Mike’s Blog

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Do you want to save yourself some time? Instead of watching the whole 90 minutes of Steve Jobs Keynote at this weeks MacWorld, have a look at what Mahalo Daily did with it. All the facts in 60 seconds

I am a happy user of an unlocked iPhone since mid last year. I own one since they came out in the us during late summer. Since at the time, I was unable to buy the iPhone here in the UK, my only option was to use an unlocked US phone. The method to unlock it I use is the TurboSim method.

It worked perfectly fine until yesterday, when I started to see problems. The phone reports that there is no Sim card installed in the phone. A reboot of the phone solves the problem, but only for a few minutes. You can see the signal disappear several times for a few seconds, just before it reports that there is no Sim card installed again. Removing/reinstalling the Sim/TurboSim cards also has the same effect.

After searching around in different forums, it is becoming more and more certain that the problem is actually not the iPhone or the TurboSIM card, but it seems to be somehow caused by a change on the t-Mobile network. Why do I think that? All of the users reporting the problem are also using T-Mobile. Too much of a coincidence. As one of the users mentions, the problem does seem to have started occurring over the past days, at different “start” times for different users, which could indicate that T-Mobile is actually performing some kind of update on their network which is causing the TurboSim to fail.

I remember that I saw a very similar problem when I was travelling in Europe. Depending on which network I was roaming, I would loose the signal and the phone would report the same “noSim card” error message. I thought at the time that it was just me throwing around the phone too much, causing bad contact between the TurboSIM, the real SIM and the actual phone connectors, but now, I kind of think that it might have been the same problem that we are now experiencing on T-Mobile UK.

Here are some links to forums posts of people reporting the same issue:

bladox.com (TurboSim manufacturers Website Forum)

MacRumours

Update: As mysteriously as the problem started, it has disappeared again. My iPhone is working fine again. Unfortunately that also means that i still have no real idea what caused the problem, although I still expect it to be caused by some change on the T-Mobile network.

One of the features missing on the iPhone is GPS. I was used to have it on the Nokia N95, and although I didn’t use it very often, it came in handy a few times. Well, the iPhone has Assisted GPS since today. Well, sort of.

When checking for new application within the installer, I noticed a new app called Navizon GPS. I have to say it is rather cool. Navizon calls its Virtual GPS service “Peer-to-Peer Wireless Positioning”. It is based on a database which is populated by users of the Navizon software on mobile phones with a real GPS receiver included. The geo-coded information is then combined with the information received from the cellular network and WIFI networks. This combined information is then available for users of the system without a GPS receiver included in their phone.

It will in most case never be as precise as real  GPS, or even the A-GPS on the N95, but it still allows you to locate yor position in a certain area, as long as the area is covered by users with GPS equipped phones in the past.

In my case, the location found by my iPhone was a few hundred meters away from my home here in London. Still very sweet!!!

It was only a matter of time, really. A few hours ago HaRRO, a member of the members (Daeken, Darkmen, guest184, gray, iZsh, pytey, roxfan, Sam, uns, Zappaz, and Zfhad) of the iPhone Dev Team have released an open source and FREE tool which allows you to set your iPhone free from the AT&T lock! Although the process is not yet as easy and automated as the commercial tool from iPhoneSimFree, well, it is free, as in beer! You can find it here.

I guess the guys at iPhoneSimFree and especially some of the their resellers might regret all of the delays that they had before releasing their tool to the market! The days over overpriced unlocking tools are over!

Well, my iPhone is unlocked since some time now (using the TurboSIM method) but anyway: Good for all the other people out there, especially over here in Europe!

The announcement of the $200 price drop on the 8Gig iPhone did not only cause positive reactions. A lot of the early adopters weren’t too happy to see such a huge drop in Price after only two months.

What made it worse, was a comment from Steve Jobs in an interview:

“Q: What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?
A: That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.“

Well, looks like since he mad that statement, he changed his mind a little bit. in an open letter he announced that those early buyers will be able to get a $100 store credit (valid in the retail and online stores). Amazing reaction, which might cost Apple a small fortune, but then again, it shows why Apple has such a loyal customer base! Which other company would have reacted like this? I can’t name a single one.

Looks like all of the different rumours were true. And my prediction weren’t really wrong either, but then again, I guess a lot of the stuff was kind of predictable, although it was a surprise that really nearly all of the different rumours were correct this time.

- iPod shuffle “Product red, and other new colours.

- new iPod Nano. Yes, it is the “fatty”, that was seen on Engadget and other sites already. Cover flow, but not touch sensitive. Available with 4G ($149) and 8G ($199)

- new iPod Classic. Basically the same new UI as the new Nano, 80G ($249) and 160G($349).

- new iPod Touch. Basically an iPhone without the phone! Same UI, multi-touch, and WIFI! Pretty nice. Available with 8G ($299) and 16G ($399)

- iTunes wireless store! Kind of expected when it became clear that the new iPod will have Wifi. Available on the iPod Touch and soon also on the iPhone as part of a software update.

- Pricedrop for the iPhone! The 8G version will be $399 instead of $599. Nice! The 4G version is gone.

In the end, a very nice line-up of new devices!

Update: As usual, I am rather disapointed to see the price here in the UK for these devices. Let me take the 16G iPod Touch as example: 399US$ in the US Apple store. 269£ in the UK store, which corresponds to 543US$. You would have to add the Sales Tax to the 399US$, but even after that, around 100US$ more to pay if you buy it here in the UK.

As a lot of you know by now, Apple has scheduled a “special event” this Wednesday. I am not going to repeat all of the rumours of what will be announced, but, jut for the fun of it, here is my prediction:
It will be the long awaited new iPod. Using the OSX and having the same nice UI as the iPhone! Now, it might even have wireless build in, but if it does, it will only make sense if it will also finally allow wireless iTunes synchronisation, or direct access to the iTunes store.

As usual, there will be the “one more thing” at the end. And that one will be the announcement of the availability of the complete Beatles collection in the iTunes Store. Why? The phrase on the invite gives it away. “The beat goes on” were the last words of the final Beatles press release!

As some of you know, I recently bought an iPhone. Since it is not yet available here in Europe, I got it from the US. Activation was easy, which basically gave me a really nice wireless iPod. Well, since today, using a TurboSIM, I finally have a fully unlocked iPhone, working with t-mobile over here in the UK! Yes, there are a few thing that are missing on the current version of the iPhone (no 3G, no build-in GPS, no copy-paste,…) but otherwise, it is the best phone currently available! The multi-touch user interface is just amazing! In addition it is the best iPod available (if you can accept that it has only 8G of storage space).

Although, I guess that the last part might change next week..rumours are indicating that Apple might release a new iPod next week (including wireless and touch screen…but then again…rumours.