xSellize: xNews

After Apple presented a new license payment offer

Apple has revealed that it has been cleared to sell its iPhone 4 and 3Gs, iPad Wi-Fi from its online store in Germany, after the temporary suspension of an injunction by Motorola Mobility.

Motorola Mobility won an injunction, which required Apple to suspend the sales of several iPad and iPhone models in Germany last week, after a regional court in Mannheim, Germany ruled that Apple should stop selling its mobile devices that infringe certain Motorola cellular communications patents.

Following the presentation of a new license payment offer, a German court has suspended the injunction.

Apple stated that all iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple's online store in Germany shortly.

The company said Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.

However, the company did not reveal when the sales would resume, while Motorola stated its intent of continuing to pursue claims against Apple.

Motorola Mobility said that it was in discussions with Apple and offering the company reasonable licensing terms and conditions since 2007.

Via CBRonline

In a recent interview with FastCompany, Ed McLaughlin, Chief of Emerging Payments at MasterCard, inadvertently confirms that Apple is indeed planning to enter the mobile payments business.


When asked to give an estimate for “when smartphone payments would become commonplace? ”, McLaughlin said the following:

“The timeline is always as rapid as it makes sense for consumers… that’s a combination of having a critical mass of the merchants, which is what you’re seeing right now, and getting devices into the hands of consumers. I don’t know of a handset manufacturer that isn’t in process of making sure their stuff is PayPass ready.”

So that would include Apple then? ”Um, there are…like I say, [I don't know of] any handset maker out there… when we have discussions with our partners, and they ask us not to disclose them, we don’t.”

For me, this means that the MasterCard Chief either hasn’t heard of the tech giant, Apple, or he has slipped up and given us all the confirmation we wanted. Personally, I would vouch for the latter.

[via FSM]

A source claiming to be in possession of an iPad 3 prototype provided BGR with images containing details about Apple’s highly anticipated third-generation tablet. From the data in the photos, which contain the output from an iPad 3 using a development and debug tool called iBoot, we can infer plenty of information about the upcoming iPad 3. For starters, the model numbers are J1 and J2 (iPad3,1 and iPad3,2), and while DigiTimes reported this a few weeks ago, these two models are not different devices, just a single iPad available in two versions — one with Wi-Fi only and one with Wi-Fi and embedded GSM/CDMA/LTE for all carriers. Also included in the photos is, for the first time, confirmation of which processor Apple will be using in the iPad 3: an A6 processor with model number S5L8945X. For reference, the Apple A4 model was S5L8930X and the A5 is S5L8940X. The new processor will also apparently be a quad-core model, making the upcoming iPad 3 the fastest iOS device ever, we have been told. More screenshots are included in our gallery below.

[via BGR]

For more photos, visit BGR site.

A few hours ago, we told you that Corona 5.0.1 Untether jailbreak was updated to v1.0-7 to include planetbeing’s iBooks image loading bugs fix. Corona v1.0-7 failed to work on the iPhone 4S running iOS 5, so it has been updated once again to fix that problem.

Saurik informs us that ALL jailbroken iOS users should install this updated ( iPhone 4S/iPad 2 users included ) except “old bootrom” iPhone 3GS users. You can find Corona in Cydia….


[via FSM]

When you tap the screen, Viggle's software for iPhones and iPads listens to what's on, recognizes what you're watching and gives you credit at roughly two points per minute. It even works for shows you've saved on a digital video recorder. Rack up 7,500 points, and you'll be rewarded with a $5 gift card from retailers such as Burger King, Starbucks, Apple's iTunes, Best Buy and CVS, which you can redeem directly from your device.



Want to earn stuff by watching TV? A free app for that debuted Wednesday.

When you tap the screen, Viggle's software for iPhones and iPads listens to what's on, recognizes what you're watching and gives you credit at roughly two points per minute. It even works for shows you've saved on a digital video recorder.

Rack up 7,500 points, and you'll be rewarded with a $5 gift card from retailers such as Burger King, Starbucks, Apple's iTunes, Best Buy and CVS, which you can redeem directly from your device.

With some back-of-the-envelope math, you can figure that it would take three weeks of watching TV every night for three hours to earn enough for a latte at Starbucks.

But the company plans to offer bonus points for checking into certain shows such as "American Idol" and 1,500 points for signing up. You can also get extra points for watching an ad on your device. The beta version awarded 100 points for watching a 15-second ad from Verizon Wireless.

"Viggle is the first loyalty program for TV," said Chris Stephenson, president of the company behind Viggle, Function (X) Inc. "We're basically allowing people to get rewards for doing something they're doing already and that they love to do."

The idea behind Viggle is that if people have an added reason to watch TV, the size of the audience will increase, allowing makers of shows to earn more money from advertisers. Advertisers such as Burger King, Pepsi and Gatorade have also agreed to pay to have point-hungry users watch their ads on a mobile device.

In exchange, users earn points, which Viggle converts into real value by buying gift cards at a slight discount from retailers.

If the company gets the point-count economy right, it can end up making more money from advertisers and networks than it gives away in rewards.

The app will also give the company valuable insight into who is watching what, as redeeming rewards requires putting in your age, gender, email address and ZIP code.

"It really shows what social TV is going to evolve into," said Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst at research firm Gartner. "For folks behind the scenes, this is a great way of seeing who really is watching."

The company hopes that user activity will grow by word of mouth, especially by offering a 200-point bonus to people who successfully get their friends to try out the service.

The app made its debut in Apple Inc.'s app store on Wednesday. Versions for Android devices and computers are in the works.

The company has put in some safeguards. You must watch a show at least 10 minutes to earn bonus points. And you can't watch the same ad over and over again to earn more points; there's a one-ad-view-per-person rule.

Function (X) is owned and led by entertainment entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman, who once owned a big stake in "American Idol" owner CKx Inc. That gives the company deep and broad connections in the entertainment business.

Function (X) has brought in $100 million in investment capital. Its stock trades on the Pink Sheets, a platform that allows people to buy shares but doesn't require the company release its financial results. Function (X) currently has a market value of about $1 billion.

Via FoxNews

9to5Mac is reporting that “a reliable source at Foxconn in China” has revealed details about Apple’s next iPhone – namely that it’s “currently being geared up for production,” according to the blog.

As for the reliability of this source, 9t05Mac says, “This source is the same that indicated to us late last summer that the iPhone 5 wasn’t happening against the prevailing tide of information, and Apple was building the iPhone 4S model instead.”

The iPhone 5 apparently exists at Foxconn – where many of Apple’s devices are manufactured –in the form of “various sample devices” instead of one finished, ready-to-go device, but 9to5Mac reports that all of the samples have the following features in common:

4+ inch display (made by LG on at least one of them)

No teardrop-shaped devices as were rumored in the lead up to the iPhone 4S. Samples so far have been symmetrical in thickness. Also longer/wider.

None of the sample devices have the iPhone 4/4S form factor

None of the devices are final versions

The blog also posits that the lead-time allotted for the production of a new iPhone would line it up for a release around June of this year, just in time for Apple’s big developer conference when past iPhones have been unveiled. Apple recently bucked that trend by waiting until October to announce the iPhone 4S.

As with all Apple rumors, take this news with a grain of salt. That being said, the idea that the next iPhone might sport a bigger screen has been the subject of multiple rumors in the past and wouldn’t be a huge surprise, given the recent trend of larger and larger smartphone screens. The symmetrical thickness quip is a new one, however, so we’ll see if that ultimately pans out.

Thanks to CrankySnorlax for pointing this topic out.

Via TechlanTime

Almost half a million iPhone 4S users took advantage of the freshly-released jailbreak for the latest Apple smartphone in the first weekend of availability, it’s reported, with over 300,000 iPad 2 owners also hacking their device. The pent-up demand for a jailbreak for Apple A5-based gadgets expressed itself in almost one million new jailbreaks in just over three days, the iPhone Dev Team says, using stats culled from the hack process itself.
That number also includes over 150,000 iPad 2 units that had previously been jailbroken running iOS 4.x. According to the Dev Team, newly jailbroken devices automatically check in for available SHSH blobs when the unofficial Cydia app store is opened, keeping a log of how many hacks have been performed.

