iOS Devices

Apple today released an ominous statement that the iPhone updates “might” brick SIM unlocked phones.  This wasn’t wholey unexpected but now there are a few clearer roads down which unlocked iPhone users are going to have to navigate.  There are different hacks to the iPhone, but we’ll assume that Apple is addressing not just the SIM unlockers but the jailbreakers as well.

First of all, we have to consider the seriousness of this threat by Apple. The company conspicuously didn’t release the threat on their own PR webpage but through other media outlets – if that is any indication.  They also didn’t promise one way or the other if it would break the software.  Apple, of course, knows if the firmware update will brick the phone.   The various SIM unlocks are out there and you can bet Apple engineers are testing the firmware update against them right now.  If Apple wants to try to brick their customers’ iPhones, they surely can.  If they want to leave them alone, they can also do that. There is no doubt Apple is in control.  This is software, not hardware we are talking about – so it has to be Apple posturing.  The company will be able to claim that this is because there are various unlocked states of which they are unaware and they aren’t ready for the support cost involved with people in flux between locked and unlocked.

So it appears Apple has a real problem here that they most likely didn’t properly anticipate (if they did, they also expected their “experience” brand to take a hit – which would be surprising).  

If they keep the SIM unlocks open, they are likely infuriating their business partner, AT&T (welcome, AT&T, to the Apple partner infuriation club).  They are also cutting into their own slice of the carrier action which is anywhere from 10-30% of the AT&T customer plan revenues depending on who you ask.  Is this loss worth getting the extra iPhone customers that don’t want to sign up for a two year AT&T plan?  There is an army of MBA’s at Apple trying to figure this equation out as we speak, guaranteed.

If they choose to go down the road of disabling the SIM unlock, they are going to leave the hacked iPhone community in a rough place.  Assuming they don’t want to brick their iPhones, they will either come clean and pay Apple/AT&T or (and this is the big deal) continue along happily with their 1.0.2 software – which, frankly, isn’t that bad an option.  This is especially true if you treasure control of the device that you’ve shelled out your hard-earned cash for.  

digg_url = ‘http://9to5mac.com/is-apple-planning-to-fork-the-iphone-26343456’;

That’s right, forget Apple and their iPhone-locking shenanigans.  The hacked 1.0.2 iPhone likely has all of the software that Apple plans on releasing and much more.  iChat.app?  Ha, try Apollo which let’s you ALSO have access to MSN and by extension YahooIM (they are working on Jabber/GoogleTalk).  Mobile iTunes?  We are talking HACKERS here.  They already pwn the record companies and have access to any music or videos they want.  Finally, I don’t think Apple will be releasing a verison of NES, Mame, free Ringtones or Navizon any time soon.

If I am a hacker, I see no reason to come clean.  As a matter of fact, I think this move by Apple will entrench the hackers even more.  Perhaps even to the point where you may see full iPhone updates coming directly from the hackers.  iPhone 1.0.3 HAXOR version, anyone?  This one lets you play full music and videos from your home webshare, play any Mame or SuperNES games you want, has a VNC client for controlling your home computers and has software GPS.  Suddenly an international keyboard and a new way to pay Apple or record labels for ringtones doesn’t seem so compelling.

So it seems that this was a carefully-planned attack to strike fear, not into the hacker community, who knows they will have options when the firmware is released, but into the people on the fence who can’t decide if they want to go pirate or not.  

However, Apple is playing a dangerous game here which might result in a the forking of the iPhone OS.  At some point this could even be made legal by supplanting the kernel with an embedded Linux and all of the other apps with more functionality.  I don’t think Apple can take that risk.

Add this to the 99% speculative category…

Starbucks has a nice little thing going.  And it isn’t just caffeine addiction or 50 Million songs to give away.   They have over 10,000 locations in the US alone and are filling each one with Wifi access from Tmobile.  That is a lot of coverage…and in very important, high trafficked areas like malls, city streets, and college campuses.  You could almost call them a “wifi telecom”

Starbucks also have a new partner in Apple to help promote their new record label on the iPhone.  What do Apple and its customers get from this deal?  Some new music choices and some free old ones.  Not terribly compelling.  However, there might be more to the deal than what has been released.

In the recent deals with Tmobile in Germany (and O2 in the UK), Apple has bundled the iPhone with wifi access in the carrier’s locations throughout the country.  No such arrangement exists in the US.  So why should Europeans be the only ones who get bundled Wifi with their plans?

Add to that Starbucks/Tmobiles free Wifi Access to Vista customers for a month promotion with Microsoft.  They obviously have the capability to do a wide rollout like this.

