Should you jailbreak your iPhone 4 and iOS 4.0?

Nick
0
5th August

iPhone 4 What does jailbreaking mean?

In short, jailbreaking is the process of hacking an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to free it from Apple restrictions. The major purpose of this is so users can run third-party unsigned code on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Jailbroken devices are able to download many extensions and themes previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia while still being able to use the App Store and iTunes. Apple highly discourage users to jailbreak their devices but those who do can restore their device, to their out-of-the-box state, by reinstalling original firmware through iTunes. It is estimated that around 10% of all iPhones are currently jailbroken.

Only recently did we see a U.S court rule that users who jailbroke their iPhones were not violating any laws and already we have seen a quick but modest increase of apple users breaking their devices for the installation of unauthorized third-party applications. In a nutshell, this update to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act ensures Apple won’t be suing you for opening your device and running non-App Store approved applications. Within days of the ruling we saw a new web-based jailbreak application emerge to not only fuel an ever growing interest among iPhone users but offer a breaking method with unprecedented ease. Instead of relying on complicated hacks to break a device, users can now simply visit the JailBreakMe website via mobile safari and implement a break within seconds by literally the flick of a switch. Not only will this new web-app break your new iPhone 4, but any iPhone running iOS 4.0.1 or below and any iPad running iOS 3.2.1 or below too. Ok so jailbreaking your Apple device is now more legal and easier to do than ever before but there are still some important issues to weigh up before you rush out and break your iPhone or iPad.

So what are the risks and problems?

  • First and foremost to consider is that, jailbreaking your device will void your warranty with Apple and any new firmware upgrades Apple releases will erase any previous jailbreaking efforts by overwriting them.
  • You may experience immediate problems with inbuilt features, apps and settings. There have been reported issues with FaceTime and MMS especially, although these can apparently be fixed.
  • Most concerning of all are the potential security implications of jailbreaking a device. All apps available on Apple’s App Store have been through a vigorous and strict submission process that ensures their quality, functionality and security. When you download and install unsanctioned third-party apps however, you can’t be sure exactly what you’re getting — a handy app or malicious piece of software? Well you generally won’t know until you install it. In fact, the only two iPhone viruses ever reported have spread across iPhones that have been jailbroken.
  • By jailbreaking you run the slim risk that you may “brick” your iPhone or iPad. This occurs when an unsanctioned application or software conflicts with your device and renders it actually broken (as in useless). Phones that experience this are termed iBricks and because jailbreaking voids your warranty this is surely the most unfortunate result you can achieve. Again, the chances of this actually happening are next to nothing but the issue is still worth a mention.
  • No one knows your iPhone or iPad like Apple does. Apple engineer their products to work at their best (antenna issue aside) and it makes sense that by using non-approved apps that you run the risk of sacrificing functionality and user experience instead of enhancing it. Unauthorised apps may be useful but can conflict technically with your device and cause things like battery drainage for example.

Why would I ever want to jailbreak a device?

  • People jailbreak their devices most commonly because of the limitations of their iPhone or the App Store. Specifically, third party apps that have been declined by the App Store can offer jailbroken iPhones a range of benefits. Some of the most popular apps include the ability to Internet tether, multitask, use custom setting controls, turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi Hotspot and play novelty games that are considered too risqué for the App Store.
  • For those who are more technically oriented, jailbreaking an iPhone can mean running a basic variant of Apple’s, Unix-based, OS X operating system. This means people can install certain Unix applications such as a lightweight Apache Web server with PHP or SSH, adding a whole new world of capability.
  • Using an iPhone on different carriers can be achieved by unlocking it from the its current network through a process that usually involves jailbreaking the phone too. To unlock your iPhone and use it on any carrier, you must first Jailbreak your iPhone. Some of the Jailbreak solutions below also allow you to unlock the iPhone.

