Son of MacBook Air and iPod Touch, Wonderful iPhone 4G Concept

This wonderful concept, through the curves and s’effilant the Macbook Air with the key back, the better that the fresh inspiration Macbook iPhone 4G, we have at the beginning of the month.

The thing that fascinates me most about these concepts is not the aesthetics. It is the first camera and the fact that people seem excited by the idea of videoconferencing on the iPhone. As cited from gizmodo.com, especially the idea of videoconferencing software from office, both on PC and Mac. It is a must for video chat feature to be really useful, and I personally think this is one of the reasons why it was not done by Apple before.

My hope is that they so that several, both with Apple iChat for the PC at a specific time or, ideally, based

Pink iPhone 3G Found On eBay, Not Colorware Mod

Adding to the pre-Macworld suspicion, a pink iPhone, complete with logos and trademarks, came up for auction on eBay recently. There were rumors of a third color option of the iPhone prior to the iPhone 3G launch. At the time it was expected to be a product (RED) iPhone, but afterward it turned out to be only the black and white models we have now. Still, this pink iPhone might mean something.

…or it could just be a modded iPhone with a custom plastic back. It still has all of the logos and text of a normal iPhone 3G. We can’t really tell for sure, but you might want to consider adding colored iPhones to your list of pre-Macworld Rumors.

MobileMe Syncs Contacts, Captures Criminals

Outage prone PIM push service by day, crime busting super sync utility at night? Seems that way. According to TUAW, MobileMe whipped off its mild-mannered glasses and swooped down and caught an iPhone 3G thief!

While at the dry cleaner one day, Rob’s iPhone was stolen. He immediately chalked it up as gone forever, and proceeded to purchase a brand new one that same evening. It was the next day when unfamiliar contacts began to appear on the new phone. The (not-too-bright) thief was unwittingly supplying him with names and phone numbers of his or her closest friends, via the magic of MobileMe synchronization from the stolen phone to the cloud and eventually to his new phone. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that MobileMe was leading me right to the thief!” wrote Rob.

What’s next, saving the world from Steve Ballmer Lex Luthor?

iPhone 3G Unlock Coming Before New Year

A new rumor is circulating about a possible software unlock for the iPhone 3G sometimes soon after Christmas. This is just a rumor so don’t get too excited but it is however true that the Dev Team has been progressing a lot towards this soft unlock.

This software unlock would be only available for 3G users that are still on 01.45.00 baseband, which is the baseband of firmware 2.0. Remember when I published my firmware 2.2 jailbreak tutorial? I warned you that this method would be good only if you didn’t care about a future soft unlock. Well, this future soft unlock is now coming and if you haven’t followed my warning, then you won’t be able to unlock.

This is pure speculation at this time as there is no real evidence of a post-Christmas unlock release. I asked MuscleNerd (key Dev Team member) about it but it didn’t comment whether it was true or not.

So, what do you think? Rumor or real info?

iPod the ‘best Christmas gift ever’ (iPhone 3G comes in 38th)

What is it about the holiday season that makes retailers emit polls like burps at the company party?

I have just been assaulted by a profoundly scientific effort, stimulated by cashback.co.uk, the “site that pays you to shop.” (which seems less of a point of difference now than in other holiday seasons, as every retailer seems only too delighted to pay you to shop this year.)

I have not been able to find out just who the respondents were, but can only assume they were among the folks who earn $10 every time they introduce a friend to the cashback.co.uk family.

Whoever they were, they were united in their belief that the iPod would have been the chosen gift of the Three Wise Men. A spokesperson for the site told The Daily Telegraph: “The iPod has really taken the world by storm and is an ideal present for anyone of any age.” Well, for anyone of the 150 million or so who doesn’t already have one, perhaps.

Still, as humanity teeters on the curb of Destruction Drive, wondering whether to step into the middle of the road in order to be struck lifeless by reality, one really does wonder just what resides in these respondents’ minds.

Because the second-best Christmas gift ever is, apparently, diamond earrings. The third is the quite indefatigably entertaining Wii. While the iPhone 3G languishes in some considerable pain and disillusionment at No 38.