“But iPhones have EDGE?!” you say?  True, but it is SLOW and web browsing and video watching are much more fun on a good Wifi network.  The iPods touch are also left out in the cold for web browsing.

How will it go down?  Most likely, the login credentials for the Wifi will be the same as the iTunes music store.  This will allow easy billing should make for a pretty seamless experience.  We expect to see this kind of functionality in the next major iPhone and iPod updates – especially since the capability to do this has already been announced for Europe on their 1.1.1 firmware iPhones.  It will probably be relatively inexpensive and might even be on a per use basis.  

This also fits right in with Apple’s new “everything is subscription” ideas lately.  It also adds another revenue stream to the iPhone and iPod which could be shared with Tmobile (this could also be done on the Laptops too).  99 cents for a day of surfing.  $9.99/month.  Makes sense right?

I feel like it is Christmas every time I open my iPhone installer.app lately.  Along with VNSea, NES and MobileChat, here comes another AMAZING developer-hacker application.   I don’t see Apple having 1/2 of this stuff by the time the next release is out. AS a matter of fact, I don’t see a lot of hacked iPhones going legit any time soon.

Back to Navizon:  Using both cellular triangulation and a DB of Wifi hotspots and ISP IP addresses, Navizon is able to provide a semi-accurate view of where you are at a much faster rate than most GPS systems.  Granted the accuracy of the device depends on a lot of factors, and your results may, of course vary. 

The Navizon.app also just throws your coordinates into the Maps application and puts a little pin where it thinks you are.  So, so clever.  In my informal tests, it was about 500 Meters off at my home and about 200 meters off at work.  Each of these results used cellular data and got the information in just seconds.

The number of applications to deliver content using geograhic location on the iPhone are virtually limitless.  I am sure developers are hard at work on more applications that take advantage of this knowledge.  If Google Adsense isn’t all over this then someone needs to get fired, yesterday.

I can’t wait to see where this application goes, how exciting!  Get hacking!

OH, btw, it DOES work in Europe – at least France.

Apple today announced their alliance with German (former) state telco Tmobile for the German market. Tmobile will have EDGE on 100% of its network by the end of 2007 (oh and probably some 3G too?) and of course it has a bazillion Wifi hotspots around the World.  No mention of whether or not the iPhone plan with Tmobile will include access at any of them like the UK’s O2’s offering.  

The price is a respectable

A very interesting application just hit my iPhone’s installer.app repository.  VNSea, the port of the venerable VNC Client that is used in many remote desktop installations, including Apple’s own Remote Desktop.  Although the application doesn’t appear to be working too well – we got just a flash of the desktop before the application crashed – the possibilities are endless for VNC client like this.  

Controlling a home computer or server from the road would give access to unlimited amounts of applications and data.  This is definitely something to look out for.

From the website:

Wow! I’m not European, but I play one on TV. I cannot imagine that Europeans are going to be too impressed by the “Event” at the Regent Street Apple Store today.  What was announced comes down to this:

• Announced the exact same iPhone announced 9 months ago in the US and rolled out 3 months ago
• Will be out in 2 MORE months
• Significant extra cost (blame the weak dollar and 17.5% VAT?)
• Limited EDGE Internet
• Limited Unlimited Bandwidth
• EDGE coverage is at 30% of UK
• Acknowledged that there are fewer hotspot options in Europe
• No 3G like 90% of the other smartphones because it is a “battery hog”  EDGE will crawl. Rationale: we like slim – can’t make slim 3G phone (don’t tell Nokia, Samsung, LG, etc)

So, as a fake European, I have to believe that there is going to be some backlash around these parts.  We have Internet over here.  We saw what went down in January.  We’ve seen smug Americans rolling over here with your slim little devices. I guess the reality distortion field isn’t strong outside of the San Francisco Bay area….

Apple probably could have saved some money by just getting a 30 inch Cinema display and playing back parts of the Macworld and WWDC announcements, except dubbing over some benny Hill background music and replacing the $ signs with double priced, cursive “L’s”

Still though, the iPhone is a sick piece of equipment. And it will sell like hotcakes…or Pannenkoeken…I would wager that most sales will by GSM hackers that buy them from the US and slang with old Firmware.  

Innit.

There are a lot of things that you can buy for $299.  None could possibly be as exciting as a 4Gb iPhones that are being sold clearance from Apple

With Apple set to announce it’s European iPhone strategy later this week, a lot of questions still remain on the specifics of the deal.  What we know:

• The carriers will be O2 in the UK, Tmobile in Germany, and Orange in France.  Spain’s Telefonica might also pick up the device because of the O2 relationship.
• Even with the rampant SIM hacking, the devices will be locked to the carriers initially.  Different Laws in Europe REQUIRE that device manufacturers open up their devices after 6 months of use.  This might not be a huge issue as the phones are likely to be sold with 2 year plans.
• Apple’s UK announcement will likely open the iPod Touch floodgates as the employees have been asked to stay late the day of the announcement.

