With the arrival of a new stable of iPhones comes a new version of the trusty iPhone OS. Looking through the list of features gives us a daytime soap opera sized dose of ups and downs, so we broke it down to the essentials as follows.

First up are the two most complained about shortcomings from the iPhone since day one.

Cut, copy  and paste. This long overdue feature seems to be implemented very cleanly but still begs the universal question, “Really? Took that long?”

Multimedia Messaging. Again, a feature that most dumbphones have already, yet was fully lacking in this otherwise powerhouse device. The bad news here is that this feature is included in the OS, but AT&T still will not be capable of turning it on until “later in the summer”. A point that makes you wonder, is this some bass ackwards marketing stunt, or is someone asleep at the wheel?

The rest of the features of the OS are new additions that make you wanna forget about the first two epic FAILs.

iTunes now supports the rent and purchase of movies, downloaded TV shows, iTunes U access as well as giftcard redemption. Sweet, those last minute creepy uncle Charlie Christmas presents won’t go to waste!

Tom Tom is on board the new OS providing turn by turn directions. Catching up with the likes of VZ Navigator and Sprint Navigation this feature should help level the field with the other smart phones already implementing this. The details of service/cost/features/etc are scarce at the moment but things should get clearer as we get closer to release.

Peer- to -Peer connectivity is available in the new OS allowing games to be played between other iPhones in the proximity and should not require pairing or anything more complex then a simple search.

iPhone locator service will be available to MobileMe users, allowing them to find their lost iPhone on a map via a computer. Or, if need be, send the phone a message giving instructions to call you so that anyone who might find it knows to get in touch with you. The phone will also be capable of emitting a locator noise even if the speaker is off. Also available is the remote wipe feature allowing those who suspect their iPhone to be stolen to remove all data from it remotely. Ya know, in case you’re all up into the espionage stuff, or you’re worried people will see how many times a day you text the phrase LOL.

Tethering is also on the radar in this release. However, AT&T will be the bottleneck of progress again by their announcement that this feature will be available in the future. Again, asleep at the wheel fellas or just like to laurel-rest?

Finally for you devs out there the newest round of integratable pieces may tickle your fancy. OS 3.0 will include the option to embed purchases, Google Maps and Push notifications. Yes nerds, drool away.

All in all, good positive release. Would be nicer to not have to wait for AT&T to get their crap in order, or to have to qualify a few of these with, “Shouldda been there from the start” but in the grand scheme of things a good forward step in the right direction. But for those out there that can’t ever get enough here are a few honorable mentions in bullet form:

* Stereo Bluetooth

* The ability to forward text messages and delete individual messages in a thread

* Forward meeting invites and contacts

* A voice memo recorder

* A shake-to-shuffle feature like on the iPod Nano

* Wi-Fi auto log-in

* Http streaming audio and video

As the online rumor mill predicted a while ago, Apple has released the next generation of the iPhone, the 3G-S. The “S”, which supposedly stands for speed (or same, if you’re a ‘judge a book by its cover’ kinda guy), is the new top dog in the Apple kennel club. The “S” amounts to Apple’s attempt to tie in some much begged for features as well as a few bonuses, in order to hook in recently freed 2 year contract types and allow them the wiggle room to drop the last rev of 3G’s to a recession friendly $99.

The new bells and whistles on the “S” include 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 30fps video, extended battery life, compass and a 3MP cam. Plus a barely pronounceable Apple-ism called a “fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating” which is either a nifty new coating that keeps your iPhone shiny or an excellent source of calcium, we’re not sure at the moment.

Pricing for the 3G-S is $199/16G and $299/32G, which will be available June 18th. And that wallet friendly $99 old school 3G is available now.

For those who drool over detailed tech specs be sure to check out the nifty comparison chart over at Engadget Mobile, here.

Another round of important updates has enabled Kryptes to be more stable than ever!  We’ve added a few necessary upgrades to enhance efficiency of the app and even added some new features for you to play around with (comments and ratings etc).