GreenPois0n Absinthe was released on Friday, a team effort between the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev, taking on the challenge of Apple’s tweaked security in the newer A5 processor. There’s also a reminder for owners keen to keep their jailbreak not to update to a newer version of iOS, until at least there’s a jailbreak solution in place for it. Apple enjoys its cat & mouse game with hackers, working to close off previously exploited loopholes with each successive iteration.
Via SlashGear

Absinthe GUI for windows has been release get it now from

Uploaded: absinthe-mac-0.2.zip - http://dl.iparepo.co...6bxjlrqkakhtquy
Uploaded: absinthe-win-0.2.zip - http://dl.iparepo.co...92avvwe0fcnpkpg

The iPhone Dev team has released a Windows version of their CLI (Command Line app) for windows so those people that cannot wait for the windows GUI release this could be a godsend

You can download the tool from here [Download cinject 0.4.3] for instructions and readme here

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Greetings, friends & jailbreakers!



We are well-aware of how very many of you, our faithful fans, have been waiting for months for this announcement, so – with no further ado, we are excited to unveil the newest addition to our GreenPois0n toolkit…


Untethered Jailbreak for iPhone 4S & iPad 2 !
This release should come as no surprise to those of you who have been following pod2g’s iOS blog for the past few months. Earlier this week, you might have even wet your pants a little when you watched the video demonstration of today’s release (named Absinthe A5) and first witnessed our jailbreak working its magic to liberate both the iPhone 4S & iPad 2.

What you may not fully realize yet is just how hard the exploits in this Apple A5 jailbreak are working behind the scenes – and, though I mentioned it last week on my Twitter – what a glorious hacker’s wet dream the Absinthe A5 toolkit has ultimately evolved into!


Hacking the A5: Not Exactly a Walk in the Park
The ridiculously complex combination of exploits-within-exploits that make this iOS jailbreak possible have consumed thousands of hours of brain-power & effort from a legion of world-renowned hackers, several of whom have been working diligently on this project since the dual-core A5 processor was unveiled by Apple last March. Ten months ago, I myself was live tweeting from a tediously long line at the nearest Apple retail store, where I anxiously waited to become one of the world’s first owners (& hackers) of the newly-released iPad 2.

At that point, I don’t know if any iOS hacker anticipated how much the A5 chip would completely change the game & up the stakes. The endless war we fight to jailbreak has become more & more difficult with each new device released, and our recent battle against A5 only proved this further. After working for months with few tangible results, Chronic Dev hackers tried a new approach – we launched CDevReporter to accumulate all your devices’ crash reports, an invaluable source of information for iOS hacking & research. You answered our call-to-arms quickly & emphatically, sending us more than 10 million of these reports in less than a week. (Keep up the good work!)

Meanwhile, the iPhone 4S was released with resounding success – more than four million devices were sold in the first weekend alone. As a result, demand for an untethered A5 jailbreak grew exponentially overnight, and a mob-like mentality was adopted by many of the (usually courteous) Apple fan-kids. Suddenly, every iOS hacker found himself the target of constant clamoring – on Twitter, in our (& other) blog’s comments, in forums & tech news blurbs. Their message was loud & clear: “We want our new iPhones jailbroken, & we want it NOW!”


Introducing the 2012 iOS Hacking “Dream Team”
We finally admitted that the escalated obstacles presented by Apple’s new A5 processor would not likely be overcome by one individual or team – but all together, we should be more than able to conquer any challenges encountered. As such, a diverse group of iOS hackers all decided to set aside our personal goals & egos, relax our die-hard team loyalties, and pool our respective skill-sets, talents & exploits to form an iOS Super-Hacking “Dream Team.”

Numerous prominent iOS hackers contributed time & expertise to the project through their troubleshooting, brilliant obstacle-clearing ideas & other support. We’d like to extend special thanks to saurik & MuscleNerd, both core members of iPhone Dev Team.

Of the 4 hackers who deserve extra recognition & gratitude for completing the lion’s share of the research, development & programming of this jailbreak, 3 are members of Chronic Dev Team: myself (posixninja), pod2g & nikias. The fourth & most legendary member of our “Dream Team” is planetbeing, the globally-admired iOS hacker/developer responsible for initially porting both Linux & Android to the iPhone (among his many other contributions).

As to the amazingly innovative fusion of exploits used in this iOS jailbreak – we plan to save most of that discussion for a panel/presentation we hope to give at a conference later this year. If you want to learn more now, pod2g wrote an excellent blog post after the release of Corona, in which he describes in detail the userland & kernel exploits we used, both for the A4 iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak and as a starting point for this Absinthe A5 toolkit.

Help Advance our Ongoing iOS Research & Support the Future of Jailbreaks!


CONTRIBUTE HERE directly to Chronic Dev Team
Say “THANK YOU!” to Developers of this A5 Jailbreak for a Job Well Done!


CONTRIBUTE HERE to iOS Hacking “Dream Team”

Download GreenPois0n Absinthe Now
To jailbreak your iPhone 4S (running iOS 5.0 or either 4S version of 5.0.1**) and/or your iPad 2 (all Wi-Fi only, GSM & CDMA devices supported; must be running iOS 5.0.1**) – select one of the links below to download your Absinthe A5 untethered jailbreak. Simply unzip the file, then install on your iOS A5 mobile device with one click of a button! As always MacOSX version is being released first, and Windows and Linux versions will be released shortly after.

Windows » Coming Soon…

Mac OS X » GreenPois0n Absinthe v0.1.2-1

Linux » Coming Soon…

**NOTE: If you haven’t yet heeded the advice I gave weeks ago – before you take one step further, upgrade your firmware to iOS 5.0.1 NOW! (Unless you need an iPhone4s Unlock) Also, we don’t mean to beat you over the head with this warning, but please remember: you should not update to iOS 5.0.2 when it’s released, or you will lose your jailbreak! Bookmark our GreenPois0n blog now, and be the first to know the next time we advise our jailbreak users to safely update their iOS firmware.

As with all our previous GreenPois0n releases, should you run into any bugs in the A5 jailbreak, leave us a comment below or contact us on Twitter (via Chronic Dev Team, GreenPois0n, or directly to “Dream Team” hackers posixninja, pod2g or nikias). Even if we aren’t able to respond to your messages individually, we depend on all users to let us know about any issues you run into so that we can address them & fix the most-reported problems as quickly as possible.


Muchas Gracias
First & foremost, THANK YOU to all our loyal fans & readers for your enduring patience over the past several months. We’ve been toiling night & day in order to perform the serious hacking ninja magic required to develop the most advanced iPhone jailbreak yet – we only hope it was worth your wait! And as always, thank you for your never-ending support of Chronic Dev Team & all our GreenPois0n releases!

I also want to express my personal gratitude to:

• saurik – for all your guidance & support, especially in helping us out of the sandbox, and for acting as administrator to the “Dream Team” donation fund;
• Chronic-Dev, LLC – for hosting the web servers that will inevitably crash due to the sheer number of simultaneous download requests; and
• finally & especially, the other “Dream Team” members – for all your expertise, dedication, cooperation & countless hours of hard work! It was a true pleasure to work closely with each of you, and without your contributions, this jailbreak would not have been possible.

[Download Absinthe Mac 0.1.2-2]
[Download Absinthe Mac 0.1.2-1]

As said it might even land later today after testing let's hope but it looks promising,from the Dev Team Blog

Ever since the December release of @pod2g’s “corona” untether for iOS 5.x on A4 and earlier devices, all eyes have been on the attempts to extend it to the A5 devices: the iPhone4S and iPad2.  Due to the combined efforts of @pod2g and members of the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team, we’re nearly ready for a general release!  All technical hurdles dealing with the underlying technique have been overcome, and it’s now all about making the jailbreak as bug free as possible.