What we’d like to know:

• 3G or not?  It is looking more and more like the 3G iPhone will be hitting the ground around Macworld.  Could Apple be trying to slang EDGE iPhones to the 3G spoiled Europeans?  If so, will that alone cause the iPhone to be poorly regarded in the land of copious Wireless bandwidth?
• Will the iPhone match the iPod’s 16Gb storage requirements?  If so, how far up can the prices go?
• Apple traditionally sells its products in Europe with a premium that is also due to its language requirements, different channel density and absurdly high VAT.  What price will it try to fetch with it’s current lineup
• How will Apple keep the hackers out of the iPhone?  IT is having a hard time doing just that in the States where there is only one other carrier besides AT&T (Tmobile) that carries the iPhone and Americans are used to being screwed by their Carriers.  Europeans are much more accustomed to freedom to move carriers
• What goodies besides international keyboards, mobile itunes and more hacker prevention will the 1.1.1 firmware have?  iChat?  Copy/Paste?  More photo tools?

The event is just around the corner at the Apple store in London.  Could we also see the long awaited Beatles on iTunes announcement?  Is there anyone left who hasn’t downloaded the entire anthology off of Torrent.  So many Questions….

It looks all but certain that Apple will announce its first European iPhone carrier next week.   And some bad news for y’all across the pond (or Channel as it were), it is not going to be carried by Vodafone who is currently launching an iTunes competitor (and whose CTO recently publicly dissed the iPhone).  It will most likely be carried by O2 only.    

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, the recent iPhone hacking will have on the selection of iPhone carriers.  Apple will probably have to secure its iPhone OS from these hacks if it expects to keep exclusivity contracts with the vendors going.

Apple will save its Continental Europe announcement for Apple Expo in Paris where it will announce deals with Orange and Tmobile.

Apple is expected to announce 3G iPhones with 16Gb of storage at some point but next week’s announcement might be too soon for those features.   Perhaps Apple will only announce it’s partner next week and save the specs for Apple Expo?

Let the speculation begin!

When it rains it pours! 

Not much else to say
but if you have to unlock your iPhone (like us tomorrow) you now have like 10 less steps to do – Amazing work at http://www.freeiphoneunlock.com/unlock/

It is in Beta still and the coders are off to bed for some much deserved sleep.  Perhaps tomorrow it will be more stable – it looks good enough for us!

Download the application in its current state here.

True iPhone liberation has really arrived. Kudos to the people around the World who have used the internet to communicate and solve a problem that not one, or ten people alone could have.

The free version of the software unlock is finally out there. We aim to get a new, wrapped in cellophane, iPhone and document the whole process of activating it, unlocking it, and moving to a foreign carrier.

Further Reading (more after the jump):

http://www.freeiphoneunlock.com/guide/

http://iphone.unlock.no/

http://9to5mac.com/iphone-hacking-roundup-223453452

Plan is this (keep in mind, this will all take place in France from unwrapping to calling):

• Activate Phone: We are tempted to use DVD Jon’s method but are instead opting for the “TUAW method” which involves entering a nonworking SS# and opting to get the AT&TGO pay as you go plan – but of course, never paying – just “GOing”.  This should activate the phone without costing us anything.
• Unlock Phone: Unlocking the phone with the buffer overflow “movie file” that the iUnlock application yields.  Again, Amazing work people.
• Use Phone: We have a work SIM from Vodaphone UK (unlimited EU data) and an Orange France Pay as you go plan.  We hope to use both for both data and calling
• Install 3rd Party Apps like a IM client, terminal Client and other fun stuff that is out there.  We broke down all of the Hacking sites here.

Our iPhone is currently clearing customs at Charles de Gaul Airport. God speed little guy!

The iPodtouch’s physical storage limitation of 16GB enraged a lot of people.  Why?  Most were worried that they wouldn’t be able to store much of the video that they wanted to watch on their beautiful new 480×320 screens.  However, Apple allows you to play movies over the net.  Don’t believe us?  Point your iPhone/iPodtouch browser over to:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/iphone

Yep.  Links to Quicktime movies.  Full 480×320.  Full stereo sound and amazing video clarity.  They also start up right away and play fully without having to catch up if you are on relatively speedy Wifi enabled Internet connection.

