We’ve received a few questions regarding iPhone 4S availability both in the USA and abroad, here’s what we know so far directly from Apple, as announced at the launch event keynote.

First, iPhone 4S is to be released on October 14 with pre-orders starting a week before, the countries with immediate release will also take pre-orders on the 7th of October at midnight. Other countries will have the device on October 28 or later, we have the full list of availability on a per country basis below.

Second, there’s a big question as to whether or not 4S will sell out and generate the crowds that prior iPhone and iPad releases have generated. If you are at all concerned about being an early adopter and getting your hands on the new iPhone as soon as possible, you should either pre-order or wait in line at an Apple Store or reseller on launch day.

Now let’s look at the official availability dates per country:

iPhone 4S will be available immediately from October 14th from the following countries:

• United States
• Australia
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Japan
• UK

iPhone 4S will be available by October 28 in the following countries:

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The easiest way to retrieve a routers IP address from a Mac is by going through System Preferences in Mac OS X. This is much the same way that you get your Macs IP address, but the router IP is a few steps further within preference menus.

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Want to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone? Assuming you qualify for a new contract, the price of the iPhone 4S is the same on all carriers, starting at $199 for the 16GB version. If you don’t qualify for a new contract, there’s a wide variation of potential prices and fees that will come into play when you upgrade, so here’s how to check your exact eligibility status and the costs associated with it for each US carrier.

First things first, Apple’s upgrade checker website works with AT&T and Verizon, and Sprint will be added soon. You will get more data and sometimes a different offer if you check directly through your carrier though, so it’s recommended to do both.

AT&T

AT&T users call *639# from the phone or plan they want to upgrade and then wait for a text message from AT&T.

Currently most users will get one of two messages, one saying they can upgrade to the iPhone 4S with just a new two-year contract plus a $18 fee, and others are given a date of when they’ll be eligible for that same offer. For the latter, if you’ve had a plan for at least 6 months it seems like AT&T will readily offer an iPhone 4S upgrade for the price of a $250, plus an $18 fee, plus the signing of a new contract. This seems to vary widely based on your existing plan and contract, as we’ve discussed AT&T upgrade eligibility before, and for upgrading earlier in your contract they want you to visit a local AT&T store to obtain the offer.

Verizon

Verizon users can dial #874 on their existing phones to discover their upgrade eligibility status, or they can login to their Verizon account online and check their existing plan that way. You don’t need to be an existing iPhone customer to check for the upgrade, so if you’re ready to switch from an Android you can do that, but you will need to sign a new two year contract and pay an upgrade fee. These costs vary on your plan and your existing contract, so it’s best to check directly.

Sprint

Sprint is the newcomer to the iPhone party, and if you’re an existing Sprint user you just need to visit their upgrade page to check if you can upgrade and the fees and costs associated with it. The huge advantage to Sprint is they offer unlimited data plans, the only remaining carrier in the USA to do so for iPhone users.

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The just released iOS 5 GM has already been jailbroken by a new version of Redsn0w. All devices that run iOS 5 can use redsnow 0.9.9b3, including iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th generations, the only catch is that it’s a tethered jailbreak.

For those who are unfamiliar, a tethered jailbreak requires that the device must be connected to a computer and booted with Redsn0w 0.9.9b3 if the device powers off. Failure to perform a tethered boot results in jailbreak apps and Safari to not launch. The sole exception to the tethered limitation is old bootrom iPhone 3GS.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.9b3

• Download now (Mac)
• Download now (Windows)

Remember, to install iOS 5 GM you will need access to iTunes 10.5 beta 7 or later.

Want to watch the iPhone 4S launch event? See Tim Cook’s first product launch as CEO? Watch demos of iOS 5, Cards, Find My Friends, iPhone 4S, and iCloud?

Apple has put it online, and you can watch Apple’s Special Event online directly at Apple.com.

If you want to see how the iPhone 4S specs stack up against the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and heck, even the leading Android competitor the Samsung Galaxy S II, we’ve got a variety of charts to compare all the devices.