On his blog, @pod2g playfully nicknamed the combined effort a “dream team”.  It’s an ironic name, because the past few weeks have left everyone involved with very little sleep and the opportunity to dream But we’re now near the final stages of testing the public version of the jailbreak.  Please allow time to clean up any remaining bugs in the jailbreak clients.

Jailbreak programs:

To be as flexible as possible, the A5 version of the corona jailbreak will take multiple forms:

Chronic Dev have incorporated the overall flow into a GUI that runs on your Mac or PC
iPhone Dev have incorporated the exact same flow into a command-line interface (CLI).  This will allow us to help users through individual steps of the jailbreak manually, to both help the user and help improve the overall flow.  Although the CLI will also allow the user to perform the entire jailbreak from beginning to end, we anticipate it will be more useful in debugging the occasional errors.  The CLI currently has over 20 individual options (in addition to the single “jailbreak” option) that should be useful during debug after the GUI release.
Once all the bugs in the flow are worked out, we’ll also incorporate it into the redsn0w GUI (but still leave the CLI freely available too).  In order to maximize the chances of the jailbreak working for everyone, the redsn0w GUI will use native Apple iTunes libraries — this technique is slightly different than how the Chronic Dev GUI handles communications, and should provide nice combined coverage for all the odd computer configurations out there.
Paypal Contributions:

Because there were so many different people and teams involved in the A5 corona release, we all felt the most equitable approach to any Paypal contributions should involve a single shared account.  If you do feel the desire to contribute to the “dream team” Paypal account, it will be distributed to the members according to internally agreed-upon proportions  The same link will be on both the Chronic Dev and iPhone Dev versions of the GUI.  This method seemed like the fairest to everyone involved!

Firmware:

The supported firmware versions will be:

iPhone4S: 5.0 (9A334), 5.0.1 (9A405) and the “other” 5.0.1 (9A406)
iPad2: 5.0.1 (9A405)
iPhone4S owners looking to maximize their chances of achieving an eventual software-based carrier unlock should be staying at 5.0.  Everyone else should be at 5.0.1.  If you’re an iPhone4S owner who already updated to 5.0.1, it’s too late to go back down to 5.0, but if you’re on 9A406 it is possible to downgrade the BB by going to the 9A405 version of 5.0.1 while the window is still open.

Support:

The overall flow used by the GUI and CLI to inject the A5 corona jailbreak has never been done before, and there may be unforeseen problems once it’s released to the public.  It’s very important for you to sync your data, photos, and music before attempting any version of this jailbreak.  We’ll be watching the comments section below for signs of any widespread problems, but please be aware that you jailbreak at your own risk! 

When:

As mentioned at the start of this post: when testing has shown most of the bugs have been fixed!

Also a tweet from Muscle Nerd confirms its dropping really soon.
https://twitter.com/...260454244028416
Happy Days My A5 Friends

The Corona untether for iOS 5.0.1 gets its first and second updates tonight.



Corona was the name given to the iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak package that was released into Cydia this morning as we covered during its initial release. The untethered jailbreak was possible either through the use of Corona or by the new redsn0w 0.9.10b1. That's just to clarify if you didn't know what Corona was.

Apparently, as found by planetbeing, Corona broke 'launchctl' which is a dependency for a handful of applications and tweaks that you download in Cydia. This basically means that installing Corona would make launchctl stop working even though it worked perfectly fine prior to installing Corona. Launchctl is a program that manages daemons, scripts, applications, and things of that sort (yeah it's kind of important). To fix this issue, Saurik issued an update (Corona version 1.0-2) that would keep Corona from breaking launchctl so that the dependent applications and tweaks will function correctly on your device.




Additionally just a few minutes ago, Saurik pushed a second update (Corona version 1.0-3) which fixes another problem - using redsn0w 0.9.10b1 to install the untethered jailbreak (when you were already tethered) actually caused the same problem as above with launchctl breaking after the untether install. This means that redsn0w users were facing the same problem as the lazier people who simply installed the Corona untether from Cydia and left it at that. Just go into Cydia and download that update and you should be good to go.

