If you let your mind wander a bit more, one could deduce that March 9th is also the date in which Apple will announce and/or release the iPad 3 seeing as how it is supposed to get its grand reveal in the February/March timeframe. But of course, Apple release rumors are always to to be consumer with a heaping pile of salt.

But as awesome as Tweetbot is, we (as well as many other potential Tweetbot customers) are still left waiting for an official iPad version as well as the elusive #006 app. Another day, perhaps. But for now, enjoy Tweetbot 2.0 and let us know what you think.

Available now in the App Store for $2.99 to newcomers or as a free upgrade to current users.

New Features & Tweaks

• Updated timeline view along with support for inline thumbnails within timeline

• Links within timeline are now easily discernable by a different color and single-tappable

• “Retweeted by” bar now integrated and tappable

• Cell colors have been tweaked for better contrast

• New DM view

• “New Tweets” bar has been redesigned — (Can be dimissed by tap and configured in Settings > Display)

• Timed auto-refresh. Set the timeline, mentions, and DMs to refresh every 5 minutes

• Readability support added as mobilizer service

• “Much improved” tweet replies view

• Links in user profiles are now tappable

• “Huge” font size option in Settings

• Improved scrolling performance

More: Tabots.com/Tweetbot

Gallery

From the leaked pictures, the only physical improvements appears to be the addition of a camera and a camera alone.

In other Nano news, a patent filing back in November eludes to an iPod Nano featuring a built-in speaker of some sort, possibly for future Siri integration. Bluetooth 4.0 has also been name dropped a few times. Maybe the iPod Nano will become the new “iPod Touch Nano/iPhone Nano” if Siri, internet capabilities, and a camera end up making an appearance, no?

It seems like it would be kind of weird taking a picture with something as tiny as the iPod Nano (with camera) would be. Of course, on the opposite end of the spectrum, taking pictures with an iPad isn’t exactly natural looking either.  

If the rumors pan out, look for the new iPod Nano to hit stores sometime in March/April.

The product that X-Doria had that really caught our eye was the Defense Pro. I have personally never been attracted to a lot of cases out there because of the bulk they add to the gorgeous iPhone, so I’ve always leaned towards using protective skins. When he was showing us the Defense and the Defense Pro, we were blown away. We couldn’t even tell it was on there. The greatest part about the Defense Pro, other than the self-healing material, is how the application takes place. If you’ve ever used BodyGuardz or Zagg, you’ll know that bubbles are our worst nightmare. Defense Pro utilizes an iOS app that places a grid on your screen that lines up with the skin itself and the grid printed on a top layer of the material. You line up the lines with the lines on the iOS app and the result is a bubbles-less protection for your iDevice.

Their website is up, but they are an incredibly new company. Look out for their products this Spring and hopefully check back here for a review.

That sweet curved delight you see above was sent in for review, and we gave it the rigorous set of tests to see if it will withstand the hard beats flowing from our iPhones and iPods! Hop on in to see how it stood up!

Design

We’ve seen tons of different audio docks for your iPhones and iPods. To find something that stands out and that matches the beauty of your shiny touch screen Apple toy can be somewhat hard. Certain Homey units have both failed and succeeded in this area. Some of the other sexy items we’ve come across in the past really don’t deliver that quality you come to crave while playing your favorite tunes.

The iKurv does a great job at raising the bar in what you expect your speaker dock to look like, it’s 20 watt curved speakers that sit on either side of the docking station pack a punch when jamming those tunes. This baby will fit in amongst any area you can think of, whether it is next to your bed, your TV, computer or anywhere you might see sleek electronics. I had it spending most of its time in the kitchen so I could really judge the sound, and as you can by the pictures it was a tad out of place. But other than that it actually looks pretty nice. A blue light that wraps the inside of the curve actually shines nicely behind your iDevice. Minimal buttons grace the body of the iKurv – as most the menu jumping and controls can be found on the wireless remote. We are left with only a volume up/down buttons as well as the power button ont he base of the unit. All in all, we are pleased with how the iKurv fits in with the rest of our electronics.

Performance

We plugged it in and BAM! The sound barreled out of the iKurv like it was a Michael Bay film. If you want a dock that can push sound out at an alarming pace throughout a level of a house, you’ve found the right one! We were very pleased with the sound quality of the iKurv, however, we did notice that turning it down to its lowest setting didn’t create a pleasant quite mood. I wouldn’t use this as a calming noise machine next to your bed – unless you like the sound of jack hammers and fighter jets at 3 in the morning. But as a party machine this will hold up very well against your main speaker system.