What might these wise and thoughtful respondents have possibly imagined could be better than an iPhone 3G?

Well, at No. 30 they chose a Grease DVD. Which some might find a little “Travolting.” Especially as No. 31 was a boxed set of 24.

But this travesty of intelligence and sensitivity is trumped into nanosignificance by the choice, at No. 18, of slippers.

Most will not be surprised that Barbie, having shaken off some difficult associations with Pamela Anderson and the spouses of certain politicians, stood rock solid at No. 10. However, the presence of pajamas at No. 33 might leave some wanting to disappear beneath their comforters until the End of Days.

And will anyone not feel involuntary spasms when discovering that following closely on the clasps of choice number 4–Tiffany earrings–as the gift that says “I love you” without the “I’d bankrupt myself for you”–a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates?

In case you still had lingering doubts that the respondents to this survey might have been either imbibing considerable amounts of Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur (yes, No. 23) or the bored inhabitants of an institution for those of indeterminate mind, might I direct you to No. 34?

Yes, four places above one of the most dazzling phones ever created, was that essential, exciting, heartfelt, 34th best Christmas gift ever–a bottle of de-icer.

All is not lost, though. The iPhone was 3 places above the Footspa.

Is this the iPhone Port or hilarious pun?

So as i know that Many of us remember back to the days of Yore. When first person shooter games like Wolf 3D and Doom were taking the PC market by storm. These games completely changed the video game market and have been reproduced on nearly every gaming platform there is. It’s funny to think how Doom in particular was so revolutionary for its time, and continues to be that way to this day as it makes its way onto the iPhone via always groundbreaking Cydia. Now, groundbreaking usually means stability issues, which those who have read previous articles of mine know how much I despise, but I decided to give it a run.

After a quick splash screen, I’m thrust in the middle of a dark, alien crowded room. Simple, but different on screen controls, make for easy maneuvering. At first it seems as though the game has you in continuous forward motion, then you’ll notice if you tilt your phone towards you, it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to stop or move backwards. After trying to laugh off an awkwardly dumb moment, I decided it was time to kick some monster butt. Negative. It took several minutes to locate my first monster. The motion sensing seems off, and that tends to make for a frustrating time (maybe it’s something you have to get used to). Combine that with an already boring and hard-to-distinguish-objects, 2D graphics, and it makes for an overall negative experience. Now ZodTTD did get a few things right. The game was actually extremely stable for an iPhone port, didn’t crash on me once. And the control system is one of the better ones I’ve seen, with large left and right arrows placed perfectly for your thumbs.

Maybe it would be better if there was a different way you could move forwards and backwards. Maybe the actual playing screen needs to be larger with smoother graphics. Maybe old school ports like this just aren’t my cup of tea. I’m sure many of our readers love this game. ZodTTD is definitely one of the most respected guys in the community, and I’m sure that Doom will continue to evolve. Is this game going to be deleted from my springboard due to low level of playability? Yes. Does that mean it’s doomed? No. I will continue to watch for future updates and hopefully some things will have been revamped.

Update: I always try and make sure to cover all the bases when posting opinions on software people work really hard on. Upon submitting this article, I stumbled across a ‘mouse sensitivity’ setting in the ‘Options’ category of my Doom menu, I know, who woulda thunk it. This did improve some of my movement issues, however be cautious when tweaking your settings, as this caused my once crash-free app to well, crash. Bottom line, it still did not change my opinion of the game, but as I stated before these old school ports really aren’t my bag.

iPhone 3G tethering officially on its way

After several rounds of rumors about an official iPhone 3G tethering plan, it seems that AT&T finally decided to offer a tethering plan for 3G users. In an interview today with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph De La Vega said the company is working with Apple to let the iPhone serve as a tethered wireless modem for laptops “soon”.

What does “soon” mean exactly? I don’t know but I think it’s about time that AT&T offers such a plan for business users that had been requesting this since the 3G came out a few months ago. Also unknown is the cost of this future data plan. I can’t imagine it being under $40/month.