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Shadowed in the iPhone 4S news and other Apple announcements today, the iOS 5 GM build 9A334 has been released for developers to download from the iOS Dev Center. Alongside the iOS 5 GM, Apple is requesting for developers to submit their iOS 5 compatible apps to be ready for the public release date of October 12.

As expected, the iOS 5 GM build will run on iPad 2, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the 3rd and 4th gen iPod touches. Also pushed to developers today is Mac OS X 10.7.2 GM, which includes iCloud support, which will allow you to sync through iCloud with iOS 5.

You’ll need iTunes 10.5 Beta 7, 8, or 9 to install the GM, and no OTA update is available.

For those who aren’t in the iOS and Mac dev programs, you only have to wait another week or so to get the free official downloads. Unofficially, anyone can install iOS 5 GM since there is no UDID activation, but do so at your own risk.

You saw the iPhone 4S specs, the release date is soon with pre-orders already under way. The device will be offered on a variety of carriers, in the US this includes AT&T, Verizon, and newcomer Sprint. But what is it going to cost you?

iPhone 4S Pricing

Prices are the same for white and black models, these are the subsidized prices with two year contract:

• 16GB – $199
• 32GB – $299
• 64GB – $399

Unlocked iPhone 4S Prices

If you opt for a carrier unlocked phone without the contract, the pricing is as follows:

• 16 GB – $649
• 32 GB – $749
• 64 GB – $849

The unlocked iPhone only works on GSM networks with a micro-SIM card.

If for whatever reason you aren’t wowed with the 4S or you just want the older iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS, those are both down in price:

• iPhone 4 – 8GB – $99
• iPhone 3GS – 8GB – Free with contract

And no, there is no iPhone 5… yet!

Thanks to the Verge Liveblog for capturing the pictures from the Apple media event.

The iPhone 4S is official, which isn’t too surprising considering the release date and name was leaked by Apple Japan prior to the Apple event. Nonetheless it’s a big update in terms of specs, so here’s what we know.

While the exterior looks identical to the iPhone 4, the interior is quite a bit different with significant upgrades.

• Dual Core A5 CPU with 2x faster processor
• Dual Core GPU with 7x faster graphics
• Battery improved: 8 Hour talk time, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 9 hours of wi-fi browsing
• Redesigned antenna that automatically switches for the best reception
• Faster data speeds, up to 14.4mbps download
• World phone – CDMA & GSM in a single device
• 8 megapixel camera sensor takes 3264×2448 resolution images, f 2.4 aperture, takes in more light and shoots faster pictures, hybrid IR filter
• 1080P HD video recording with real-time image stabilization
• Siri intelligent assistant and voice navigation
• iOS 5 (general release is October 12)

As before, iPhone 4S will be available in black and white, and offered in variety of sizes, including 16GB and 32GB, and new to the 4S, 64GB. The screen size and resolution are the same as existing iPhone 4, as well as the dimensions of the device. That means your existing iPhone 4 cases and screen shields should work just fine with the iPhone 4S.

Ready to upgrade? Check your iPhone upgrade eligibility with AT&T, Verizon, or jump on over to the new carrier, Sprint.

Update: iOS 5 is out now! You can download iOS 5 here or through iTunes.

Finally a definitive release date for iOS 5: October 12. This was announced today at Apple’s media event by Scott Forstall, and finally puts an end to speculative dates.

Don’t forget to download iTunes 10.5 first, it is required to install and use iOS 5 and iCloud.

The free software update will be made available as a download from Apple’s servers and iTunes next Wednesday for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen users, and the launch will coincide with the release of iCloud.

This is a few days prior to the iPhone 4S release date, which was leaked before Apple’s media event by their Japan store.

An iOS 5 GM build for developers is already available, and the expected iCloud compatible Mac OS X 10.7.2 update is surely soon to follow.

Apple has announced that the iPhone 4S release date is October 14th, but pre-orders start on October 7. This was leaked earlier in the day by Apple Japan (see images below for that). Now if you haven’t seen them already, check out the tech specs, and new iPhone pricing which includes the 4S and reduced prices on 4 and 3GS.

