The iPhone Dev Team has released the jailbreak for iPad (both Wi-Fi and 3G versions) as well as for new firmware on iPod Touch and iPhones. This first jailbreak for iPad and other iPhone OS devices is called Spirit. At the moment, this tool doesn’t support carrier unlock.

The Spirit jailbreak is untethered for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch with latest firmwares and works smoothly with most recent iTunes 9.1.1 update. Spirit jailbreak tool is available for both Mac and Windows platforms. On the latter, in case you get “c0000005” error, then use the tool in Windows 98 or 95 compatibility mode setting.

More details about the jailbreak can be found at its website – http://spiritjb.com.

Let’s wait and see how fast Apple blocks the holes exploited in the Spirit Jailbreak too.

Resource:
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Spirit_Jailbreak_for_iPad_iPhone_Released/551-110954-580.html

Though Safari and other Apple software, such as Mac OS X, will continue to support Flash technology, developers which create Flash content will not be able to port it to the newly released iPad, and existing or future iPhone’s.

The iPad lacked Flash when it was initially released, but it was hoped and expected that Adobe would throw its cards on the table and attempt, at best, to release a version of Flash for these devices.

As the BBC point out, Creative Suite 5 released last month enabled developers to convert Flash code into iPhone applications. However Apple’s developer terms and conditions change caused controversy amongst developers by limiting their scope of application function, and effectively banning them from using code translators such as CS5.

When considering mobile entrepreneurs and Generation Y developers a month and a bit ago, I knew and still know how powerful the mobile market is. Yet as Flash technology is an integral part of the Web and application power, regardless of whether HTML5 will negate the need for using the plug-in, it is also a major part of modern technology and creative design degree programmes.

All students from various countries and institutions who study programmes in multimedia design, electronics and computer science engage with Flash and Adobe technology, and passing code and design implementation is vital to their expansion of knowledge and portfolio building.

Not only will this move damage the reputation of Apple and developers as such, but harm the potential of younger developers exploiting the easy-to-use platform and knowledge base to generate revenue and self publicity.

Silverlight is thought to be released for the iPad, and therefore presumably the iPhone and iPod touch devices too; though at this point it is not clear when or whether the negotiations will yield any result.

Will this have a significant knock-on effect to not only Apple developers but consumers also? Could this signal a shift from the almighty iPhone to Android or BlackBerry devices? Or will HTML5 completely trump all arguments and be a much needed shift from Apple and Adobe dominance on the web ?

Resource:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=4740

Back in February, Opera announced that it was completing work on a version of its browser for the iPhone and that it planned to submit it to Apple for approval and distribution. The move was widely seen as risky, since Apple has, in the past, been dodgy on the subject of whether browsers that aren’t built on Mobile Safari’s underlying technology would be allowed on its iPhone OS platform.

However, Opera Mini had several things going for it: for example, it’s not a full-fledged client-side app, relying instead on Opera’s own server-side functionality to handle much of the content rendering and manipulation tasks, including interpreting and executing JavaScript code, which would otherwise be against App Store policies.

Opera’s announcement that it has submitted the browser to Apple for approval on March 23 was, unsurprisingly, met with a fair amount of skepticism; in a bit of App Store mockery, the company even set up a web page to keep track of the amount of time during which the app had been in the approval process. The final tally: a little less than three weeks.

A free download, Opera Mini works on all iPhone OS devices running version 2.2.1 of the operating system or higher.

Resource:
http://www.macworld.com/article/150569/2010/04/opera_mini.html