of iTunes Match launched to developers, a semantic debate ensued over whether certain behaviors within the service counted as music "streaming" to devices or not. The question has been rendered largely moot as of iOS 5 beta 7 according to Appleinsider and several other sources. Apple has altered iTunes Match and caused the service to automatically download songs onto users' devices when playback is initiated over iCloud. Music files downloaded to a user's device can of course be manually deleted later, but anyone who was hoping to use iTunes Match as a true streaming music service will undoubtedly be disappointed by the change. When launched to the public, iTunes Match will cost US$24.99 per year. The service is expected to launch this fall.
Redsn0w 0.9.8b7 gets tutorial for jailbreaking iOS 5 beta 6, iOS 4.3.5 and 4.2.10
Just like the Sn0wbreeze project, redsn0w recently added support for a tethered jailbreak of iOS 5 beta 6. While support for the iPad 2 still isn't in the mix, the latest version -- 0.9.8b7 -- adds additional support for Apple's latest beta on the original iPad, and the folks at Smash iPhone have provided a tutorial for those who move to the beat of a different drum. While redsn0w supports a tether-free solution for iOS 4.3.3, if you want to partake in Cupertino's freshest fruits, you'll be required to connect your phone or tablet to your computer whenever you power up the device. Also, while download links for iOS 4.3.5 and 4.2.10 are in the tutorial, if you're not a developer, it'll be on you to scrounge up the latest beta. Best of luck with the foray.
iOS 5 beta 7 goes live for developers
Well, you can't say Cupertino isn't being consistent. Just like last time, Apple's gone and released a new beta of iOS 5, less than two weeks after the last one. Not much of interest pops out of build 9A5313E's release notes, but we'd presume it squashes a fair share of bugs. Hit up settings to begin the roughly 70MB OTA update, or test those browser downloading skills at the dev portal linked below. And while you're there, don't forget to snag updated versions of Xcode, iTunes, and an updated firmware for the second-generation AppleTV. Peep a screenshot of the OTA after the break and let us know how you fare in comments. [Thanks, Darren]
iOS 5 Beta 7 now available
The iOS 5 beta 7 SDK is now available for download by paid devs at the iOS developer site. As with previous betas, you'll also find all the other items that continue to be synchronously updated to support the beta. Sign in with your developer credentials to gain access to the updated SDK. Because it cannot be said too often, make sure you read any release notes on-site. For everyone intoxicated by new technologies that might allow you to update using other means, I cannot strongly encourage you enough to go to the site and read the release notes. This hint goes out especially to those of you who are not primarily developers but how have purchased dev accounts to stay current on the technology. Installation alerts usually appear in a big yellow box on the main iOS dev page. Important update notices also appear on the developer forums. If you run into troubles installing updates, please check the dev site and forums first. Seriously. If you don't have access to the dev site and forums, please don't e-mail us for technical support about the iOS 5 beta. You do so at your own risk; we have been known to point and laugh. As a final note, don't forget to register your device at the developer portal and prepare it for development before installing the new beta onto pre-beta equipment. The beta is, as always, released under the terms of Apple's NDA. For that reason, enhancements, APIs and features are not listed within this post. TUAW's iOS 5 coverage -- researched and written by our non-NDA staffers -- is available here. Happy developing everyone! Thanks, everyone who tipped us.
iTunes Match goes live for iOS developers (updated)
Enrolled in the iOS developer program and interested in iTunes Match? Better point that browser towards Apple's dev portal, as Cupertino's just flipped the switch for its upcoming music laundering service. There you'll find iTunes 10.5 beta 6.1 with iTunes Match which'll let you sign up for a yearly $24.99 fee. Hopping on the bandwagon early has extra rewards too -- early birds get three months (on top of their yearly sub) for free. A tipster also provided us with a screencap (after the break) of his iPod touch running the current iOS beta, which now magically has a toggle for the service under the Music section of the Settings app. Taking the plunge? Let us know how you fare in the comments. [Thanks, Matt] Update: Looks like the initial signups have stopped, but Apple plans to expand the number of testers "over the next days." So, keep compulsively checking iTunes if you want in on the next round.