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Barely an hour away from Apple’s new iPhone unveiling and media event today and a few reports out of traditional media outlets seem to be tempering expectations. Notable is the Wall Street Journal, who taps their sources near Apple to announce that there will not be 4G LTE or WiMAX connectivity on the next-generation iPhone, and instead the device will continue to operate on the existing 3G networks.

According to people familiar with the company’s plans, the hotly anticipated device won’t operate on long-term evolution or WiMAX fourth-generation networks.

On the other hand, the report does seem to confirm that Sprint will begin to carry the iPhone, and that T-Mobile remains in the dark.

The big remaining question is if the next phone will be called iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, with a number of signs pointing to iPhone 4S. Thankfully we’ll find out soon.

Follow us on Twitter for updates and more information.

President Obama revealed in an interview with ABC News that Steve Jobs himself gave the president an iPad 2, and likely before the public launch. The quote from the video is:

“Steve Jobs actually gave it to me, a little bit early… [Reporter: ‘Oh that’s pretty cool’] …Yeah, it was cool. I got it directly from him.”

Jobs and Obama sat next to each other last February at a dinner of Silicon Valley leaders, so maybe that’s when the iPad 2 was gifted ‘early’. I guess when you’re the POTUS you don’t have to wait in lines like the rest of us.

We know that Obama and the White House team use Macs, but using Apple products is hardly a partisan affair. Former US President George W Bush is also an iPad user, and has said in the past he is “addicted” to the device for reading the Wall Street Journal and playing Scrabble.
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Want to install a new font in Mac OS? Maybe you want to remove a font you no longer use? Managing fonts on the Mac is incredibly easy regardless of what system software version you are using.

We’ll cover the process of installing new fonts, deleting unwanted fonts, and also restoring your default system fonts to MacOS and Mac OS X in case you mess something up in the process (though that is fairly unlikely).

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If you want to customize the Terminals appearance a bit beyond the prompt and a custom background, you can make the Terminal much more readable by using this nice trick to add a separator and timestamp between each executed command. This also bolds the current command text and anything that is available from tab completion.

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Preview in Mac OS includes a helpful magnification tool that follows the mouse cursor, allowing you to zoom into details on whatever picture is on screen.

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Want to learn something new? Stanford’s world-renowned School of Engineering is offering a free “Introduction to Databases” online course, available to anyone worldwide. The class will cover relational databases, XML data, relational algebra, SQL, and database design with UML, here’s the full course description:

This course covers database design and the use of database management systems for applications. It includes extensive coverage of the relational model, relational algebra, and SQL. It also covers XML data including DTDs and XML Schema for validation, and the query and transformation languages XPath, XQuery, and XSLT. The course includes database design in UML, and relational design principles based on dependencies and normal forms. Many additional key database topics from the design and application-building perspective are also covered: indexes, views, transactions, authorization, integrity constraints, triggers, on-line analytical processing (OLAP), and emerging “NoSQL” systems.

Sign up for Stanford Universities free “Introduction to Databases” class here

The course assumes no prior knowledge in SQL or database structures, but obviously a fair amount of computer aptitude is recommended. The program runs from October 10 to December 12, and students have full access to lecture videos and are given assignments and exams. This isn’t a hands off course though, you’ll actually receive regular feedback on your progress, and there’s also a discussion forum for students to engage in. You won’t be getting any Stanford or college credit, but if you pass the class you will get a ‘statement of accomplishment’ from the Stanford instructor.

If databases aren’t your thing, don’t forget that Stanford also offers a variety of excellent free iOS development classes online too.

Web designers and developers are well aware that creating CSS gradients is somewhat of a painful process. Sure there are a variety of web-based generator tools that make it easier, but you’ll often be left to scout around for different versions to get different CSS & CSS3 code pieces which then require manual tweaks in order to achieve a uniform gradient across WebKit, IE, and Mozilla based browsers.

The Gradient app aims to solve that headache with easy color selector tools and all the possible gradient options, but more importantly, instant and precise CSS rendering.
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