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Orange UK is set to break O2’s iPhone exclusivity… if not their price points with the announcement of their pay monthly, pay as you go, and for business plans.

What did we notice off the top? Depending on how much you pay on contract or up front, your iPhone hardware cost can go down to as little as free or climb to as much as £539 for an iPhone 3GS on PAYG. (Also, PAYG plans named Monkey, Dolphin, Canary, Racoon, and Camel? Where’s John Cleese to “spokesperson” that when you need him…)

Unlimited internet and Wi-Fi, however, carry a “fair usage policy of 750MB/month” proviso, which looks rather pathetic next to unofficial US caps of 5GB. Good on them for not hiding it, but placing that paltry figure anywhere close to “unlimited” probably means they shouldn’t use “unlimited” to begin with.

Not much in terms of cutting O2’s pricing though. Maybe Vodafone will feel a bit more daring?

If you’re thinking of going Orange, check out the full pricing info and let us know if it’s what you expected, better, or worse?

[via 9to5mac]

Electronic Arts’ Command and Conquer: Red Alert [$9.99 - iTunes link] is now ready to go to war on your iPhone or iPod touch.

You can fight as the Allies or Soviets, through 12 combat levels in skirmish mode or on two battle maps. Upcoming updates will include free multiplayer over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and an Empire of the Sun expansion pack.

If you check it out, let us know what you think!

[Thanks fvc625 for the tip!]

Take on OWLE team, add a hack into the iPhone dock connector, and what do you get? According to TechCrunch:

The latest prototype that OWLE has developed, which is different than what they start shipping tomorrow, allows you to use lenses with depth of field and telephoto effects, XLR microphones (both wired and wireless microphones), stereo microphones and more. Basically, it allows you to plug in any professional audio equipment that filmmakers use, on your iPhone. The mics are plugged in through the 30 pin, and the telephoto lens was cobbled together.

RED likely need not be fearful… yet!

George Hotz, aka geohot, posted on his Twitter account that he has found an exploit to unlock any iPhone that contains the 05.11.77 radio baseband found in the 3.1.2 iPhone software. This new unlock tool, blacksn0w, will be released to the public on November 4th and yes, it does contain hackivation!

Something else that everyone should take a look at is a post that Hotz wrote up on his blog regarding all of the websites out there that sell unlocks and jailbreaks to people who don’t know any better. These tools that jailbreak and unlock are a simple google search away and don’t cost a penny. These people who run these sites truly are scum that are simply ripping a lot of iPhone owners off.

All we can do to help shut these sites down is to just spread the word. The more of us who are aware the better.

According to The Register, if you’re running Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 7, and your PC has an Intel P55 Express chipset, you’re in for a world of iPhone sync hurt:

For the past six weeks, complaints from users running this trifecta of pain have been clogging a thread on Apple’s discussion board. The posts report that – in most cases – iTunes 9 for Windows will recognize the iPhone, but when a sync is attempted, users are greeted with a cryptic “error 0xE8000065″ – an iPhone-connection failure notification.

While not the oldest or most common chipset, and thus not likely to affect a huge swathe of users, those with problems just want them fixed. Microsoft is doing their… um… investigating:

Microsoft has not seen this particular question posed in the Microsoft Answers for Windows 7 community forum, nor in any of our call centers. We reviewed the issue raised on the Apple Discussion Board and are currently investigating. If we determine this to be a problem specific to Windows 7, we will post an update on the Microsoft Answers site.”

In the mean time, here’s what’s worked for some:

• A USB port on a USB card not part of the P55
• deleting the iPodDevices.xml file from C:\Users username\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\iTunes
• disabling Bonjour
• turning on C-state capability in BIOS

If you’re having this problem, and if any of these or other fixes work for you, let us know!

[Register via Engadget]

BeeJive IM [$9.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch has just gone 3.1 and now includes group chats (on IM services that support the feature, AIM, Yahoo!, GTalk, MSN), and meta chats (allows you to merge contacts with multiple IM services into a consolidated stream — So Bob’s AIM and Bob’s Gtalk just show up under Bob).

We’ve been testing out the beta for a while but now that 3.1 is live, we’ll be able to test it much more extensively and provide updated results as soon as we have them. Meanwhile, if you get a gaggle of chatters all grouped up together, give it a while and let us know how it works for you!

Did Verizon and Motorola forget to include a few things in their iDon’t attack ads, like iDon’t render web pages as slowly or badly, iDon’t arbitrarily restrict the amount of apps users can install to 256MB, iDon’t fail to implement multi-touch, and iDon’t have a worse user experience.