Apple patent application imagines iPhones that learn the sweet sound of your voice
Button-loathing Apple really wants people to stop dirtying its devices with sticky fingerprints. That's why it's applied for a patent that should improve the frustrating experience of using iOS's voice control -- precisely the kind of update we've been awaiting since Apple bought Siri last year. With the help of a technology billed as "User profiling for voice input processing," your device would identify your voice, check against a library of words associated with you without having to trawl through its entire dictionary. We just hope Apple doesn't do away with physical inputs entirely -- we'd hate to broadcast to the world all the guilty pleasures we have loaded on our iPods.
Counterpoint: The iPad is the 'third device' I'd hoped for
"After years of watching the masses fawn over the iPad [...], I still can't ever imagine myself investing in one, let alone actually using one in place of a smartphone or laptop." So said Darren Murph on our sister site Engadget in a piece entitled, "Editorial: tablets aren't the 'third device' I'd hoped for... from a productivity standpoint, anyway." Murph focuses on the "awkwardness and limitations" of using a tablet device, and I can understand his perspective, even if I don't agree with it. Murph emphasises that his post is all about his personal preferences; what follows is my counterpoint, built from my personal preferences and those of my fellow TUAW writers. I'm not out to put a "hit" on Murph by any means, because even though I disagree with him in this instance, I've got nothing but respect for him. As the Guinness record-holder for "world's most prolific blogger," it's no surprise that Murph focuses on productivity tasks. I don't dispute the fact that for his particular edge case, the iPad might not be what he's looking for. But the tone of his piece kind of makes it sound like he's saying the iPad isn't suited to productivity tasks at all, that the need for a device like it is something that's "manufactured" rather than real. This sounds vaguely similar to the traditional arguments against the Mac: "Why pay that much more when I can get a PC that does the same thing for $500 less? You Apple freaks are just drinking the Kool-Aid." Plus, his assertion that he "can't ever imagine myself investing in one, let alone actually using one in place of a smartphone or laptop" sounds precariously close to the point of view of someone criticising the iPad without having used one for any appreciable length of time. Reading the rest of Murph's piece clearly shows that's not the case, but it's still a surprising viewpoint. Murph's experience doesn't match up with my own at all. I've barely used my iPhone since getting an iPad 2, and up until the release of OS X Lion, I hardly used my Mac, either. It's only once OS X Lion made my Mac more "iPad-like" that I started using it more; before that, literally days could go by where I never even woke up my Mac. Murph claims that "Tablets, for whatever reason, seem to defy logic when it comes to purchase rationalization in the consumer electronics realm." I disagree. My own decision to purchase an iPad came about after my Mac spent a couple weeks in the shop and I had to rely upon my iPhone as my only computer. I found that the iPhone was able to replicate much of the functionality I was getting from my Mac, but its 3.5-inch screen felt very restrictive. The derisive characterization of the iPad as "just" a big iPod touch turned out to be exactly what I needed. "People are just buying these things in a fit of hysteria," Murph says. "Does anyone actually know why this 'third device' is such a necessity?" Sure. Here's my "purchase rationalisation." I wanted an immensely portable, light, small device with stellar battery life that I could shove into a small day pack and forget about until I needed it. I wanted an OS that was lightweight and streamlined enough to perform swiftly despite the comparatively anaemic power of the hardware it ran on. I wanted a hardware/software platform that was flexible enough to adapt to my needs, rather than me having to adapt to its needs. I wanted a device that I could carry into the kitchen, or the bathroom (yup), or on a hiking trip, or to the beach, or on a transcontinental trip, without feeling like I was throwing my back out every time I picked it up. Murph might say that what I really wanted was a netbook or similar ultraportable, but he'd be wrong. I've used netbooks. They suck. The only advantage they hold over the iPad is the physical keyboard, but even then, the netbook keyboards I've used have made me want to throw them across the room after only a few minutes. Using a netbook also would have meant using either Windows, an OS I despise, or Linux, an OS with very poor integration with