A European developer of iPhone software has suggested Apple may be blocking the delivery of push notifications to iPhones that have been unofficially unlocked.

Czech Republic based PoweryBase, developer of the top-selling NotifyMe reminder application for the iPhone, thinks Apple may be blocking the delivery of push messages to iPhones that have been unofficially modified.

The company is at pains to point out that the observed behaviour could be accidental or intentional.

The company says its servers show that five percent of NotifyMe users are running the app on unofficially modified (”hacktivated”) iPhones, and five percent of those are responsible for 80 percent of support requests.

“When the Push based application such as NotifyMe requests an ID from APNS [Apple Push Notification Service], the server responds within a second and identifies the device with the unique token. From that point, the connection between APNS and user’s device is successfully established,” said lead developer Pavel Serbajlo.

“However, on a unofficially activated device, APNS keeps the application wait forever and does not provide any respond at all, keeping user wait infinitely or time out the connection, if the target application is capable of timing out,” he added. [link]

Google’s Chrome OS isn’t the first operating system to challenge Microsoft Windows’ commanding lead. But it’s got an advantage that other rivals such as Linux lacked: the Web.

Any new operating system must attract the developers who produce the applications to make it useful. The trouble Windows challengers have had is matching the wide spectrum of software available for Windows already.

Chrome OS

That software includes mainstream titles such as Microsoft Office, Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, games, but also innumerable programs for narrower niches such as genealogy. Although some people are happy if they have the handful applications they need, an operating system needs broad support to achieve mass penetration.

Canonical’s Ubuntu version of Linux has a lot of buzz as a desktop operating system, but when April 15 comes around, TurboTax doesn’t run on it. Multiply that by all software the world needs and the Windows incumbent advantage becomes clearer.

Chrome OS faces the same applications challenge as any other operating system, but it’s rising to that challenge in a different way. It includes the Chrome browser running on a stripped-down version of Linux, but the applications won’t run on Linux, they’ll run on the Internet. Chrome is the conduit to the Web applications, and Chrome OS is the vehicle by which Google will get the browser installed on Netbooks starting in the second half of 2010, the company promises. [link]

That Google operating system rumor is coming true–and it’s based on Google’s browser, Chrome.

The company announced Google Chrome OS on its blog Tuesday night, saying lower-end PCs called Netbooks from unnamed manufacturers will include it in the second half of 2010. Linux will run under the covers of the open-source project, but the applications will run on the Web itself.

In other words, Google’s cloud-computing ambitions just got a lot bigger.

“Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the Web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small Netbooks to full-size desktop systems,” Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director, said in the blog post.

The move has widespread implications.

One is that it shows just how serious Google is about making the Web into a foundation not just for static pages but for active applications, notably its own such as Google Docs and Gmail. Another: it opens new competition with Microsoft and, potentially, a new reason for antitrust regulators to pay close attention to Google’s moves.

The move also gives new fuel to the Netbook movement for low-cost, network-enabled computers. Those machines today run Windows or Linux. Google Chrome OS provides a new option that hearkens back to the Network Computer era of the 1990s espoused by Sun Microsystems’ Scott McNealy and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. [cnet]

Ars has learned from two separate sources, one inside the company and one outside of it, that Google is preparing to deliver a Chrome-focused operating system that targets netbooks.

Two separate sources—one inside the company and one outside it—have confirmed to Ars tonight that Google plans to launch an operating system built in some fashion around its new web browser, Chrome. One source says that the new OS will be launched soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Tentatively called “Google Chrome OS,” the project appears targeted at netbooks, the tiny portable computers typically used only for such light tasks as web browsing and e-mail. Chrome, of course, isn’t an operating system, but a quick-booting OS built around a single application like Chrome would be a natural fit for a netbook. With such an OS, Google could obviously make it extra easy for users to access the full range of Google cloud applications through the browser—Google Docs, Gmail, Google Maps, etc.

