Apple releases new iPhone commercials for AirPlay, FaceTime

Continuing their new “if you don’t have an iPhone” campaign, Apple began showing two new iPhone 4 commercials tonight — FaceTime and AirPlay. FaceTime demos iPhone-to-iPhone video calling, which has been a staple for Apple since iPhone 4 was released. It also demos iPhone-to-Mac and iPhone to iPad FaceTime, however, which is new. AirPlay highlights playing music from the iPod app on your home stereo and watching photos or movies on your Apple TV. (Of course, iOS 5 AirPlay mirroring will make a future commercial like that much, much more exciting…)

I’m still not a huge fan of the “if you don’t have an iPhone” preamble, but at least these get back to more customer facing features, unlike the 3 store ads we had recently. (But hey, at least they’re not trying to sell your wife a Tegra 2 processor…!)

Check them out after the break.

Jailbreakers Strike Back! (At Time Warner)

Jailbreakers Respond to Time Warner’s Attempt To Exclude Them

Three days ago I broke the story that Time Warner Cable, with an update for their TWCable TV App, intentionally excluded TW customers from use of their app on jailbroken devices. When a user of the app on a jailbroken device would attempt to open it, an infuriating message would appear stating that the app does not support jailbroken devices and then had the audaciousness to tell you to restore your device to factory default settings and then re-install the TWC Cable TV App. The complete reason for this move by TWC has still escaped me, but no matter. If TWC are Sith, then the JB’rs are Jedi Knights. And within the very week that this slap in the face to TWC customers who are jailbroken, the JB community has struck back with a resounding message to TWC and all who may challenge them with a loud and clear, “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.”

Within 3 days, the community has responded with a tweak called “Fake Time Warner (FTW)”, and For The Win indeed! Authored by Adrian Hamelink, the tweak he has created corrects this insulting slight and has re-opened the app to all JB’d devices so that the app acts normally and without interference.

What was particularly odd, foolish, and most of all sloppy about this attempt to ostracize Jailbreakers by TWC, was that for many iPad2 users who were not jailbroken, the app gave the same message to them. Acceptable casualties? I think not. Since the app was updated, 1-2 star ratings began to surface in great numbers with the same complaint from Non-Jailbreakers, lamenting at the fact they had to suffer as innocents to a war TWC had no business interfering with in the first place. Regardless to all of this the tweak can be downloaded (of course on Cydia) from the BigBoss Repository and with a confirmation, a respring and a wink with a nod, everyone who has suffered this indignity can go about their lives, chuckling at the hubris of TWC.

Download it now and re-liberate yourself from another attempt to capture and incarcerate you by yet another mutli-conglomerate.

App Store turns 3 years old

3 years ago today Apple launched the App Store. It was alongside iPhone 3G and MobileMe and while the former has been retired and the latter is soon to be replaced by iCloud, the App Store is still going strong. Phenomenally strong.

The App Store had XXX apps on day one. A year later it had over 56,000 that had been downloaded over 1 billion times. Last year it had over 225,000 apps — 8500 iPad native — and over 5 billion downloads As of last week we’re over 425,000 apps — 100,000 iPad native — and over 15 billion downloads.

And it shows no signs of slowing down. The app approval process has gotten smoother for the most part, and we seldom hear outrageous rejection stories any more. They’ve added subscriptions and even removed some of the more contentious requirements for using them. And with iOS 5 scheduled for this fall, and perhaps a whole new set of devices to use it, we should have even better apps and games ahead of us. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get Apple TV apps one day?

On the negative side, patent troll Lodsys has begun targeting some App Store developers, and while Apple has filed to intervene in the lawsuits, they’ve provided little reassurance for developers.

Still, the last year has been a bright one for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users. And apparently, Apple is just getting started.

Phil Schiller. Kicking @$$. On Autotune. [Fun video]

Ever wished you could hear Apple SVP, Phil Schiller on the WWDC 2011 stage, quoting All Things Digital‘s John Paczkowski saying “the Mac is kicking @$$”… run through autotune?

Us neither.

Then we watched it.

Check out the video after the break.

[YouTube via AllThingsD]

Google+, iOS 5 beta 3, 2 versions of the next iPhone, iPad HD – From the Forums

From the Forums is a great way to see what all of the current hot topics are on the TiPb forums. In order to create any new threads of your own or reply to any of the existing threads, you must be a registered member. Becoming a member is a simple process that will only take a few minutes out of your day, so if you have not already already done so, head on over and register now!

You may have noticed our new and improved forums, we’ve gone and added yet another little feature many of you have asked for, postbits. In your user control panel simply go “edit your details” and you now have the ability to add your carrier, devices and so on so it is shown for all users to see.