Mac OS X. At its heart, the iPad is to OS X what the iPod was to iTunes: a condensed, ultraportable version of its bigger brother. Rather than getting a huge backpack and schlepping my giant 17" MacBook Pro everywhere like I used to, I can leave the Mac at home and take a lightweight, smaller device with me instead. Sure, my Mac is easier to type on, and photo/video editing are much easier in OS X than they are in iOS, but if I'm going on a two-week trip away from home, I can guarantee you my iPad will come along while the Mac will stay behind. My iPad is portable in a way that my MacBook Pro never has been and never will be. I take my iPad everywhere, while my MacBook Pro, despite being a "portable" computer, hangs out in the lounge about 99% of the time. If my Mac is asleep when I need to look something up or bang out a quick email, I go for the iPad. When I want to sit down and chill rather than juggling five things at once like I do during the busier days at TUAW, I go for the iPad. When I travel, the Mac stays home and the iPad comes with me. Murph claims that smartphones can do many of the things the iPad can do, and I don't dispute that. It's hard to think of many things that my iPad 2 can do that my iPhone 4 can't. But the extra screen real estate does help quite a bit. I type roughly 150 percent faster on my iPad than I do on my iPhone, navigating through web pages is much easier, and viewing photos or videos on the iPad's 9.7-inch screen feels much less confining than on the iPhone's comparatively tiny screen. Despite the fact that I can edit movies or photos on the iPhone, I've not done it very often precisely because the screen is so tiny -- an encumbrance I don't have to deal with on the iPad. As for writing, I wouldn't dream of writing a post this long on my iPhone, but writing it on my iPad hasn't been an issue at all. You read that right: I composed this entire post on my iPad, from start to finish. This is far from the first one, either. If you go back through my post archives, I challenge you to figure out which posts I wrote on my Mac versus which ones I wrote on my iPad. Good luck, because I don't even remember myself. "I also can't seem to grok the value in spending half a grand on something with a souped-up mobile OS," Murph says. This is part of the problem a lot of people have had with the iPad thus far -- the "it's just a big iPod touch" mentality. It's true that iOS doesn't have the menu- and window-driven interface of OS X or Windows, but for the kind of work I find myself doing on the iPad, I don't miss that stuff anyway. Working on the iPad feels less like a "souped-up" iPhone and more like working on a Mac that's designed to be the ultimate word in portability. True, for just a few more ounces and a few more dollars I could get an 11-inch MacBook Air, but even if I had one of those, would my wife and I use it to watch The Office in bed? Would I use it to peruse my grocery lists at the store? Would I monitor the TUAW posting queue from the middle of nowhere? Based on my historical usage, I'm going to say no. In my case, and in the case of several of my fellow TUAW staffers, the iPad has been a powerful supplemental tool rather than an outright replacement for the Mac. And I haven't had to "invest a couple hundred in accessories to make it halfway useful," either. I contemplated getting a Bluetooth keyboard until I figured out I was typing plenty fast enough on the touchscreen -- it takes practice, but it does happen. I've had meetings with clients where I considered bringing my Mac, or debated buying the VGA adapter so I could hook my iPad into a projector, but for one-on-one meetings there really is no substitute for being able to sit next to someone and show them what's going on as it happens. I'm not going to write War and Peace on this thing, and if I wrote as many posts as Murph does on any given day, I'd probably be all-Mac, all-the-time. But in terms of what many of us at TUAW have used it for, the iPad has turned out to be the perfect fit. It's not the ideal device for productivity tasks, but then again, neither is a "real" computer. Put the two together, however, and you've got the most powerful combination since chocolate met peanut butter.
iOS 5 beta 6 gets a Sn0wbreeze for Windows jailbreak
Windows users can jailbreak their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 beta 6. An updated version of Sn0wbreeze for Windows now supports the latest version of iOS 5 and can jailbreak your iPhone without compromising the baseband. The tethered jailbreak supports the iPhone 3GS (with new bootrom), iPhone 4 (GSM/CDMA), iPod touch (3G/4) and the first generation iPad. If you're a developer running iOS 5 beta 6 and want to keep you jailbreak intact, you can download Sn0wbreeze 2.8b6 here and follow the instructions from Redmond Pie here.