The iKurv comes with around 7 or 8 docking ports for use with iDevices all the way back to the iPod 30gb Video – this surprised me. I have had that iPod for around 5 years and to find a device that supports it fully is incredible. I tested this baby out using an iPhone 4 as well as the iPod 30gb Video. The wireless remote not only adjusted the volume on both devices, but it also flipped through the tracks along with the rest of the controls you’d expect from a remote. I did find it hard to figure out which mode was right for which device. There didn’t seem to be a great amount of clarification when it came to this part. Flipping through the modes until it landed on one that let me control the iPhone was different than the iPod I was testing. But, being able to control through Pandora was a saving grace.

Conclusion

We enjoyed our time with the iKurv. Playing some loud jiggy jams while rocking Gears of War 3 were quite enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, there were some flaws – no low volume setting, no exact directions for the modes and the fact that only black is available for a color bring the score down, for sure. But for a loud speaker system for your iPhone or iPod the iKurv won’t fail you. Doing some research on the interwebs, it does seem that it is optimized for your iDevice. Even though it comes with the 3.5mm cable to plug in an array of other mp3 devices and phones, the audio doesn’t really shine through as it does for the iClan. I can’t verify this myself, so proceed at your own risk. For an introductory price of $79.99 over at www.speakal.com we would suggest holding off a bit. The retail price is $89.99 so it is on sale right now, but we think it is somewhat high for what you get.

With all of the docking stations available nowadays, would it of hurt to through a clock or LCD screen on the unit? I understand that will throw the design off a bit, but it just seems lacking for that $80 price tag. If you happen to see the iKurv on sale for $49.99 – pick it up. It won’t disappoint you.

Gadgetsteria Rating: 6.5/10

Buy Now: Speakal

Catch the full ‘graph after the break…

Source: Vouchercodes.co.uk | Via: TUAW

As far as news regarding any official dates, current rumors say September/October. As you all know, Apple will show us their new goods when they’re ready.

Source: The Loop
Via: iDownloadBlog

Another piece claimed by the source is that this will only be featured on Apple’s smaller iDevices – including iPhone and iPod. It seems the iPad will be left out of the newest feature. Of course support could always be added in the future to the taller iBrother. Some other sites are saying Apple might keep the newest feature an iPhone 5 only feature to add value to the purchase of it over an older device. This actually sounds like something Apple would do, but for us here at GS, we don’t think Apple would leave out the iPhone 4 for and latest iPod as their internal components should support the new text-to-speech feature.

Do you think Apple will keep this as incentive to purchase the new iPhone or will would it support all iOS 5 compatible devices? We’re excited to see what comes of this!

Source: 9to5Mac

Update

Apple has seen the error of their ways and updated their iTunes page. It now says iPod and shows the WiFi signal strength as… Honest mistake or chicanery? Pictures of the newly edited site after the break

We’ve been hearing of the iPod 3G (if you will) for some time now. It only makes sense – with it’s younger much taller cousin the iPad having the cellular data capabilities. With all of that said, this current rumor might have just been given enough fuel to make it to space. If you swipe your way over to Apple’s iTunes page and take a look at the iPod standing next to the iPad and MacBook Air, you’ll see a 3G icon sitting to the right of full signal strength. There is no AT&T or Verizon logo, but most of those are missing from the iPhone pictures as well.

Did Apple’s website munchkins just blow it? Did they mean to put an iPhone 4 there, and just forgot? The image is also buried within their iPod Touch page, smaller, but you can see the icon there.

Source: iTunes Page
Via: iDownloadBlog

As disappointing as it may sound, we can’t blame him (jailbreak devs as a whole). A lot of work and time goes into each and every exploit. Wasting precious resources on a minor .1 update that fixes a security hole already patched via jailbroken fixes is bad all around. Besides, we’re sure a much larger percentage of the population would rather have jailbreak devs focusing on iOS 5 once it’s bits go public.

Via: iPhoneDownloadBlog

• iPhone 4: GSM | CDMA

• iPhone 3GS: Download

• iPad 2: WiFi | GSM | CDMA

• iPad 1: Download

• iPod Touch: 3rd Gen | 4th Gen

Via: TiPB

Design

For a speaker dock, the Gear4 Halo is actually quite the looker. The smooth, rounded lines ooze modern simplicity and the white hue gives off that chic appearance…and then it abruptly stops when you reach the clock face and main buttons. It’s not ugly per say but lets just mention that Gear4 could have designed that aspect of the Halo dock a bit better. Our biggest gripe with the dock was actually the display. For as much surface area as the Halo dock has, the clock face is rather small. On top of that, the contrast on the display isn’t too terribly great making it hard to read from any further than 10ft away.

Smart Link App

The companion app for the Halo dock — Smart Link — is supposed to be a replacement for the stock iPod app as well as an interface between your iPhone/iPod and the Halo dock. While overall it works decent enough, it seems slightly incomplete. For example: One of the most basic features of the stock iPod app — quick scrolling through artists/songs/albums by first letter — is mysteriously absent from the app. For people with a lot of music on their iDevice, this is glaring oversight.

On the flip side, we do like the ability to sync alarm presets between your phone and the Halo dock when the app is open and your iDevice is docked. Having to configure one set of alarms is enough. Managing multiple is simply a waste of time.

Performance aside, we appreciate Gear 4′s attention to detail. Smart Link is one of the nicer companion apps we’ve seen.

Performance

Being a dock, audio quality is expected (why else build a dock), and we were really hoping to be blown away. Unfortunately, the Halo dock doesn’t necessarily blow away. Highs are quite muted and mids are mushy. The only redeeming sound characteristic was the bass and even that was just so-so. To be clear, for the size of dock that it is, the bass isn’t terrible. But if we factor in the $100 price tag the value disappears. The Halo dock is a decent dock — just not $100 decent.

Besides audio quality, there wasn’t anything specifically “negative” to speak of, though We found one oddity that we felt is worth mentioning. If you want to forgo Gear4′s Smart Link app and use the stock music/iPod app — don’t. We noticed extremely glitchy and jumpy scrolling when using the stock iOS music app when docked. Tapping in one place usually resulted in a completely different selection being pressed. In short: it’s messed up. With that said, we searched — and searched — online for similar cases and didn’t find any. We also contacted Gear 4 inquiring about the issue and were told that it’s the first time they’ve heard about it. For the record, we’re running iOS 4.3.2 on the test iPhone.

If anyone has seen the same issue feel free to drop us a line.

The Good

We’ve been rather critical so far, but there are some notable features worth highlighting. One feature of the Halo dock that we really took a liking to specifically pertains to the sleep function. When you set a designated time for the dock to turn off (say at night before bed) the volume will steadily decrease until it eventually turns off. It’s nothing fancy. Still, we’re intrigued.

As we touched on above, the Smart Link app itself is well designed and easy to use.

Like most smartphone/mp3 player docks, should you get tired of your own music collection you always have the FM radio to fall back on. Of course you’ve also got to have some decent stations to listen to — our neck of the woods lacks any worthwhile music stations. (Run of the mill “top 40″ crap…you know how it is.)

Finally, the dock itself is well designed too, though we wish the LCD was bigger and more easier to read with a re-organized button layout.

Conclusion

Good looks on 95% of the hardware and an avaerage companion app provided by Smart Link leave us wanting a tad more — more tweaks to design, more features in the iOS app, and overall more value. Compared to the many other different iPhone/iPod docks on the market, there simply isn’t anything remarkably unique in the Halo dock to recommend it over its competitors. In the end it simply comes down to personal preference on style and how much you’re willing to spend.

Gadgetsteria Rating: 6/10

Gallery

Thankfully the iOS jailbreak scene moves faster than your typical Android manufacturer with updates as a new JailbreakMe 3.0 update has been released within a Cydia “Essential Update”. As long as you have an active internet connection and select “Upgrade Essential” or “Complete Upgrade” you’ll be good to go.

Now move along and get that hacked iDevice in tip top shape…

Via: Nexus404

Full change log after the break…

Notes and Known Issues
The following issues relate to using the 5.0 SDK to develop code.

Accounts

• When creating an iCloud account you can use any Apple ID provided it is a full email address and not a MobileMe account. If you have a MobileMe account, you can copy data from that account to an iCloud account to use during testing. You can find more information on iCloud at: http://developer.apple.com/icloud

• When setting up an iCloud or MobileMe account using the setup assistant and leaving Find My iPhone on, it might actually turn Find my iPhone off after the setup. Please verify in Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendar/YourAccount that Find my iPhone is toggled On after leaving the setup assistant.

