Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a big fan of smartphones running Google’s Android OS . . . and in some ways finds them superior to mobile phones running iOS. ”My primary phone is the iPhone. I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do,” Woz told Dan Lyons. The both fascinating...

The iPad may not have been blasted off to space aboard a shuttle like its sibling the iPhone, but it has reached 100,000′ above sea level attached to a weather balloon. It also fell from that altitude after the balloon burst — and survived its crash landing on a rocky hillside in Nevada. If you’re wondering how the iPad remained fully-functional, it’s because it was protected with a 6-ounce Extreme Edge case by G-Form, which is the company behind the project.

“It’s the first iPad that’s ever free-fallen from space and survived to play more movies,” says G-Form’s Vice President for innovations, Thom Cafaro. It’s worth noting, however, that outer space doesn’t technically begin until 328,084′ above sea level. Regardless, the iPad surviving a 100,000′ free fall is still more impressive than the company’s previous stunts. G-Form once sent an iPad skydiving from a height of 1,300′, and tossed another one out of a Porsche speeding at 113 mph.

G-Form is exhibiting its full line of products and unveiling its new iPhone case at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.

For the last three weeks, iOS hacker pod2g has been tinkering away toward an untethered iOS 5 jailbreak and blogging about his progress. We’ve been keeping track as he succeeds in jailbreaking device after device, starting with a third generation iPod Touch. He’s now freed almost every iOS 5-compatible device from the grips of Apple’s restrictions. The only ones still underway are those with A5 processors like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

Aware of how eager the jailbreak community is to get their hands on an untethered solution, pod2g decided to share his work with the Chronic Dev team, who develops the greenpois0n jailbreak for public use. Early this morning, an untethered jailbreak for A4 processor-based iOS 5 devices was released via both greenpois0n and redsn0w, another popular tool for jailbreaking iOS.

This is the first time such a jailbreak has been available for iOS 5 since the new mobile operating system was released in October. Previously, users could only jailbreak the OS using a “tethered” solution, meaning it required devices be connected to a desktop or laptop whenever they are rebooted. It may have hit the spot for hardcore jailbreak addicts, but for most users a solution of that nature is too cumbersome.

Starting today, the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, first generation iPad and two most recent iPod models can be jailbroken using either the greenpois0n or redsn0w tools. Now that this release is out, pod2g is going to focus on hacking the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

Why Jailbreak?

When it comes to jailbreaking iPhones, iPads and iPods, there’s really no “killer app” to justify the move. Rather, doing so unlocks a world of unauthorized apps and user interface tweaks that aren’t available via the iTunes App Store. For some, playing vintage video game emulators makes the effort worth it. For others, they like the ability to tether their phone’s Internet connection to a laptop or open the phone using facial recognition instead of a pin number. Last year we rounded up more than 30 reasons to jailbreak, a list that has only grown since then.

Some of what comes out of the jailbreak community is of such high quality that Apple itself has borrowed ideas from it. The iOS 5 user notification system may look familiar to folks who had jailbroken iOS 4. Likewise, jailbreaking iOS 3 allowed users to shoot videos and customize their backgrounds, both features that are now very familiar to most iDevice owners. The company even hired jailbreak developer Nicholas Allegra (aka @Comex) as an intern in August.

Siri for Android is here! At least that’s what more than a 1,000 Android owners thought as they downloaded the app from the Android Market.

In reality the app is simply a shortcut to launch Google’s Voice Actions, which comes pre-installed on every Android phone. The fact that the publisher is named “Official App” probably hasn’t helped.

Official App, while obviously trying to profit from the popularity of Siri, does give fair warning that its product isn’t the real deal:

Siri, now for your Android device!

This application is a Siri icon that opens “Google’s Voice Actions” app.

Google Voice Actions is a powerful app that comes with every Android device. It supports many different voice commands and Google is constantly working to make it even more powerful. Show your iPhone friends your Android phone can do what Siri does!

Your friends with iPhones will be so jealous that you have an app that pretends to be an app they already have! Despite its fraudulent nature, seven of Siri for Android’s 21 reviews are positive, which means either there are people out there who don’t really know what Siri does or the publisher has a lot of friends.

Yes, developers love Android Market’s open, approval-free policy, but it’s hard to see how something like this would ever happen on Apple’s App Store. The price you pay for freedom, I suppose.

The iPhone 4S isn’t quite as shiny and new as it was a mere month ago, and in the wake of its now-normalcy come new iPhone 5 rumors. Up until now we’ve been able to gather that the next-geniPhone will sport a new design, larger display, and that it might be a 4G capable.

Now BGR says it has inside information that the iPhone 5 will be launched in the fall of 2012, and that the new phone will not only have a different look but a different feel. According to the site’s sources, the next iPhone will have “rubber or plastic” material built into its case as a new take on the device’s bezel. This will accompany a new aluminum back plate and new antenna system.

Until this point, we’ve heard that the iPhone 5 would be released earlier than the iPhone 4S was, perhaps sticking to Apple’s original summer launch schedule. But if BGR is right, that means Apple might have an incredibly busy third quarter. We heard yesterday that the Apple iTV is supposed to debut in the second or third quarter of 2012, which makes us a bit dubious about this roadmap. The iTV and iPhone 5 launches will be huge, chaos-creating events that the media and consumers will revolve around for weeks. Lump these closely and Apple risks cannibalizing some of that attention.

