The unlocked German iPhones are no more — the Judge for the Vodafone vs. T-Mobile lawsuit reversed the injunction that required T-Mobile to sell unlocked iPhones. And now that they don’t have to sell the iPhone unlocked, they’re not going to — the unlocked iPhone is gone from Germany. The officially unlocked iPhone is still available in France for much less than it was in Germany anyway. Vive le revolution!
The iPhone edged out the entirety of all Windows CE-based devices in web usage according to data provided by Market Share at Hitslink.com. The iPhone came in at #10 with 0.09%, whereas Windows CE weighed in at 0.06% for #11. You read that, Dieter? We’re #10! We’re #10! The iPod on their list, which I’m forced to assume is the iPod Touch, shows up at around 0.01%. We’re #10 and #20! We’re #10 and #20!
Of course, the list is dominated by the big desktop operating systems, but there are a few other interesting gems on the list: The Sidekick / Hiptop shows up at #13 with 0.02%, and Nokia’s S60 Symbian OS shows up at #14 with 0.01%. The PSP just edges out the iPod Touch for #19 at 0.01%, and what appears to be a mobile version of Apple’s WebCore shows up again at #24 with 0.00% — possibly one of Nokia’s internet tablet devices.
Raffi Krikorian of Synthesis Studios wrote to inform me that they’ve reverse-engineered how the Starbucks button works. Most of the Starbucks shops out there aren’t going to get the hookup with wi-fi for about a year. I asked them about it, and they’ll be disclosing the process soon.
“we managed to figure out how to get the starbucks button to show up on our iphones — [if you happen to be in] Boston, MA — then you can pop by our offices to check it out. we were too impatient to wait for the starbucks in boston to get the starbucks button our iphones, so we took matters into our own hands
It’s always nice to see folks making their own fun. This fun was apparently done with a laptop, an iPhone, and a train ticket to NY, as you can see here. Thanks to Raffi for the tip!
Gizmodo reports that the creators of iPhone unlocking app AnySIM have considered open-sourcing their application to spread their code far and wide, hopefully picking up many new coders and eyeballs in the process. They’ve apparently floated the idea about for a while, and found that no one objected to the deal. They then put the idea to the community at hackint0sh, a popular iPhone hacking forum and AnySIM’s main site. Reading from the threads on hackint0sh, it appears that initially most folks advocate keeping the source closed; if you’d rather read a more open-source friendly version of the same discussion there’s always slashdot. [image credit Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo]
George Hotz, the eminent iPhone hacker that was part of the team that first unlocked their iPhones, continues to hack away at the security that prevents iPhone users from mucking around with activations, unlocks, and unofficial 3rd party applications. Specifically, he found a couple of errors in the bootloader that theoretically should allow folks to install custom firmware to their iPhone, or just re-flash earlier, less locked versions of their cell radio. One of the hacks uses hardware, the other uses software. It seems that he’s doing well at RIT and I’m glad to see that he hasn’t moved on to other devices.
Mark Sullivan of PC World compiled a list of five technology groups that frequently conspired to be anti-consumer. That, or they were really just a bunch of jerks. Well, AT&T makes the list twice, showing up in the list for various groups they belong to at #3 and #4. Well, they kind of show up in #5 too — #5 is a critique of most wireless carrier parties involved in the 700 MHz auction that Google’s part of. What kept AT&T from being at #1 and #2? Big pharma and the recording industry. Not too shabby!
I’ll admit to liking Robert X. Cringely of PBS. Sure, his theories are wild sometimes. But they’re wild in a fun way, and he’ll revisit things that he got wrong. He doesn’t resort to trolling like some writers of his generation who happen to be friends of his, and when he does troll, it’s against something that we all hate anyway, like our mobile phone carrier. He’s a uniter, not a divider.
Cringely’s idea is that Stephenson’s recent message of a 3G iPhone next year (covered recently here) will chill iPhone sales and cost AT&T about $1 billion in market cap. That, and that Apple will be parnering with Google to buy that 700MHz spectrum. If that charge was true, stockholders should oust Stephenson for neglecting is fiduciary duty: to make them a crapload of money. If I was a stockholder, I wouldn’t forgive a billion-dollar mistake. I’m inclined to write off the spat as likely to be a rumor because Stephenson’s line is pretty much the same line we were given from Jobs. However, there is a ‘but’ in this: the possibility of Apple working with Google for spectra, that’s enough to give me pause. Like so many Cringely articles one has to file it away and see what happens in the distant future.
In other news, Apple has a $30 billion war chest. That’s Microsoft scale money.
Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry.com reviewed the iPhone and reviews it positively. He’s got a thread going in our forums too. Someone may have asked if they could keep the 4GB iPhone until it became available on their carrier; I won’t name any names, nor will I offer proof (because I forgot to take a !@#$ screenshot). No, I’ll be content to insinuate. The other party would have accepted except that they have other immediate plans for said iPhone once the Smartphone Round Robin is over. Still, it’s an interesting proposition, and if someone had a spare iPhone to give, someone would have taken someone else up on it. If someone could dole out iPhones to people that needed interface love, someone definitely would.
Steve Jobs mentioned the possibility of a 3G back in September, when he was announcing the iPhone on O2. He was asked a question about 3G and when we’d see it in the iPhone. His response back in September was telling:
“We’ve got to see the battery life for 3G get back up into the five-plus hour range, before it’s really suitable for [the iPhone]. I think we’ll see that hopefully late next year. But right now, you make a really big tradeoff to go to 3G, and that’s really bad battery life.”
Well, AT&T’s Randall Stephenson had a big PR quotefest that you can read over at Bloomberg, and he mentions again that the iPhone would be coming out in 2008, but without the ‘late’ part. A lot of naysayers will use that to back up their crazy predictions of 3G iPhones arriving ‘May 2008.’ They may do well to note that Jobs is not so optimistic: he’s thinking hopefully late next year, meaning there’s a real possibility of 2009.
  
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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.