• There is a problem finding a device using Find My iPhone on the MobileMe website (www.me.com) when switching from iCloud back to MobileMe. To workaround this issue:
  On the device go to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendar->@me.com and Toggle Find My iPhone off and back on. Now the device should show up on MobileMe website.

• It is recommended that you disable Bookmarks on multiple accounts. If they are enabled, the results might be undefined.

• NEW: In this beta the option of “Choosing a security question” is not working during an iCloud account setup.

AirPlay

• Starting in iOS 5, video content in applications and websites are AirPlay-enabled by default.

• iOS 5 supports AirPlay of video via AV Foundation.

• FIXED: The Apple TV screen saver may degrade mirroring performance over AirPlay. The screen saver can be disabled in Apple TV settings.

Apple TV

• Apple TV Software beta enables users to mirror the contents of an iPad 2 to an Apple TV (2nd generation) using AirPlay. This beta software also enables Photo Stream on Apple TV so users can access photos stored in iCloud. Apple TV Software beta is being provided to test the latest AirPlay functionality with your iOS 5 apps and web sites. If you wish to install Apple TV Software beta on your device, you must first register your device UDID in the iOS Developer Program Portal.

Audio

• Using voice chat in iOS 5 requires setting the kAudioSessionMode_VoiceChat mode on the Audio Session, or setting the AVAudioSessionModeVoiceChat mode on the AVAudioSession object.

CalDav

• FIXED: After creating a recurring event locally on the device, the device stops syncing after hitting an error on merge. Removing and re-adding the account acts as a workaround for this.

Calendar

• All MobileMe calendars were duplicated after turning calendar syncing off and back on.

• If you launch or manually refresh Calendars on an iPad, your calendars might disappear and you will have to tap “Show All Calendars” to display them again.

• NEW: Restoring from a Seed 1 backup or earlier will cause MobileMe/iCloud calendars not to sync. Subscribed calendars will show up in Calendars but none of your event calendars will appear in MobileCal. To workaround the problem please remove and re-add the account.

GameKit

• Match data for turn based matches is currently limited to 4 KB of data.

GameCenter

• If you have an existing Game Center account which has not yet gone through the first-time Game Center flow in iOS 5, you will encounter a crash when signing into a game’s login alert directly. The workaround for this is to launch Game Center to complete the first-time flow.

iBooks

• iBooks 1.2.2 may fail to display some text or images in books. Please update to iBooks 1.3 in the App Store.

iCloud Backup

• As this is beta software, it is recommended that you do not use the iCloud services to store any critical data or information. If you enable iCloud Backup, automatic backup with iTunes when syncing will be disabled. We suggest you also manually back up your device with iTunes.

• In the iOS 5 beta, support for data protection in iCloud Backup is unavailable. Apps that have protected files will not have any of their data or metadata backed up as a result.

• After restoring, you may not be able to back up again because the device still thinks it’s restoring. To workaround this issue try syncing apps or media that are missing form iTunes or try deleting your iCloud account and adding it back.

• If you delete your backup, the feature will be disabled but settings may still indicate that it is enabled and you will have to toggle the BackUp to Cloud switch in Settings.

• For compatibility reasons, this version of the iOS 5 beta requires that all files be backed up again, instead of only those files that have changed since your last backup. This may cause a warning that your account is over quota. In case the warning occurs, you can delete your oldest backup to free up space and then initiate a backup.

iCloud Storage

• During the iOS 5 beta period, any documents stored on the servers might be purged periodically before GM. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you do not store any critical documents or information on the servers.

• If your application is using the NSMetadataQuery class, you must set a predicate, even though the predicate itself is ignored.

• The Foundation framework doesn’t include the team ID when looking for an app’s mobile documents container. The Team ID must be included at the beginning of the identifier string passed to theURLForUbiquityContainerIdentifier: method.

• In this beta, the setSortDescriptors: method of NSMetadataQuery is not supported.

• In this beta, if you want to use iCloud, you have to manually specify various container identifiers (your application’s Display set) within an Entitlements file for both of your Mac OS X and iOS projects.

• There are issues using the Cloud Storage document API in conjunction with protected data which can lead to data corruption.

• In this beta, document-based applications cannot always detect when files change, move, or are deleted out from underneath them.

