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Soundfreaq's Sound Stack Bluetooth speaker sports dual subwoofers, $400 pricetag
Soundfreaq doesn't release speaker systems often, but it's safe to expect something spectacularly sexy when it does. Such is exactly the case with its latest audiophile-aimed creation, the Sound Stack wireless speaker. The company is toting this $400 Bluetooth-enabled HiFi rig as a "2.2" speaker system, thanks to its DubSub design -- a duo of active subwoofers pump out lowend in an effort to complement its two other "full-range" drivers. Soundfreaq's also packed this puppy with its UQ3 processing to keep the soundstage wide despite the unit's size. Better yet, downloading a free Remote App (available on Android and iOS) unlocks the system's FM radio -- perfect for when you're feeling nostalgic. If that wasn't enough, the Sound Stack's also loaded with an iThing dock and a USB input, both of which can be used to re-juice your devices while streaming. If your Gadget Acquisition Syndrome is already kicking in, fret not, the Sound Stack is available for purchase now. You'll find more details past the break.
iPhone 4S gets official date and blessing by C-Spire, all yours on November 11th
Oh, heck yeah. We've already been delighted by the news that C-Spire (the hip carrier formerly known as Cellular South) is the lucky recipient of the iPhone 4S, but we now have a date -- and it's coming up pretty fast. Both the 4S and the 4 will be ready for your purchase on November 11th, unsurprisingly for the same exact cost as the big three national carriers: $99 for the 8GB iPhone 4 and $199-399 for the iPhone 4S, but the deal's sweetened by the offering of unlimited data (though the two lowest plans exclude streaming). If you're down with that, it's a good idea to head over to the site and get pre-registered as soon as possible. Now that the little guys officially have the iconic device, who's next? Full press release after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iPhone 4S arriving in Hong Kong, South Korea and a number of other locales on November 11th
Apple is getting ready to add a whole slew of new locations to its iPhone 4S world domination plan. Starting November 11th, the company's latest smartphone will be available in Hong Kong, South Korea and 13 additional countries, including Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Malta, Montenegro, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Portugal, and Romania. Pre-orders for those locations (save for Albania, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malta, Montenegro and Panama) will begin on the 4th. The handset is currently available in 29 countries -- that number will increase to more than 70 by year's end. Press info can be found after the break.
Siri port now talking to Apple servers, avoiding Cydia
A little cajoling from a clever developer got Siri talking to the iPhone 4 and the iPad, but Apple's tight-lipped servers kept the conversation effectively one-sided. The last-gen port was still missing something, and developer Steven Troughton-Smith knew where to find it: a jailbroken iPhone 4S. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith said that getting Siri to talk to Cupertino's data servers only took ten minutes after he had all of the pieces in place. Ready for your personal assistant port? Hold the phone, the process is a bit dodgy -- our hacking hero said that getting Siri on the older device is a 20-step process, and it requires files from the iPhone 4S that he says aren't his to distribute. When asked about distributing the hack over Cydia, Troughton-Smith said it was something he couldn't be a part of. On Twitter he suggested that a release would "anger the hive," but promised to post detailed notes on the hack after a iPhone 4S jailbreak drops.
Siri hacked to work on jailbroken iPhone 4 and iPod touch
iPhone experts Steven Troughton-Smith and chpwn seem to have just gotten the iPhone 4S-only Siri working on jailbroken iPhone 4 and current-gen iPod touch units this evening. This bypasses earlier authentication issues. They tweeted their success and posted a screen shot showing Siri working via Wi-Fi (the Airplane Mode icon just means that 3G is turned off, but it is possible to turn Wi-Fi back on even in AM; that's what they did.) Their success comes just weeks after the iPhone 4S debuted. Since Apple's back-end systems are checking for iPhone 4S devices before processing Siri queries, they managed to work around this limitation. The hack is based on moving compiled code components from a 4S to the older units. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith recounts that the Siri transplant was about a 20-step process, and that it does require access to a jailbroken iPhone 4S to work. He has no intention of releasing the mod to the public; this is a proof-of-concept only.
Apple reportedly acquires C3 Technologies, iOS Maps overhaul on the horizon?
Last we saw of C3 Technologies' 3D mapping software it was making an appearance on Sony Ericsson's X10, but if 9to5Mac turns out to be right, its next stop could be the iPhone. According to the publication, Cupertino recently scooped up the Saab spin-off and C3 execs have since been working closely with the iOS division. Earlier this year, Apple posted job listings, looking for developers to "radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services." On a related note, the outfit previously acquired Poly9, a web-based mapping company. So is the fruity one looking to up its street (navigation) cred? Is it finally ready to give Google Maps the boot? We'll just have to wait and see.