Daily Update for August 22, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Apple reportedly adds earthquake warning to Japanese iOS
Apple is supposedly adding an Earthquake widget to its Japanese version of iOS 5. The widget will connect to Japan's earthquake warning system and will alert iPhone owners of an impending natural disaster. The system will tie into iOS 5's new notification center and give Japanese residents a few extra minutes to prepare for an earthquake and possible Tsunami. The early notification could lower your battery life, but that's an acceptable trade-off for public and personal safety.
iOS 5 turns Japanese iPhones into earthquake alarms
Following the devastation wrought by the recent Japanese earthquake, Apple has hooked the country's early warning system into iOS 5. The tectonically-volatile nation has the most sophisticated alarm in the world, delivering life-saving warnings seconds or minutes before disaster strikes. iOS users already had access to this functionality via apps like Yurekuru, but iOS 5 will bring it directly into the operating system. The service can be activated in the Notification Center settings pane, accompanied by a warning that the constant connection will deplete your battery faster -- a fair exchange if it saves your life.
iOS 5 beta 6 gets a Sn0wbreeze jailbreak, iPad 2 still stuck behind bars
Apparently, the iOS hacking community is not working for the weekend, judging by the two days it took to crack Apple's latest beta wide open. Available as of this morning, the Sn0wbreeze 2.8 Beta 6 unlock tool can now give those of you with developer credentials jailbreak access to iOS 5 beta 6. From the looks of this release, the hack works on most iOS devices with the sole exception of the iPad 2. Already itching to get that custom firmware on your Ive-designed iSlabs? Then hit the source link below, and let us know how things turn out.
iOS 5 deprecates UDID as identifier for developers, but it's not the end of the world
Reading the headlines today, you'll see the usual exaggeration of half-understood factoids bubble out from today's iOS 5 beta 6 release. Thank goodness for that NDA, huh? As reported by our sister site TechCrunch, Apple is deprecating the use of UDIDs as unique identifiers for developers, thereby severing one of the most common ties between physical devices and the apps that need to know which specific iOS gadget they're on. It's the end of the world as we know it! Well, no, actually. Let's get to the real story here, brought to you by feedback from some iOS developers with real-world knowledge of what the implications of this change will be. First off, let's clear up what it means for Apple to 'deprecate' this identifier. A deprecated function or software component is not yanked out immediately; it's simply been flagged by the developer of the platform (or app, command line tool, what have you) as something that will be going away in the future, eventually. While the feature remains in place for the sake of backwards compatibility, deprecation is a clear sign to all the programmers in town that they will have to move away from using this feature in the long run. To the average person, this deprecation of developer access to UDIDs means little more than one step towards better privacy. UDIDs are far from the only way a developer could ensure "your" iPhone is, in fact, your iPhone. Using the identifier has always been a relatively easy way for developers to do this, however, and so many used it, some abused it, and the average user was never the wiser. From the beginning, Apple has always uniquely identified its devices via UDIDs or other means, and the iPhone is no exception. There is a class called "UIDdevice" which describes the things on the iPhone, i.e., the features unique to that device. Until today, developers could have access to a users' UDIDs, and they've used them as identifiers for a lot of gaming, user info persistence and subscription systems (including some of our favorite apps). The downside of UDIDs in the past is because they're related to devices and not accounts, sometimes it's hard to have the device identifiers talk to each other. Some developers have grabbed or scraped these without user permission for marketing and other less than reputable purposes -- hence the privacy concern behind broadcasting UDIDs to third-party developers. The utility of developers having access to the UDID is far lower than the potential for abusing it. The UIdevice class does things like telling you the battery state, system name, OS version, phone model, and so forth -- it identifies the device and the features on it. It's been helpful in terms of letting developers determine which devices run certain features better -- knowing the difference in performance between an iPhone 3G and an iPhone 4 is certainly important, especially to game developers -- but other than that, there's not much utility there. So why isn't losing access to the UDID a big deal, at all? Any developer can always roll their own unique identifier. Apple provides a way to randomly generate one, so you never really had to use the UDID. People have been using UDIDs for various reasons -- not all of them good -- and there's not a lot of positives to UDID use other than ad-hoc app distribution (i.e., for beta testing). Apple's deprecation of UDID access is something that's been expected for some time. MacStories' take on it aligns with our own; privacy concerns over UDID sharing have been in the news for a long time, so it's not a shocker that Apple's now contemplating denying third-party access to them. From a user's perspective, this is a Good Thing. From a scrupulous developer's position, this may complicate your life for a while, but that's all. Unscrupulous developers who've been abusing UDIDs for marketing or other purposes are the ones that will get hit hardest by this change, but as far as I'm concerned, they can wither up and die with no tears shed. Some have speculated that iCloud account information might be substituted for UDIDs, but developers don't really have access to user account information from iCloud -- and they shouldn't. That would be an even bigger security hole than UDIDs. Apple seems to be taking a "none of your business" approach to user IDs where developers are concerned. We speculate that's the motivation behind removing the UDID API. Meanwhile, try not to buy into widespread reports of dogs and cats living together/mass hysteria, because it's just not that big of a deal in the long run.
iOS 5 beta 6 fresh out of the oven for your downloading pleasure
Well, it's been less than two weeks, and Apple's already pumping out another iOS 5 beta build. Those of you holding Apple developer credentials can now mosey on over to the source link below, and get your hands on iOS 5 beta 6. As you might expect, this slice of Apple pie brings with it new betas for iTunes, XCode, and Apple TV. As per usual, we'll keep our eyes out for anything noteworthy, but if you've already got the new build going, give us a holler in the comments below. [Thanks, Michael]
AT&T to eliminate $10 text message option for new customers
The company that's becoming increasingly famous for regularly shooting itself in the foot when it comes to customer relations just blew off another toe. Our sister site Engadget reports that AT&T is "streamlining" its text messaging plans for new customers; when translated from PR-speak, this means new customers will have only a single, unlimited text messaging plan to choose from. The US$10 for 1000 messages plan is going away. Existing customers on the $10 plan will have that plan grandfathered. However, new customers will only be able to choose between the $20 unlimited plan or no plan at all, in which case they'll be charged $0.20 per text ($.30 per MMS). If you find yourself sending less than 100 text messages per month, you may be just fine without dropping another $20 on your monthly bill, but if you find yourself in the 100-1000 messages per month range as I do, AT&T's move smacks of greed. Shocker. It's quite likely that this move is at least partially a response to iMessages in iOS 5, expected to debut in the fall. The feature allows iOS device owners to bypass the SMS protocol when sending messages to other iOS devices. Since the majority of US iPhone owners are still on AT&T's network, this could have led to a measurable drop in the number of text messages sent on AT&T's network, resulting in lost revenues for its SMS packages.
