Siri is one of the most talked-about features of the new iPhone 4S. Sure, Apple’s latest phone also has a dual core processor which offers better performance than the chips found in the iPhone 4 or the latest iPod touch. But Apple’s new voice-assist service which lets you ask your phone questions — and get real answers is the show-stopping feature that makes the iPhone 4S special.

But it turns out that there’s really no technical reason Siri couldn’t run on older iOS devices. Apple just doesn’t offer it for any device other than the iPhone 4S.

That’s despite the fact that Siri was a standalone, third-party app until Apple bought the company that makes the software and incorporated the technology into iOS 5.

In fact, hackers have been trying to figure out how to port Siri to run on older iPhones and other iOS devices for the last few weeks — and now Steven Troughton-Smith has managed to get it working.

Up until now, we’ve seen a few folks get the software to start running — but since Siri needs to contact Apple’s servers to actually answer your questions, it wasn’t fully functional.

Troughton-Smith managed to grab some files from an iPhone 4S, copy them to an iPhone 4 and show Siri working perfectly.
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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.

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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More than 100 classic Atari games are now available for iOS for $14.99. The Atari's Greatest Hits app is available as a free download for the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, but you can grab all 100 games with an in-app purchase. You can also choose from cheaper game packs which provide a few games for $0.99 each.

The titles include Asteroid, Centipede, Missile Command, Lunar Lander, and Super Breakout, along with, oh, about 95 other games. Pong is included for free.

I took Pong for a spin, and found it a bit strange to play on a high resolution 960 x 640 pixel display. But the price was right.

via 9 to 5 Mac

The folks at the iPhone Dev Team have released updated versions of the redsn0w tool  PwnageTool that lets you jailbreak nearly any device that runs iOS 4.3.1 — the latest version of Apple’s iOS operating system. The iPad 2 isn’t currently supported, and the developers haven’t yet released the tools to carrier unlock an iPhone running iOS 4.3.1, so if you plan to use your AT&T iPhone on another network, you should probably hold off on upgrading to iOS 4.3.1 in the first place.

But for anyone else with an iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3rd or 4th generation, original iPad, or second generation Apple TV, you can now use the latest tools for untethered jailbreaking. In layman’s terms, that means you can open up your iOS device to run code that’s not officially supported by Apple and install third party apps that aren’t available in the App Store — including apps that change the core functionality of the device.

The untethered part means that you won’t need to plug your iPhone into a computer every time you want to reboot the phone. Previous jailbreak methods for iOS 4.3.x were tethered, which meant you would lose the jailbreak if you rebooted without that USB cable handy.

If you have an iPad, you’ll need to use PwnageTool, which is available for Mac. All other supported devices can be jailbroken using redsn0w, which is available for Mac and Windows.

Windows users can also use the latest version of sn0wbreeze.

The following steps will show you how to use redsn0w to jailbreak an iPod touch using a Windows computer and redsn0w. The steps for jailbreaking an iPhone or iPad will be similar. I just happened to have an iPod touch handy.

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