Poll: What's broken (or working) for you in iOS 5?
If you haven't updated to iOS 5 by now, let's face it: you never will. It's cool. We get it. Some of us are still using Netscape, too. For the rest of the iOS universe, though, iOS 5 has almost certainly been installed, and now that you've had a few weeks to tinker with it, we're interested in seeing what quirks are being found. We've received a number of reports surrounding call connection issues (on both Verizon Wireless and AT&T), "invalid SIM" warnings, a bug that shows an inbox as being full (when it clearly isn't) and iCloud refusing to load email altogether. Oh, and then there's that pesky Siri pincode bypass -- tsk, tsk! Toss your vote in below, and converse amongst yourselves in comments. Sharing is caring! %Poll-70290%
iPhone 4S battery concerns and tips for better performance
Since the iPhone 4S was released, several customers have reported sub-optimal battery performance. Not only in standby time (Apple's iPhone specs comparison chart notes that the 4S offers 200 hours of standby time, while previous models offered 300), but in daily use as well. The UK's Guardian newspaper reports that some users have been directly contacted by Apple engineers (!) who are trying to suss out the issue. Today, Erick Schonfeld reports his experience at Tech Crunch. Despite moderate use during an 8-hour work day -- about two-and-a-half hours of Internet and email and roughly 30 minutes of calls -- his iPhone's battery had died. If the iPhone saw hands-on activity for about three hours, according to Erick's anecdotal observation, it spent about 5 hours sitting idle. As Erick notes, the phone was "...constantly bleeping with notifications and emails. And that may very well be the problem." Often a "resting" iPhone is in fact doing something, and it's possible that very frequent notification alerts can contribute to battery drain. Per the Guardian story, problematic contacts may also be to blame (see Chris Breen story below). While we wait and see if anything official will come from Apple on this apparently widespread problem, here are a few general tips you can use for preserving battery life on an iOS device. You won't suddenly run 12-hour days after trying these things out, but every bit helps, right? Lower screen brightness. A blazing screen equals a blazing battery. Move that slider a bit to the left. Reduce alerts you don't need. Yes, push notifications are wonderful as are their corresponding beeps. Just look at how many you've got enabled and whittle it down to the essential. Enable quick screen locking. You can typically let the display go to sleep when you aren't actively using your iPhone. Enable Airplane mode when offline. It kills Wi-Fi and data dead. Plus it's polite to whomever you happen to be talking with. Reduce email checking. Do you really need to see a new message every five minutes? Make sure you're not synchronizing massive mail folders you don't actually need on the go, like Sent, Drafts or Junk. Try de-synchronizing your Exchange, iCloud or Google contacts and seeing if that improves matters -- you may have a corrupt contact record in there. Admittedly these tips are common sense stuff and probably won't address more specific issues others are reporting. For example, the folks at iDownloadBlog suggest that the Time Zone setting could be a problem and describe a way to test your own device (note that they tested the iPhone 4 and 3GS, not just the 4S), while Christopher Breen discovered that an errant contact was causing a battery-draining crash loop while trying to sync to iCloud. If you've found any helpful tricks, please share in the comments.
10 cool things you can do with Wolfram Alpha and Siri
Steve Sande and I have been collaborating on "Talking to Siri," an ebook that just recently hit the Kindle store. It's a how-to that will help you get the most done with your Siri intelligent assistant. We're sharing some of our favorite tips with TUAW readers. Today, we're looking at Siri's Wolfram Alpha integration. You can force Siri to use Wolfram by prefixing your request with "Wolfram." For example, you might say, "Wolfram, what is the square root of 2?" or "Wolfram, graph x-squared plus three." But there's a lot more that you can do with Wolfram than just math. Here are ten of our favorite Wolfram searches. These highlight the flexibility of this amazing information resource. Roll a Random Number. Say "Wolfram, random integer." Wolfram returns a random value between 0 and 1000. "Wolfram, random number" provides a 0 to 1 floating point value. Look up nature facts. Say, "Wolfram, what is the scientific name of a mountain lion?" It's Puma concolor. Rabbits are Leporidae, and Peacocks, Galliformes. Check upcoming holidays. Say, "How many days until Thanksgiving?" This returns both the number of days as well as a helpful calendar so you can chart out the time until then. Create a secure password. Say "Wolfram, password." Wolfram generates a difficult-to-crack 8-character password. Scroll down for alternates. If you need a longer password, you can append these together. Convert text to Morse code. Say, "What is Morse code for horsefeathers?" You'll see the entire sequence laid out for your tapping pleasure. Check your diet. Say, "How many calories in a small apple?" Wolfram will tell you that there are 75. Ask out about time zones. Say, "Wolfram, what is the local time in Jakarta?" Query about your chances. Say, "Wolfram, what is the probability of a full house?" For a random five-card hand, it's apparently 1 in 694. Have fun with pop culture. Say, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?" or "Wolfram, who shot the sheriff?" Visualize colors. Okay, I've saved the best for last. If you work with colors, this can save you a lot of time. Say, "Wolfram pound sign E 9 7 4 5 1" (for Burnt Sienna / Tangerine) or "Wolfram pound sign 2 9 A B 8 7" (for Jungle Green). This will also convert the colors to RGB values and look up closely-matching brand colors from Benjamin Moore. Make sure to scroll down to catch all the helpful information.
