Results: Do you hack your iPod poll

A while back we made a poll that asked the lovely people out there if they hacked their iPod’s. Well we let the poll sit on the front page for long enough, and now have all of the results.

Yes – 203

No – 42

I’m scared to – 76

I don’t know how – 196

Total Votes: 517

It looks like a lot of people do, and a lot of people don’t know how to. Well I’m currently researching into the iPhone and iPod touch hacking spectrum as that is something that we haven’t covered at all here, and I think I will do that, as well as some of the classic iPod hacking as well.

Also guest articles are welcome! Email me and we’ll see what we can work out!

Apple announces the iPad…BAM!

A couple days and it’s all the buzz, the new Apple iPad (not the expected iSlate). It’s basically a much bigger version of the iPod Touch and iPhone, and is supposed to kind of bridge the gap between the smartphone and laptop (really don’t want to hang onto that clunker next to my ear). We’ve got all of the details below and will keep you updated on what’s going on with the iPad, but will not stray from the iPod-centered news (or lackthereof, I don’t know which).

Pricing
WiFi only models are:
$499 – 16GB
$599 – 32GB
$699 – 64 GB

3G models are:
$629 – 16GB
$729 – 32GB
$829 – 64 GB

Online plans are$14.99 for up to 250 MB of data per month or $29.99 for Unlimited data.

Specs
Height: 9.56 inches (242.8 mm)
Width: 7.47 inches (189.7 mm)
Depth: 0.5 inch (13.4 mm)
Weight: 1.5 pounds (.68 kg) Wi-Fi model; 1.6 pounds (.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model

Display
9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology with 178-degree viewing angle
Touch has been reengineered for the iPad to make it “extremely precise and responsive”
1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)
Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating

Capacity
16GB, 32GB, 64GB flash memory

Processor
1 Ghz Apple A4 chip

Sensors
Accelerometer
Ambient light sensor

Battery and Power
Built-in 25Whr rechargeable lithium-polymer battery
Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music
Charging via power adapter or USB to computer system

Input and Output
Dock connector
3.5-mm stereo headphone jack
Built-in speakers
Microphone
SIM card tray (Wi-Fi + 3G model only)

Click the jump to get the rest of the details

Bringing the blog back to life, and other updates

Hello everybody,

It is SuperMario290 (Keenan Payne) the founder and person that runs this blog as well as others. I am just making this post to tell you guys what I’ve been up to in the past months, and that I am planning on updating this site weekly. I have been busy with tons of projects that you can check out below and I haven’t had a lot of time to do much writing, but it’s still getting a substantial amount of traffic and you guys are pretty damn awesome so I can’t leave ya hanging.

So yes, I will be updating the blog with content every couple of days or so with what I can find, I’ll write some tutorials on hacking every now and then, and I might change the theme up and maybe get a custom domain name or something. In the mean while, here are some of the ventures that I have been working on all summer up until now.

• SlackrMedia – That is the company that I have created. We are a freelance web design agency and we do all web design and create our own intellectual properties. I have completely redesigned the site, put up all of the information needed on it, got forums up and running, and managing features on that. You can check that out at http://slackrmedia.com.
• Default Prime – Yes, my oh so sarcastic video game blog. I have been updating the blog and as you can see we have a quiet different design than the last time Animal Crossing Addict was updated. I have also hired a couple of authors and editors, including Oculin and SuburbanHell. We are now averaging more than 1,000 unique hits each day, are at a page rank 3, in the top 100k of Alexa, and are doing well. We are planning on redesigning the site soon though so look forward to that!http://defaultprime.com
• SlackrThemes – Since we are a web design agency, and we do web design and blog design, we thoght “what better way to promote our skills and talents than by launching a website where we offer both free and premium templates and themes”. Well, that’s what we’re doing with SlackrThemes. We are releasing normal XHTML/CSS themes, as well as templates for WordPress and soon other CMS’s like Drupal and Joomla. The best part about it is, you can download all of the premium themes and use them on as many sites as you want for only $20/year, full support, and the whole shebang. Yeah. http://slackrthemes.com
• Gaming Mashup - Our latest project here at SlackrMedia, Gaming Mashup is a part of a new subsidiary network/company that we are creating. What Gaming Mashup does is syndicate all of the latest gaming news from across the web and puts it in one place for you. You can see news by console, and there are tons of categories for each platform including reviews, rumors, and so on. The site is still under construction and will be upgraded minorly for a while to come, but it is up and running and so are the forums. Also, there’s dynamic backgrounds (what’s better than that?). http://gamingmashup.com

So that’s it, the whole roundup of the site, and what I’ve been doing and all of the excuses I have of not being here for ya guys  Hope you enjoy the new site and I’ll try to keep current on it!

