Wow. Just… wow. It’s a mobilewhack day, apparently. They found this video of a person demoing a SonicSIM card 1.0, which shows a person doing some SIM hackery on a jailbroken iPhone. Their method involves cutting the gold parts of your normal SIM card and putting them into a different shell which you then put into your iPhone. It may or may not be legitimate, I don’t really know and can’t really tell. Here’s why:
I know nothing about SIM hacking.
While I know nothing, I recall that some folks had luck reprogramming TurboSIM cards back in the day, which proved to be an efficient method of using the iPhone on a different carrier with a few caveats.
but the TurboSIM method involved actually programming a SIM card
They don’t do themselves a favor by turning their instructional video into a demo of them playing SuperContra on the GameBoy emulator.
It kind of sounds like it might be one of the guys from Gabe and Max.
This is a nice speaker dock system. It was designed by a team of folks that includes former Apple design guru Robert Brunner, who was around during the Newton years. It’s a nice-looking piece of kit. There’s no price yet, as this is a mockup or prototype of some sort. If they make it affordable it will sell like hotcakes. It’s apparently being unveiled at CES in a few weeks.
According to the answers to questions posed of 1175 people surveyed by Peanut Labs, a bunch of ‘Generation Y’ kids are hot to trot for the iPhone action. The most popular mobile on the holiday present list is the iPhone, and Apple is on the list of top brands (which were Apple, HP, Nintendo, and Amazon). Another interesting nugget is that those kids figured to spend $300 on gadgets this holiday season.
Here’s a quick N95 vs. iPhone video feature showdown. As you can see above, Dieter of WMExperts confirms he’s begun using the Nokia N95 as the little mini-extension to the Smartphone Round Robin. There were a lot of calls for us to try something with Symbian. I hope we give it a full turn the next time around.
figure 1: what it is now and what they claim it will be
With the recent fake stirring up GPS news, who would have thought that real GPS news would be such a short hop away. It turns out that engineering design firm Partfoundry is working on making real GPS for the iPhone, and they figure that it will be available sometime in February, right about when the SDK comes out. As it stands, they say that you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone, but who really knows what will happen once that SDK comes out, right? It’s altogether possible that they’ll be able to certify the GPS serial device if they decide to go the extra mile. Extra bonus: no jpeg compression artifacts and a reasonable-proof-that-it-actually-isn’t-a-hoax video.
Some of the best news that I’ll hear all day. If you’re using the latest version of iLife and apply the GarageBand update (version 4.1.1), you get the ability to create and edit custom ringtones. They’ve posted up a set of instructions over at apple.com for anyone to peruse. The blurb you see in Software Update is terse but to the point:
“This update improves overall stability and addresses issues with file export to iPhone.”
One has to presume that the issue with regards to file export to iPhone was that you couldn’t do it beforehand.
This may well be the finest news that I read all morning. It forces me to spend a few hours playing around with GarageBand today, I want to wake up to something new tomorrow. (via iLounge)
With the original iPod, sales didn’t take off until the iPod was made compatible with Windows. If you believe the stats from the polls from AppleInsider, sales for the iPhone won’t take off until it’s compatible with Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft’s popular groupware server for small and medium businesses. And lo! Apple has posted a job listing for someone capable of adding Outlook and Exchange functionality to the iPhone.
There are a bunch of nice 3rd party apps cropping up for hacked iPhones. I haven’t been posting them individually since I’m not sure who out here really has use for a SCUMM or AGI interpreter, but I can hide morsels like that inside of bigger articles. I love seeing hacked apps come through that really deliver on the gaming promise of the iPhone.
App number one is by Drunknbass: it’s a video capture app. Their proof-of-concept demo records 5 seconds of video at 10fps, but they expect the final version to record unlimited-except-for-free-storage-remaining video at 30fps. All that remains is for them to optimize their code. If they can hit 30fps, that will be a very nice capability added to the iPhone.
App number two is more for the proof of concept. It’s hard enough to control directions without tactile feedback on the NES emulator with just a directional pad and four buttons. I can’t imagine how tough it would be to try and do controls with double directional pads, 4 triggers, and 6 buttons. But, it can be done, and it is therefore awesome. The PS1 emulator will last as a timeless paean to developer ZodTTD’s awesomeness. That and the GameBoy Advance emulator he wrote.
App number three is scummVM, which one can use to play a bevy of old Sierra LucasArts games of years past. Some of these games were the most highly acclaimed games of their time. They actually wear well with time, I’d say. If I ever get the hacking iPhone back from a certain Canadian editor, this one will actually be one of the first hacks installed. (image credit: Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo).
I saw this blurb on Daring Fireball, and I thought it was kind of funny.
“I will say that if you are impressed by the “touch features” in the iPhone, you’ll be blown away by what’s coming in Windows 7.”
He puts “touch features” in quotes of course to drive the point home, a useful trick of rhetoric I suppose. The only time I ever read “blown away” is when it’s being used as PR. I no longer trust the phrase, since no one says it organically. This has all the makings of a PR plant if you ask me.
The funny thing is, for all I know, the blurb is true. Maybe Windows 7 is awesome and stuff. Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that they’re comparing their desktop OS to a phone, point for Gruber. PR deflated. The second bit that he doesn’t address is this: Windows 7 is going to be released in the distant future. The iPhone is available now. It had damn well better be more impressive than what we see in the iPhone. If they couldn’t beat the touch technology in half a decade, why would it be compelling for anyone to use it, right?
The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
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