Apple

Anyone waiting around for an iOS 4.0.2 jailbreak will be waiting around for a long time if the iPhone Dev-Team has anything to say about the matter. Now that Apple has released a fix for the PDF exploit so cleverly used in JailbreakMe 2.0, the iPhone Dev-Team plans to wait it out until iOS 4.1 firmware launches to jailbreak again.

According to the development team, even though Apple is now shipping iPhones with firmware 4.0.2, which can't be jailbroken with JailbreakMe, releasing an interim solution before iOS 4.1 hits the streets would be a waste of time. iPhone 4.0.2 and iPad firmware 3.2.2 was released for the sole purpose of shutting down JailbreakMe, and protecting users from the PDF security hole that is bound to spawn malicious programs soon.

Chinese news source Caixin reports that China Unicom will indeed offer the iPhone 4 for sale on September 16. This is Apple's second iPhone release in China in under a year. October of 2009 saw the launch of a special iPhone 3GS model that shipped without Wi-Fi functionality due to Chinese regulations. The iPhone 4 slated for China Unicom's network this fall is said to have Wi-Fi.

Grey market iPhones are popular in China, with millions of units in operation. China Unicom allows users with any iPhone that supports its network to purchase data plans. The lack of Wi-Fi and high prices may have kept iPhone 3GS sales lower than expected. iPhones imported from other countries can sell for half the price.

According to an email from Steve Jobs himself, the latest and greatest iOS firmware version 4.1 will be publicly released soon. Already in beta 3, many features and bug fixes have been revealed by developers and are on their way to iPhone users across the planet. Apple has some finishing touches to add to the firmware before release, which is expected in September.

In the meantime, here's a rundown of what's coming in the iOS 4.1 update. First of all, iPhone 3G users will be happy to hear that iOS 4.1 will improve performance on their devices. Many have complained about sluggish performance and other issues after installing iOS 4.0 on this model iPhone. Subsequent fixes iOS 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 have failed to address the issues.

Rumors have surfaced online that Apple and its partner AT&T Wireless have ceased to offer the iPhone 4 without a two-year service contract. Speculation on the issue has blamed the policy change on everything from an impending Verizon iPhone to AT&T greed. These reports would be informative except for one thing, the rumor is not true.

Both AT&T and Apple offer the iPhone 4 without a contract at no-commitment pricing. However, these deals are not available online. AT&T representatives have verified that the iPhone 4 can be purchased without a contract in person, from either an AT&T Wireless retail store or an Apple Store. To have an iPhone purchased online and shipped to your residence or place of business, a two-year contract is required.

Overwhelming demand for the iPhone 4 took down Korea Telecom (KT) servers during the launch of pre-ordering and resulted in 130,000 units sold in just 13 hours. The device will ship and hit shelves at 2,900 KT stores nationwide in September. Pre-ordering began at 6:00 AM local time, with the first 100k units sold by the end of lunch hour.

In contrast, the iPhone 3GS sold 60,000 units over five days in South Korea when it launched in December 2009. KT is the second largest wireless provider in the country, and although the company increased its web server capacity they did not expect demand to be so strong. Web ordering went down intermittently throughout the day, with traffic swamping the available bandwidth. AT&T and Apple had similar issues with pre-ordering in the US this June.