Apple has announced that iOS 5 will be available for download on Wednesday, October 12th. The company has been offering beta versions of the operating system to developers for the past few months, and starting today anyone with a $99 Apple developer account can download the “gold master” version of Apple’s next-generation operating system.

Among other new features, iOS 5 will include:

• An improved notification system
• iCloud service which lets you synchronize your media, apps, and documents over the cloud
• A new messaging service called iMessage
• Twitter integration
• The ability to snap photos with the camera without first unlocking your device
• A digital Newsstand for subscribing to magazines and newspapers

There’s also a new “Find My Friends” feature that allows users to optionally share their locations so that other friends an locate them.

The iOS 5 update will be available for free to existing iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, and 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch devices.

As usual, if you have a jailbroken iOS device you may want to wait a little while before downloading the update, since it will remove your jailbreak. But the folks at the iPhone Dev Team have been doing a pretty great job of launching tethered jailbreak tools shortly after each iOS 5 beta update. I doubt we’ll have to wait long until you can jailbreak the full version of iOS 5.

LogMeIn Ignition has plenty of company in the iOS App Store from other remote control apps. TeamViewer, for instance, is a personal favorite of mine. With its latest update, however, Ignition adds one killer feature that gives it an additional edge: direct remote transfers for photos and videos.

Establish a connection to your host machine (say, your desktop computer) in Ignition, then open the remote file browser. You can then select the files you want to copy (or move) to your iPhone or iPad and drop them into a local folder. Once transferred over, you’re free to view them in the built-in the Photos app or your favorite media player.

File transfers work on both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, so take care — pulling down a big HD video clip from your PC or Mac at home could chew up a considerable portion of your monthly cellular data allowance.

Full details on the new release are available at the LogMeIn blog, or just head on over to the App Store and download LogMeIn Ignition and try it for yourself!

SugarSync doesn’t seem to generate the same amount of buzz as DropBox amongst the cool kids, the service offers a very strong (and enterprise-friendly) synchronization and backup platform. The company has just outed a new enhancement which makes SugarSync an even better option for power users who like extra control measures: mobile device management.

In the SugarSync web interface, the devices section now lets you view all the files and folders which are currently synced to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Transferring files has gotten easier as well, as SugarSync’s desktop app now offers direct uploading to iOS devices — and support for Android and BlackBerry will be arriving in the near future.  When new files are uploaded to your cloud storage, SugarSync will send a push notification to your device to let you know that they’re available for syncing. For a look at how the new mobile device management features work, have a look at screencast embedded below.

The company has also updated its BlackBerry app recently to bring it up to date with the SugarSync apps for Android and iOS.

via CrunchGear

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Google Music launched today, and while the service is obviously aimed square at the company’s own products, it happens to play nice with other devices as well. Since the Google Music Web app is intended to work nicely in Google Chrome you can bet it’ll work in other Webkit-based browsers as well — including Mobile Safari on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

There’s not even any wizardry required — just point your browser to music.google.com/music/ and sign in. You’ll need to request a beta invite first, of course, but early reports indicate that they’re fairly easy to come by in the U.S. The experience isn’t ideal, and you’ll probably notice a bit of lag when scrolling through your library (once you’ve uploaded some songs, obviously).

CNET points out that iOS multitasking is supported as well, so you can keep listening to your Google Music in the background while you perform other tasks on your device.

Dark Horse is the latest comic book publisher preparing to make launch an app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The publisher has announced that its new Dark Horse comics iOS app will be ready to download from the App Store on April 27th.

The first issue of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction will come preloaded for free. A handful of other issues will also be available as free downloads.

Dozens of other comics will be available for purchase including issues of Axe Cop, BPRD, Conan the Barbarian, Dr. Horrible, Fray, Hellboy, Lone Wolf, Mass Effect, Serenity, Terminator, and Umbrella Academy.

Big name comic book publishers Marvel and DC Comics already offer digital comic book apps for iOS, using the Comixology platform. You can also download a wide selection of independent titles using the Comics app from Comixology.

via TUAW

Just a few days after Apple released iOS 4.3.2, the folks at the iPhone Dev team have upgraded their tools for jailbreaking most recent iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models. You can now download redsn0w 0.9.6 rc14 and use it to jailbreak a device rnning iOS 4.3.2. This is an untethered jailbreak, which means you don’t have to plug your iDevice into a computer and repeat the process every time you reboot.

If you’re using Windows and a carrier unlocked phone, such as an AT&T iPhone which you’re using with T-Mobile’s wirelesss network, you’ll probably want to use sn0wbreeze instead of redsn0w, since it will preserver your baseband.

The steps for jailbreaking iOS 4.3.1 are pretty much identical to the steps for jailbreaking iOS 4.3.1.

In a nutshell, you download and run redsn0w and follow the on-screen instructions carefully. You’ll need to have the latest .ipsw file, which is probably hanging out in your iTunes directory if you’ve recently upgraded your phone to iOS 4.3.2 anyway.

The process takes less than 10 minutes, and you can pretty much watch the whole thing in the video after the break. Note that I edited out about 50 seconds of staring at a screen so you wouldn’t get bored watching the “preparing firmware” section. But the rest of the video was recorded in real-time.

For some reason after jailbreaking my iPod touch, the home screen icons for the App Store and Cydia are blank, but both apps function exactly as they should.

Redsn0w 0.9.6 rc14 is available for Mac or Windows and supports the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (GSM model), iPod touch 3G, iPod touch 4G, and first generation iPad.

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Instagram is a slick app which lets you have some fun with your pictures by adding filters, and sharing photos with your friends on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and other social networks. But you might find yourself wanting a simple way to share some of those images with folks who aren’t quite so technologically savvy — parents and grandparents, for example.

After all, some of your Instagram images are probably holiday snaps that would make excellent, old-school postcards. Getting those digital images onto cardstock and hoofing it to the Post Office can be a real pain, though. Wouldn’t it be great if someone offered an app which could take care of the heavy lifting?

Postagram offers a simple solution.

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If you want to use an AT&T iPhone with T-Mobile or another wireless carrier in the US your only choice is to find a way to perform a “carrier unlock” on the phone, since the only US wireless providers that offer the iPhone are AT&T and Verizon. Up until recently, the only way to do that was to jailbreak your phone, wait for hackers to develop tools that would let you unlock the phone, and then the next time Apple rolls out a minor (or major) operating system update, avoid applying it until those hackers have figured out how to jailbreak and unlock the phone again.

Now there’s a simpler option, albeit one that’s a bit more expensive. A company called CutYourSim says it can issue an official unlock code for AT&T iPhone models for $169.99. Basically you send in your device IMEI and they send you a code. The process takes about 2-5 days.

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