iPod Touch
I Got Control releases yet another iPhone remote accessory
Mar 19th
…but we really like it thus far.
The IRB1 iPhone Remote Control is one of the most polished remote interface addons we’ve seen for the iPhone. It’s doesn’t do anything over WiFi and actually plugs into the dock connecter. There’s no built-in battery, it just uses the iPhone’s power to function. The companion iPhone app looks well designed, well, sort of. Some of the visual design choices seem questionable, but we’re glad the developers put more focus into the capabilities of the device than the aesthetics.
The RedEye was the first, and it’s new Mini is the cheapest universal remote option at $49 but isn’t shipping until Spring. It also plugs directly into the headphone jack… we think it would be all to easy to break that off, so we’re a little hesitant to go that route. There are other options like a case from Power A and a similar dongle from New Potato Technologies but this one appears to give us the most bang for the buck — $69.95.
The IRB1 comes with 40,000 IR codes built into the iPhone app and can learn the functions from your remotes if they’re not available in the database. The company explains that learned commands are incredibly small — 1MB of data represents about 800 codes. It can also function as your Apple Remote for iTunes and Front Row if you’d like. Amusingly enough, it has a “Take Control” function that lets you do just that if you’re out at the bar and want to switch channels. We’re not exactly sure how the feature works, but it’s a great way to make your table happy… and get thrown out of a bar. 
Anyways, the company is showing the units are in stock so go grab one and let us know what you think. We’ve contacted the company for a review unit so we can put it to the test. We’ll hopefully be doing a review of each of the listed devices above so that we can help you decide what device would be best for your home theater setup.
You’ll probably have to pay for mobile Hulu
Feb 23rd
We reported earlier last week that Hulu will be making it’s way to the iPad (iPhone and iPod touch will likely follow suit). Since that possibility was leaked, more information has come through the grapevine… and it’s not going to make you happy.
It appears that the three owning studios — ABC, NBC, and FOX — have been trying to figure out a way to make more money from Hulu besides the already annoying ads. This will probably result in a premium model that will give us access to more content. Currently, shows available on Hulu contain the latest three episodes (on average). That’s always been our biggest issue with Hulu: we can’t watch anything older than a few weeks. Even the networks’ online players tend to limit shows to the current season. Anyone else want to watch old seasons of Big Bang Theory?
So what does this premium model look like? It’s been suggested that paid users will have access to content on three devices: a computer, a TV and a mobile device. That seems like a pretty big step backwards to us. Just this last year, Apple gave us a great music sharing tool with iTunes Home Sharing. It lets us copy all of our content between computers on our home network. Granted this is still limited to Apple’s 5-computer model and requires you to sign into an iTunes Store account BUT there’s no limit for mobile devices. So, what makes Hulu think we should be limited to three devices?
Step back from the question for a sec… we don’t actually own any content with Hulu. We would be paying them for streamed content we can get from countless other sources — sources that would allow us to own it. Buy a season DVD, buy individual shows on iTunes, get a season pass on iTunes, there’s also the nefarious world of illegal acquisitions (we’re not recommending that one) — all of those options give us content that we own. Most of us already pay for cable or satellite and most of those companies won’t offer us internet packages without a TV option. So, what’s driving us to subscribe to another paid TV application that still restricts our access?
Sounds like a bad deal to us.
Plants vs. Zombies shuffles to the iPhone
Feb 19th
CTA RATING: 
PopCap finally has brought its most recent popular title to the iPhone: Plants vs. Zombies. It’s not your mother’s tower defense strategy game; it’s a completely new variant of the style, which sends waves of zombies to your door — they want to eat your brains. Defend your home by placing 49 different plants. The game also boasts 29 different zombies. From pole vaulters to Michael Jackson, they can come at you fast or slow, so be ready. This game is probably one of the best iPhone ports we’ve seen and definitely matches the quality of other PopCap titles.
How does Cocoa Touch change the gameplay? To us, it seems easier. There’s no precise clicking as your finger is doing all the work. We’ve found ourselves tapping randomly at the screen in order to pick up all of the sun that comes our way. However, placing the plants can be somewhat difficult at times: we’re constantly putting the wrong plants in the wrong spot, but that’s probably because our fingers are somewhat large (they’re not huge and fat, just big).
Anyway, we’ve played both versions — iPhone and Desktop — and we’re excited to have it available in our pocket at any time. We’re thankful for that but still a little miffed that it’s not the full version. We can spend $2.99 for a pretty good port or pay $19.99 and buy the desktop version. At this point, we don’t see the survival mode, puzzles or the mini-games that we’ve come to love on the desktop version. Maybe they’ll appear in an update in the future, but we don’t see any way to enable them at this point. We’d seriously pay more to get that extra gameplay, as this could get old very quickly. Hopefully we’ll see them take advantage of the in-app purchases… or just give it to us for free. 