You can download the latest version of Kryptes on your iPhone by opening your existing version, clicking Update when you are prompted, and then click the Update button.  Voila, done.

If you don’t already have Kryptes, you can go to Cydia, add one of the following sources:

1. http://www.kryptes.net/kryptes
OR (not both)
2. http://repo.sleepers.net/cydia

Then search for Kryptes and download.

Features Added:

• Comments section added for users to post their thoughts on each app, theme, and or ringtone.
• Rating system now available on the actual application.
• Sleepers renovated their depiction pages to be a little cleaner.

New Repo Addition:

Simple SDK

Thanks for your support!

- Matt (flex)

We are really striving to make Kryptes a clean user-friendly app.  In doing so, we have now made the adjustment that will allow for the depiction page links to work even if the target is set to _blank.  We’ve also handled another round of bug reports and updated the way we handle new version downloads.

Repos:
We’ve added yet another repo to our ever-growing list.

Zane App Inc

Which has contributed approximately 40+ applications to our application.

Feature Reminder:

For existing repositories, please remember you can add web-based links to your websites for your debian packages.   If uses are navigating your site on the phone they can download these packages straight from your site.  Kryptes will handle all debian file downloads direct from your website.   We’ve setup a mock page below:

http://repo.sleepers.net/kryptes_pages.php

View in your mobile browser and you will clearly see how this could work for you!

Thanks for all your help!

Matt (flex)

Hah!

A special thanks to everyone who made videos about Kryptes, but since bbsipodtouchhelp was the first we figured a post and link to his YouTube profile was in order.

Thank you for the video and keep up the great work!

PS. Ignore the crash, we are pretty sure this is fixed now

We wanted to inform everyone that Kryptes has just gone through its first public update. We have gotten many responses from  many of you expressing your appreciation for the application and would like to THANK YOU  for your support!

Here is a list of the upgrades that took place over the last week:
Features/Updates for the new package:

1 - KDownloader Beta:

Kryptes now allows site downloads for our developers.  They can post their deb file in the following format on their own websites:
kryptes://theirdomainname.com/path/to/debfile.deb?title=MyTitle&packagekey=com.whatever.yourpackage&version=1

Things to note:
[title] = Alphanumeric with NO spaces or special characters.
[packagekey] = must match package key of deb file.
[version] = Numeric, no spaces or special characters.

2 - Stylistic Upgrades:
Ok, everyone saw the mis-alignments and various oddities with how things were oriented.  Well now that should be remedied for the most part.

3 - Downloading files:
We have changed the way Kryptes downloads files which should prevent a lot of the crash reports that we received in this past week.  We have also bogged down on some other memory issues that could be the cause of this.

4. - Worth Mentioning
Any repo using target=’_blank’ in their depiction pages will NOT work in Kryptes.  They are planning a fix for this in the next upgrade however, for now if you want your links to work, don’t use it.

Please do let us know either by posting here or sending in emails as you have done before. We look forward to your feedback!

Sleepers is pleased to announce the addition of a few new repos to the Kryptes source. With these additional source this pushes Kryptes over 2,500 complete packages.

Below is a list of the respective hosting repos:

1. http://njustin.co.cc
2. http://iz3​ro.uuuq.co​m
3. http://PwnCenter.com - Another automated repository run by our friend Nick Frey - Nice work Nick!
4. http://www.blog.com.es
5. http://winterb​oarder.com - This repo boasts very nice, professional designed themes and wallpapers.

Even though we did receive over 40 repos to the system many of them did not work and we were unable to add them as a source. IF you did submit a repo and do not see it in the list please resubmit and we will attempt to re-add you to the Kryptes source.

Everyone please remember you are a default source in Kryptes. We are working on an update that will help with the identification of your repo in the package listing/detail area.

Thank you for your submissions and we hope this helps increase your overall package distribution.

We have gotten many inquirers about how to install Kryptes we thought the easiest way to do this was by creating a source for that only had the Kryptes package in it.

In Cydia:

• Load Cydia
• Go to Manage > Sources
• Press on Edit
• Press on Add
• Enter: http://www.kryptes.net/kryptes
• Press on Add Source
• Press Done

After you complete these steps you will be taken back to the Source page, you should see www.kryptes.net as a source, simply press on the Kryptes Source then the package and then press install.

Again, we would like to thank everyone for their on going support…

Sleepers is proud to announce the release of Kryptes.

Kryptes is a new, lightweight, package handler that was designed with the end user in mind. We are very excited to announce its release and hope the community appreciates all the hard work that we have put into this. We do understand that there are going to be several questions the Community might have for us, so we will try to answer most of them in this post.

We would like to get the most common ones we are expecting out of the way first:

Q: Are you trying to compete with Cydia and Installer?
A: No, we have tried to reach out to both of the developers for each one of these handlers several times. We have been continually shot down when we asked if we could become a default repository/source. IT was as if we did not exist, when we feel we have given much to the community.

Q: So why did you produce a Application, when there are already 2 prominent applications that exist that are similiar to Kryptes?
A: We have over 600 developers in our repository, we felt to give them the most exposure in the Community we were left with no choice, but to build our own Package Handler. If we would have been accepted as a default repository with the other Package Handlers the build of Kryptes would not have happened.

Q: Are you going to stop supporting Cydia and Installer?
A: Absolutely not! We have no intention to not allow users that continue to use these applications to stop gaining access to the repository.

Q: I own a repository, can I add it to the Kryptes source?
A: Yes you can! We actually welcome you to distribute your packages through Kryptes. Simply download the package, go to Community, click add my Repo and fill out the form.

Q: If I am added will I be a default repository in Kryptes?
A: YES!!!! All repositories that are accepted will be a default source, we will treat all repo owners the same,  without the nonsense of jumping through hoops to give your developers the best possible experience. This goes back to our earlier statement as to why we built Kryptes in the first place!

!!!WE WANT YOU TO DISTRIBUTE THIS IS THE POINT OF THE JAILBREAK COMMUNITY!!!

Q: Once my repository is accepted do I have to make any changes to the format of my Depiction and Screen Shot pages?
A: You will have to make some changes, but again we built this with the Community in mind. If you have a Cydia repository you are 95% of the way there. We do have a few calls that we have to do do get the package downloads counts to work and the rating system, but other then that it is a pretty cut and dry operation. Each repository will have a one on one email thread to get you up and running.

Q: Will you provide me support if I run into issues?
A: Repository owners will have a one on one email thread that we will work through together on any issues that may arise. Users will be able to go to our support ticketing system to report any bugs or feature requests. Again this is the first release and there will be many upgrades to come. We have a few exciting build outs, partnerships, and features that are going to be released in the coming weeks.

Q: Are you going to control the quality of the repositories that decide to join?
A: We feel quality is a opinion that is deserving of the eyes of the beholder. Again the Jailbreak Community is one of wheich, we believe should be open. We will try to implement controls to help cut down possible duplicate packages, but this will be in the future releases.

This is the first announcement of Kryptes and we are looking for feedback, so please feel free to post your omment here, if you have any.

Here are a few screen shots of the Application:

Sleepers.net is pleased to announce a new service for iPhone developers and Application seekers: http://idev.sleepers.net
Idev.sleepers.net is a reverse bidding system that allows iPhone application seekers the ability to post iPhone Application development Auctions on idev.sleepers.net.

Once a project is posted we will alert all of the developers on our system that a new project has been posted and give then iPhone developers the opportunity to bid on the posted iPhone Application projects.

If you are a developer on the Sleepers.net network you will still need to sign up for an account to post bids on projects.

You may sign up here: http://idev.sleepers.net/programmer/signUp

If you are a Application Seeker and wish to post an iPhone development Auction please sign up here: http://idev.sleepers.net/buyer/signUp

We hope everyone enjoys this new service and we are looking forward to any comments that you might have on it.