The iPhone 3G has been finally unlocked. Previously, we’ve seen stories of iPhone unlocking methods that involve taking apart your iPhone and doing some wild Frankenstein-like soldering. The Dev-Team have announced that they’ve sucessfully unlocked an iPhone 3G and will make it available via PwnageTool and QuickPwn sometime around the New Year. Seriously, these guys are wild. What can’t they do?
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Lenovo, the notebook maker, is developing an Android-powered handset that is supposed to be incredibly bossy. The above pic is the first available live image of the Android Lenovo device and it’s codenamed OPhone. Not very original huh? The device will launch on China Mobile and support its 3G service called TD SCDMA. Don’t expect this phone to launch anytime in the US. It’s going to be only available in China and maybe Asia.
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The iPhone 3G is about to hit Taiwan. Now the Taiwanese can experience an awesome phone that does everything except take phone calls. Chunghwa Telecom announced today a release date of December 13th. The iPhone will be available for around $800USD and will carry a minimal month fee of NT$1,049 (about US$ 31).
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I’ve stopped looking to updates to fix my device experience. They rarely update the essential features that I need on my phone such as landscape/portrait keyboard functionality. Instead, updates are usually fixing some minutea that I’m not even going to notice post-update. It seems the latest update slows the 3G speeds to a point where it may not be considered 3G and the battery is being drained even faster.
The news is all based on opinions discussed in various forums. We’ve yet to see a speed test confirmation which is something QB might do. Although I really don’t want to update my phone and test it if that’s the case.
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Sony Ericsson is making huge headlines these days with the anticipation surrounding their incredibly pricey $800 XPERIA X1 but that shouldn’t deter interest from their other devices such as the W705 Walkman phone, which has recently been announced.
The SE W705 Walkman phone has some great hardware specs including HSDPA support, 3G, 3.2 MP camera with a flash, plus a secondary video call lens, the latest Walkman v3.0 software, an FM RDS radio and YouTube. All of these specs make for a well-rounded entertainment phone. But that’s not all! The Sony Ericsson W705 is the first Walkman phone to come with Wi-Fi. So forget nasty data charges and download all the video and music you like.
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The very first iPhone 3G unlock has happened and now you can unlock yours too soon you’ll be able to. The iPhone Dev Team have been able to break in the baseband processor. If you’re like me and have no idea what a baseband processor is, the dev team fill in the details. It’s basically the core of the iPhone 3G and controls everything about the phone.
Nucleus is the operating system that runs on the PMB8878 baseband processor, we are using minicom running on the iPhone to talk to the baseband via AT commands, the AT command shown is a custom AT command that has been inserted into the PMB8878 that starts an application on the baseband, one of the things that this application does is to lists the tasks (processes) that are running within Nucleus.
[Update: The comments are right. The Dev Team can manipulate the baseband but it doesn't mean YOU can unlock your iPhone 3G. To be fair, it doesn't necessarily mean THEY can unlock it. They just have made a serious step in doing it.]
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I’ve been reading a lot of confusion on the web about the BlackBerry Magnum and the BlackBerry Pluto. Many are confused which BlackBerry touch screen the respective codenames are associated with.
BlackBerry Magnum (9220)
This touch screen device will be modeled on the BlackBerry Curve 8900 design, but will include 3G.
BlackBerry Pluto (9900)
Again a touch screen device, but this one will be modeled on the BlackBerry Bold design.
QuicklyBored reader Pascal tipped me off to this iPhone unlocking service. Apparently he’s had it unlocked for the past 6 weeks and it’s working just fine. His comment was in response to my posting about Rebel Sim which also purports to unlock the iPhone 3G. Apparently that service doesn’t work so well and this is the good stuff. Let me know if anyone feels the same way.
I’ve had an iPhone 3G for a few months now and the battery life is starting to really get on my nerves. If I use it like a normal phone, I’ll probably get 2 days of life out of it. But who wants to do that? If I’m watching YouTube videos and using the iPod feature, I rarely get to 6pm. With Mophie’s Juice Pack, you get up to 350 additional hours of standby, up to 6 hours of 3G talk time (or 12 hours on 2G) and another 6 hours of web surfing. Now THAT is the type of iPhone usage I want.
[Via Engadget]
Touch screen smartphones are going to dominate the consumer market with their friendly UI, innovative games, true HTML browsing and general rich media capabilities. The market has now hit a point where there are 3 incredible touch screen devices aimed directly at prosumers. The HTC Dream G1, the iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm. Of course there are more touch screen phones like the Instinct and the HTC Touch Diamond, but the 3 phones I have chosen are direct competitors. It’s an exciting time because no matter how the market divides itself, rest assured the smartphone consumer market will explode over the next few years. The questions I would like to answer are: what phone is best for who and why?
Continue reading the full breakdown of the HTC Dream G1, the iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm