iPhone Upgrade

I was tired of waiting for hacks for the iPod touch (a week is too long to wait!) so I returned it and purchased an iPhone- basically the same as the iPod but with 1/2 the storage and a it requires a 2 year AT&T service contract (if you don't know what you are doing). 

I picked up the iPhone this morning and I spent a little while researching and trying out different ways of 'activating' and unlocking it.  For those that are unfamiliar with the iPhone, when you take it out of the box it is basically a brick; your only options are 'activate' or 'make emergency call'.  You cannot get the iPod functions until you sign up for a 2 year contract with AT&T (starting at $60!) after connecting it to iTunes.  I already have two phones (work and personal) and there is no way I was going to sign up for another phone service (which works out to $1,440 + taxes/FCC shit over two years for the cheapest plan!)

A few things need to be done to activate your iPhone to allow you to sync with iTunes (to copy your music/videos/podcasts over).   You an also choose to unlock the phone to allow you to use another GSM carrier's SIM (or an AT&T SIM without the Apple plan).   I found a great tutorial on the iPhone Dev Wiki and on http://iphone.unlock.no/.  I also found this a two part video on YouTube:

How to Unlock Your iPhone Part 1:	How to Unlock Your iPhone Part 2:

 

To accompany the above you will need the complete unlock package download.   Later you can browse through the list of PXL files applications/games that you might want to install on your iPhone.

My experiences with the phone ulocking were very different; I was using iTunes 7.4.2.4 (the latest/greatest for use with the iPod Touch) and apparently (and without  mention) you cannot use this version with iBrickr.  What I did was run the Independence Day hack (after searching for an old copy of iTunes 7.3.0.54), followed by iBrickr, then the AnySIM hack; this all seemed to work (with errors and issues)- but  I noticed there no sound from the iPhone speaker after the last AnySIM application.  I did a restore (via iTunes) and re-applied Independence Day and iBrickr- and it appears the AnySIM hack worked (and was not reverted by the restore!)

One good thing about these hacks is that it is hard to kill an iPod/iPhone; if the firmware is corrupted, you can put the device in recovery mode (by pressing power + menu on the iPhone) for about 3 seconds and plug it into iTunes.  iTunes will detect the recover mode and walk you through downloading the appropriate firmware and run a restore on the unit.

Overall I am VERY impressed with the iPhone- much more than I thought I would be (the hype around its release was a turn-off for me; but the $200 drop made me actually consider it).  It gives me email, web browsing, google maps, you tube, a 2MP camera, WiFi/EDGE connectivity, audio/video playback and PDA functions (calendar, contacts, notes) all in one small package; if can get blackberry messages on this I could retire my other phones!

The iPhone is the ultimate gadget phone- defiantly not for everyone- but if you are the kind of person (or just a big nerd like myself) that likes to snap pictures with your phone and have them automatically upload to Flickr, or if you like to have Google maps, weather and stock quotes and YouTube videos a touch away then this is defiantly something you will want!

One thing would make this the perfect phone (in my opinion): Get the Bluetooth stack working like it should be for a device of this type!  I want A2DP/AVRCP for my headphones, GPS support, and wireless sync.  My icombi AP21 provides the first option for now (albeit it makes the ipod about an inch longer) so I can wait and hope for a while... :o)