While we’re patiently waiting for our friends over at the iPhone Dev-Team to finish up the new jailbreak for iPhone 4, I thought It might be fun to have a look at some of the cool apps available for those willing to crack open their magical devices. Please keep in mind that by jailbreaking your phone you’re totally voiding your warranty, so proceed at your own risk.
If you’re willing to take the chance, modding your phone can really add a lot of new functionality to those little computers we’re all carrying around. Want to quickly create your own Wi-Fi hotspot? There’s an app for that. Would you like to sidestep Apple’s 3G restrictions? There’s an app for that. Ever thought it would be nice to wirelessly sync with iTunes? You get the idea.
Here’s a few I plan on installing once the new jailbreak drops and they’ve all been updated to work with the latest version of iOS.
- 3G Unrestrictor lets you get around all those draconian restrictions Apple places on how you can use your 3G connection by tricking the phone into thinking it’s on Wi-Fi. Watch high quality videos, download applications or podcasts, maybe even use FaceTime.
- Wi-Fi sync lets you cut that USB cable and sync your music, apps, photos, contacts, calendars, and more with iTunes over the air at the touch of a button.
- snes4iphone is an emulator that lets you relive those heady days of Super Nintendo fun right on your phone. F-Zero on your phone? OMG.
- MyWi creates a Wi-Fi hotspot for connecting laptops or other mobile devices to your iPhone’s internet connection. You can also use it to enable USB and Bluetooth tethering as a bonus.
- Action Menu adds some additional handy buttons to the usual copy/paste menu you see when selecting text on the phone. Send the text to your Twitter app of choice, look it up in the dictionary, access clipboard history and more.
Jailbreaking your brand new phone is always a risk. You void your warranty and start down a path of SHSH blobs, root passwords, and SSH connections. Oh my! The Dev-Team and app developers have done a great job at making things as easy as possible, but if you’re not willing to spend some time troubleshooting your own issues, you’re probably better servedleaving your phone factory fresh.
Still, I think it’s well worth jumping through all those hoops in order to pick up the kind of added functionality you see above. What do you think, is it worth it? What apps are you looking forward to adding?
Written by Bryan Schuetz on July 23rd, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on 3G and apps and iPhone and jailbreak and sync and wi-fi.
Last week I shared with you TiVo's announcement of their NEW 802.11n based WiFi adapter for their Dual Tuner DVRs including the TiVo HD and New TiVo Premiere. I said then I that I thought this adapter was over priced, but I still wanted to test it to see how much of an improvement it was over the 802.11g based one. I was totally surprised by what I saw when I opened the package.
It's nothing like the old adapter
Don't let the design and pictures fool you. The reason that I thought that the new adapter was over priced was that it looked just like the old one and therefore I figured it connected to the USB port like the old one. It doesn't! This NEW Adapter is a completely new design and instead of connecting via USB it connects to your TiVo's Ethernet port. You also have to plug it into the AC to get power to it. Actually there is nothing TiVo specific about this new adapter. It's just like any other Ethernet based 802.11n Wireless Bridge. Unlike the old adapter you can't even configure it from the TiVo HD. You either have to use your computer or you have to have a wireless router that has a WPS button. Although my New TRENDnet router does have the WPS button, I opted to just configure it directly by plugging into my MacBook Pro via Ethernet. Configuring it was pretty straight forward and once I was done I plugged it into my TiVo HD and it worked perfectly!
.
Is it faster?
Yes, it is definitely faster than my older adapter. I can see an immediate difference in speed when transferring shows from one DVR to another. However, transferring recordings to my computer shows no difference in speed. This is likely due to the transcoding it does during transfer.
The Bottom Line – Is it worth the price?
First off, if you can run ethernet from your router to your TiVo, then run ethernet! It's cheaper by a mile. However, if you have your TiVo in a room/location where it wouldn't be practical to run ethernet then you will need a wireless option. Although I came down on TiVo for the price of this adapter initially, They priced it pretty much in line with other 802.11n Wireless Bridges. For example, here's a Linksys that's about the same price but it's bigger and bulkier than the TiVo model. So you're not paying much if any over what you would pay for other name brand solutions. With that said, since this has no direct TiVo integration, you could use ANY 802.11n wireless bridge and get the same results. Also since this is not TiVo specific it could be used with other devices such as your Blu-ray player. Once you set it up you could use it with any device that has an ethernet port and you want to make it wireless.
Compared to other wireless bridges the TiVo adapter is smaller and more attractive. Style does matter to me so if all things are equal price wise, then I would go with the TiVo adapter.
You can get the TiVo Wireless N Adapter here for $89.99.
Written by terrywhite on May 6th, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on HDTV and wi-fi and wireless.
I applauded TiVo many times in the past for making a relatively inexpensive 802.11g adapter for their DVRs. It's great to be able to put a TiVo on your WiFi network just by plugging in a simple adapter and having the support BUILT-IN to the DVR itself so it's drop dead simple to setup. Although 802.11g isn't the fastest in the world it does work and I've been happy with it here in my rooms where an Ethernet drop wouldn't be easy. So needless to say I got excited when I saw yesterday's announcement that they finally came out with an 802.11n version until I saw the price! $89.99 Seriously? Now I don't want to get into the "hey they can charge whatever they want and you can either buy it or not argument". I invented that argument 
However, for a company that is struggling to remain relevant in this world of "we'll give you a DVR FREE if you sign up with our service", I think that this smacks of "they don't get it." The former adapter was under $40. I can't imagine that this one costs more than twice as much to produce or even invent, but hey TiVo it's your business at risk, not mine. Continue doing what you're doing. It's your call.
What about the performance?
Putting price aside for a minute. I'm even more curious about how much better this thing will perform? The reason I say that is because I have some TiVo HDs on Ethernet and some on the WiFi 802.11g adapter and from my limited testing I can't really see much if any difference in speed of transferring content from say one connected via Ethernet to my computer also connected via Ethernet vs. the one connected via WiFi. However, my daughter often complains that the TiVo in my bedroom (on WiFi) is slower when transferring shows from another TiVo in the house (on Ethernet) vs. the one in the living room which is on Ethernet transferring from another one in the house on Ethernet. So this is a test I'm willing to try. Stay tuned…
Written by terrywhite on April 28th, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on Accessories and wi-fi and wireless.
Sprint says come on over and use our 4G data card with your iPad. Now I get that this is just Sprints way of trying to get in on a good thing with their newly introduced 4G Case for iPad. Clever! However, it reminds of one of the biggest broken promises of 2009.
Last year (June 18, 2009) AT&T told us that iPhone tethering (the ability to use your iPhone as a data connection for your laptop or in theory iPad) was "coming soon". By soon most of us assumed that meant by the end of the year. Well 2009 has come and gone and now it's the later part of April 2010 and official iPhone data tethering support is no where to be seen. To make matters worse or to give us more of a rub, Apple announced and is about to ship the iPad WiFi+3G model, which again runs data on AT&T's network!
So AT&T let me get this straight…
You can provide unlimited data to iPhones. You can provide tethering support to every other smart phone you make. You can provide 3G data cards for laptops to anyone that wants them. You can even bring a relatively low cost, contract free data plan to Apple's NEW iPad, but you can't provide tethering support for iPhones yet? I don't get it! No one is asking for FREE tethering support. So chances are you're going to charge for it and because you're going to charge for it, it means that not everyone is going to use it. Is your "improved" network still that fragile? Really?
I have no love or hatred for AT&T. For the most part my service has been fine and I travel all over. I just wonder what's really going on here?
Written by terrywhite on April 19th, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on 3G and iPhone and wi-fi and wireless.
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