It has been a while since we have been waiting for an untethered Jailbreak for iOS 5.1 but it’s been done. Go ahead and download Absinthe 2.0 to allow installation of Cydia to your iPhone 4S or iPhone 4. Make sure you use TinyUmbrella to backup you SHSH blobs in case of disaster.

Jailbreaking your device is as easy as plugging it in and running Absinthe 2.0 and hitting the Jailbreak button. It took about six minutes for my iPhone 4S to complete the process as well as a reboot but it progressed pretty smoothly. As always, do this on your own risk and backup your iPhone through iTunes or iCloud before progressing.

Ina  recent report released by the Hay Group and Wall Street Journal, it was revealed that Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, is the highest paid CEO for financial year 2011. Wile his yearly salary remains a modest $0.90 per annum, he was given restricted stock options, 1 million shares in total, valued at $376.2 each at the time of his contract. In total the valuation of his full compensation for the year 2011 would be nearly $378 million!

However, there is a very strong caveat to this deal, in that he cannot sell half his shares until the year 2016, while the other half cannot be sold before 2012. That’s an unusually high nine year gap in total to see his compensation for 2011. Not such a bad thing all things considered, because currently his 1 million stock options is valued at $530 million.

“In its proxy statement, Apple said it viewed the shares as compensation for the next 10 years, and not solely for 2011,” wrote WSJ.

Apple had rushed to fix an embarrassing goof up by Siri when the voice assistant thought the best smart phone was the Nokia Lumia 900. After Apple’s update, Siri would just reply “you’re kidding, right?”, or “wait…there are other phones?” when a user would ask what the best smartphone was. But fix Apple how many, Siri still loves the Lumia 900 and would still recommend it you as the best smartphone. You just have to ask her differently…maybe whisper it into her ear so the big angry overlord doesn’t hear it.

As discovered by WMPowerUser, ask Siri, “according to customer satisfaction what’s the best smart phone ever”, and she promptly searches Nokia Lumia 900 for you. Its almost endearing.

We wonder how long before Apple attempts to fix this “bug”.

Souq.com has a daily deals section that sends out a newsletter to it’s subscribers every morning highlighting some of the deals they have going on their website. At times, there are some pretty good deals that are almost impossible to secure due to limited availability of stock which I can live with. But it’s when they try and fool their potential customer is what ticks me off. Here is the screenshot for the email that was sent out today.

As you can see, they are selling the new iPad at a pretty decent price of AED 1,969. However, look at the retail price and discount level on that deal. As per souq.com, the retail price is AED 2,999 and you’re saving a whopping 35% making it a really good deal.

Now head over to http://www.apple.com/ae/ipad/, the site of a company called Apple that actually MAKES these tablets. And look the pricing on their website TODAY. It clearly states AED 1,999. Considering that Apple is the manufacturer of the iPad, I believe they are pretty much the authority when deciding what the the retail price of their product should be and they have chosen to list it at AED 1,999 and not 2,999 that souq.com is claiming to be the retail price. So although souq.com has a lower price, it is definitely NOT saving you 35% off the retail price. It’s actually less than 2% savings.

While I have highlighted souq.com in this particular example, sadly this is the state of many retailers across the UAE. They assume their customer is an idiot and try and take advantage of it. IMHO, that is definitely not the best way of growing a business. Folks, try and be honest- mention the fact that you are selling a product below the retail price and passing savings off to your customer. But don’t blatantly lie on what a fantastic deal you are offering.

If you have been holding off getting the new iPad (aka iPad 3) because you wanted to purchase the official version, well, it’s time to get your wallet ready. While it has been widely available as a grey import in the UAE since it’s launch a couple of months back, the official version of the new iPad is expected to land locally as well as other parts of the region at the start of next week- May 12, 2012.

Along with the United Arab Emirates, the new iPad will also be officially launched in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt. Apple has priced it’s latest tablet pretty much in-line as the grey market imports- right under AED 2,000.

