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After much waiting and anticipation and a lot of guess work from folks who had access to 2.2 beta, iPhone firmware update 2.2 is here via iTunes.

Confirming rumors of Apple’s 2.2 firmware release of today, it was in fact made available last night!

Here are some of the new things iPhone 2.2 firmware brings:

iPhone 2.2 Software Update

This update contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following:

• Enhancements to Maps
  • Google Street View
  • public transit and walking directions
  • display address of dropped pins
  • share location via email
• Enhancements to Mail
  • resolved isolated issues with scheduled fetching of email
  • improved formatting of wide HTML email
• Improved stability and performance of Safari
• Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network)
• Decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
• Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages
• Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you to the first Home screen
• Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard Settings

Products compatible with this software update:

• iPhone
• Phone 3G

iPhone Jailbreak Users - Do not update

Watch out for an upcoming post with full details on this. In short, if you have a jailbreak iPhone or iPhone 3G, do not update to firmware 2.2 at this time. Or if you want to soft unlock your iPhone in the future, do not update to 2.2 firmware yet.

More details about jailbreak 2.2 firmware coming shortly in a new post.

If you’d like to stay updated, you can get free automatic updates with our RSS feed or even get notified by email. If you are a Twitterer, we are at twitter.com/TopiPhone.

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Hello there! Hope you found a nice app, or a cool hack or the latest iPhone news. Don't miss future updates, grab our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter and get free updates.

Google’s Mobile Blog is reporting that Google has rolled out an iPhone friendly search results page.

Google Search results are not dumbed down or anything. It’s just better laid out and optimized for viewing in iPhone or iPod Touch. This will help us from having to scroll side to side to see the whole result.

One of the best examples of this optimization would be the Local Search results in Google. It neatly lays out the phone number for the business and a link to get directions prominently. (see pic)

The phone number is a click to call link. The map is shown by default if it’s a single result that’s returned or there is a Show map link for multiple listings.

The new iPhone friendly results page are available to those in US only at the moment. Plus you need the iPhone & iPod Touch firmware 2.x.

We welcome the love Google is showing iPhone in spite of Android’s release!

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Flickr has to be one of the most used web services for a iPhone user. We all take pictures with our iPhones and upload them using various apps like Pixup to Flickr. But, browsing Flickr itself with our iPhone wasn’t that great.

Now, Flickr has unveiled its iPhone-optimized mobile site - m.flickr.com. It’s fabulous. Most used links are at the top.You can see Activity, your sets, contacts, photostream, etc. You can view a picture and leave comments.

But, you don’t get the Uploadr, Organizr and Map that you get in the Flickr website. But, that’s probably ok as long as you can browser your sets & collections. But, sadly the slideshow feature is also missing. You can even add the Flickr web app to your Home with a nice icon set. if you’d like to see the screenshots instead, click over to the link below where Josh Bancroft has tons of them!

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Update: 11/21/08

iPhone firmware 2.2 has been released! If you’d like to jailbreak 2.2, here’s why you shouldn’t update to 2.2 yet.

I am sure you’ve probably heard that Quickpwn 2.1 for Windows has been released by the dev team. High five to them for making the jailbreak process easier than ever that even your grandma can do it. If your grandma, has an iPhone that will be some picture you should share it with us.

The reason I am posting this a few days after the Quickpwn release is because I had trouble jailbreaking my iPhone 3g. But, I have a feeling this had to do with the fact that I had already jailbroken my iPhone 2.0.2 with Quickpwn. I will get to that and how I solved it later in the post.

If you haven’t jailbroken your iPhone yet

Again, if you have already jailbroken your iPhone, check the section below proceeding. If you are already updated your iPhone to 2.1 firmware and ready to jailbreak then you can start from this step. Oherwise update to 2.1firmware through iTunes and then you are ready to jailbreak your iPhone.

1. Download QuickPwn 2.1 for Windows from here, extract the files and save it in a new folder named as QuickPwn in your computer. And save your updated 2.1 firmware in the same QuickPwn folder (firmware download links). You shouldn’t even need this as Quickpwn detects your installed firmware.
2. Connect your iphone  via USB cable to computer. Now run the QuickPwn.exe file in the QuickPwn folder. In this step it will make sure your iphone is connected via USB and click the Blue arrow to continue.
3. Now in this step it will automatically detect your 2.1firmware from your computer. If not browse and select the firmware you previously saved in your QuickPwn folder and click the blue arrow to continue.
4. Next step select Cydia , Installer and if you want to replace the boot logos select it too. And click the Blue arrow to continue to next step. I like the Apple logo instead.
5. In this step it again asks you to confirm your iPhone is connceted via USB and click the arrow to continue.
6. Here in this step follow the QuickPwn instructions carefully . First it will automatically put your iPhone into recovery mode and once it goes to recovery mode you will be directed to
   • hold your home button for 5 seconds
   • hold down the home and power buttons together for 10 seconds
   • release the power button and continue to hold the home button til you see the jailbreaking progress in your iPhone and then let go..
7. 
8. With mine, even after this message was shown, the iPhone was showing some jailbreak messages with nice graphics. So, I waited pateiently for it to complete and reboot. Voila, everything came back up and worked! Hello Cydia & Installer!

