News

The notion of a waterproof iPhone is laughable to anyone who's accidentally dropped their device in a pool or been stuck in a rainstorm. Apple has been clear when it comes to Apple Care claims that water damage is not covered, even going so far as to install liquid sensors in iPhones.

All this could be set to change if HzO succeeds in its efforts to get Apple to treat their devices with WaterBlock technology during the manufacturing process. HzO won this year's CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award for a nano-scale film barrier that repels water from sensitive electronics.

iPhone case getting scratched up? This problem could be a thing of the past thanks to the latest automotive technology. Nissan has announced the Scratch Shield iPhone case, which uses a layer of the same polyrotaxane coating found on the company's vehicles including the Murano and 370Z.

This groundbreaking technology was developed in 2005 and provides a tactile gel-like surface that is highly scratch resistant. When the layer is disturbed, the material actually reacts to a scratch by returning to its original shape and filling the gap. The self-repair process can take anywhere from an hour to a week depending on the depth of the damage.

Chronic Dev Team member Dustin Howett posted a video of a jailbroken iPhone 4S on YouTube a few days ago. The video shows the A5 device running Cydia after it has been powered off and on. Howett also proves that Siri still functions by asking her to check the weather.

iPhone hacker and Corona developer pod2g republished the video on his blog saying that a release is only a few days away. It only took pod2g nine days to release his A4 untethered jailbreak after he posted a similar video of a jailbroken iPhone 4 on YouTube.

According to investment bank Morgan Stanley the next generation iPhone will be slimmer and feature "a quad-mode chip" from Qualcomm that would give it both 3G and LTE capabilities. Analyst Katy Huberty (via Apple Insider) claims "new touch panel technology" will allow the iPhone to be thinner, and that Apple is considering new casing material. This coincides with a previous report from BGR who said the next iPhone will feature an all-aluminum back.

Huberty says little is known about the iPhone 5, but she believes it will be launched in Q3 of 2012 depending on "manufacturing yields" and "competition." "What is clear about iPhone 5 is that Apple and its supply chain are positively surprised by the demand for iPhone 4S, which increases confidence in strong sales for iPhone 5 later this year," she wrote in a note to investors.

This week's iPhone App of the Week is the Numberlys -- an adventure story game by Moonbot Studios. Moonbot describes their app as a "celebration of the early fantasy epics King Kong, Metropolis and Flash Gordon." The homage to Fritz Lang is part children's story and part narrative game. The story follows the Numberlys, a group of cute characters who set out to invent the alphabet. Users must help the Numberlys create the letters A to Z in a series of interactive puzzles.

Moonbot founders come from a background in animation and filmmaking. They're more known for releasing book-apps like The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, not iOS games. Recent reviews of the Numberlys make it sound like a stunning visual experience that is interrupted by a pointless child's game. The iTunes App Store customer reviews also seem to be split on this topic. I haven't played it so I can't comment on its playability.