• NEW: In this beta, file presenters (objects that adopt the NSFilePresenter protocol) do not receive some of the messages that they’re supposed to receive, especially:
  presentedItemDidChange
  presentedSubitemDidAppearAtURL:
  presentedSubitemDidChangeAtURL:
  You can workaround this by implementing the relinquishPresentedItemToWriter: method and checking to see if the writer actually wrote when your file presenter reacquires. You can also use FSEvents to observe file system changes

• In this beta, messages about changes to files in a directory are not getting delivered to objects that adopt the NSFilePresenter protocol.

• While reporting a bug related to the iCloud storage interfaces, please include the logs collected during your debugging session. To generate these logs, you must install a special debug profile on your device.The debug profile can be obtained from http://connect.apple.com. This profile enables the generation of debug logs that are needed to diagnose any problems using iCloud storage. The instructions to collect the logs are:
  Install the profile. (The easiest way to do this is to mail it to yourself and open the attachment on their device.)
  Reproduce the bug.
  Sync with iTunes to pull the logs off your device.
  Attach the logs to your bug report. You can find the logs in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/DeviceName/DiagnosticLogs.
  These logs can grow large very quickly, so you should remove the profile after you have reproduced the problem and pulled the logs for the bug report.

iMessage

• NEW: iMessage beta 3 will be unable to communicate with iMessage users on beta 1. It works between beta 3 and beta 2.

• NEW: Modal alerts don’t appear for iMessages.

iTunes

• The version of iTunes that comes with beta 3 cannot sync devices that have the beta 2 software installed. To avoid this problem, do the following:
  1. Sync any devices that have beta 2 installed to the version of iTunes that came with beta 2.
  2. Upgrade iTunes to the version that comes with beta 3.
  3. Connect the device and install the beta 3 software. (Understand that you might see a failure to sync error when you first connect the device.)
  4. After installing the beta 3 software, restore from your the backup you made in step 1.

• Videos purchased from the iTunes Store do not play on a 2nd generation AppleTV over AirPlay with iTunes 10.5.

MMS

• Sending an MMS of large videos does not work.

Photo Adjustments

• If you apply red-eye adjustments in iOS, and import your image into the iPhoto seed build, the red-eye adjustments will not appear on that image in iPhoto. As a result, subsequent syncing of your image back to the iOS device from iPhoto will not show the red-eye adjustments.

Reminders

• FIXED: The Reminders application does not send notifications for reminders that are based upon the entry (and/or exit) of a location if there is no date associated with the reminder.

Settings

• The “Back Up Now” button is enabled without the backup data class being enabled for the account.

• FIXED: If you bring up the keyboard of the terms in Settings->General->Software Update, you cannot dismiss it. You have to force quit Settings to get out.

• NEW: In this beta FaceTime icon is missing in Settings on the iPhones.

Simulator

• NEW: Location services are not functional in iOS 4.3 simulator running on Mac OS 10.7 with Xcode 4.2.

Springboard

• Push and local notifications for apps appear in the new Notification Center in iOS 5. Notification Center displays notifications that are considered “unread”. In order to accommodate push and local notifications that have no “unread” status, developers can use their application badge count to trigger a clearing of notifications from Notification Center. When an application clears its badge count (by setting it to zero), iOS 5 will clear its notifications from Notification Center.

Twitter

• NEW: When tweeting your location from Safari and exiting before the location can be established, the location arrow will stay in the status bar. The arrow can be removed by killing Safari from the task switcher.

UI Automation

• NEW: In iOS 5 beta 3, the first execution of a script after a reboot or erase install will likely fail. Subsequent attempts should succeed until the device is rebooted again.

• The play and record buttons in the Automation instrument script editor may not work properly after targeting an application that was launched by a trace session and has ended. They may also not work if you target an application that was suspended. If you run into this problem and it persists, you may need to close and reopen the trace document to get back into a functional state.

• When capturing actions into a script using the Automation instrument, interfaces with web views or table cells that contain a high number of off screen elements may take an extremely long time before returning with an expression.

• The lock() and unlock() functions of UIATarget have been replaced with the lockForDuration() function.

• Instruments overwrites the loaded automation script, even if another program is editing it.

• Starting iOS 5 beta 2, you can now trigger the execution of an UI Automation script on an iOS device from the host terminal by using the instruments tool. The command is:
  instruments -w -t