So what is stopping us from taking our incredibly diverse .mp4 movie collection and putting it on the web?  Not much really.

Just point your Web Server directory to the folder that has your media files.  No index.html page necessary – just enable directory listing on the webserver and allow the web browser to open the mp4 files.  Now we have an iPod with 2TB of storage.  

Technically, this can be done with music files and audiobooks as well.  Anything that is read by Quicktime/iTunes should be compatible.  Perhaps Apple should run with this on a Airport Extreme update?  This functionality would be really easy to build in and make simple for the masses.  

As long as we are near some Wifi – which isn’t that infrequent!  Now Bring on the 3G iPhones!

So with the steep price drop and the hacking community going nuts on the iPhone, we thought it’d be a good idea to start getting into it. Rather than risk our day to day 8Gb iPhone (which was paid for by the day job), we took advantage of the $200 price cut and snapped up a 4Gb iPhone for $300.

Since I work WAAAY outside AT&T’s coverage range (Paris) and don’t feel like being one of those $3000/month AT&T customers who receive 500 page bills, I’ve decided to get a bit pirate on our little 4Gb beauty.

I wanted to go from end to end without touching AT&T.  I was hoping to not have to pay for iPhoneSimFree but worst case scenario I will settle – it looks like it is going for $50 right now from the Australian carrier.  We’ve found a good roundup here: iPhone unlocking and activation bypass roundup.

As for initial activation, I think DVD Jon’s product is the best.

If you do a Google search for

Apple today announced it had sold its one millionth iPhone since releasing the products on June 29th.

Apple Sells One Millionth iPhone

Yesterday, just 74 days after its introduction on June 29, Apple sold the one millionth iPhone.

MacBidouille, an excellent French-language Macintosh site, has posted what they say is a leaked advertisement for the Tmobile iPhone in Germany.  Of note, the specs indicate 3G speeds and a 16GB capacity.  These specs are in line with our reports from August from our Orange (France Telecom) sources.   They also stated that the Germans and British would get the iPhones slightly before the French were ready to roll it out.

While this image could easily be a fake (they at one point call it an iPod in the advertisement), the specs are likely to be realistic as the next iteration of iPhone will likely match the iPodtouch‘s 16GB capacity.  Additionally, with 3G phones all but ubiquitous in Europe, it would be an embarrassment for Apple to release a EDGE-only phone.  The price point also make sense when one takes into account the Euro/Dollar exchange rate and the absurd VAT Tax rates that add close to 20% of the cost…  There has still been no mention of possible GPS capability.

We are still looking for an announcement at Apple Expo in Paris in late September to give European consumers some lead time in preparing to switch mobile carriers and make a fairly large purchase.  Even if agreements have been reached (and reported on by the Financial Times) the carriers will likely be forced to leave the announcement to Apple.

It turns out a whole helluva lot. Apple announced this week that their iPod Nanos were starting out at $149. If you think about it, the amazing thing is what $149 has been able to buy you over the last two and a half years.

In January of 2005, only 32 months ago, Apple unveiled the Gen 1 iPod Shuffle.  They came in at the $99 for 512MB and $149 for One Gigabyte.  The shuffles are screenless and small plastic items that could play music and hold a few files, that’s it.  Still they were a big sellers.

A little over a year and a half ago, Apple released the 1GB nano at $149.  Again, huge success – big seller.  Now you could view your music and navigate your collection.  You’d soon be able to look at pictures, browse contacts and calendar and even play some games.  All for $149.

Last year, Apple doubled the storage on the miniscule MP3 player and added some fun colors and an aluminum enclosure.  For $149 you could get a 2GB Silver Nano.

This week, Apple put a much larger screen and impressive new array of features in a superslim, almost two dimensional package.  These devices are more functionally rich than the original iPod video (sans HD space).   You can watch movies, browse using coverflow, play games. The new video enabled Nano starts out at, yep…

$149

Imagine what your $149 will be able to buy in another 32 months!

EDIT: This article was picked up by Computerworld – go check it out there.

More Newton than iPod, more tablet than music player, the new Apple Inc. iPod touch unveiled this week by CEO Steve Jobs breaks into a new hardware category that should scare the ultra-mobile PC/Nokia Tablet world.

Apple’s much-anticipated launch of the iPod touch this week heralds a new era for Apple‘s
wildly popular line of music and video players. The iPod, which emerged
first as nothing more than a portable music player — albeit one
dripping in cool — grew up to become a music and video device in
adolesence and is now a semi-full featured Internet tablet device.

The iPod is a mass market device, an international device. One that every high school kid from Tokyo to Paris to Albuquerque absolutely

With rumors of the Apple Hi-Fi