Our jailbreaker friends out there know that there are a couple alternatives to tether your iPhone. The first on is iPhoneModem, which I haven’t tried myself. The second option is PDAnet, which I reviewed before. Both apps are free but are against AT&T TOS.

iPhone tethering coming soon according to AT&T

According to Harry McCracken of Technoligizer, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega reportedly told Michael Arrington that the iPhone will be allowed to work as a modem for your notebook soon via wireless tethering over a Bluetooth connection. Michael Arrington’s MobileCrunch site, one of the sites in the TechCrunch network, repeated the news in a later post so it would seem legitimate.

One of the largest complaints about the iPhone, both since it was first introduced and since the release of the iPhone 3G, has been the lack of any sort of sanctioned tethering solution that would allow users to connect their computers to the iPhone via a wireless Bluetooth connection and use the internet connection from the iPhone to serve as a wireless modem for the laptop. Since the news is coming from an AT&T executive rather than from Apple, this is less a feature of the phone itself than it is a service which AT&T will start allowing and for which AT&T will most likely charge a subscription fee.

Current guesses for the tethering connection are around $50 to $60 a month, which is on par with the $60 cost of a monthly 3G connection via a wireless laptop card, like the AT&T USBConnect Quicksilver. If the prices are that close, although it would mean a second contract with AT&T, you may want to go the wireless laptop card route, as the price will be nearly the same, you’ll have two separate bandwidth caps for both the 3G card and the iPhone rather than sharing the same 5GB per month cap, and the USB connection for the laptop card will take less of your batteries’ charge than the drain that maintaining a Bluetooth connection will cause on both your laptop and your iPhone.

No mention has been made on wether there will be an EDGE only tethering plan at reduced cost for people with first generation iPhones.

Software unlock for iPhone 3G coming soon?

An unlocked iPhone 3G is a little closer to becoming reality, according to the iPhone Dev Team.

An easy way of unlocking your iPhone 3G could hit the Internet relatively soon.

(Credit: CNET)Gizmodo picked up on a video produced by the iPhone Dev Team demonstrating that it has gained access to the baseband processor used by Apple in the iPhone 3G. The baseband chip is what controls the connection between the phone and the mobile phone network, meaning that a software download that could let you use your iPhone 3G on a carrier network other than the ones officially designated by Apple could be released soon.

I’m sure you remember the fuss about the original iPhone and those who sought to unlock it from the four carriers that were Apple’s launch partners for the first iPhone. The iPhone 3G has proven a tougher nut to crack, because Apple apparently changed the baseband to make it more difficult to exploit than the baseband used on the original iPhone. You can unlock your iPhone 3G to use it on another carrier by modifying the SIM card, but what the iPhone Dev Team is trying to accomplish is a software-based unlock that you would just download and install.

There hasn’t been as much demand for unlocked iPhone 3Gs, given the much greater distribution of that phone around the world. However, there are still some countries, like China, that don’t carry the iPhone, and there are still some users who want to use their iPhones on a different carrier than the one designated for the iPhone in their country.

Software Method to Unlock iPhone 3G Progress Report

The iPhone Dev Team have been working tirelessly since the iPhone has been launched to bring us the latest iPhone hacking tools. They have been successful in jailbreaking and unlocking the 1st generation iPhone and jailbreaking iPhone 3G as well.

However, they still have couple of challenges, the first one is the much awaited software method to unlock iPhone 3G and the more recent one is to jailbreak the 2nd generation iPod Touch.

They have recently published a post on their blog to update us on their progress in unlocking iPhone 3G.

In their blog post, the iPhone Dev Team have also made some observations about iPhone firmware 2.2 which was recently seeded to developers of the iPhone Developer Program by Apple. As

They have revealed the following:

Apple is continuing with their ski-resort theme;  iPhone Firmware 2.2 is nicknamed Timberline. 

