Tim Cook visited Foxconn in recent trip to China

Tim Cook was taking his first tour of China as Apple’s CEO. Although we’ve heard some gossip about Cook’s intentions for the visit, the nature of the trip is still somewhat of a mystery.

Well Apple helped fill in a couple of blanks for us this morning, as it told Bloomberg that the CEO spent part of his time in China visiting Foxconn’s new Zhengzhou manufacturing plant…

”Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook visited Foxconn Technology Group’s newly built manufacturing facility for the iPhone in Zhengzhou, China as the U.S. company seeks to improve working conditions.

The iPhone production line is at the new Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park, which employs 120,000 people. Carolyn Wu, a Beijing-based Apple spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today.”

Cook’s visit to the factory was likely a PR play. Apple has been under fire for several months now, from both the media and activists, over the poor working conditions inside Foxconn. And a visit from the CEO sends a message that it’s taking the situation seriously.

But regardless of his agenda, it was still pretty cool of Cook to visit the plant. How many production line workers get to meet and talk to the CEO of the company they build products for? I’d be willing to bet that the number is pretty low.

[Via: idownloadblog & AppleInsider] 

Half of all US households own at least one Apple product

Apple’s numbers certainly make it look like it’s sitting on top of the electronics world. But to figure out how popular the company really is, you have to look at who’s buying its products, and how many they’re buying. And that’s exactly what CNBC did.

According to its recent All-America Economic survey, 50% of all US households own at least one Apple product. That equates to more than 55 million homes that have at least one iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac computer. But wait, there’s more…

“But Apple doesn’t have to worry about brand saturation any time soon. Americans don’t stop with just one device. Homes that own at least on Apple product, own an average of three. Overall, the average household has has 1.6 Apple devices, with almost one-quarter planning to buy at least one more in the next year.”

The survey found the typical Apple buyer to be male, college-educated, and younger. In fact, 63% of the people in both the 18-34 and 35-49 age groups consider themselves Apple users. But it’s not just kids using iPhones and iPads.

50 percent of the 50-64 group also consider themselves Apple users. And 26% of the 65 and up age group feel the same way. That’s pretty remarkable considering that folks in these age ranges aren’t typically known for their tech-savviness.

Other than age, there appears to be other factors at play. For example, 77% of people who own more than 1 Apple product make an average of $70,000 per year. And households with kids are more likely to own Apple products than those without.

The interesting thing here is that a lot of folks still view Apple products as high-end, expensive electronics. But with iPods starting at $49, iPhones starting at $99, and iPads starting at $399, that’s just really not the case anymore.

What Apple products do you own?

[Via: idownloadblog] 

Security firm break an iPhone’s passcode under 10 minutes

We all know that iOS is one of the most secure mobile platforms on the market, but it’s far from perfect. How else do you think hackers are able to find exploits in the software that allows us to jailbreak our devices?

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the folks over at Micro Systemation, a Swedish security firm, are able to bypass an iPhone’s passcode lock in under 10 minutes. Don’t believe it? Watch this video…

The security firm calls its in-house software XRY, and as you can see, it’s very effective. Utilizing exploits, similar to those used in jailbreaks, XRY can crack an iPhone’s passcode, and download private data like call logs, contacts, and messages.

It’s scary how easy they make this look. It seems that even with a passcode set, your personal data on your iPhone is never safe. Especially if you were to lose your phone. Luckily, Apple’s Find My iPhone service has a handy remote wipe button.

[Via: idownloadblog]

Loophole discovered that could allow A5 devices to downgrade from iOS 5.1

Folks with newer devices on iOS 5.1 will be happy to hear that iH8sn0w has uncovered a new loophole that could potentially allow users to downgrade their A5 gadgets to the more jailbreak-friendly iOS 5.0.1 in the near future.

As noted by Gadgetsteria, the Sn0wBreeze creator announced yesterday via his Twitter account that he has uncovered a “loophole” in Apple’s APticket system that allowed him to downgrade his iPad 2 from 5.1 to 5.0.1…

Here’s the tweet:

iH8sn0w@iH8sn0w

Found a loophole in Apple's apticket system. Restored my iPad 2 to 5.0.1 from 5.1. Works on all A5 devices. :)

25 Mar 12

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This is actually a pretty big deal, considering there isn’t currently a jailbreak available for A5 devices (untethered or otherwise) on iOS 5.1. Nor is there a method of downgrading the firmware on these devices at this time.

Chances are you’ll need saved SHSH blobs from iOS 5.0.1 for whatever hardware you’re looking to downgrade, but we won’t know anything for sure until we see an official release. And unfortunately, we don’t have any kind of ETA.

As always, we’ll let you know more as soon as we do. So stay tuned.

[Via: idownloadblog]

‘Attacher’ allows you to open any attachment in iMessage

Attacher is an alternative to the ReceiveAny tweak that we covered previously. It allows you to open previously unsupported files directly from within iMessage.

Although you can’t use Attacher to send unsupported files, it’s still a great free solution for those cases when someone insists on sending one to you…

Once you receive a file via iMessage, you’ll notice the blue arrow button next to the attachment. Tapping this arrow will bring up a dialogue menu that will allow you to open the attachment in iFile, or any other supported app for that particular file type.

Again, Attacher won’t let you send attachments, but it’s a great solution for opening various unsupported file types. You can find it on Cydia’s ModMyi repo for free.

What do you think?

[Via: idownloadblog]