If you have previously jailbroken your iPhone

If you haven’t jailbroken your iPhone before at all, you can just use the section above without a worry. To set the stage this was my status when I started:

• iPhone 3G
• iTunes 8
• Previously jailbroken with 2.0.2 firmware
• Upgraded to firmware 2.1

The Problem

Now, when I used Quickpwn 2.1 (windows) to jailbreak everything worked fine but at the end the iPhone will just keep hanging at the Apple logo screen at startup. It would do that and vibrate twice and iTunes would even recognize the iPhone but again it would reboot. This would go on until I disconnected it from iTunes, manually rebooted. Now, I can get into the iPhone but no Cydia or Installer.

The Solution

It turns out that the startup was failing because it was missing BossPrefs, 5 icon dock, Springboard, etc. I suspect it was trying to find one of these jailbreak apps I had previously installed at startup, failed and kept restarting. I kind of found this by trial and error. Because jailbreaking with QuickPwn worked on my iPhone if I reset my iPhone to factory settings by using ‘Restore’ function in iTunes 8 and not choosing to restore from a backup. I was now able to see Cydia & Installer.

So I went ahead and installed BossPrefs, Springboard, 5 icon dock, etc and made sure none of my app icons were hidden. Then I synced my iPhone to the backup I had done before starting the jailbreak. Voila, now iPhone started up fine.

In fact, this excellent guide on how to upgrade in iTunes at Sleepers.net which I came across pretty late helped me do this.

If you haven’t already messed up like I did, I highly suggest following that guide to create a backup of your Cydia apps list with AptBackup jailbreak app. Also, if you have hid some icons with BossPrefs or other apps, make sure you unhide them before you start jailbreaking. If you still having problems, this thread at MacRumours or this post at Sleepers.net might help you out.

The End

In the end, the jailbreak process itself takes just anywhere from 10-20 minutes and hasn’t been this simple so far. If you don’t make the same mistakes I did, it should be very straight forward and hope these tips helped you successfully jailbreaking your iPhone. After jailbreaking, don’t forget to get some iPhone winterboard themes for your jailbroken iPhone! Here is what mine looks like now:

Doesn’t this make the jailbreaking effort worth it?

No word on when QuickPwn for iPod Touch or Winpwn 3.0 will be released yet. Stay tuned or subscribe to our RSS feed if you don’t want to miss future updates.

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I certainly hope so! And that’s what the director of Skype, Josh Silverman hinted at, in his GigaOM’s 19min interview .

When asked ‘Where is Skype for the iPhone’, he replied “Stay tuned. We need to be on all devices.. Skype needs to be everywhere”.

Skype is already available for Pocket PC based devices and is actually a big hit. When Skype hits iPhone, it will certainly be one of the popular app downloads for sure. Click over to GigaOM to watch the full video.

Skype for iPhone or iPod Touch Right Now?

For those who are impatient and can’t wait for Skype to release a native iPhone, you are in luck.

Shape Services is offering an iPhone & iPod Touch optimized web service that lets you use Skype from iPhone. The web page itself is iPhone app like icons. You can call any of the Skype users all over the world with it. Make cost effective calls to any phone number at SkypeOut rates. Chat with your online friends in Skype.

You have to pay a nominal fee for this service:

Monthly $5.95
Lifetime License $29.95

To get this simply type s4iphone.com in your iPhone and purchase a subscription. You get 10 days of fully functional trial period if you’d like to try it first.

I signed up for the free trial and tried calling this Skype account on iPhone from another Skype account. The webapp showed the incoming call and then it switched over like it was a normal call on the iPhone. The call quality was pretty good too but I was on my home Wi-Fi at the moment. I will report back when I get a chance to test this on 3G/Edge in the next 10 days.

I would love to hear your thoughts on it too.

We just got back from our vacation and hence the few silent days. Look out for a new post with pictures on How to jailbreak iPhone 2.1 firmware with Quickpwn for Windows. if you don’t want to miss such feeds, you can subscribe to our RSS feed.

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DropBox is an innovative file synchronization service that seamlessly keeps the assigned folder between computers in sync. You can even get to your files from anywhere via a browser interface. You can read our DropBox Review here.

Dropbox has also got an improved iPhone optimized interface to get to your files/pictures on your Windows,Mac or Linux desktops right from your iPhone.

Dropbox was on closed beta so far and they have just launched publicly! You can go ahead and sign for a free account (2GB space). There will be premium accounts with more space availabel shortly at the price of 50GB Dropbox for $9.99/month or $99.99/year.

Enjoy this excellent service now right from your iPhone!

If you are a Dropbox fan, you have to check out this excellent collection of Dropbox hacks and Portable Dropbox hack.

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Now, you can stay connected with your GTalk buddies on the go with your iPhone with the Special GTalk version for iPhone.

Just head over to www.google.com/talk in your iPhone browser. Sign in with your Google account and you can start chatting, set your status message, etc. Since, this runs in your Safari browser, the application has to stay open to receive chat messages. But, as long as you stay in the chat window, you can search for contacts and manage multiple conversations.

Even though the functionality is limited, but it could be very powerful to have this on your iPhone especially if you are on a limited SMS plan or no SMS plan.

What other instant messaging option are you fond of in your iPhone?

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