New Website for iPodlinux

If you’ve tried to access the once-up and running iPodlinux website in the past couple of months (ipodlinux.org), you may have noticed that you got a server error whenever you tried to access the site in your browser. Well, I did a little bit of surfing around the internet, and finally found the place where they are holding the site and the project right now. The official site link as of right now is http://ipodlinux.sourceforge.net/index.shtml, so you can find everything there from documentation, downloads, links, and forums. Just giving you guys a heads-up since I know that some of you might have wanted to know.

Tethered Rockbox on Nano 2G

We all now Rockbox, the second most popular operating system other than iPod Linux. Well, a team called Linux4Nano “tethered” boot of rockbox on an iPod Nano 2G. This hack currently only applies to the iPod Nano 2G, so NO newer iPods.

Current Status:
- We are able to execute arbitrary code in a stable fashion on the nano on firmware 1.1.3
- Drivers will need to be newly written/ported to get iPL and Rockbox working good.
- More Info here [Link]

If you are also a Twitter-goer, you can follow the team at http://twitter.com/linux4nano.

Video of Continuum 2 Running

Meet Continuum 2!

Continuum 2 is the sequel to Continuum 1, which was released December 25, 2008. Since then, the iPod hack has received over 4,000 downloads, and now, it’s sequel is out.

Continuum 2 is built on the iPod Video (5G, and 5.5G)’s 1.3 firmware, and there is not lag whatsoever in the menus or screens. So what is Continuum? It is a firmware hack that changes the menu design and overall look and feel of your iPod (not your actual iPod, but how it works). You install it onto your iPod via iPodWizard, and not to mention that it looks sexy, and only takes a couple of minutes to install.

Here’s what one of the developers says on the design: Design: We listened. And we responded. With Continuum 2.0, we took all the suggestions into consideration, while ingenuity and creativity brought it to life. We were successful in creating a Video Now Playing that is finally seamless in performance. We also challenged impossibilities with implementing a half-screen lockscreen. Continuum 2.0 has a stunning Main Menu with 7 enlarged icons, making it much more easy to theme as well as use than the previous 11 small options in Continuum 1.0 that made it cramped for the user. Also, unlike Continuum 1.0, Large Album Art has finally made it to the table!
Important Instructions:

1. Download Continuum 2.0 and save it to your desktop, and extract it.
2. Download iPodWizard 1.3 from -HERE- and open it.
3. Make sure your iPod is connected and readable by iPW
4. Open the bin file with iPodWizard and flash it to your iPod
5. **In top left corner of iPW, there is a box with the label “Firmware Information” with a table underneath with Image Checksum etc.** If 0×2D2A370B’s status is Read Only, right click and fix checksums. If its status is OK, then don’t do this step.
6. Write to iPod
7. Unplug after it has successfully written.
8. Replug quickly
9. Hard Reboot (Center + Menu) May take a few seconds to load.
10. Unplug it when you see Do Not Disconnect symbol.

11. Make sure you have Music, Photos, Videos, Extras, Settings, Shuffle Songs turned on in Settings > Main Menu

So, go download Continuum 2, install it on your iPod, and send me some pics! I’m downloading it right now, and will install it on my iPod tonight. I’ll try to get some pictures of it running later tonight, or tomorrow.

Previews:
Continuum
Ablaze

iPod Wizard Thread

fDefault Official Page

Apple About to Hit a Billion in App Sales

Yep, it’s true, over the lifespan of the iPod Touch and iPhone, Apple has sold almost ONE BILLION applications and games downloads. This is pretty damn huge. To celebrate, Apple is giving away tons of free stuff including a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, and iPod Touch, and more! Check it out!

Link

Poll: Do you hack your iPod?

Well, I was just wondering what you guy did, so I decided to create a poll on whether or not you guys choose to hack your iPods, if you know how to, or don’t. Please take the second to answer the poll to help me out!

Poll Closed. See results!

iTunes 8.1 & Front Row 2.1.7 Released

iTunes 8.1 is now faster and more responsive. You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing.
In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides many other improvements and bug fixes, including:
- Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation)
- Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ
- Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows
- Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs
- Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods
- Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus
- Includes many accessibility improvements
- Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls

Link