It seems that an AR-like capability within Mobile Safari has gone pretty much unnoticed (or at least unimplemented by a third party) until now. Occipital, a company that has developed a panoramic photo iPhone app, has come across the new feature in Safari for iOS 4.2 devices, and it’s related to the gyroscope. If you have an iOS device with a gyropscope (iPhone 4, latest iPod touch) you can try a live demo for yourself. It’s ridiculously impressive, and by using the gryoscope and a panorama image, you can deliver an augmented reality type of experience right in the Web browser itself. Hit up http://occip.it/pt3dmqna from your iOS browser directly to check out the demo.

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Haven’t got your Steve Jobs email fix for the day yet? Good, because another one is making the rounds and this time it’s about Apple’s AirPrint feature. If you have been keeping up on the saga, Apple announced AirPrint with support for some select HP printers, but it also indicated you’d be able to print to any shared printer on your local Wi-Fi network. At iOS 4.2 launch, however, only the HP models are officially supported (and enabled). Here is a reported email to Steve Jobs on the issue and the response:

Dear Steve,

You got me all hype about AirPrint. Now with iOS 4.2 released, I find out that I can only print on 11 select printers. Seriously?!

And, Steve Jobs’ alleged reply:

Lots more coming soon. It’s what it takes to make a giant leap to driverless printing, which is huge.

There are unofficial ways to re-enable support for shared printer printing on Mac OS X 10.6.5 and your iOS devices, but for the purists out there, maybe word of this feature slowly being reintroduced in a “huge” way will give you peace of mind.

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Just a quick update: iOS 4.2.1, which was announced earlier this morning by Apple, is now live on the company’s servers and ready for download. If you have an iOS device and want the new bits — we can’t imagine why you wouldn’t (unless you’re jailbroken) — open up iTunes, plug in your device, and let the magic happen.

Probably not the iOS 4.2 announcement you were hoping for, but it is an announcement nonetheless. Moments ago, Apple seeded another gold master candidate of iOS 4.2 — 4.2.1 — to developers via its iOS Dev Center. Presumably, the new code fixes several bugs that have been reported in the first 4.2 GM candidate; including a fairly nasty Wi-Fi bug affecting iPads. If you’re a member of Apple’s developer network, you know what to do. Everyone else… the waiting continues.

Today, after much speculation, Apple released version 10.1 of its iTunes music and iThing synchronization suite. The relatively small, point-upgrade has been highly-anticipated by some members of the technology community as it brings with it AirPlay and iOS 4.2 compatibility. The official list of improvements is as follows:

• Use AirPlay to instantly and wirelessly stream videos from iTunes to the all-new Apple TV.
• Sync with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 4.2.
• Provides a number of important stability and performance improvements.

In unison with the iTunes update, Apple also released an updated build of iOS 4.2 for the iPad via its developer portal. There were no release notes included with the new build to indicate what differs from the first 4.2 GM candidate.

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The Internet is all atwitter with reports claiming that Apple’s iOS 4.2 will, in fact, not be released this week. The rumors — which as far as we can tell all originate from the Greek blog iPhoneHellas – cite a “Wi-Fi bug” that cropped up in the iOS 4.2 gold master candidate that was released to developers late last week. It has been widely reported that the Cupertino company’s mobile OS update would be released to the general public at some point today. We’ve pinged Apple for comment and will update this article with any relevant information provided.

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Just a quick follow up to an article we posted last week. It looks like Apple’s iOS 4.2 gold master candidate, which was pushed out to developers last night, closes the security loop hole that allowed the iPhone’s lock screen to be bypassed from the “Emergency Call” function. We’ve been trying, unsuccessful, to replicate the issue with the latest iOS pre-release.

If you’re not a member of the developer community, and wondering when you can get your hands on iOS 4.2, know that iOS 4.1 GM was released to developers one week before it went live to the general public.

Apple promised iOS 4.2 by early November and tonight the company delivered. The gold master revision of iOS 4.2 has just dropped in Apple’s developer portal. If you have developer access, and like being on the bleeding edge of iOS releases, hit up developer.apple.com to install the new bits. Let us know if you find any new goodies and enjoy.

Apple has just released iOS 4.2 beta three, along with iTunes 10.1 beta 2, to developers. The iOS code weighs in at a hefty 620 MB and is waiting at the ready in Apple’s developer web portal. If you install the new bits on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, let us know what you find.

Right on schedule: Apple has gone and posted builds of iOS 4.2 beta 2 for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad developers. We’re getting it up and running on our devices, but in the meantime, chime in with any findings, ok?

Thanks, Troy and everyone else!

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Yes, yes, y’all — Apple has gone ahead and updated the developer portion of their site with the brand spankin’ new OS. Look for wireless printing, multi-tasking in iPad, and finally a unified OS for all iOS devices. Let us know how you’re loving it, ok?

Today, Apple posted its iPad 4.2 software update page to remind you of the improvements that the next iteration of iOS will have for your tablet device. For those who don’t know, iOS 4.2 will bring: multitasking, home screen folders, wireless document printing, AirPlay (streaming audio/video), Apple’s Game Center, a unified inbox, text search in the Safari web browser, as well as a handful of other modifications. The update is scheduled to roll out sometime in November. If you would like more details hit the read link to view the official Apple page.

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Well, it has been rumored forever, caught on video, and we’ve even done our part in sharing the news as well, but we can’t hold out on y’all any longer — we have been toying with the BAS for the greater part of a month. It’s a solid effort on RIM’s part, but will it do anything for them or just waste engineer’s precious time? The answer, friends, is in our review after the break.

Setup:

To install RIM’s BlackBerry Application Suite for Windows Mobile, you just install the program as you would like a normal Windows Mobile app. In our case, it was from a .cab file. Once it’s installed, it adds a BlackBerry icon to the Settings folder (much like BlackBerry Connect did/does) and off you go. Since the BlackBerry operating system is virtualized, it has to boot up like a normal BlackBerry device. There’s two parts to the BlackBerry OS starting. First, TouchFLO 3D has to be disabled for it to run. We’re not sure whether this is to keep memory usage down or for another technical limitation, but it’s really not the end of the world seeing as RIM hopes to keep you on the BlackBerry side as much as possible. The second feature is that you can configure the BlackBerry portion to start at Windows Mobile bootup, effectively telling Microsoft to go jump in a lake — nice. Finally, you just choose your keyboard layout (Touch Pro QWERTY, Fuze QWERTY, or Touch Pro AZERTY) and the application starts.

Features:

It’s remarkable that RIM has been able to pull this off. As much crap as we give them (yeah, whatever), this is impressive. The OS really runs on Windows Mobile! You’ve literally got an entire BlackBerry on here.  Name something you’d use on your actual BlackBerry and we think you would be hard pressed to not find it. Here’s a quick list of what’s included in terms of BlackBerry Applications:

• Messages
• BlackBerry Messenger
• Address Book
• Browser
• Memopad
• Password Keeper
• Tasks
• Profiles
• Clock
• BlackBerry Maps
• Media
• Manage Connections
• Calculator
• Search
• Options

Now, after praises like that, this thing can’t have any flaws, right? Oh so wrong. So, so, wrong. For starters, like we mentioned, it runs the BlackBerry OS of 4.2. Hello. Hi. The year 2005 called and they want their 8700 back. Honestly, RIM. You had this in the bag. You had a viciously serious attack plan to destroy Windows Mobile (like a crack dealer, give them some BlackBerry OS here, little Messenger there, get them to finally switch away to an actual BlackBerry), except you’re giving people an OS from 2005. This is the year of the operating system in case you haven’t noticed. And in case you did, you’ve just blown a magical opportunity to shun your opponents.

Integration:

In the build we’ve been testing, things like GPS and Bluetooth were integrated seamlessly. We heard the camera might be as well but it wasn’t accessible in this version. When making a call, it’s actually a little weird because it will jump over from the BlackBerry operating system right to Windows Mobile and then back again when you’re done. Wi-Fi also does not work, but 3G works perfectly.

You can even set the BlackBerry side to handle all your SMS/MMS messages.  So the only real reason you’d need to be on the Windows side is to take a flick or make a call. Calls made are actually logged on the BlackBerry side which is very nice because it lets you keep track of all your activity. Profiles are also across the board, so if you’re on Vibrate in BlackBerry, Windows Mobile will be on vibrate as well.

Usability:

There’s no question the BlackBerry Application Suite is usable. Heck, like we said, it really is the actual BlackBerry OS. The question becomes how much simpler does it make your life if you don’t have the flexibility that modern BlackBerrys afford you? Think about all the attachments you can’t view/download, how badly the BlackBerry Browser used to be (still is, but imagine the 8700), how much it sucks not to have HTML email anymore, etc. Would it be easier to just use Windows Mobile? You did actually buy a Windows Device in the first place… Our problem isn’t the usability factor so much as it is the convenience factor.

Navigation:

This is tricky. To make a long story short, you won’t want to use the touch screen for any sort of navigating. The reason is because it’s not finger-friendly. Scroll bars are absolutely tiny and using the stylus itself sometimes won’t even cut it. You’re better off navigating with the 5-way directional pad and using the four arrow keys on the keyboard. Plus all the lovely standard BlackBerry shortcuts work, helping things a bunch. You’re not flicking, gesturing, swiping, or any of that nonsense on here. Oh no, it’s down to basics and we’re kickin’ it old school — physical keys, baby.

Conclusion:

We really have to applaud RIM for making this a reality. They’re about 22 months late (more by the time this is actually released), but they’ve successfully virtualized their BlackBerry OS while practically giving up nothing. Does this mean it rocks? No. But what it does mean is that we have faith there will be many versions to come after this and we have faith RIM will work on updating it to a current 4.6 or 4.7 OS version. Plus don’t forget the fact that there’s a Symbian version coming, something which is huge as well.

The BlackBerry Application Suite for Windows Mobile is much more than a proof of concept. It works, and works extremely well. We’re sure the final shipping version will work even better than it is now; it’s probably more stable than Windows Mobile will ever be. We’re just not sure people are going to want to give up the luxuries they are finally getting in Windows Mobile. As sick as that sounds, people buy Windows Mobile devices for a reason. If it is a consumer, they wanted what they wanted and having to go through the extra step of installing and configuring an operating system just might not be for them. If you’re talking about the corporate user, well, they either have a Windows Mobile device because they wanted one or because they were given one. It’s highly possible their organization doesn’t run a BES in which that case won’t help. So, we’re torn. We love the idea, we even love the execution of it for the most part, we’re just having trouble finding users. Yes, many will download it and try it out. Some will run it tandem with Windows Mobile and flip back and forth to do different tasks, but we think many will just uninstall it after they’ve gotten their rocks off. We look forward to seeing how this evolves, and we’re really excited about the Symbian client, but for those of you who miss your trusty 7290 and can’t forgive yourself for giving it up, this might be the day you’ve been waiting for.