Apple recently held an event, which was dedicated to studying (as expected). The most interesting announcement made at the event was that of the iBooks 2 application, which is going to deliver even more possibilities for creating interactive textbooks, which could later be used on the iPad, a very popular device, over 1,5 million units of which can, according to Apple, be found in  in American schools.

The tablet already has access to over 20,000 educational apps, but the purpose of the new initiative is to create a whole new kind of electronic textbooks, which integrate 3D videos and images and can be used with multitouch gestures. The application will also allow for taking notes and marking interesting or important parts of a certain text. The textbooks, which can be made using the free Mac iBooks Author program, are going to be sold in a special section of the iBookstore. B. A.

Steve Jobs’ negative attitude towards Android was well-known and he had even sworn to dedicate his last dollar to destroy it. Surprisingly, the other Steve – Apple’s co-founder, thinks Android is a very good competitor to Apple’s iOS and that, in some aspects, it’s even better. One of these aspects is voice commands – contrary to the general opinion, Woz thinks Siri isn’t really doing very well and that Android has better applications to offer. According to him, Siri was good as a stand-alone app in the market, but has been made a lot worse, when Apple integrated it in iOS.

Another thing, which Steve loves about his Android device is the free Google Maps navigation he got with it. He also says, that Android is generally the better choice for app developers, because not only is it a lot easier to upload applications on the Market, it”s also easier to upload quick-fixes and updates for them. Still, Wozniak recommends the iPhone to users, who aren’t very good with computers, but admits, that Android has more to offer, for those willing to try it out and get to know it. B. A.

Chomp is a  search engine, used to find mobile applications. It works in an interesting way – instead of looking for an app by its author or name, you describe it to Chomp and it brings out applications, which fir the description. The company behind Chomp, which has 20 employees, is has recently been bought by Apple. So far, rumors have it, that Apple are going to use the technology from Chomp in their App Store, in order to try and make it easier for users to find what they are looking for. Currently, the search engine works with both the App Store and Google’s App Market, but the support for the latter is probably going to be dropped as soon as the company’s contract with Verizon (which obliges them to provide a search service in the operator’s Android application market) ends.

Just hours, after it became clear, that it’s possible to jailbreak Apple’s newest mobile devices, the tools for the job became available online. All you need, in order to install Cydia and enjoy your unlocked device is a program, called  Absinthe, which is available for both Mac and Windows. Of course, the developers aren’t responsible for the safety of your device (and neither are we for that matter) , but it’s highly unlikely that you’ll experience any kind of problems with the jailbreak – it’s very easy. Still, we’d advise you to make a back-up copy of your contacts and important information before starting the procedure, just in case.

You can download Absinthe from those links (for Mac and Windows) :

http://cache.greenpois0n.com/dl/absinthe-mac-0.2.zip

http://cache.greenpois0n.com/dl/absinthe-win-0.2.zip

And here are the instruction for the jailbreak (for iPhone 4S and iPad 2) :

http://www.cultofmac.com/141652/how-to-jailbreak-your-iphone-4s-on-ios-5-the-right-way/

http://www.cultofmac.com/141689/how-to-jailbreak-your-ipad-2-on-ios-5-the-right-way/

We weren’t expecting the debut of the iPhone 4S to be anything less spectacular than anywhere else, but we really didn’t think that the event could escalate to chaos. The people in lines for Apple’s latest device in Beijing were so impatient, that they started fighting, which even caused the police to interfere. The stores decided not to even open, which led to a lot of people throwing eggs at the doors. As a result, Apple have announced, that they’re going to stop the sales of the device in all 5 official Apple stores in the country for an unknown period of time and the device is only going to be available online or from China Unicom.

Apple have just put an end to the speculations about the debut of their long-awaited tablet by announcing, that the iPad 3 is in fact going to be revealed on 07.03, just as the rumors said. The invitation also confirms another piece of leaked information – the device is indeed going to have a display with a very high resolution. Sadly this is all the information Apple have decided to share, but we’re going to find out the rest soon enough.

Despite this announcement, interesting information concerning Apple’s mobile devices continues to leak – information about the future mobile processors, which can be expected in Apple mobile devices, was found in the code of iOS 5.1, according to which Apple are not only planning to upgrade the A5 chip (with the A5x, which we wrote about a while back), but also to release a brand new processor, called (not surprisingly) the A6. If those rumors turn out to be true, this is going to be the first time ever for Apple to work on two different chips at the same time.

