The fifth generation of iPods arrived in October 2005, and the second full redesign was made in September 2006. Pictured below, you can see the iPod 5G models available since then, having a slim case, and a large screen with video playback capabilities that the iPods released one year later didn't have. Considering the fact that these players are not that new on the market, it came as a shock to me finding out that some recent iTunes videos have problems when played on them. In fact, "problems" is not well said, because they simply won't work!


Sad but true, iPod 5G owners are complaining about the fact that many videos released on iTunes after the 10th of April have problems, for example a complete freeze, no image with sound, or no sound, and image playing right.

This is not just some rumor, or things I've heard from my friends that have iPods. It all started on the 14th of April, when a topic called "Certain iTunes Store Videos Don't Play On 5th Gen iPod" appeared on the official Apple Discussions forum. Since then, more than 160 replies were posted, many of them from users having the same problem as the topic starter, a user having the nickname "Rocky Pope."

Until now, nobody found a solution for this issue, and Apple didn't offer any official explanation to this. The good part is that Apple is working on this, because videos purchased in the last few days play properly, according to users. Anyway, it seems this is a problem that only 5G iPods have, because the new iPod classic and touch didn't encounter any problems so far.

Who said the price doesn't matter, if you're talking about something good enough? No matter how good may be the iPhone, its price surely counts, and the latest price drop in the UK is the perfect proof to that! Well, dropping the price is something, but to see the results of this action, that's a completely different matter, so let's check this out, shall we?


According to reports, O2 stores in London, Birmingham and Newcastle ran out of iPhones on the 16th of April. After a few "dry" days, the stocks have been recently replenished, so if you were disappointed by missing the big deal, you can go ahead and try to catch another cheap iPhone, before the new stocks run out!

It seems that sales were twice as good as usual, in some places, as it happened at Carphone Warehouse's Oxford Street store in London. Well, that's not surprising, considering the fact that the official Apple Stores still have expensive iPhones, and the £100 price drop is subsidized by O2, the official UK carrier chosen by them for the smart phone.

Well, that's everything. If only I were in the UK...

What do you think about using instant messaging on your mobile? For me, this is pretty useless, but I know a lot of people who do it, and a large part of them really needs such a feature. Well, being given the above, it's no surprise that this is one of the most heavily requested features for Apple's mobile since its debut, but the Cupertino-based company didn't add it yet. Unfortunately, I can't tell you when is this going to be added, but since Apple filed for a patent related to this, this is a move worth being observed closer.


The patent I mentioned above was published back in March, and describes an interface similar to that currently used for the SMS interface of the iPhone, but with a bunch of key changes, including a list of suggested keywords, and since the drawings included with this patent points to "Instant Messages" in a lot of places,everything looks obvious to me.

Just check the abstract: "A portable electronic device for instant messaging is disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a graphical user interface (GUI) on a portable electronic device with a touch screen display. The GUI has a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person. The set of messages are displayed in a chronological order. In response to detecting a scrolling gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of a user contact with the touch screen display, the display of messages are scrolled in accordance with a direction of the scrolling gesture. The detecting of the scrolling gesture is substantially independent of a horizontal position of the user contact with the touch screen display."

Considering the above, I think there's no doubt - the iPhone will finally get instant messaging features, but we have no idea yet about the time when we'll see it happening. Anyway, I am sure Santa won't catch us without instant messaging on our iPhones, but this may even happen as soon as June, together with the release of the 3G iPhone.

The iPhone has still a lot of markets ahead where potential buyers can only get "jailbroken" devices, but at the same time, there are also some places where the iPhone got cheaper in the last weeks, and everyone is expecting the 3G iPhone to arrive. Now, one of the first (almost) official piece of news regarding the matter arrived, and it's as clear as the light of day - the 3G iPhone will arrive in Italy in just a few weeks!


According to the Italian newspaper Repubblica, the 3G iPhone will be available in a few weeks, through Telecom Italia Mobile, without contract, and without carrier lock either! How is that possible?

Well, considering the fact that Italy is the largest market for pre-paid wireless contracts, Apple will sell the iPhone with a higher price, but no carrier lock or other service agreement!

As Repubblica wrote, Franco Bernabè, chief executive officer of Telecom Italia, met with Steve Jobs in Cupertino last week, so the deal has been signed already.

For now, both sides are silent, but the Italian side promised to say something "later on." Anyway, it's good to know that Apple may finally lift the carrier lock and compulsory service agreement, although only in Italy, for the beginning...

Back in February, PayPal claimed Safari is not safe enough for them, especially due to inadequate phishing protection, and lack of proper support for PayPal's "overused"(according to some voices) Extended Validation certificates. Now, the story resurfaced, with new details - PayPal is decided to block the use of any browser that's not secure enough, and Safari is - obviously - one of the first targets, if not the first one.


Last week, PayPal's Chief Information Security Officer, Michael Barrett, posted a white paper called "A Practical Approach to Managing Phishing," in which the browser is seen as a key point in stopping phishing. Obviously, the first barrier is the email server - if the emails are properly filtered, they won't make it to the mailbox, so the user can't become a victim of phishing, but since phishing and spam are somehow related, I don't see this happening anytime soon.

In the same document, Barrett said PayPal is working in providing features that will allow the site to warn, and even block, any user that uses an old or insecure browser. IE 7 and the upcoming Firefox 3, for example, support Extended Validation Secure Socket Layer, or shortly EV SSL, an authentification feature that turns the address bar green and identifies the company running the site, while Safari is not yet capable of this, ended up in being placed in the same category of "very old and vulnerable" browsers, together with the 10 year old IE 4!

Well, I just visited my PayPal account in Safari, as you can see in the image at the beginning of the article, and everything was fine, so I can only hope that Apple will manage to keep up with the latest security technologies and avoid its users being blocked by PayPal. After all, it would be a pity to see this happening, while the market share of this browser is slowly, but surely, going up.