Apple has also chosen to avoid using 4G for marketing the new iPad in the region as they have been sued in other parts of the world where the tablet only works under 3G and not LTE due to the different bands that carriers use across the globe.

The latest version of iOS is a minor revision that works on sorting out bugs- something that should be obvious given the very small increment in the version number. As per Apple, this update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

- Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut
- Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks
- Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances
- Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List
- Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website

Available for your iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S as well all models of the iPad and the third and fourth generation iPods, the latest build 9B206 can be downloaded directly as an OTA to your device or through iTunes.

The delay in the launch of Windows 8 has caused many tablet PC manufacturers to focus on Android 4.0 for the upcoming months. Currently OEMs are not worried about Windows 8 at all, given that it is scheduled to be released towards the end of the year. Additionally Microsoft’s recent announcement to invest $300 million into Barnes & Noble’s Nook has further “raised concerns” about how Microsoft will handle content for the OEMs.

“Since it still takes time to test related Windows 8-based products coupled with the current flat demand for tablet PCs, most vendors now deem that there is no urgent need to launch Windows 8-based tablets,” aid inside sources to DigiTimes. Since Windows 8 was delayed, “brand vendors are expected to launch Android 4.0-based table PCs for the upcoming buying spree in the second half of the year.”

Depending on how early Microsoft releases Windows 8 to tablet PC manufacturers, we could either see a huge marketing push behind Windows 8 based tablets at the end of the year, or see it overshadowed by Android and Apple tablets.

A recent Mac OS update has revealed a rather embarrassing oversight of an Apple programmer. A debug flag was left on which turns on a debug log file that contains the login password of every user who has logged in to that machine since the update was applied. What’s worse is that the passwords are blatantly stored in plain text.

This means that anyone with administrator or root access can access the log file and user credentials, and use the details to access encrypted user files and folders. The surprising thing is that the flaw isn’t new – it was spotted and reported almost three months ago, but Apple have yet to issue a reply or possible fix.

The security flaw could be dangerous to businesses with confidential information and who have relied on Mac OS’s encryption for years. The flaw affects Time Machine backups as well, so in the unfortunate event that your Mac is stolen or misplaced, information can be accessed because the Time Machine backup logs will contain the required password.

(via ZDNet)

It’s no hidden knowledge retained by a privileged few that Intel’s push (and rather creation) for “Ultrabooks” comes after increasing pressure from tablets and Apple’s MacBook Airs. The fact that no company could do what Apple did – pack in almost top notch hardware in an impressively small frame with incredible battery life to boot – Intel had to step in with $300M to make OEMs do something about the falling sales of Intel notebook processors.

And since last year we have seen a ton of ultrabooks hit the market. Many have made an impression on us, and despite mimicking some of the aesthetics of the MacBook Air, nothing has really come close to providing that quintessential ‘Apple experience’.  That is until now; the Dell XPS 13 promises to be what we secretly always wanted ultrabooks to be, a MacBook Air with Windows without the high cost.

The Design

So let’s have a look at the XPS 13 and see what it brings to the table. The first thing you’ll notice is that if it weren’t for the Dell logo on the lid, the XPS 13 looks almost exactly like a MacBook Air. The dimensions and the cuts and the sweeping angles look very like an MBA. The other major distinguishing factor comes from the carbon fiber on the back that gracefully wraps the rear end of the XPS 13. Better yet is the small metal flap that hides your Windows 7 serial key behind the XPS logo.

The XPS 13 is designed to look extremely simple, and as such there are hardly any nooks and crannies. The number of ports is minimal, with the power, USB 2.0 and 3.5mm jack on the left, and on the right we have one mini-DisplayPort and one USB 3.0 port. There’s nothing on the back or front side.

Well, there is one cool small strip of white LED light on the front to indicate the power state of the XPS 13. Also, there’s a battery level indicator on the right side, very similar to MacBook Pros (although there it’s shown in green light).