Do you need some people to add to your Google+ circles? If so visit the Google+ thread and you’ll find plenty of people to add! And as a shameless plug if you’d like to add yours truly you can find me here.

iOS 5 beta 3

How many new iPhones do you think we will see this fall?

Fall will be here before you know it along with a possible iPad HD?

Is there something you’d like to see added to the forums? Jump in the Feedback Forum and let us know!

See you in the forums!

Top 5 reasons to jailbreak your iPad or iPad 2

Now that iPad 2 can finally be Jailbroken, many of you are considering it and are asking us whether or not it’s worth it. Jailbreaking has always been popular among iPhone users, but some believe iPads already do what they want a tablet to do and aren’t as sure about the need for the extra functionality Jailbreak provides. With iOS 5 on its way this fall, the gap between stock iPads and Jailbreak will be closed even further.

So should you Jailbreak your iPad 2? Keep reading to see some of our top reasons why iPad and iPad 2 users may want to jailbreak.

While LockInfo may remain more popular for iPhone, it’s also great on the iPad.

We all know that the upcoming Notification Center will add better notifications to iPhone and iPad but it still doesn’t give you a ton of control. For power users who like to have complete control over their notifications and how they are presented, LockInfo will still remain at the top of their list.

David Ashman will continue to improve LockInfo even after the announcement of Notification Center. I doubt he will disappoint either. I’m excited to see what he and other developers will do with notification center widgets and how they’ll integrate certain frameworks of iOS 5 into already great apps.

Apple may have a native settings app, but there aren’t any quick toggles anywhere to be found. I like being able to turn wifi on and off quickly, disable or enable 3G on a whim, or be able to see how much available memory my device has. This is where SBSettings comes in handy.

Just a quick swipe of your top status bar and you can see your available memory, free it up, toggle features on and off, and much more. I’m currently stock due to beta testing iOS 5 and I still find myself constantly swiping my status bar every time I want to turn wifi on and off. It has become natural to me and it’s a tweak I dearly miss when I’m not jailbroken.

Apple may be adding more gestures to the iPad but I’ve always found Activator to serve me far better. You can set almost every gesture you could think of for pretty much any task. Maybe I want sliding up from the bottom of my iPad screen to take a quick screenshot. I can do this easily. I can customize my iPad to how I want it to behave, not how Apple “thinks” I want it to behave.

The new notification center in iOS 5 even takes after not only Android, but the way certain jailbreak features have used multi-touch gestures for years. LockInfo’s Infoshade feature has been a pull down option for quite some time now.

MyWi is not only a reason to jailbreak your iPad, but one of my overall top 5 jailbreak apps. I know this is a touchy subject for some people and that AT&T has been cracking down against unofficial tethering but I still refuse to pay for the one or two times I may or may not have to tether a month. I also don’t want to lose my unlimited data plan. MyWi simply allows me to turn my iPad or iPhone into a mobile hotspot and I can then connect to it just like I would any wifi network.

For those of you with 3G iPads, MyWi is a great app to have on hand in case you need to tether other devices. MyWi tends to run the battery on an iPhone down pretty quickly. My iPad was able to handle being a mobile hotspot for a lot longer. It’s an extremely useful app to have on board for when your iPad just won’t cut it and you desperately need the internet on another device such as a laptop.

One of my biggest peeves about iOS folders is that you are limited to 12 applications per folder. I still haven’t quite figured out why Apple did this but it’s annoying nonetheless. I don’t know about any of you, but I certainly have more than 12 games on my iPad. I don’t want to create 10 folders, I simply want one games folder that I can create nested folders inside of.

Jailbreak apps like Folder Enhancer allow you to do this. It removes the 12 apps per folder cap and also allows you to create nested folders. Now my iPad has sub-folders for even more organizational control.

While the iPad 2 can do this natively, original iPad users are left in the dark as Apple decided not to extend the functionality to original iPad owners. If you’re jailbroken, you can display mirror on the original iPad as well. I personally never felt the need to upgrade to the iPad 2. If and when I need to display mirror, I would simply use the jailbreak solution over buying an iPad 2.

So if you have an original iPad still and you’re willing to jailbreak, you can use the display mirroring feature just as easy as iPad 2 users can.

Those are our top 5 reasons to Jailbreak your iPad or iPad 2. If you Jailbreak your iPad or iPad 2, what are your reasons?

Flick Golf Extreme! HD now available for the iPad

Flick Golf HD has been a massive hit for developer Full Fat and it has now brought out a new game based on the same winning formula. Flick Golf Extreme! HD has even more weird and wonderful places to flick your golf ball at and more stunningly beautiful graphics to look at while you do.

Flick Golf Extreme! HD is available in the App Store today for $4.99. It certainly looks great and the reviews all seem to be very positive!

[$4.99 – iTunes link]