News

Many of the recent rumors and mock ups of the iPhone 5 have shown an aluminum back on the next Apple smartphone, designed similarly to the iPad 2. This would be a departure from the current iPhone 4S design with an external antenna and two glass plates on the front and back.

New information from sources at iLounge are stating this is not the case, and that Apple might keep glass as an integral component of the next iPhone exterior. Apple is "continuing to experiment with glass and ceramic rear shells for a future iPhone model" which could be made of Corning's Gorilla Glass 2.

Looking for a faster way to access heavily used apps on your iPhone? A new tweak named AppSlider makes it possible to add two app icons to the unlock slider at the bottom of the lock screen. You can choose which apps to make available at all times.

The best part is that the AppSlider tweak respects your passcode, and will follow the same rules as the unlock slider. Once installed on a jailbroken iPhone, AppSlider will shorten the width of the unlock slider and add two app icons when enabled. Any native or third party apps can be opened directly from the lock screen.

Typing symbols or pictures on the iPhone just got easier thanks to a Cydia tweak called PictoKeyboard. The free software package temporarily replaces an unused international keyboard with unicode symbols that can be typed anywhere. Many of the symbols are similar to emoji icons, which can be installed without jailbreaking.

If your iPhone is jailbroken, the installation of PictoKeyboard takes place in just a few steps and provides an easy way to add unicode symbols including the ever-popular Apple logo. Additional symbol keys can be accessed using the numerical keyboard or pressing the shift button.

AT&T has made changes to its data throttling policies in response to complaints from unlimited plan users. Now instead of slowing down data speeds when a customer reaches 2GB of usage, the company will take this action at the 3GB mark. The policy changes brings data throttling of unlimited customers in line with the revised upper-tier 3G data plan which provides 3GB of usage.

Unlimited plans have been grandfathered in for some time now, with new subscribers required to select from tiered data plans and pay extra fees if they exceed the limit. The actions of AT&T, which slowed down data speeds for the top 5 percent of unlimited data plan users prompted criticism from several quarters, including lawyers.

Withings has finally brought their popular Smart Baby Monitor to the U.S.. The smart sensor allows parents to communicate with their baby by speaking through their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. It also detects sound, movement, temperature, humidity levels, and is capable of switching on/off lullabies.

The Withings Smart Baby Monitor features a 3-megapixel camera with night vision, extra wide view lens and a 4X zoom. It can be controlled from anywhere using a Wi-Fi hotspot, Ethernet cable or even Bluetooth. The two way microphone allows parents to hear and speak to their baby from any room in the house. You can even set an alarm based on the baby's movement, audio levels or temperature in the room.