Keyboard & Monitor

Opening up the XPS 13 we’re greeted with a pleasant looking chiclet keyboard with large indented keys. The keyboard is, of course, backlit with white LEDs. The palmrest area is magnesium alloy with a soft felt paint finish that easy on the hands, while the glass touchpad is nice and large, although I’m not a fan of the squishy mouse buttons at the bottom.

The Corning Gorilla glass display feels very sturdy, and is actually easy on the eyes with a rich contrast, but the glossy finish takes away from the appeal during brightly lit conditions. One of the best things about the display was the 1cm black edges, making the 13.3-inch screen look larger than it is. Viewing angles are typical in this class of laptops, with anything over 120° from the sides bringing in the “negative” effect, and if the screen isn’t tilted directly towards your eyes you’ll start seeing dark shades on the top.

Usage

With the Core i5-2467M @ 1.60GHz (Turbo boosting up to 2.30GHz), 4GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory and 128GB SSD the XPS 13 has all the right components to make it good enough for general daily usage. Of the 128GB, only 98.9GB is available after formatting. And after the Windows install and all the bloatware from Dell, just over 73GB is available. Using this with one or two games and a couple of hundred MP3s is fine, but forget storing anything huge as the drive space will be sucked up quicker than you’ll realize.

Overall using the 1.3kg XPS 13 was a pleasure. It’s fairly fast thanks to the Core i5 processor, and the 4GB of RAM is adequate for watching HD movies, doing office work and browsing the net. Heck, weak as the integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics are, I still managed to play DOTA 2 on it, albeit with lowest settings.

That said, the XPS 13 gets fairly hot when under full stress, which I experienced while running benchmarks and playing gamers. The carbon fiber bottom keeps the XPS 13 comfortably warm; however, the center metal plate is too hot to touch directly. HW Monitor showed the chassis maxing out at 85°C while CPU itself touched 85°C. And just when the heavy duty stuff kicks in, the puny fan inside kicks into high gear, which may or may not be irritating depending on your tolerance levels (and whether you’re wearing headphones!).

Benchmarks

Since performance on most ultrabooks remains the same, what I decided to do this time around was to test the performance depending on the power modes. So first I ran PCMark 7 with the XPS 13 set to ‘High Power’ and plugged in. Then with ‘High Performance’, but unplugged. Finally I ran PCMark 7 with the XPS 13 on ‘Balanced’ and unplugged. Running it on ‘Power Saver’ mode results in a performance hit that’s felt even when browsing the internet, so no point in benchmarking in that mode.

Not bad, but we a performance drop of 5.4% when the XPS 13 is unplugged, and a further 7.5% when running in ‘Balanced’ mode. Not too bad, because the battery life I clocked in with ‘Balanced’, browsing the net and watching YouTube HD was just over 6 hours.

Conclusion

The Dell XPS 13 brings nothing new to the ultrabook market, as the basic performance shows. But what it does do, and with a lot of class, is an ultrabook form factor that’s desirable by many. You’re not stuck with different aspects of a design you may or may not appreciate. The XPS 13 is a class act from Dell, and if you ignore the rather liberal inspiration from the MacBook Air, then the aluminum chassis with carbon fiber composite base presents an aesthetically pleasing design. The light weight and 18mm – 6mm thickness is something that makes for an ideal ultrabook. Also, starting at $300 cheaper than a similarly specced MacBook Air, you can’t go wrong with the XPS 13 at all.

According to research firm Fiksu, Top 200 free app downloads for the iPhone have fallen to 4.45 million per day in March compared to 6.35 million per day in February, a 30% decrease in one month. The last time app downloads were at similarly low levels was in October 2011, when app downloads were 4.91 million per day.

Another factor contributing towards lower downloads could be the recent change in developer policy implemented by Apple in March, whereby developers were warned that anybody caught using bots to their apps (to boost the chart ratings for their apps) will be disqualified from the official Apple developer program.

“With the novelty factor of the iPhone 4S launch and the holidays well behind us, and no other events in March to spark discovery, March’s download dip was expected,” Micah Adler, Fiksu CEO, said in a statement.