04/05, 4:20pm
Company known to be hostile toward jailbreaking
Toyota's Scion theme for jailbroken iOS devices has been pulled from Cydia as a result of pressure from Apple, according to a report. The theme was created by Velti, an ad agency working on behalf of Toyota. In asking for the Scion theme to be pulled, a contact from Velti is claimed to have explained that the order came from Toyota, which in turn had been pushed by Apple to remove the theme and end the campaign. Toyota complied so as to "maintain their good relationship with Apple," says the Velti contact.
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04/04, 1:30pm
Car maker may be going after tech-savvy
Toyota is advertising the Scion brand through Cydia, the most common distribution platform for unofficial iOS apps, reports claim. In particular Toyota is said to have released a "Scion 2011 Theme" in the Cydia store; the code makes radical changes to the appearance of iOS, replacing original app icons and even the swipe-to-unlock bar. Outside of technical settings, Apple limits most official customization of iOS to wallpapers and ringtones.
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04/15, 5:15pm
Scion redesigns xB stereo
Carmaker and Toyota offshoot Scion announced on Wednesday it is putting in a redesigned base head unit to all 2010 Scion xBs without raising the car's price. Compared to the head unit it replaces, both of which are manufactured by Pioneer, the new stereo has an organic electroluminescent (OEL) display, a USB connection and a subwoofer RCA output. The USB port is located in the center consoler, along with a cable for iPods and an 3.5mm aux-in jack. Pioneer also integrated an Advanced Sound Retriever (ASR) software into the head unit that aims to restore the full range of a compressed digital audio track.
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