It comes down to you

At the end of the day the decision to jailbreak a device is completely up to the individual user. The intention of this article is not to push a recommendation but instead offer some information about the benefits and risks associated with jailbreaking so that readers can make an informed decision. Everyone has a different perception of these benefits and risks but it’s what you want out of your device that will ultimately sway you one way or the other. Please feel free to leave your opinions and comments, we love open discussion on these tricky topics!

Check out this video that helps explain the pros and cons!

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Categories: Mobiles, Technology

Got an idea for a mobile app?

Nick
0
5th July

app-ideaAlthough it has been relatively short-lived, the mobile application market for devices such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform is already growing fast. More overwhelming perhaps is the rate at which the market is expected to expand over the next couple of years as more consumers carry a Smartphone in their back pocket. According to Gartner, consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 and mobile application revenue is predicted to grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013. These are staggering figures but should, like any market forecast, be taken with a grain of salt.

Whether you like your research salted or unsalted, this report still indicates the serious potential of this market and it makes perfect sense. Mobile’s have come a long way from the days of simple calling, texting or even accessing the internet. Increasingly, we are seeing mobile devices playing a key role in people’s everyday lives from social media use, mobile commerce (aka m-commerce), research, gaming, photos and so on. In fact with over 225,000 apps for the iPhone and 50,000 for the Android, you might be thinking that there is not much a Smartphone can’t do these days. Well the truth is that the market is still somewhat of a gold mine for those digging with clever and unique ideas.

So the question is – do you have one? With the recent introduction of tablet mobile devices like the iPad, there is even more room to throw your ideas around. It’s no secret that there is potentially big money to be made with application development. Success stories of mobile developers making fortunes off apps have emerged almost overnight. It really is an exciting time to be involved whether you’re thinking on a large scale, small scale or anything in between. So, if you have a great idea for a mobile app and you want to make it a reality we would love to hear from you. Send us an email and also check out some of our previous work with apps.

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Categories: Innovation, Mobiles

M-Commerce explained + Magento Mobile, MobiCart and Square!

Simon
1
2nd July

M-Commerce has been defined as the “use of hand-held wireless devices to communicate, interact, and transact via high-speed connection to the Internet.” With the release of devices like the iPad, iPhone and Android platform M-Commerce is enabling consumers to access banking accounts and pay bills, receive stock quotes and initiate buy/sell transactions, or receive special promotions and generate orders from any place at any time.

From a survey done in April 2010, MMA (The Mobile Marketing Association) have concluded that one out of five U.S. mobile phone owners have used their cell phone for M-Commerce.

Here are a few likely types of M-Commerce tipped to emerge.

  • Business to Business -- Electronic transactions that are conducted as part of trading, for example, the payment for the supply of goods between a producer and a wholesaler.
  • Business to Consumer -- Involves businesses selling their goods and services directly to consumers.
  • Consumer to Consumer -- Such as auctions and classified ad purchases.

Below is a list of new and exciting technology and products set to make a mark on M-Commerce. We are particularly interested in Magento Mobile…

Magento Mobile

Magento are set to again revolutionise electronic commerce with the introduction of Magento Mobile. As stated on the Magento site -- “With Magento mobile, you can easily create branded, native storefront applications that are deeply integrated with Magento’s market-leading eCommerce platform.” This is definitely worth keeping an ear to the ground and registering for the limited release beta.

Mobicart

Mobicart is a free and simple way for you to build and manage your very own iPhone, iPad and Android mobile e-commerce shop.

Fully customisable -- It’s your own shop with your own brand.

Did we mention it’s FREE? - That’s right, MobiCart will be free so anyone can build and deploy their very own M-Commerce shop.

Update your app from anywhere -- MobiCart is web based so you can update your shop from anywhere.

iPhone, iPad & Android friendly -- Manage multiple devices from one easy to use platform.

A developers dream! -- With the open API, MobiCart will be a developers dream.