Google OS

Beyond the bare outlines, we have little solid information at this point, though the idea of a Google OS isn’t some novelty; in fact, it’s been aired publicly for years. In early 2006, we reported on Google’s denial that it was prepping an OS distribution of its own based on Ubuntu, but the idea had already been rumored at that point for some time. More recently, the (relative) ease of porting Android to netbooks led to plenty of speculation that Google’s full computer OS, when it appeared, would be based on Android.

The varied speculation over the years may result from the fact that Google can take several possible paths to build such an operating system. One possibility is that the OS could be a port of the Android mobile platform that has been modified to deliver a more netbook-friendly user interface. This seems highly unlikely, however, as Google has unambiguously stated in the past that it has no plans to adapt Android to netbooks itself. The search giant prefers to leave that as an exercise for third-party adopters.

It’s also worth noting that an Android netbook port isn’t really consistent with the concept of a “Chrome” operating system. The Android browser has very little in common with Chrome on the desktop (for example, the Android browser uses Apple’s SquirrelFish JavaScript engine instead of Chrome’s V8).

Another possible approach might be that Google is building a separate lightweight Linux operating system that can be used as a host environment for Chrome. Speculation that Chrome itself could be used as a standalone operating system has been floating around ever since Chrome’s launch, but those ideas are based on some fundamental misconceptions about how multiprocess browsing works. The fact that Chrome uses multiple processes does not make it an operating system itself.

Ars has contacted Google for official comment on Google Chrome OS, but has yet to receive a response. [link]

If you’re a PC gamer, you might willingly pay $15 a month to stomp around the World of Warcraft. What if we also told you that depending on your rig and daily play time, you might also be paying a hidden fee of $10 or more a month to play even single-player PC games?

Gaming PC

After our debut round of all-in-one PC power efficiency results, we’ve had a chance to test the power consumption of a few other kinds of desktops. The most intriguing system so far has been a $3,600 gaming desktop from Digital Storm.

Most performance-driven gamers will consider the added power consumption simply the cost of racking up more kills, but that hasn’t stopped vendors from trying to bring that cost down. HP’s Firebird was an admirable first attempt, and we’re eager to see what Maingear has accomplished with its forthcoming Pulse. Hopefully Maingear, unlike HP, can keep the power draw down, without charging you more for the privilege of fewer frame rates and limited upgradability. We’ll know once we get one in for review. [link]

Mozilla is exhorting users to “upgrade the Web” with Firefox 3.5 and variations on that better-browsing theme can be found with Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Opera.

The hope is that the Web will evolve from a series of relatively static pages to a lively home for Web applications–everything from today’s e-mail to tomorrow’s spreadsheets. But it could take awhile for reality to catch up with the vision.

It’s indeed a bright, shiny future for browsers, and the avant-garde is advancing rapidly. Web developers eager to invigorate their Web sites or build fancy Web applications have to reckon not only with the massive, slower-moving army of ordinary Web browsers, but also with inconsistent support for the latest technology.

Browsers of the future

Many of new browser features stem from HTML 5, the still-not-finalized next iteration of the HyperText Markup Language standard that defines how Web pages are described. HTML 5 has spurred the arrival of built-in video and audio, local storage that Web sites or applications can use, “Web workers” that can perform background processing tasks for a Web application, drag-and-drop for better user interfaces, and other technologies. [link]

The iPhone 3.0 update promises 100 features and enhancements for users, including copy-and-paste functionality and push notification

As promised during last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple on Wednesday released the iPhone 3.0 software update, a major overhaul of its mobile operating system that promises more than 100 new features and enhancements.

The size of the 3.0 update ranges from 230MB to 260MB, depending on which device you’re upgrading. The update is available through iTunes. To install the iPhone 3.0 update, users will also need to be running iTunes 8.2. Apple released that update to its music jukebox software and online store interface earlier this month to support many of the new features introduced with iPhone 3.0. [link]

On the SunSpider JavaScript peformance test, the new Google Chrome beta edges closer to TraceMonkey-enhanced Firefox. But the cutting-edge ‘Minefield’ version of Firefox edges ahead, too. (Credit: CNET News)

Google began updating Chrome users with the new beta version, and my performance tests show the company has ratcheted the browser’s speed up another notch.