PSA: This is why non-developers shouldn't run iOS betas
Answer these two questions really quickly: Are you a developer? Are you running the iOS 5 beta? If you answered no to the first question and yes to the second, then this post is meant for you. You are doing it wrong, and on behalf of everyone everywhere, please stop. Why do I say that? Look no farther than the e-mail we received this morning (edited for clarity/brevity and to disguise the sender's identity): Subject: Major iOS 5 beta 2 glitch I recently bought an iPad 2 right before a trip to Africa for a family vacation. Being right after the release of the iOS 5 beta 2, and being part of the development program, I put it on my brand new iPad. It worked very well for the first 2 weeks of my trip. Then at exactly the halfway point in my trip, the screen went black, and I was booted to the initial iOS 5 "Slide To Set Up" screen. The iPad semed to have automatically reset itself and I have no idea how. I've searched the internet for other people with a similar problem, but haven't came up with anything, as this seems to be an isolated incident. Even worse, I don't have my laptop here to set it up again, as the server is still down for wireless set up. Its just sitting in my backpack now, useless for the next week until I'm home. Really a pain, because I'm still in Africa with nothing but my iPod nano and an internet cafe to entertain me for the rest of the trip. Developers will read this email and, depending on their disposition, either start chuckling or slamming their heads against their desks. Though this person claims to be part of Apple's Developer Program, he or she clearly has no idea how Apple handles developer betas. Those betas expire after a certain amount of time elapses. In fact, iOS 5 beta 2 expired a couple weeks ago, and confusion over that expiration among the many non-developers running it probably contributed to exaggerated reports of widespread shutdowns of some iOS developers' accounts. I'd hope that any real developers would either know immediately why their iOS hardware locked them out as described above, or they'd at least know where to find the answer within two minutes. More than that, I'd think they'd know better than to load up their main iOS devices with beta software if they were heading on an extended trip to a region lacking reliable internet service -- like, you know, Africa. That's not the only reason non-developers shouldn't be toying with iOS betas. Unlike Google, who applied the "beta" label to things like Gmail years beyond when the term was still realistic, Apple's beta software is really, really beta. The first two iOS 5 betas were so crashtastic that many paying developers felt compelled to downgrade to iOS 4, and compatibility with many third-party apps gets broken with just about every beta iteration. My colleagues here at TUAW want me to emphasize this point: Apple's definition of "beta" when it comes to iOS is not the same as Google's, or Mozilla's, or many other third-party development entities. What Apple calls "beta" is what most other developers would call "alpha" -- software never intended for use by the general public, released only to small numbers of (hopefully) knowledgable people for testing purposes. If you want to look for an Apple example of "beta" software as almost everyone else defines it, look at the public release of OS X Lion, or just about any version of OS X before it. The 10.x.0 release of OS X is almost always riddled with bugs, inconsistencies, etc., and Apple usually pushes out a 10.x.1 update within a few weeks to address those. More cautious/paranoid Mac users often avoid upgrading to the next version of OS X until the .1 release for that very reason. The iOS x.0 public release software is usually pretty stable, but that's only because it's been preceded by months of testing on millions of units. The iOS betas themselves, especially the first few releases, are often about as stable as a drunken unicyclist. Sometimes this goes beyond app crashes and general instability -- sometimes, iOS betas can be so bug-riddled that the basic, core functionality of the device simply doesn't work worth a damn until the next release comes out. Developers know and understand these perils of beta software. Non-developers usually don't, so support forums get flooded with messages from irritated-to-irate users wondering why their formerly rock-solid device is suddenly crashing every time they try to load more than three tabs in Safari, or why the Music app crashes and burns every five minutes. Far worse than that is when these same people flood the App Store with negative ratings for apps that are "broken" in iOS 5, as developer Malcolm Barclay noted a couple months ago. "Your app crashes on launch in iOS 5. ONE STAR until it's fixed." These negative reviews have an insidious effect on developers' bottom line. Many users base their app buying decisions on an app's reviews, and if a dozen or more non-developers flood a small app with one-star ratings over iOS 5 incompatibility issues, it might mean that people who otherwise would have downloaded the app will avoid it instead. As Barclay said, App Store reviews aren't the place to file bug reports, and developers can't be expected to know beforehand whether beta software -- which no one leaving App Store reviews should be running in the first place -- will break their apps. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I'll be honest: I'm not an iOS developer, but I'm running iOS betas on both of my devices. Even though I'm not actively involved in writing apps, however, I still have an excuse to be running these betas -- it's my job to know what Apple's up to, even if the NDA prevents me from telling the rest of you about it until the official launch. That said, I also go out of my way to educate myself about the potential pitfalls of running beta software on my equipment, which is something I doubt many non-developers are bothering to do beforehand based on the number of emails like the one above we've been getting over the past couple months. I know you non-devs are curious about trying out the new features in iOS 5. I sympathize. I also know at least some of you are motivated by the "first kid on my block to have it" mentality. But you know the old saying about curiosity killing the cat? Running iOS beta releases on your hardware won't kill your cat, but it'll make it seem like the thing is running all over your house with a string of cans tied to its tail -- for three months. If your livelihood doesn't depend on running the iOS 5 beta, then for your own sake and ours, just let it be. If you don't know how to restore your iPhone or iPad's firmware without looking it up on Google first, just don't do it at all. If you're not prepared for a subpar experience involving bugs, crashes, app incompatibilities, weird UI behaviors, unfinished or even half-baked features, and even terrible battery life, then give iOS 5 a miss until the public launch, when Apple will (hopefully) have all the bugs squashed. If you don't understand the concept that iOS betas have an expiration date, and you must keep pace with the current betas if you want your hardware to continue functioning, then don't run iOS 5. In short, if you're not prepared for your Apple hardware to behave in a very un-Apple way for months at a stretch, then in the name of all that is holy, leave the betas alone.
iOS 5 beta 5 finally gets its jailbreak, rides home in a gangster limo
Numero cinque took a lot longer to crack than the previous betas. Are the Dev-Team guys beginning to struggle, or are they just out enjoying the sunshine? Either way, it's still tethered-only and it won't work on an iPad 2, but it's a heck of a lot better than the exercise yard. Jailbreak app developers can get busy with redsn0w 0.9.8b5 via the source link. [Thanks, Jeff and Kyle]
Preview of Bartleby Vol. 2 iPad app shows possibility of future AirPlay integration
We covered Monster Costume's interactive children's book Bartleby in 2010, and multiple TUAW reviewers found it to be a charming and well-crafted iPad app. Monster Costume is hard at work on Bartleby Volume 2, and even though I don't have kids of my own and am about 25 years beyond the target age group for this app, it still looks like a lot of fun. As you'll see in the video demo below, Bartleby Vol. 2 is really taking iPad interactivity seriously. Like many other iPad apps, it allows you to plug your iPad into your TV and use the iPad as a sort of oversized controller for the game. The video shows an iPad 2 hooked into an HDTV via an HDMI dongle, which may seem clumsy and possibly a recipe for disaster with smaller kids -- but if you've got an Apple TV 2, there may be a solution to that problem coming this fall. The upcoming iOS 5 update will allow wireless video via AirPlay for any app that supports it, and in fact, it seems the only reason Monster Costume isn't showing off the AirPlay functionality already is because of Apple's NDA for iOS 5 features. AirPlay could turn the Apple TV 2 into a de facto game console for apps like Bartleby. Seeing this demo has now got me thinking about the upcoming Final Fantasy Tactics release for the iPad and hoping Square-Enix includes this feature, too. Bartleby Volume 2 looks great so far, and Volume 1 is currently available for free until Volume 2's release. If you've got young kids, definitely check it out. Bartleby Airplay Demo from Monster Costume Inc. on Vimeo.
iOS 5 beta 5 now available
As Fall's iOS 5 release grows steadily nearer, the iOS 5 beta updates continue. iOS 5 Beta 5 is now available for your downloading pleasure at the iOS developer site, along with the other expected items that continue to be synchronously updated to support the beta. Paid developer members can sign in with your developer credentials to gain access to this beta. Because our own Mike Grothaus ran into trouble this last beta, let me remind you to register your device at the developer portal and prepare it for development before installing the new beta onto pre-beta equipment. The beta is, as always, released under the terms of Apple's NDA. For that reason, enhancements, APIs and features are not listed within this post. TUAW's iOS 5 coverage -- researched and written by our non-NDA staffers -- is available here. Happy developing everyone! Thanks, everyone who tipped us.