Apogee Jam guitar adapter review
Musicians have long needed ways to catalog ideas and capture rough recordings of new material without the anchor that is a full-fledged recording setup. Apogee offers just that with its Jam guitar adapter for the iPad, iPhone and Mac, which allows you to strum your way to a record deal via an iOS device. Whether you're on the road or in your living room, the ability to connect a Les Paul to a mobile device and crank out the demo for your next hit is super helpful. But, is it worth the $100 investment to have recording-on-the-go at your fingertips? Read on to see what we discovered. %Gallery-137053%
Samsung claims top spot in global smartphone shipments for Q3 2011, Apple slips to number two
On this edition of As The Smartphone World Turns..., we've got Samsung violently snatching victory from the jaws of Apple, claiming its spot at the top of global smartphone vendors once more. Dramatics aside, the latest shipment figures tallied up by Strategy Analytics are showing that worldwide smartphone shipments are up 44 percent year-over-year, reaching a staggering 117 million units in Q3 2011. Digging into that a bit, we're told that Samsung has overtaken Apple from a units-shipped standpoint, with Sammy moving 28 million smartphones and claiming 24 percent of the market share. If you'll recall, Apple briefly grabbed hold of numero uno last quarter, but has now fallen a rung with 15 percent of the global pie. Of course, things could be dramatically different when we see Q4 2011 figures roll out -- remember, Q3 2011 was the last quarter in a long string with the aging iPhone 4 as Apple's "newest" device. Stranger still, Nokia is slotted third with just 14 percent of the global share, representing a precipitous drop from 33 percent a year ago. Similarly, Nokia's fortunes are apt to change with both the N9 finally out and its spate of Windows Phone devices heading out in short order. Hop on past the break for the full breakdown.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Why am I in Atlanta?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I recently upgraded to iOS 5 on my 3GS. Oddest thing happened yesterday. I am sitting on board a jet in NH waiting to take off for Atllanta. I pull up Find My Friends to see where a few people are at and it shows me on the tarmac at the Atlanta airport. Thinking it might be an app error, I pull up Google Earth and it showed the same thing. I was on a Delta flight with wifi but had not connected to the network. I felt like I was in a Star Trek time warp. Any thoughts? Your loving nephew, Chad Dear Chad, Auntie thought this might have to do with the plane's onboard WiFi system, so she turned to Uncle Steve to explain the situation. Steve replies, "Just because your iPhone wasn't connected to the network doesn't mean it wasn't using the airplane's Wi-Fi for geolocation. I had the same thing happen on a cruise last year. The ship had a home base of Port Canaveral, Florida, so all of the onboard networks were set so that any device locally thought they were sitting at port in Florida -- even when we were in St. Petersburg, Russia! "Chances are that all of Delta's aircraft Wi-Fi systems are set to show Atlanta as their "home base" location and that's what you were seeing. Bizarre, isn't it?!" Auntie hopes this helps explain what may have happened. Hugs, Auntie T.
Boxee updates iPad app to version 1.2, adds global Spotify support
It's only been a couple of months since Boxee unleashed its much anticipated iPad app, but the company has already come out with that much needed update to version 1.2. With the upgrade, users will be able to navigate across content sent to their Boxee Boxes using a remote control interface that's now located at the bottom right corner of the app. iPad owners can also pause video sent to their Box and pick up later where they left off, using the Boxee Media Manager. And, as expected, AirPlay sessions can now run in the background, giving you one less thing to worry about while lazing on the couch. On a related note, Spotify users can now use Boxee to access their accounts from anywhere in the world (previously, access was only granted in countries where Spotify is available). To get your app up to speed, check out the coverage link, below.