We can’t blame them, of course. They were focusing on the iPhone’s weaknesses, as the geekier among us (nitpickers included!) would have to admit, and not the Droid’s. It was their ad, and fair enough.

However, for those considering the Droid vs. an iPhone, we should lay all the cards on the table. Sure the iPhone lacks a physical keyboard (that irks some users, pleases others), doesn’t have Google Maps Navigation (yet), doesn’t match all the specs, and has issues with App Store approvals (though that doesn’t effect most users). But what about the Droid?

(And no, we don’t mean that horrible devil-red eye graphic that’s kind of the opposite of “not evil” and makes that incessant “DRRROOOOOOIIDDD” chime pretty much indistinguishable from “REDRUM!”)

First, in the perfunctory Browser Battles, it turns out the almost two month old iPhone 3.1 Safari is still king of the mobile mountain, according to MobileCrunch:

On the popular web-standards test known as Acid3, the iPhone scores a 100/100 while the Droid caps out at 93/100. [...] Once you’ve grown accustomed to pinch-zooming, the level of accuracy provided by tap-zooming alone simply doesn’t cut it. [...] The iPhone browser is also considerably faster, with page loads completing anywhere from 15-30% more quickly with both handsets on WiFi.

Second, we all know the Android Market doesn’t have as many apps as the App Store, but maybe that’s a good thing since Android 2.0 still doesn’t fix its app space limitation, leaving Droid with a paltry 256MB for apps according to AndroidandMe.com:

Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create. [...] For most applications, we want a small file size to limit the download times. When it comes to 3D games though, we need a ton of space for all the high-res textures, audio, and video. [...] Have you seen all the awesome iPhone and iPod Touch games? Hardly any of them would fit on an Android phone.

This problem, of course, also plagues the Palm webOS and BlackBerry platforms. NokiaExpert and ZDNet’s Matt Miller’s been told it’s a security issue, but does that matter to end users when iPhone’s can go up to (almost) 32GB?

Third, if you’re a fan of the iPhone and iPod touch’s (and Magic Mouse’s!) multi-touch, don’t think the Droid will have your fingers covered. According to Engadget:

As you have probably heard (or guessed), there’s no multitouch on this device. That’s clearly an issue with Android 2.0 and choices that Google is making about user interface

Fourth, the user interface, while definitely an improvement — and maybe even a refreshing change for some — still doesn’t rise to level of usability as the iPhone. Like MobileCrunch (and every other review we’ve seen), we’ve given our iPhones to toddlers and they’ve been able to use them well.

That’s still Apple’s killer app. And that’s likely why, even after going all in on Droid and throwing BlackBerry under the bus (even canceling their BOGO!), Verizon still wants the iPhone…

[Thanks to Tom for the app limit tip!]

Update: per comment below, Eliminate Pro and Touch Pets Pro are only available in Canada for now whole ngmoco tests their servers. Wide release to follow soon!

First-person shooter Elminate Pro [Free - iTunes link] and virtual pet sim Touch Pets Dogs [Free - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch, first shown off by ngmoco at WWDC 2009, have begun making their way into iTunes App Stores around the world (we’ve confirmed them in Canada, other countries should be getting them soon as well).

Both games utilize the plus+ network for community gaming, with Eliminate looking to bring the classic Golden Eye/Halo style gameplay to Apple’s platform, and Touch Pets Dogs, the Nintendogs virtual pooch model. (Sadly, no, there’s doesn’t seem to be a way to cross over within the two games yet, and hunt the mean soldiers with doggy cuteness — or vice versa).

The price for both being zero, we’re guessing Apple’s new policy of “free games can charge for in-app purchases” is having an immediate an obvious effect. Demo without risk, and if you love one or both, they’ll figure out levels or gear or powerups or accessories you can buy to enjoy to love them even more.

Touch Pets Dogs video after the break, and if you try them out, let us know what you think!

[Thanks Alexander for the tip!]

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Today’s the day — the iPhone officially launches in China on China Unicom. We say officially because it’s been available unofficially, in gray market form, since the original iPhone 2G was launched, and with winks and nudges via Apple’s unlocked sales in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

So will international sales tumble as the world’s biggest market can buy it at home? Will Chinese sales lag in favor of sticking with the unofficial versions from overseas or future Chinese versions that, you know, include Wi-Fi? Or will iPhone numbers just continue to grow, grow, grow?

Either way, welcome China, to the iPhone world!