For those of you who just love to personalize your personal technology in all manner of creative expression, Gelaskins is sure to appeal to your inner Picaso. I can already sense your inquisitive collective consciousness filtering through my DSL line, pondering what all this is about. I’ll explain.
Gelaskins are really nothing more than colorful automotive grade vinyl adhesive stick-ons. That’s a fancy way of describing the same material pin-striping is made from. You know…that stuff that adorns your car? Only instead of tacky Nascar racing stripes, these beautiful peel ‘n stick adhesive films both pimp and protect your iPhone, iPod, laptop, Child’s forehead, or just about anything else you want to ahem decorate.
The films (which you apply yourself) cost just $14.95 per set, and come in many variety of patterns and styles to choose from. Stay away from the organ grinder monkey and Bingo clown theme, it gives me nightmares.
But wait, I haven’t told you the best part. Not only do these guys provide cool looking stickies for next to nothing, they also offer FREE, yes I said FREE, matching wallpaper for your iPhone! So free in fact that no film purchase is required to get them. Just go to Gelaskin’s website – pick a set that looks attractive to you – then click on the link, located to the right of your selection, that says “Download Set”. They’re Gellin!
A website called iPhone-SIM-Free is claiming that it will release to the world a fully software based SIM unlocking solution for iPhone, within the next 48 hours. That’s a pretty bold claim, so either its is legit or a shameless grab for traffic. We’ll know in just 48…no…make that 47, no wait. I think 45 hours? Whatever, just bookmark this website and keep checking back.
I came across this story this morning on PC World, and it stirred my own frustration with Apple. Web apps have their place and, truth be told, developers have found very clever ways to extend the genre, but I and every iPhone user on this hemisphere want the same thing – native application support!
What aggravates me further is that Apple does in fact have plans to open its platform. A friend of mine at Yahoo even informed me some time ago that they are currently working on their own native software for iPhone as we speak. So the question is…when will Steve Jobs unlock the backyard gate and let developers into his walled garden?
My suspicion is that a planned rollout is due to take place sometime in late Q4 to coincide with the release of Leopard, the next version of OSX. That day can’t come soon enough for me, but the problem is that when the moment does arrive it will be a point of embarkation, not a destination. In other words it will take developers months to study APIs and begin writing applications.
As someone who comes from an extensive Smartphone background, I relish productivity applications that form the basis of mobile computing. As it stands now, iPhone is like a high performance racing engine -it’s faster and more powerful than anything else on the road but it can’t go anywhere but on a racetrack. Every time I interact with my iPhone I feel as though I’m hitting a virtual brick wall. I keep wanting the device to do more than what it offers me. From day one I learned to accept the software limitations with an understanding that someday more applications would arrive, extending my user experience. With iPhone hype dying down, now is the time for Apple to create another spark by turning its product into a platform.
The Folks of Furbo have written some code to determine exact specs. The results, in some ways, are pretty close to what’s been rumored — 128MB of RAM. His tests report a 400MHz processor with a 100MHz bus speed, which is lower than the 600+MHz rumor that floated around earlier. That speed difference could be from underclocking to improve battery life, however. Which brings me to the next topic: how long until the iPhone is overclocked?
Some might recall the LG Prada, which was a slim little number that looked a lot like an iPhone and came out somewhat earlier, though was announced somewhat after the iPhone announcement. The short story is, the Prada came and went. Of course, the reason for the Prada’s failure is that they didn’t stuff enough doodads into it. Which is why the KU990 is necessary. It packs HSDPA with support for American bands and a 5MP camera. When I toyed with the Prada at CTIA, I succumbed to ennui — there isn’t much to it in terms of good software. There are no rumors that the KU990 will be picked up by any U.S. carriers.
There’s a new iPhone update available. As usual, if you’ve hacked an iPhone, it may be worthwhile to just restore it to normal before you even bother updating. Apple hasn’t disclosed what’s been updated just yet (they just say that the update includes bug fixes), but I’ll post again if I notice anything that’s different. I don’t expect much; the update is only 3.7 MB. If you’ve hacked your iPhone, expect a recovery update in the 90 MB range.
Holy bug fix, Batman! Apple has quietly rolled out another dot release – the second, if you’re keeping track. Per Apple this is a bug fix, not a major software release…sorry fanboys.
I’m downloading the update right now and haven’t yet installed it, so I’ll keep everyone posted should I discover hidden treasure. Frankly my hopes will be more than satiated if Apple resolved the numerous issues I’ve had with Mail.
Happy installing.
[UPDATE] Knock on wood alert: I think Apple may have nailed the Mail issues. So far it is behaving as it did prior to the first update, so thing may be looking up. Back to testing…
figure 1: Just so we’re all on the same page, this is Europe.
O2 in the UK, Orange in France, and T-Mobile in Germany. According to the German version of the Financial Times, the deal is done, set in stone, and not up for discussion. They apparently agreed to terms very similar to AT&T’s terms; Vodaphone is apparently #1 on the list for the remaining European nations. [via]
figure 1: T-Mobile Subscriber GeoHot demonstrates an unlocked iPhone. Necessity is the mother of invention.
According to Ars Technica, an iPhone hacking group has claimed to unlock the phone with the aid of some sophisticated soldering. This, of course, goes well beyond the ken of the average user, but it should give hope to anyone that wants their iPhone unlocked: the hackers hope to have a software unlock within the week. Even if they don’t, they’ll post full instructions on how they did it in a week, so anyone that wants to go through the arduous microsoldering process can do so.
So in one week exactly from this blog post(thats less than the time it takes to ship a turbosim) we will release simple step by step instructions for unlocking, probably not even involving hardware. Sorry about the wait, but I assure you it will be worth it.
It seriously kills me. They unlock the iPhone, some damn fine hacking work, and then they apologize about the wait for it. No apology should be expected.
