It might be sooner than you think. The European Union initiated a Battery Directive in 2006 which aimed to make it easier to dispose of old batteries, but it looks like they’ll be taking it a step further with a New Battery Directive. This new directive proposes that all batteries should be able to be removed from their electronic devices for replacement and disposal. If this new directive goes through, it could mean trouble for the iPhone in Europe, as well as iPods and a few other non-Apple devices. It wouldn’t be the first time Apple has gotten into trouble with the EU, and it most certainly won’t be the last.

Tags: battery, EU, European Union, iphone, ipod

Starting October 15th, the Nero LiquidTV/TiVo PC box will be available for purchase. The package comes in two options: software only or tuner model. The software only model will run you $99 while the tuner model will cost you $199. Both include a free year of TiVo (afterwards it will cost you $99 per year for the service). While Nero is known for their burning software, it looks like the exporting on this package is going to be limited to portable devices and the like. We’ll have to see how long that lasts or if it will cause the device to not sell as has been expected. It has also been over a year since the announcement of this partnership, so whatever steam there was may be gone by now.

Tags: iphone, ipod, liquidtv, nero, psp, tivo

The 2.2 Firmware has hit the developers hands (and the DevTeams hands, who have already cracked it!) and what we’re surprised to see is the choices they’ve made on things to fix and tweak. There is still no copy/paste, but I think the entire iPhone community has given up on that by now. What we have seen however is that they’ve decided to revamp the Safari toolbar. We had no idea that it needed tweaking in the first place!

Apparently the changes include a repositioning the address bar and the search bar. Both will be clearly displayed when you load up Safari so you don’t have to tap to get to the search box. The fresh button is now also inside the address bar itself. This doesn’t seem like anything that monumental or even that great, so we have to wonder, why put this on the top of the list?

Tags: 2.2, apple, firmware, firmware 2.2, Firmware2.2, iphone, Safari

We’ve been trying to grasp why Apple keeps blacklisting useful apps. For example, the latest app blacklisted that we find extremely useful is Podcaster.

Now, Podcaster was built exactly to the SDK specifications and actually allows you to download and manage any podcast you would like on the fly. Sounds really useful, doesn’t it?

Well Apple decided that it shouldn’t be on the App Store for the following reason: “Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.”

Think about it for a second. As David Chartier from ArsTechnica made clear, there are a clear abundance of calculator and stopwatch apps for the iPhone. Doesn’t the iPhone do that on it’s own already?

The developers are doing their best to keep this app alive by providing it Ad Hoc for a donation of $9.99. While Apple can shut that down at any point, the developers claim to be trying their hardest to keep everything together for at least one year. Check out their website for more info.

Tags: ad hoc, app store, arstechnica, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, podcaster

While there was clearly a bit of a head start to be had by the fact that the iPod Touch 2.1 firmware had already been jailbroken, it only took ONE DAY for the DevTeam to officially jailbreak the iPhone 2.1 firmware. This firmware update will allow you to run third party/non-app store apps as well as 2.5G/EDGE unlock your iPhone. There still isn’t an unlock for the 3G band as of yet, but you’ll be happy to know that this process has become a lot easier.

PwnageTool and QuickPwn have both been updated to handle all 2.1 devices EXCEPT the new 2G iPod Touch, so hold off on that for a bit.

Tags: 2.1 firmware, 3g, apple, devteam, Edge, iphone, ipod touch, pwnagetool, quickpwn

Last week was a week of new firmware and new cracks apparently.

The iPod Touch firmware 2.1 launched just last Tuesday and by Friday it was already QuickPwn’d. The process isn’t exactly the one click solution that we’ve all grown accustom to, but if you’re the type that just can’t wait for the DevTeam to make things a little bit more noob friendly, you can go ahead and give it a shot. the whole process isn’t that difficult to handle.

While this method does work, the DevTeam has made it clear that this isn’t one of their official releases, so keep that in mind!

Tags: apple, devteam, firmware 2.1, genuis playlist, iphone, ipod touch, itunes, quickpwn

On Friday, Apple released firmware update 2.1 for the iPhone officially. It had previously been released to the iPod Touch community earlier during the week. While the results have yet to come in clearly, the promises made for this patch were fairly significant. Steve Jobs himself promised a laundry list of fixes, including fewer dropped calls, improved battery life, less app related crashes, and a much faster back up time to iTunes.

The update process took a significant amount of time as they always do and overall the iPhone is performing a lot smoother. But that’s just what this writer has experienced. Many other users have found themselves having to completely restore their phone due to this update. Hopefully we’ll be hearing more in later this week.

Tags: 2.1 firmware, apple, dropped calls, iphone, ipod touch, steve jobs

It’s always confusing when one competitor makes something that works so wonderfully with their rivals. So when we heard news of the Sony ICF-CD3iP we just had to share it.

This $100-ish Dream Machine isn’t just another CD playing clock radio, it can actually work with your iPhone or iPod. Surprisingly enough it looks very sophisticated and very appealing to have on a desk.

The features of this yet to be released device do include a remote for the iPod/iPhone and even an alarm function that can work in conjunction with your devices alarm. Hopefully the audio is as good as the device looks.

For those of you who think it looks spiffy enough without the iPhone/iPod connectivity you can easily remove that little side attachment and get things going the way you truly want them to.

Tags: apple, cd player, clock radio, dock, iphone, ipod, mp3 player, sony

After we unfortunately (but voluntarily) lost Phonesaber from the App Store, THQ Wireless promised to make their own version to replace the void that a lack of Phonesaber left us with. Well we’re getting closer to seeing the final product of what they call LightSaber Unleashed.

Apparently the game is going to tie directly into the upcoming LucasArts Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game. But this iPhone app is going to have a lot more to it then what we’re use to. First off, you can actually choose between characters from the Force Unleashed. What makes it even better is that you will also be able to load up actual Star Wars dueling music when you start wildly swinging your light saber/iPhone around.

To keep everyone happy, THQ Wireless has also decided to release this app for free!

Tags: app store, force unleashed, iphone, iphone app, lucasarts, star wars, thq wireless

Tried out the new iTunes 8 yet? Well if you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone or are attempting to jailbreak your iPhone, you may not want to give it a shot after all. As of right now the PwnageTool doesn’t exactly play nice with iTunes 8. While Apple can’t undo what the PwnageTool does through firmware updates, the new iTunes does make it currently impossible to restore your iPhone to an iPwned ipsw.

The DevTeam is working their hardest on making their next release handle this issue, but is it really needed? Considering you can’t yet unlock the 3G network, there’s not a whole lot of use for it besides customizing how your iPhone looks. Perhaps if that’s your thing you should avoid the latest iTunes.

Tags: 3g iphone, apple, devteam, iphone, itunes, jailbreak, Mac, pwnagetool