Apple has gone back to using expiry dates.  The first beta version of iPhone Firmware 2.2 is due to expire on November 30, 2008.  They had apparently stopped using expiry dates with iPhone firmware 2.1, but for some reason they’ve started using them again.

The iPhone Dev Team have confirmed that iPhone firmware 2.2 is still vulnerableto Pwnage and Quickpwn on everything but iPod Touch 2G.

They have also published an image below to demonstrate that they have been able to jailbreak iPhone firmware 2.2. The screen shot below shows one of the unofficial native iPhone apps Terminal.app running on firmware 2.2 which is being used to display the kernel build information.

As for the update on the much awaited software method to unlock iPhone 3G, they write:

“The 3G iPhone soft unlock and iPod Touch 2G jailbreak are still relatively new challenges (compare them with the timeframe of the iPhone challenges last year).  We’re making slow advances on both fronts, but it’s not the sort of thing that can be easily described in a blog like this. 

But, to maybe show how interlinked these challenges are, this weekend we’ll be trying some hardware based ideas on the iPod Touch 2G jailbreak ”

As you might know, we have already seen the hardware method to unlock iPhone 3G but the iPhone Dev Team have advised users not to use the method. They had raised the following concern about the hardware method in one of their blog posts:

“While a hack could in theory work under this scheme, the errors are recorded by telecom companies, and may be considered tampering in a company’s network. In countries like Germany, as a result, a person could allegedly face up to three years in prison, and in the US, it may fall under legislation designed to combat terrorism.”

The iPhone Dev Team have been able to successfully unlock the 1st generation iPhone even with iPhone firmware updates due to an exploit which can only be prevented by a hardware fix. Apple has fixed the exploit in iPhone 3G which has made it difficult to unlock iPhone 3G.

Based on their track record the iPhone Dev Team should be able to unlock iPhone 3G, the question really remains is when?

Let us know your views.

iPhone 3G Unlocked by Hackers from Brazil

The iPhone hacking community seem to be working overtime cracking Apple’s new iPhone 3G.

The iPhone Dev Team had published the video of the world’s first jailbroken iPhone 3G only yesterday and plan to release their Pwnage Tool 2.0 very soon.

We now have breaking news that hackers from Brazil have unlocked iPhone 3G, yes unlocked, using a hardware method that does not need any jailbreaking.

If you have been following the iPhone hacking news since the original iPhone, you might remember that before we had the simple hackin softwares like ZiPhone, hackers had unlocked the jailbroken original iPhone using a Turbo SIM card.

This one is similar, just that the hackers have been able to unlock iPhone 3G without the need to jailbreak it, by using a wafer-thin card that piggybacks on your SIM while in the iPhone. So all that you need to unlock iPhone 3G is DesbloqueioBr’s chip (SIM adapter) and your SIM (and a iPhone 3G).

Paulo and Breno of DesbloqueioBr explain that they have been able to achieve this by programming the SIM adapter in such a way that it tricks the iPhone into believing that a test SIM card has been inserted. Since iPhone 3G thinks that it is a test SIM card, it allows service and hands the functionality back to the SIM thus unlocking it.

Folks at Engadget have been able to test this hardware unlocking method with their FIDO locked iPhone 3G with a local TIM SIM card and then in their AT&T iPhone 3G, and have confirmed that it worked perfectly in both.

You can also checkout the video of the world’s unlocked iPhone 3G (please note its not in English):

DesbloqueioBr are still to reveal the pricing details of their unlocking kit and how they plan to release it to iPhone users who are looking to use SIM card from any GSM carrier. I will let you folks know in case I get more details, so stay tuned here at iPhone Hacks.

Thanks, Zélelé for the tip.

Update: As per Niche Technologies, they plan to charge between $250 to $375 for their hardware unlocking method.

Thats why everyone loves the iPhone Dev Team, they give away their easy-to-use software unlocking tools for free and to top it, they are doing all this as a hobby. I know, they haven’t unlocked iPhone 3G yet, but its not even a week since iPhone 3G was launched, so give them a break and be patient. I am quite confident that we will hear from them soon as they seem to be making good progress.

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