Square

Square comes with a peripheral credit card swiper that lets any store or business person take credit card (or cash) payments on iPhones, and now, iPads. It takes finger signatures on the touchscreen, generates email or SMS receipts, calculates sales tax, and comes with an online accounting dashboard to keep track of sales.

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Categories: Marketing, Mobiles, Technology, eCommerce

Apple iAd is on our Doorsteps

Nick
0
23rd June

Apple iAd iconBundled together with their latest release of the iPhone 4, Apple has also unveiled the iAd platform. Set for release on July 1st, Apple’s plans for in-app ads are stirring the pot. In practical terms, this means interactive and video content ads are going to be served up without people leaving apps and therefore being able to return to their app at any time by closing out the ad. According to Jobs, the type of ads you’re going to see will be different, ideally hitting the intersection of emotion and interactivity. Since the average person spends 30 minutes inside apps per day, Jobs figures, one ad every three minutes would lead to 1 billion ad impressions per day over Apple’s 100 million devices.

This release comes as no shock to the system as early signs of such a platform being developed from Apple were evident. In fact, Apple’s been considering mobile advertising as early as January with its acquisition of worldwide mobile ad agency Quattro. Apple also started clearing the path for itself by warning off developers from apps that use location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location. Apple’s recent presence in the mobile display advertising space has led to an increased estimate for the market. It is now expected mobile ads – both in applications and on the mobile Web – will top $1 billion in 2012. Of course Apple are set to be leading the pack in this space. Like they have done so many times before, Apple has trailblazed a path for many to follow them. The question — how will you and your business make use of this exciting new platform?

For more reading check out the offical Apple iAd Debut press release.
Bundled together with their latest release of the iPhone 4, Apple has also unveiled the iAd platform. Set for release on July 1st, Apple’s plans for in-app ads are stirring the pot. In practical terms, this means interactive and video content ads are going to be served up without people leaving apps and therefore being able to return to their app at any time by closing out the ad. According to Jobs, the type of ads you’re going to see will be different, ideally hitting the intersection of emotion and interactivity.

Since the average person spends 30 minutes inside apps per day, Jobs figures, one ad every three minutes would lead to 1 billion ad impressions per day over Apple’s 100 million devices. This release comes as no shock to the system as early signs of such a platform being developed from Apple were evident. In fact, Apple’s been eying mobile advertising ever since as early as January with its acquisition of worldwide mobile ad agency Quattro. Apple also started clearing the path for itself by warning off developers from apps that use location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location.

Apple’s recent presence in the mobile display advertising space has led to an increased estimate for the market. It is now expected mobile ads – both in applications and on the mobile Web- will top $1 billion in 2012. Of course, Apple will be a dominate player in this space but, like they have done so many times before, Apple will lead the many that will follow.

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Categories: Business, Marketing, Mobiles, Technology

Meet iPhone 4

Simon
0
8th June

After all the hype and web banter about the new iPhone we can officially report it has now been released and scheduled to be available in July for us Australians. There are two models the 16GB and the 32GB. Some of the features we are excited about include the Apple A4 processor, app multitasking, 7 hours of talk time, a backlit 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and 720p video recording (and iMovie), a front-facing camera for FaceTime video calls, an eye-burning 960 x 640 Retina display, an all glass and stainless steel body… and all this squashed into a 9.3 mm thick design.

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Categories: Innovation, Mobiles, Technology

Is Your Business Geo-location Ready?

Nick
0
20th May

As smart phones continue to become ever more popular and powerful, businesses looking to engage in future markets can no longer ignore the potential that the mobile platform has to offer. Increasingly, we are seeing mobile devices playing a key role in people’s everyday lives from social media use, mobile commerce (aka m-commerce), research, gaming, photos and so on. In fact with thousands of applications readily available, there is not much a smart phone can’t do these days but let’s not forget to add ‘good old’ calling and texting too.You might be thinking that it’s just kids using this technology, it’s not everybody is using it. Research has found that generation X and baby boomers alike are increasingly using mobile phones.

What’s geo-location?