Of course there will be some consumers that have to choose between an iTV and iPhone 5 – although we’d predict favor would heavily fall to the handset. We don’t expect these two products to launch side-by-side or share the spotlight, and maybe that means we’ll see the iPhone 5 a little earlier than predicted.

As far as the design news goes, the iPhone 5’s form factor has been all over the place since day one. The tear-drop shape rumors persist, and now we can add rubberized bezel and aluminum back plate to the list. It would be a pretty large jump from the current design Apple has follow, and one we can already imagine hearing complaints about.

With Apple’s iPhone recently coming to market in 21 more countries and the likely launch of a new smartphone model from the Cupertino company in 2012, it may come as little surprise that Apple supplier Foxconn is planning to expand its Zhengzhou production facility in China, a move that will make it the biggest smartphone manufacturing plant in the world.

A China Daily report (via Apple Insider) says Foxconn will double the size of its factory, situated in central China’s Henan province, at a cost of just over $1 billion.

The expansion will see Foxconn increase the number of production lines at the facility to 95, with the aim of bringing in $20 billion in sales revenue in 2012.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant currently employs 130,000 people who help to produce 200,000 iPhones a day. Foxconn is currently the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, employing just over a million people, mostly in China. The company makes products for a number of companies besides Apple, including Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Dell, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Recent reports have indicated that Apple’s iPhone is losing market share in some parts of the world, namely continental Europe. However, it continues to sell well in, for example, the US, UK and Australia.

While the slow down in sales can be largely attributed to consumers opting for cheaper devices during what is a challenging economic period, there are probably a fair few who are holding off purchasing an iPhone 4S in the hope that Apple will launch a new iPhone 5 device in early 2012, possibly with a larger screen among other design improvements. Foxconn, whose new factory will be up and running some time next year, will certainly be hoping the next iteration of Apple’s popular smartphone proves a big hit with consumers.

Things just got a little bit easier and possibly closer to legal for hackers trying to bring Apple’s digital personal assistant Siri to iOS devices other than the iPhone 4S, according to a prominent iOS hacker.

A recent update for iOS 5.01 (build 9A406) specifically for the iPhone 4S makes it possible to explore the device’s filesystem unhindered using a Mac or PC, according to several tweets from iPhone Dev Team member Musclenerd.

The result is that a hacker could more easily extract and copy the iPhone 4S’s Siri files without resorting to piracy, the hacker says. The reason the filesystem is more accessible is reportedly that Apple made the filesystem encryption keys obtainable.

Basically, Apple locked the door to the filesystem but left the keys hanging in the door handle. Previously, to get at the iOS filesystem, hackers had to use a series of decryption tools to get past Apple’s software protections. It’s not clear if Apple has changed its policies or plans to lock things down again with another update.

But for the moment at least, Siri is more easily accessible and doesn’t require hackers to crack open Apple’s encryption with piracy tools. As a result, some critics expect this could lead to a surge in unofficial Siri development.

Hackers have issued number of releases in recent weeks claiming to have cracked Siri for non-iPhone 4S jailbroken iOS devices. The H1siri hack released earlier in December claims to bring Siri to older devices. But many critics, including PCWorld’s Kevin Lee, are advising people to stay away, because H1siri’s service is spotty and some have claimed the hack broke their devices.

In late November, another Siri port called Siri0us also claimed to bring Apple’s digital personal assistant to older iOS devices. But Siri0us is no longer available, and so the hunt continues for a workable Siri port for iPhone fans that don’t own Apple’s latest handset.

You don’t need top military clearance or a degree from MIT to use some of today’s most advanced robots. From machines that clean your house to kits that transform your iPhone into a spybot, we take a look at some of the coolest robots currently on the market . Romo Romo first made waves on Kickstarter, where Peter Seid and Phu Nguyen raised...

Jailbreakers and hackers will want to stay away from the H1siri hack that promises to bring Siri voice command functionality to the iPhone 4 and the fourth-generation iPod Touch. Several users and other developers have discovered that the hack actually contains illegal code, could break your device in several ways, and sends your personal information through questionable servers.

The new H1siri hack by a group of Chinese called CD-Dev Team popped up on Cydia yesterday. Since then, users have reported that they have only gotten it work in short bursts due to unresponsive servers, and that in some cases it even breaks their iPhones.

iDownloadBlog originally reported on H1siri with extreme skepticism because it could only be loaded into Cydia as a custom repo package, a package type that notoriously contains cracks and illegal software. Grant Paul (@chpwn), a prominent developer of the JailbreakMe team, confirmed this and discovered that the code contains copyrighted binaries from the iPhone 4s.

Paul also noted that by using this unofficial version of Siri, you would be sending emails, texts, calendar information, and contacts through a proxy server. Siri normally has to access a server in order to do heavy-duty voice command processing, but it’s done through Apple certified and secured servers. These servers, on the other hand, could be unsecured and recording any information you accessed using voice commands.

We strongly suggest avoiding or deleting the H1siri hack of your devices. The hack no longer works as CD-Dev Team has confirmed that the server is down and could be for weeks. There are other more reputable Siri porting hacks on the way including the one being put together by Grant Paul and Ireland-based hacker Steve Troughton-Smith. Unlike CD-Dev Team, Paul and Smith’s solution will use a third party server to only modify data sent from a unapproved Siri device to Apple’s servers.

[iDownloadBlog via Tech Crunch via Gizmodo]