The gameplay is great but the extras appear to be missing, so we’ll give it an 8 out of 10. Definitely worth the 3 bucks.
Full picture gallery after the break.
Hulu making videos available to Cocoa Touch
Feb 17th
We already have a YouTube app that makes our lack of Flash a little less painful, but many of us are getting a lot of video content from Hulu lately. We don’t rely on it to serve up all of our videos — we find ourselves navigating the TV networks’ websites on a semi-frequent basis — but having the option to play shows directly from Hulu would definitely be nice.
The fine folks over at TechCrunch have supposedly spoken with people deep in the business who claim that Hulu is already working on a non-Flash version of their website for the iPad… but it should easily work with the iPhone and iPod touch too. We see no reason to believe that this compatibility upgrade would be limited to a large screen. In fact, we’re seriously doubting the fact that this is an iPad-inspired move at all.
Hulu’s CEO specifically said that they’re “big believers” in the mobile industry and they’re not pushing out updates for a single device. It’s a smart move, especially since all of their video is already encoded in H.264. The only Flash on the site is the actual player and ads… but we’re not really worried about converting the ads. If they can wrap the player in something besides Flash, their site would be compatible with nearly every mobile device with a full browser. This would be a great move for Flash independence as other sites would be forced to do the same with their content in order to compete. We’re not saying that this is the end of Flash-based video; it’s the beginning of the mobile video revolution.
In the end, we’d really love to see a dedicated app with a great user interface, but website access would make us extremely happy. Not everything needs an app in the App Store.
Cydia packages available for February 2010
Feb 9th
We’ve noticed that our Cydia packages post is still generating a lot of traffic, so we thought that we’d bring it up to date. No, we’re not going to list EVERY package that’s available in Cydia… the themes have gotten out of hand, but we’ll at least point out the packages worth installing. We’ll list the name of the app, price (if any) and the author’s description — all packages are in alphabetical order by section. We also link to the author’s site when it’s available. We could seriously devote hours to this if we felt it necessary. Instead, we’ll update and add more apps to this as we can. Are you ready? Here we go!
Sn0wbreeze: Windows only, failure only
Feb 6th
We’re not quite sure what the problems are… but after spending half an hour reading through some of the issues on the Sn0wbreeze forums, we can safely say that you should avoid it for now. We even came across a tweet from @MuscleNerd that said to stay away because the iH8sn0w team didn’t put out a good product.
Some common problems include: white screen after running sn0wbreeze, no carrier signal, freezing at a snowflake and some reports that Cydia doesn’t work. To be fair, some of those issues aren’t just related to iPhone OS 3.1.3, they’ve been around for a while. If anything, this software should still be considered “beta” and nowhere near release ready.
Take a look at their twitter account; it’s not very encouraging. The admins repeatedly say “You seem to be the only one” to those who are experiencing issues… how many times does one need to say that before they’re no longer the only one?
Anyway, Sn0wbreeze = fail… at least for now. And what’s with the lack of Mac options? Double fail. We highly recommend waiting for a thoroughly tested Jailbreak from the likes of the actual iPhone Dev-Team.
iPhone firmware updated to 3.1.3
Feb 2nd
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Apple let loose the 3.1.3 firmware update this morning. Here’s what it includes:
- Improved accuracy of reported battery levels on the iPhone 3GS.
- Fixed an issue with some third-party applications that wouldn’t launch.
- Fixed a bug that caused some applications to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard.
If you are running Apple’s unmodified iPhone OS, then feel free to press the update button.
The iPhone Dev-Team is strongly encouraging people who are Jailbroken and Unlocked to stay away from this update until they have had time to work with it. So far, some anxious Dev-Team followers are reporting that redsn0w 0.9.2 still works by using the 3.1.2 firmware with the iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and the iPod touch 1G. If you have an iPhone 3GS or a 2nd generation iPod touch… don’t mess with this; it will only cause you pain and frustration.
A general rule of thumb for the Jailbreakers in the audience: always check with CTA or the Dev-Team before updating your firmware. At this point, the Dev-Team is unsure of what this means for the Unlockers out there. New firmware typically means modem updates, thus more work for the Dev-Team (or in some instances Geohot) and the unlocking software available.
Please wait; do nothing; do not hit update.
We don’t see anything entirely “must have” with this firmware update, so CTA’s Jailbroken/Unlocked iPhone will stay at 3.1.2 — we’ll be updating our Apple-original iPhone 3GS tonight and report back with anything worth saying. This seems like a fairly insignificant “dot” update to the iPhone OS… so don’t let your trigger finger get itchy. If you squeeze it, at least tell us your results in the comments.
