matt's blog

Jailbreaking is as simple as one click with blackra1n.

So, about two months ago now I jailbroke my iPhone again, using blackra1n. I'd previously done it in August, but ended up going back after the update, and because I didn't feel comfortable with it. But now, I'm not looking back. With the advancement of apps available to jailbroken users (be them apps on the springboard, or elsewhere in the background), they have now become an essential part of my mobile digital lifestyle. Backgrounding apps with ProSwitcher (free), or getting around to new places with xGPS (free) are things I now take for granted. And my custom theme (based on Suave)? I don't think I could stand going back to the default look of the iPhone at this point. It just feels so... archaic and tired to me now.

So thinking about it, I managed to come up with 10 things that Apple can learn from the jailbreaking community, and the accompanying "lifestyle". Whether or not anything on my list will ever happen remains to be seen, but if one thing is for sure, Apple needs to at least consider some of these to be taken seriously in the continuing race to market dominance, as their competitors in Android and even Palm's WebOS keep innovating and offering competitive features and designs to consumers.

CC: Flickr/nDevilTV

After discovering the iSlate trademark (which is the leading contender for the name of the Apple Tablet), MacRumors did a bit more research and discovered similar fillings for an iGuide trademark. It looks like the fabled Apple Tablet is about to become a reality.

More than two weeks ago, I wrote that I was going to switch to using Bing fulltime for at least two weeks, to see how it truly compares to Google. Rather than just searching for one or two things, as many do, I chose to use Bing and only Bing for at least two weeks. I wanted to give it a proper test. And you know what? There isn't anything about it that makes me want to switch back to Google.

It's surprising, because, I've used Google for as long as I can remember, and when I first looked at Bing when it launched I (like many others) dismissed it as another attempt by Microsoft to win in the search market. But it's not just "another attempt", it's a damn good attempt that I'm confident will result in Bing being the #2 search engine with a third or more of the market within the next year. Of course, that will be a direct result of their recent deal with Yahoo!, which is currently #2, but it will end up resulting in there being a very strong competitor to Google.

Competition has been one of my reasons for wanting to try, and now use, Bing. When there's no one attacking your business, because, let's face it Yahoo! is horrible competition to the likes of Google in search, you tend to stop innovating and there is no change. In Google's case, it's not so much that they had started to ignore search, but rather nothing new was coming (at least that the public saw), until Bing was launched. Since Bing has launched Google's image search has been drastically improved as a direct result of Bing's own image search, and Google's "caffeine" project has been announced. As the two continue to try and improve and beat the other, there will only be new things for users to experience in search, and it will only become better and easier.