Geo-location, also called geo-tagging, is the practice of associat­ing a digital resource with a physical location. In plain English this means attaching real-world locations to digital technology such as the Internet, laptops and mobile phones. This technology has many applications but its use for helping mobile social networks enrich social networking is what we are interested in. Location-based social networking has taken off. This type of social networking allows members of communities to share their location through GPS, mobile email or text. Users can add comments about a venue, share and find locations with friends, invite friends to meet up, receive rewards and push all this and more capability with popular applications like Facebook and Twitter. Although there are many location-based social networks out there that differentiate in their services, the major contenders work with a system similar to this.  Some popular ones that you may have heard of or are using yourself include Foursquare, Gowalla, Rummble, Where, Loopt and Brightkite to name a few.

Ok, so what does this mean for small businesses? The growing number of online geo-location platforms presents an excellent opportunity for small businesses to increase their local audience and market reach. Geo-location platforms are fast becoming more popular and predicted to be a major player in the social media spectrum. Early adopters are giving themselves a head start for when the masses catch onto using them, especially for small to medium businesses. Whether you like it or not your business will most likely be affected in one way or another by the movement toward the mobile environment for business. Getting started now means you can comfortably establish yourself and deliver that capability that will sooner or later be expected from your customers. So the question is! Are you ready to address that capability? Here are a few steps that may help your business get started:

Research

Do your homework on the various geo-location platforms available out there and become familiar with them. Spend some time determining which platforms are popular in your area and what they’re all about by signing up to your own personal accounts and using them, asking others and doing some online reading.

Get started

Once you feel comfortable with what these various platforms are about, you should take an initial step into actually using these platforms for your business. An obvious start is to make sure your business is firstly discoverable on these platforms. To take advantage of the early adopters to this type of social networking start practically using these platforms to start realising the benefits your customers and your business can achieve. Don’t be intimidated to start using these platforms as soon as possible and you may become an experienced user in your area or industry that others will want to follow.

Get others started

Put a plan in action to encourage others to start using the platforms that you are discoverable on. You can target your existing and potential customers by making them aware through already existing or new marketing channels. This could be as simple as telling customers walking through your door to more complex campaigns that may involve anything from commercials, posters, viral marketing, emails and even other social media channels like Twitter and Facebook. The trick here is to find a way that most effectively lets people know about your geo-location capability and more importantly how it will benefit them.

Make it work for your business

As you continue to engage more customers it’s important to gain a firmer grip on managing these types of platforms so that they deliver real benefits to your customers. Start utilising promotions, incentives, loyalty programs and special offers for those customers using geo-location to connect with your business. Your business will only get as much value out of geo-location as you put into it.

Monitor and Improve

Like many social media platforms, monitoring can be difficult but not impossible. How and why you measure your geo-location efforts depends on your goals but really it should focus on improving how you use the platform with the ultimate goal of interacting with your customers, building relationships and creating enjoyable experiences. Even though social media is a very powerful marketing tool don’t forget to have some fun.

Stay tuned for my next blog about social media monitoring and some of the tricks and tools your business can employ in this area.

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Categories: Industry Trends, Mobiles, Social Media

Christmas in May: You can now place your iPad pre-orders

Simon
0
12th May


With much anticipation from the Australian new toy and gadget junkie community, Apple has finally opened the door for pre-orders for the iPad. iPads are set to hit the Australian market on May the 28th. We were pleasantly surprised with the price. It seems to be a good $150 cheaper than expected based on prices out of America.

We have conducted a bit of preliminary research on iPad data plans from 3G mobile carriers.

The big players, Telstra and Optus, have announced iPad 3G plans but are only teasing us with vague details. Overall we are delighted to here that all major Australian telcos have confirmed that they will be releasing dedicated mobile broadband plans and deals for the iPad 3G on release in Australia.