The new version should patch the problem and make it so that launchctl dependent applications and tweaks work properly even after you install the untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1. A couple of applications that require it include OpenSSH and IntelliScreenX. Corona is still in its early stages and we expect that there will still be more problems in the future - but with a dedicated jailbreak team monitoring problems, we should see those wounds mended quickly and efficiently. Keep your eyes on that changes tab for the next couple of days or weeks.

via Saurik

It seems like we are not too far off now from a public release of an untethered jailbreak for both iPhone 4S and iPad 2. Pod2g, who is the genius behind this iOS 5 exploit for both A4 and A5 devices, has posted a video on his blog which shows jailbroken iPhone 4S running Cydia, on iOS 5.0.1, fully untethered.




Pod2g posted on his blog:

Quote

Earlier today, a member of the so called “Dream Team”, the legendary iPhone hacker PlanetBeing, tweeted out some more progress on A5 jailbreak (for iPhone 4S and iPad 2), confirming unsigned code running successfully on his iPhone 4S.

Quote

While there is still no official ETA from either of the Dev-Teams for this most awaited jailbreak in recent times, but if the “hint” in Pod2g’s blog post is anything to go by, it is only a matter of few more days now before we can all get our hands on jailbreak for both iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

In the meantime, if you still haven’t upgraded your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 to iOS 5.0.1 yet, it is highly advisable to do so now as Corona untethered jailbreak exploit has been reportedly patched by Apple in the latest iOS 5.1 Beta. You MUST upgrade your device to final version of iOS 5.0.1 now before iOS 5.1 is released to public. This is important because once final version of IOS 5.1 is out, you wont be able to downgrade your device back to iOS 5.0.1 and hence will be out of luck for any jailbreak until the next one pops out – which probably wont be available anytime soon.

And those of you who are sporting A4 devices, you can follow our complete step by step guide posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 untethered on iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touch 3G/4G using Redsn0w.




via Redmondpie , pod2G

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With the anticipation of the A5 jailbreak on its way to life. We hear from the man himself after his long slumber @planetbeing. Working on the unsigned code that will become the next jailbreak for 4s users.
But that’s not the surprising part. Many of our well known Dev's in the Cydia iOS community are welcoming back are long time hero.. Dev's such as @copumpkin @FilippoBiga @sherif_hashim & many more.
So I guess most of us non dev users aren’t the only one's to see such progress in a ios development of the new year.


via @planetbeing

The Chronic Dev Team's tool is now available as a Cydia package.

Do you remember the tool that the Chronic Dev team released that let them obtain your iOS crash reports instead of Apple? Thanks to a feature of iOS 5 that allows the iDevice to send crash reports to Apple directly from the device without a computer (the PC-free feature), developer innoying has built a Cydia package that will do exactly the same thing without you needing to tether up to a computer and run software. The package can be downloaded for free in Cydia and it's called, "CDevReporter." It's new and you will find it under the recent changes.

What it does is it sends your crash reports from iOS to the Chronic Dev team instead of Apple so that they can search for exploits that will aid with future jailbreaks. With iOS 5.1 just on the horizon, we are hoping that the Chronic Dev team will be able to construct an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5.1 as well. iOS 5.1 allows us to delete photos from our Photo Stream individually instead of an all-or-nothing ideal. Also, it's said to completely fix the battery problem with the iPhone 4S and allow iPhone 4S users to toggle 3G.

When you install CDevReporter, you will be given a new settings Cell that give you the option to toggle the crash reporting tool on and off at your own leisure. This gives you the option to keep your data personal or public based on your own convenience. It will use the same data that was collected by the computer version of the tool, only this Cydia package makes the process automatic and more mobile. The Settings for CDevReporter will look like the image above.

The settings gives you a good overview of what the package does - installing a daemon in the background to monitor crashes - which can be enabled or disabled at any time with the switch. We ask that if you want to see more future jailbreaks for iOS 5, keeping them untethered as well, that you please assist in dumping your crash reports to the Chronic Dev team.

via: Check your Local Cydia