iOS 5.1 Exploit Lets Hackers Spoof URLs With Ease
Beware: Thanks to an iOS 5.1 exploit, spoofing URLs is a trivial task for hackers. Granted, spoofing isn't particularly dangerous in and of itself, but it could be used to part you from your personal information, and no one would want that. Discovered by David Vieira-Kurz of MajorSecurity, the exploit makes use of a sloppy JavaScript method in the iOS 5.1 Safari browser. The exploit has been shown to work on 2nd and 3rd generation iPads as well as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s. A fix is sure to come soon, but it's not out yet, so watch your back if you're using the vanilla browser.
Battery Life Still Rapidly Draining After iOS 5.0.1 Update
Yesterday, Apple released iOS 5.0.1, which was mainly in response to bugs in iOS 5 causing battery life issues. For some (myself included), the iPhone 4S was their very first iPhone, and it was disappointed to be greeting by having to shut off many of the phone's neat features -- like notifications and location services -- in order to preserve battery life. Yesterday's update was quick and painless, but many users are still reporting battery life issues after updating to iOS 5.0.1.
iOS 5 Has Secret Autocorrect Keyboard Bar That You Can Enable
Instead of the once hidden, now officially confirmed bugs that are causing battery issues for iOS 5 users, the operating system contains something else that is hidden, but helpful. After performing a few simple steps using iBackupBot, users can unlock an autocorrect keyboard bar for regular use, seen to the left.
Head on past the jump for a set of quick instructions that'll unlock an iOS 5 autocorrect keyboard bar of your very own.
It's Official: Apple Confirms iOS 5 Bugs Causing Battery Issues
My biggest fear about finally switching from my flip phone to a smartphone was that my pretty new smartphone's battery would die a lot quicker, and I would need to make an emergency phone call and have no way to do so. I finally made the switch to an iPhone 4S, and that's exactly what happened on the second day of ownership. The Internet was set ablaze with users trading their battery life statistics, some reports clocking the battery life in at draining one percent every few minutes when the phone was on standby, while others claimed they'd go to sleep for six to eight hours with a full charge, only to wake up with a nearly dead battery. Speculation ran rampant, making a lot of people feel unsure about their expensive new phone, shutting off all of the nifty new iOS 5 features, basically nullifying the whole point of having a smartphone.
Eventually speculation turned toward iOS 5 itself, with owners theorizing that software bugs were responsible for the battery issues, which is generally better than hardware issues, in that Apple can update the software and quash the bugs without owners having to exchange their actual hardware at a store. Well, Apple has officially confirmed that software issues in iOS 5 are causing the battery issues on some phones.
iOS 5 is Out Now
The long-awaited iOS 5 is now out, part and parcel with a bunch of neato new features. There seemed to be a lot of people who were sort of bummed out by the whole iPhone 4S thing, so now there's something to perk you up a little, you and the rest of us who are still using outdated hardware. The perks include, but are not limited to:
- A completely revamped notifications system
- iCloud, which allows for things like Wi-Fi sync
- iMessage, a free alternative to text-messaging
- Direct Twitter integration
- and much much more
Apple Introduces New iPhone 4S and Features, No iPhone 5 In Sight
iOS 5, Announced at WWDC Yesterday, Has Already Been Jailbroken
Apple announced iOS 5 (among other things) yesterday at WWDC, and less than 24 hours after the announcement and Apple's keynote speech, the beta version of iOS 5 was already jailbroken. Not surprising if you happen to follow the jailbreaking and piracy communities, as the participants are well-versed in what they do, and over time, the goal has became how quickly one can jailbreak a device, rather than if a device can be jailbroken.
The proof comes from MuscleNerd's Twitter account, the above two screenshots showing an iPod Touch 4G running a jailbroken version of iOS 5. The first screenshot may seem fairly plain, but shows the Cydia store installed -- basically a graphical user interface that allows users to install software unavailable on the App Store -- and the second screenshot shows that root access has been gained. Though the operating system has already been jailbroken, this jailbreak isn't ideal: It required the use of GeoHot's Limera1n jailbreak, and is tethered. The tethering is what makes the jailbreak not exactly ideal, in that each reboot of the jailbroken device requires that it be connected to a PC in order to remain jailbroken. Supposedly, though, this method of jailbreaking iOS 5 will work on the final version, so it is possible that the jailbreak can be refined in time for the final release of the operating system and remove the tethering.
Ridiculously fast jailbreak? Absolutely, but isn't that what we've come to expect by now?
Read MoreEverything You Wanted to Know About iOS 5 and OS X Lion
Follow Apple’s WWDC 2011 Announcement Live
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is upon us, and while the event lasts until the end of this week, Apple has mercifully spared us the anticipation by kicking WWDC 2011 off with a keynote about which a lot of people are pretty excited. Though the word on the street is that there almost certainly will not be an iPhone 5/iPhone 4GS reveal today, we do know that Apple will be talking about iOS5, Mac OS X Lion (this is, after all, a developers' conference, and developers need to know about the operating systems they're working with), and, most intriguingly for many, iCloud.
Everything is speculative at this point, but the great hope for iCloud, as elucidated by John Gruber, is that it won't be the new MobileMe, but rather the new iTunes: That is, that with iCloud, the previous model of PC-as-central-media-hub for Apple users will shift to "should shift to the cloud. iTunes, the desktop app, currently syncs the following things with iOS devices: audio, movies and TV shows, iBooks e-books, App Store apps, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, and any sort of files shared between iOS apps. All of these things would be better served syncing over-the-air via the so-called cloud." Will it live up to that? Well, it's silly at this point to write more speculative blog posts about it; just tune into the keynote at 1pm ET/10am PT to find out.
As for that: As of posting, Apple has not yet made a live video stream available for the event, and it's very possible that it won't at all. But that doesn't mean that you can't follow WWDC 2011 as it happens:
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