Checkout some of the plan details we found listed on www.whistleout.com.au

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Categories: Mobiles, Technology

MoMoMay Happy Times

Charlie
1
11th May

Conduct had the pleasure of attending the MoMoMay event last night, held in Melbourne. We were delighted to see our  friends WSP and jTribe showcasing their latest work and offering an invaluable educational session focused on how to successfully manage mobile app development from start to finish.

We all agreed that the event delivered a great insight into  new media. WSP and jTribe conducted an excellent question and answer session that gave the audience an opportunity to engage on a very personal level on areas of particular interest.

We were very excited to attend this event and enjoyed seeing a mutual passion in this area.

Key elements that where highlighted and what we also recommend to potential clients.

  • Have a business plan and road map. Treat the application as a business, it has to make money, work out who your target market is and what are the short term and long term goals.
  • Create a set of wireframes and list of functions. This will help you nut out the application functionality and will potentially save you some money from having someone to do it for you.
  • Seek investment from the developer or a third party. If your finding it hard to raise the capital use the business plan and wireframes as leverage to get people excited about the idea and to get involved.
  • Seek government grant funding. You would be surprised how much funding there is for new media development. There are a range of prototype and innovation grants. Film Victoria is a great place to start.

Conduct were also recently engaged by Stuart Campbell, the creator of the online comic book Nawlz (Recent NEWTART Webby award winner 2010) to help apply for prototype funding with Film Vitoria.

If you feel you have a strong concept and idea feel free to contact us. The Hidden Park is a perfect example of Conduct helping a client build their idea and make it a successful commercial product available on the app store.

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Categories: Business, Industry Trends, Marketing, Mobiles

iPhone OS 4.0 offers over 100 new killer features!!

Simon
0
6th May

We are very excited about the latest up and coming update from Apple. This is no minor update, the iPhone OS 4.0 update is going to be huge. It has over 100 new features, and most importantly it supports multitasking.

“create apps that are even more powerful, innovative, and amazing”

Although we are excited about the improved UI and UX we are more excited about what the new update means to application developers. It seems Apple have kept a very keen ear to the ground and listened to all of our requests. Available to developers is a new software development kit (SDK) which offers over 1500 new APIs -- and in Apples words, ” create apps that are even more powerful, innovative, and amazing”.

While Apple has not announced any release date for iPhone OS 4.0, it is reasonable to guess that they will release it some time in June 2010. Last year Apple released the iPhone 3.0 update in June 17, during WWDC 2009 so we can expect them to release it close to the same time this year as well seeming this years WWDC just got announced for the 7-11 of June.

APIs Conduct is especially excited about…

Calendar Access Apps can now create and edit events directly in the Calendar app with Event Kit. Create recurring events, set up start and end times and assign them to any calendar on the device.

Video playback & Capture You now have full programmatic control over video playback and capture, using new APIs in the AV Foundation framework.

In-App SMS Compose SMS messages from within apps, similar to the Mail compose sheet added in iPhone SDK 3.0

Map Kit Improvements Mapping applications can now include overlays that can identify regions on a map. Draw routes with annotations for customized directions and other functionalities.

Photo Library Access Applications now have direct access to user photos and videos with the Media Library APIs.

Quick Look Applications can now present previews of documents, like attachments in Mail, using the new Quick Look APIs.

Now is the time to realise that great idea you have! let’s talk

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Categories: Innovation, Mobiles, Technology

HTC Evo 4G

Simon
2
25th March

Amazingly huge screen? Check. Point-and-shoot beating camera? Check. The first Android smartphone to run on a 4G network: priceless? We are confident that all this candy will come at a price.

Operating on Sprint’s WiMax 4G network, the Evo will offer sizzling download speeds, helped along by the 1GHz Snapdragon processor, as well as a 4.3-inch touch screen, an eight megapixel camera with autofocus (and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for those video chat calls), Android 2.1, and the ability to share its 4G connection with up to eight devices over Wi-Fi. Hands up who wants one…

Check it out

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Categories: Mobiles, Technology
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