Siri shows up on an iPod Touch, no longer plays favorites in the iOS family
That Siri gal is certainly making the rounds these days. When she's not answering your questions on a 4S, she's showing up on iPads and elder iPhones. Not one to play favorites, Siri's now lending her considerable talents to an iPod touch. Two enterprising young hackers, euwars and rud0lf77, are the ones who put Siri on the iPod, and you can see the results of their labor in the video after the break. Of course, Apple's servers still aren't as friendly as the virtual voice assistant, so Siri's latest cameo remains a silent one -- but some Siri's better than none, right?
iOS 5 Safari speed gains demonstrated in New Relic infographic
Web application performance company New Relic released the results of a study comparing the mobile browsing speeds of iOS 4 and iOS 5 on the same model of iPhone. What did they find? That iOS 5 / Safari 5.1 is much faster than iOS 4 / Safari 5.0. New Relic complied their test results into the nifty infographic seen below. I love their conclusion: "Time to upgrade!" What has been your personal experience with web browsing or web app response times under iOS 5 and Safari 5.1? Leave your comments below.
Siri co-founder Kittlaus leaves Apple
According to a report from AllThingsD, Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has left Apple to pursue his own interests. The departure was supposedly amicable and Kittlaus will use his newly-found free time to spend time with his family in Chicago and explore new entrepreneurial ideas. He reportedly left Apple right after the launch of the iPhone 4S and the debut of new and improved Siri speech recognition assistant. His departure won't affect the future development of Siri as other members of the Siri executive team are expected to stay at Apple. Once a stand-alone iOS application, Siri was acquired by Apple in early 2010. The voice assistant is now integrated into the version of iOS 5 that ships on the iPhone 4S. It offers a conversational voice interface that lets you send and receive text messages, search the web, add reminders and appointments, navigate using Apple Maps, get the weather forecast and more.
Siri ported to iPad, still getting silent treatment from Apple servers
Developers wasted no time bringing Siri to the iPhone 4, and nine days later, it's been brought to the iPad as well. This version, running on a first-generation jailbroken Apple tablet, suffers from a similar problem as past non-iPhone 4S ports: it's still not talking to Apple's data servers. This means that until devs manage to get voice commands recognized and initiated, the iPad's unofficial virtual assistant will remain effectively gagged.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Can I disable those battery alerts?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Maybe I'm the only one this bothers, but Apple made a big deal about their whole new notifications in iOS 5. Then one day I was playing Canabalt, and I'm up to over 15,000! My high score is 17, so my heart really starts beating as I draw in. Suddenly I got a big pop-up on my phone alerting me that I have 20% Battery remaining. Maybe there was a glitch or something but my game kept going for about a second (maybe even a second and a half) before pausing. Obviously long enough for my poor little man to plummet to his death. I looked but couldn't find a way to set that type of notification to "banner." Maybe even go away completely? Please help if you know. If not, let's all complain and maybe Apple will add that in a future update! Your loving nephew, Adam Dear Adam, Oof. That must have hurt! Unfortunately, power level notifications are not controllable through user settings, the way that reminders, appointments, and messages are. You can always try submitting a feature request to Apple. Unfortunately, those tend to be popularity contests -- Apple tends to pay attention to the most requested items, and this is a wee bit, shall we say, niche. Unfortunately, Auntie doesn't really have any advice other than play games on a fuller charge where possible so you don't run into low-battery warnings. And yes, she knows how lame that advice is. Got other suggestions for Adam? Add them to the comments. Hugs, Auntie T.
Google Voice app returns to iTunes, iOS 5 crash bug fixed
Less than a week after it disappeared from iTunes, the Apple-friendly Google Voice app is back and declared iOS 5 friendly, per its official Twitter account. Also improved is operation sans-internet connection, since now there's no data required to dial numbers you've previously called. Hit the source link below for v1.3.1.1891 -- we'll never go back to the dark days of v1.3.0.1771.
Smart Cover can unlock password-protected iPads running iOS 5 (video)
Psst. Hey, do you carry a spare Smart Cover around with you? Well, if you're an unscrupulous sort, you can actually use it to bypass the lock screen of any iPad running iOS 5. This multi-step security hole will let you browse whatever's running behind the passcode screen, whether that's email, apps or the homescreen. To take advantage of the flaw, hold down the power button on the locked device until the power off slider appears, then whip the Smart Cover on, open and tap cancel. Fortunately for iPad owners, the rest of the tablet remains locked-down, but the main problem here is any sensitive information left on-screen. If you unlock the tablet to the main screen, you won't be able to open new apps, although anyone feeling particularly nefarious can apparently delete apps from that meticulously arranged home screen. See how it's done in the video after the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