Bloomberg has published an interesting analysis on the current state of the Apple – Android lawsuits, in which it’s stated, that according to trustful sources, Apple is going to change their strategy against Android, its main rival, and start making license deals, instead of suing both Google and the manufacturers of Android devices. Microsoft have also made such a contract and are currently paid $5 for every Android device sold worldwide. This means they’re making more money from Google’s mobile OS than from their own, Windows Phone. Apple, though, is aiming to receive as much as $10 per Android device sold, which may not sound like a lot, but then again, there are currently more than 700,000 Android devices activated daily. There are two major reason why Apple would change their strategy in such a way – first of all, their current strategy isn’t very successful and is utterly useless in the long run. The second reason is that their constant lawsuits are affecting the company’s image, making them look very hostile. B. A.

Can you imagine a future where your smartphone comes with unlimited data, but without a calling plan? Living in this brave new world doesn’t mean you have to abandon voice communication. The new Vonage Mobile app for iPhone and Android brings this new reality closer with free worldwide talk and text to all other users of the app.

Recently, on the Apple’s App Store and Android Market there is a new mobile VoIP app called – Vonage. According to the creators of the application, it will offer 30% cheaper conversations in 50 countries which immediately put the software as the main rival of Skype.

After a rapid setup, the app will ask you for your mobile number (verified with a phone call or a SMS), mobile email and country of residence. Then you’ll have to synch your contacts and this is all that it takes to install the application. Vonage is now ready for a call.

The interface is also clean and easy to use, devided in five divisions: Balance,Keyboard, Chats, Recent and of course Contacts, which have its own three subsections: Free Calls, Invite and All. The user interface looks very nice and polished too.

This, of course, is not all. Vonage Mobile can provide remarkably great call-quality at slow connection speeds like 64KBps, because it uses a special high-definition audio codec. The sound quality is very good and this is certainly noticeable from first hearing. You can also charge your Vonage account through the Android Market or Apple’s App Store with a feature called in-app billing with one of the two credit packs – $4.99 or $9.99. This is very convenient, because you don’t need to share all your credit card details with the app.

Bottom line, Vonage Mobile is a great free calling app, so don’t hesitate to try it.

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Free international calls and texts to anyone with the new Vonage Mobile app – this is the best iPhone calling app to stay connected with your friends! You can download the app directly from here.

Imagination Technologies have revealed their new line of mobile graphic chips - Power VR Series6, the first two of which are the G6200 and the G6400. This is very important, because GPU’s from the PowerVR family are found in a lot of modern mobile devices (like the iPhone and iPad) and are generally considered some of the best ones on the market. This is also the reason for the rumors, which followed, about the next generation of Apple mobile products to use a Series6 PowerVR GPU.

According to Imagination Technologies, the new chips are up to 20 times better than the current generation, which is a very significant increase in power. It’s still unknown whether or not the future iPad and iPhone are going to use the Series6, but considering Apple’s successful partnership with Imagination Technologies, it’s very likely to happen.

Although Apple didn’t take part in CES (and actually hasn’t done so in years) , some very interesting rumors started spreading about a future device of their being spotted at the event. One of the rumors is coming from the editor of iLounge, who claims that he was shown and even tested an iPad 3 or at least a prototype of the tablet. According to his description, the device looks a lot like the current version, but is about 1mm thicker. Other changes he mentioned are a better camera (supposedly like the one on the iPhone 4S) and the expected high-resolution display. According to another rumors, about 250 of Apple’s employees were at the event in order to see what other companies have to show off and how their doing it. Some of these employees are even said to be higher-ranked ones, such as Greg Joswiak, chief of marketing for iOS products.

According to Arieso, the iPhone 4S uses twice as much data traffic, compared to its predecessor - the iPhone 4 and even more compared to the iPad. The reason for this difference is, rather logically, the increased usage of services, which require internet connection – such as the Siri voice assistant, which must at all times be connected to Apple’s servers. In comparison, the iPhone 4 uses 1.6 times more data than the 3GS and the iPad 2 uses 2.5 times as much data as the iPhone 3G. However, it’s important to note that the company, which has posted these results is specialized at optimizing mobile networks. B. A.

He’s the man behind the design of  most of Apple’s products for the last 15 years. He’s the man, without who Apple wouldn’t be what it is today. He’s Jonathan Ive and he has just became a knight. The English designer began working for Apple a long time ago – back in 1992 and finally his name appeared on that special little list the Queen of England keeps, so from now on he’s going to be called Sir Jonathan.

Ive was born in England in 1967 and after graduating industrial design, he founded a design agency with his friends. Thanks to his work there, he was noticed and hired by Apple. His first years in the Us, though, weren’t so pleasant, because of the position in which the company was in. Finally, in 1995 Steve Jobs came back and Apple began its long journey to the top, along with Sir Jonathan.