Google Chrome’s latest version, 0.3.154.9, shows a 37 percent JavaScript performance improvement over the initial beta released two months ago.

JavaScript is a programming language used to add some pizazz to innumerable Web pages, but more importantly from Google’s perspective, to power sophisticated Web applications such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail. JavaScript is also up against Adobe Systems’ Flash and Flex, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and HTML 5, in the competition for what’s the best foundation for Web applications.

Google has begun automatically updating all Chrome users to the new 0.3.154.9 beta version. (Credit: CNET News)

Using Google’s JavaScript benchmark I pitted the newest Chrome beta, version 0.3.154.9, against both the initial beta from September and the more raw 0.3.154.3 developer release from mid-October. A higher number is better on this test, and the first beta scored 1,851, the 0.3.154.3 developer release 2,265, and the new 0.3.154.9 beta 2,546.

Google’s tests aren’t the only game in town; many use the SunSpider test. Here, too, the new Chrome got a notch faster, getting the test done in 2,546 milliseconds compared with 2,904 milliseconds for 0.3.154.3. (We couldn’t test the first version because the testing site was down at the time.)

The new Chrome score catches closer to the 2,250 millisecond score of Firefox 3.1 beta 1 with its new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled. (Tech-Recipes has useful instructions on how to enable TraceMonkey.)

On blogger Matt Asay’s advice, I tested Minefield, the cutting-edge version of Firefox that’s updated daily. (Minefield is downloadable from Mozilla’s FTP site for those willing to use very untested software).

It had the best SunSpider score so far on my machine, 2,147 milliseconds. However, Firefox still lags on Google’s speed test. Chrome’s latest score of 2,546 is miles ahead of the 215 score from Minefield.

The latest beta version of Google Chrome is a notch faster on Google’s JavaScript speed tests, where a larger number is better. The cutting-edge ‘Minefield’ version of Firefox takes a step back from the the 3.1 beta 1 of Firefox, without the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine enabled. All the Firefox versions trail Chrome on this test significantly. (Credit: CNET News)

There could be something fishy going on here, though: Minefield, which has TraceMonkey turned on, actually is slower than Firefox 3.1 beta 1 with TraceMonkey turned off, which is hardly the result you’d expect for a JavaScript speed test. TraceMonkey-enabled Firefox 3.1 beta 1 couldn’t run the test because of a bug, and though that bug was fixed in Minefield, there could be something else awry.

And again with the caveats: These tests were run on a dual-core Windows XP machine, and your mileage will undoubtedly vary. They’re synthetic benchmarks that may not accurately represent all the particular JavaScript you have to run. And JavaScript isn’t the sole measure of a browser’s speed. [link]

Earlier this year Vista’s first SP1 service pack arrived with a few hiccups that were smoothed out in the end, dramatically improving Vista. Now, SP2 is on the radar with the first beta due on the 29th of October and a final release before Windows 7 goes gold.

Windows Vista SP2 will be launched in beta form this Wednesday to Microsoft’s “Technology Adoption Program” (TAP) customers as part of the development and testing process, according to the Windows Vista Blog.

Microsoft’s Mike Nash shared the details and said that SP2 wouldn’t be released until Microsoft was assured of its “quality”, which will be tracked based on “customer and partner feedback”. 

SP2 beta will contain “previously released fixes focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues” and is expected to “retain compatibility with applications that run on Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1 and are written using public APIs” – which could mean software written using non-public APIs could come unstuck. 

Microsoft boasts that its “single serviceability model” means that the SP2 beta will cover both Vista and Windows Server 2008, which should “minimise deployment and testing complexity for [Microsoft’s] customers.”