We’re actually hoping this gives them a little insight into later software revisions (3.2 or even 4.0) so they can be a little more prepared for the cool stuff. Every update we see patches the previous holes our hacker friends used in order to Jailbreak and Unlock iPhones. That means they have to re-examine the firmware with every update and find new mistakes so we can inject their custom code into our iPhones. It would be nearly impossible for Apple to get the firmware error free, but it could happen. Each update typically adds more features with near-perfect code… but it’s never been perfect. We’ve been lucky to have such amazing people working on this project so far. Cocoa Touch Apps would like to express a heartfelt thank you to the people working for the rest of us. Hit up their blog and thank them yourselves.
As for us, this unfortunately means that we’ll be putting off our 2010 Ultimate Guide to Jailbreak for a little while. There’s no reason to talk about old techniques. When we hear of new options, we’ll get it going.
CTA Presents: The State of the Jailbreak Address
Feb 1st
We follow the Jailbreak/Unlock scene very closely here at CTA… not because our iPhones are necessarily running on T-Mobile (we want 3G not EDGE) but because we don’t want to be restricted in the Applications we install on our Apple mobile devices. Unfortunately for us and for you, there hasn’t been any new iPhone unlocking news for nearly three months. This is partially due to the fact that Apple hasn’t released new firmware in that amount of time… one of the longest periods we’ve seen so far. In the remainder of this post, we’ll cover the Cydia Store, the Rock Your Phone app store, the Dev-Team, Geohot, the redsn0w 0.9.2 released just hours ago, and how Jailbreaking could affect the iPad. Check back soon for The Ultimate 2010 Jailbreak Guide brought to you by Cocoa Touch Apps.
Saurik (Jay Freeman) has been doing everything possible to make time for his Cydia Store in order to keep it attractive to the Jailbreakers out there. We’re seeing things from Cydia that we never expected and have to give him a tremendous amount of thanks. He’s also devoting some of his efforts to the WebOS (Palm) and Android (Google). For those who don’t know, Cydia is an installer app — predating the App Store — that allows you to put “unauthorized” software onto your Apple mobile devices. While Jailbreak software was once a wide range of applications, most of the current software focuses on the features that Apple has “left out” of the iPhone OS. For instance, you can purchase apps that will let you instantly share your iPhone’s data connection with your laptop… at least for those of us who still don’t have tethering on our service providers.
Cocoa Touch devices wallpaper
Jan 29th
Cocoa Touch Apps designed a new wallpaper or desktop background to commemorate the iPad announcement. We used Apple’s high resolution PR pictures (we had to photoshop them a bit) to make this background. The max resolution is 3000px by 1668px, resize it as necessary — hopefully that will work for most of you. 
We started with the iPad and then resized the iPhone and the iPod touch to scale. We’ve been dreaming of a Cocoa Touch tablet for over 1.5 years and Apple finally brought that dream to life with the iPad. Just right click it and save it to the destination of your choice. Please enjoy our wallpaper!
Note: Internet Explorer has trouble loading the file because it’s so large. Here’s a hint, don’t use Internet Explorer. Try Safari or Firefox instead. The full resolution wallpaper is after the jump… this one is 1024 by 576 to help reduce load times.
Jailbreak 101: Themes
Feb 14th
I’m sure that many of you out there are into changing it up a bit. Â When the first generation iPhones were still running 1.1.2 – 1.1.4, I was devoted to an application called Customize. Â It handled all of the legwork and I was able to just photoshop a picture and place it in the right place. Â Until “thespicychicken” gets that up and running on the latest firmware, we’re left to fend for ourselves.
If you’re interested in “theming” your iPhone or iPod touch – and your device is jailbroken – then just follow a couple easy steps and you’ll be rid of the plain old, boring look that your device has suffered and into a shiny new set of icons and even different layouts if you’d like.
First, via Cydia, you need to download “Winterboard.” Â This application, written by Saurik, acts as the replacement for Summerboard from the first Cocoa Touch OS. Â When you open Winterboard, there are a few themes and options in there. Â Go ahead and check them out by tapping them and hitting the home button. Â That will cause your device to “Re-Spring” and apply the changes you’ve made to the “Springboard.” Â The Springboard is User Interface that you’re using every day. Â
If the default themes aren’t to your liking, there are over a thousand themes available through Cydia. Â Everything from App icons to Sound themes… even complete system themes. Â You can preview each theme before installing it. Â After installing a theme through Cydia, just go back to Winterboard and enable that theme.
Unfortunately, our knowledge doesn’t go beyond that at this point. Â If you want to learn how to create your own themes for Cydia, please be sure to check out modmyi.com. Â We’ll be sure to do a full write-up about Customize.app when it comes out. Â Until then, happy theming.
