Siri Hacked - Cheaper iPhone4s' Incoming

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you probably know about Apple’s newest iPhone - the iPhone4s. The name really hasn’t changed much besides the ‘s’ slapped on the end and to be honest the hardware isn’t a huge jump either. The 4s has a better camera (8MP up from 5MP), a slightly faster processor (dual-core), and a better battery (allthough recently the battery life has been significantly worse due to buggy software). So what makes the iPhone4s better? The ‘s’ is exactly what; Siri.

Siri is Apple’s new voice command software which is built into the 4s. It can do tons of cool things and save tons of time. But Siri is software, and that’s all. Therefor there isn’t any logic reason as to why Siri couldn’t run on older iPhones, except maybe due to a possible lag. Below I have a video from 9to5mac.com which shows Siri hacked to run on an old iPhone4 and working! 

When Siri first came out it was hacked to run on an iPhone4, but the servers that do Siri’s commands wouldn’t respond to the outdated iPhone. Assuming that this video is real, there is a lot of hope to iPhone4 users out there and could hopefully save a lot of money down the road. Now to just get the guy to release the programs he used and a walkthrough (although, I’m sure that he intends to and is working on it as afst as he can right now). Check back here in the future for when the walkthrough is released and hopefully you too will be able to get an iPhone4s at the cost of the regular iPhone4.

Verizon Got iPhone - About Time

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that today the iPhone was released for Verizon today. Huge news for the company who originally passed up on the iPhone (but had a nice save by picking up Android devices). Now the battle of iPhone vs Android no longer is a fight between services, it truly will reflect which is the better phone. But with the newly adopted iPhone, will Verizon become Americas even more prominent service provider? Most people I know with AT&T have an iPhone, and switched for that purpose. But with Verizon’s reliability and large network, it is possible that many AT&T customers will switch to Verizon when their contracts end. Either way, with iPhone holding a considerable amount of smarthphone users in the US, I have no doubt that those numbers will rise, as will customers switching to Verizon.

But even though Verizon will be carrying the iPhone soon (February 10 release, Feb 2 preorders), I don't recommend you change quite yet, or even use that upgrade that you have on it now (you can wait to feed your angry birds thirst). Because every year apple releases a new 'iProduct' late in June every year, and with june rapidly approaching, what is waiting another couple of months? Maybe by then even the White iPhone will be released....never mind, I can’t even believe I just considered that.

iOS 4.2: So Close to Being Done Right

I am personally against apple, and am definitely a Microsoft fan-boy, but there are some things that apple just does right. And one of those is their portable devices. iPads, iPods, and iPhones dominate the market, and deservingly. My iPad is the best thing I've ever owned, and recently it got a little bit better.

A few weeks ago iOS 4.2 was released across all devices, allowing for multitasking, folders, as well as a bunch of other new installments (most of which were released in the earlier update for all devices, minus the iPad). And although I previously jail broke my iPad to get pretty much all of these features, I decided to update it, breaking my old jailbreak. And it was a great choice, minus the lack of free open source apps.

Pros

Multitasking: The first huge advantage of updating to iOS 4.2 was the ability to multitask. It is used the same way it previously was during my jailbreak, but now it has a much prettier UI to go with it. A simple double-click opens up a tab at the bottom, with a series of apps that I can switch between easily, and more successfully than previously (Pandora would crash every couple of minutes, or in between app-switches before). This new feature has become natural for me quickly, and was one of the reasons I previously jail broke my iPad.

Battery: With all of my old applications, my processor was constantly clocking at almost full power; which caused quite a strain on the battery. Now I'm not sure how Apple got around this problem, but with the addition of multitasking, they somehow were able to reduce this ridiculous battery drain. Multitasking does drain it quicker, but it's not very noticeable considering I use my iPad all day, and charge it twice a week with almost no battery issues.

Folders: Not much to comment on here. They should have existed from the start. They're super late, but are well done and extremely handy.

Printing: Using an iPad for business can be smart depending on your job, but as a student it completely replaces the need for a laptop. Printing is a necessary function, which really is defining the iPad as a business tool. Being able to print papers wirelessly is a huge advantage now, and I'm glad it's native now...no more stupid 10 dollar apps that have a 5% chance to work with your printer.

Cons

The Mute Switch: There’s few things apple did wrong, but one of them is HUGE. They changed that button on the side, from a screen lock...to a mute switch. I'm sadly disappointed with apples decision to do this; why fix something that's not broken?

Multitasking: I noticed this right away, but every app you open automatically stays opened in the background...causing someone like me who plays like 1000 games for 2 minutes at a time to kill their battery fast. Many non computer savvy people wouldn't ever even notice this, reducing their performance significantly over time. If using iOS 4.2 you have to remember to force shut down your unused background apps when you can, unless you want Nazi zombies to be taking up memory while your on Facebook....