But aside from a few fixes and updates, there will be some other changes, and these include “supporting new types of hardware and adding support for several emerging standards”.

You can expect:

- Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches.

- The Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology.

- The ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista.

- The Windows Connect Now (WCN) [software] to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration.

- Enablement of the exFAT file system to support UTC timestamps, which allows correct file synchronization across time zones.

Microsoft also urges anyone who hasn’t yet upgraded to SP1 to do so immediately, and naturally urges everyone to upgrade to SP2 “when it ships”, promising more information on SP2 in the future.

All of that said, the focus this week will be on Windows 7, something that Microsoft is building in a manner that makes it ready to ship at any time – even today, if desired – meaning we could very well see Windows 7 sooner than the 2010 timeframe.

If that truly is the case, then Microsoft should focus its efforts on finishing whatever new features it has planned and getting Windows 7 out the door in mid-2009, giving system builders and OEMs plenty of time to get Windows 7 machines ready for the usually lucrative Christmas 2009 season.

Reports also suggest that Microsoft is hard at work on making a netbook-optimised version of Windows 7, something it will need in the quest to banish Windows XP to the history books and fight the growing Linux threat which is most evident in the netbook market.

Already we have seen Windows Vista loaded onto the HP MiniNote 2133 netbook, but as the MiniNote comes with a Via C7 processor, there’s a lot of “waiting” for things to happen.

The only other netbook to come with Vista pre-loaded as standard is the brand new Dell Mini 12, a 12-inch netbook using an Atom-based processor with only 1GB of memory.

Initial reports suggest that it actually runs nicely enough, which actually shows the power of the Intel Atom processor compared with the Via C7 or the Intel Celeron, but a netbook-optimised version of Windows 7 would be a much better solution.

So, Microsoft, hurry up with Windows 7 or face XP’s lifespan growing ever longer, while being stalked by the likes of Ubuntu Netbook Remix! [itwire]

We’ve already seen a few apparent Windows 7 screenshots and videos turn up, and it looks like there could soon be plenty more where those came from, as Microsoft has now officially announced that it’ll be handing out “pre-beta” builds of the OS at both the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in late October and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in early November. As we had heard previously, you can also expect to hear plenty of technical details about the OS straight from Microsoft at PDC and, who knows, we may even get word of an actual release date. [link] If you want to grab an early copy of Microsoft Windows 7 for free, and all above board and legal as well, then you can in late October. Of course, there is a catch or two..For some people, early reports that Microsoft is going to be stripping out the email, photo gallery and movie maker functions from the upcoming Windows 7 operating system might be enough to turn them off the idea.Others, of course, will just want to get their hands on a copy as early as possible to see what all the fuss is about.Microsoft has now confirmed that it will be giving away free copies of Windows 7 in October. So what is the catch?Well, for a start these are what Microsoft call pre-beta builds, and the rest of us call ‘do not put that near a machine you actually want to use’ code.Then there is the slightly more problematical catch of not only having to attend either the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles at the end of October, or the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference a week later. But also of having to be a PDC or WinHEC keynote attendee which means getting the “opportunity to attend 21 different sessions that drill down into the details of developing for Windows 7″ in order to “be among the first to receive the pre-beta build of Windows 7.”Still, Microsoft does promise that with Windows 7 at PDC you will learn more about “opportunities to build on the platform’s commitment to OS fundamentals, while also enabling you to enhance your existing applications and create new applications that use the new technologies and APIs in Windows 7.”Shame that it won’t be the expected Windows 7 beta version available at PDC though, rather this pre-beta build instead. Which could, of course, impact upon the final release date itself.There had been much speculation regarding a June 2009 date for the final release code, but now it seems more likely that the official Microsoft murmuring of ‘first half of 2010′ will be correct. One thing is for sure, whenever it arrives will not be too soon for Microsoft which will be glad to see the back of the less than successful (at least in marketing and PR terms) Vista. [link]