So the guys at Gizmodo started playing around with the video rentals at iTunes trying to figure out a way how they could prolong the time - 30 days to start watching it, 24 hours to watch after starting it - that they were allowed to watch the movie that they rented. Some tests seemed to reveal that one of the oldest hacks of old time would work, that they could increase the time almost indefinitely by changing their computer’s system date to the future and back to the present.

This is apparently not working and I figured that Apple would be really lame if they would fall for this and rely only on the renters system date. A simple comparison between the date that the movie was rented (on iTunes) and the computer would be sufficient to stop the trick.

I’m not sure how they check the date if you transfer the movie to your iPod or iPhone because these do not have a permanent Internet connection. So, it must be some sort of local check and it’s probably easier to hack it on these devices. It will be only a matter of time I guess until someone creates a software that removes the DRM from the movies so that they can be watched indefinitely.

continue reading "Apple iTunes Video Rentals cracked ? Not really !"

A picture comparing Apple’s iPhone with the iPhone Nano which is supposed to come out in October 2008 was published on Flickr. The iPhone Nano, as usual, will be smaller than it’s first generation predecessor but also cheaper retailing for a price of $300 or less.

The iPhone Nano will have a smaller 2,75″ screen compared to the 3,5″ screen of the iPhone Classic. According to this comparison it will not offer Internet access which is a huge drawback if you ask me. It is still multi-touch and combines a phone and music player in one device but will only ship with either 4 or 8 Gigabytes of Ram compared to the 8 or 16 Gigabytes of the classic iPhone.

I personally can’t see that the iPhone Nano will be highly successfully especially if you consider that it will not have Internet and less storage. Do you think it is a wise move to remove Internet from the iPod Nano ? Let me know.

continue reading "Apple iPhone Nano"

You can think whatever you want about the Apple iPhone but it surely gets more developer love than most other phones currently on the market. I spotted two incredible applications for the iPhone which might appeal to a lot of iPhone owners. The first software is called Mobile Scrobbler which connects the iPhone and iPod Touch with Last.fm.

While I’m not a heavy Last.fm user I tend to use it when I quickly want to listen to a new band I heard about or find out about similar artists of a band that I do like. Mobile Scrobbler sends data of the music that you are listening to to Last.fm which uses this information to suggest new artists and songs.

What I really like is that the developer is currently working on a function that streams Last.fm radio streams to the Iphone or iPod Touch. The announcement was made today and it could be that this feature will already be implemented in the coming days. The artists and track infos that are displayed will also be soon available in the software for the iPhone.

continue reading "uTorrent and Last.fm iPhone applications"

Textmemos is a service that lets the user type in text messages that he wants to have delivered at a certain date and time. All that needs to be done is to enter the cell phone number, the cell phone provider, the date, time and of course the message. As of now 38 different cell phone providers are supported by Textmemos most operating in the United States and Canada with only a handful European ones.

The service itself is completely free and no advertisement will be send in any way to the cell phone number of the recipient. The system behind the service utilized the fact that many cell phone provider accept sms that are send by email which is exactly what Textmemos is doing.

continue reading "Send Text Messages to the Future"

I see a lot of parallels between Apple’s iPhone and Sony’s PSP. Both add new firmwares like crazy to their devices in an effort to keep device hackers at bay. Apple recently upgraded the iPhone’s firmware to version 1.1.1 which made many modified iPhones inoperable.

The major annoyance is most likely the fact that users can’t add third party applications to their iPhone anymore which is in my opinion a major mistake by Apple. The community is always creative no matter if the product is a PSP, an iPhone or an Nintendo DS. They create so many useful applications that people will stick with the device no matter what.

I do not own an iPhone and have no intention to buy one. I’m perfectly happy with my Nokia N73 which allows me to install any applications that I would like. (supported ones only of course.) I nevertheless thought it would be good for all iPhone users to copy and paste the instructions on how to downgrade the iPhone firmware from version 1.1.1 to 1.0.2.

continue reading "Downgrading iPhone Firmware"