The day the iPhone turned into a web surfin’ iPod

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If you want an iPhone, which is really a 6th generation iPod, but don’t want to use it as a phone or pay AT&T for the privilege of having an iPhone that works, DVD Jon has unleashed a way to make the non-phone iPhone a reality.

Want to use an iPhone in a country other than the US, or use it in the US without needing to be on a two-year contract with AT&T?

Thanks to new software from Jon Lech Johansen, famous as ‘DVD Jon’, the man that cracked the DVD’s copy protection, you can ‘crack’ the iPhone and ‘activate it’ – but you won’t get phone service from it when you activate it using DVD Jon’s method.

The software and brief instructions are available at Johansen’s blog called ‘So Sue Me’ , in the June 3rd post entitled ‘iPhone Independence Day’ and let you use the iPhone’s web surfing and email features using your Wi-Fi connection, listen to music, watch photos and videos and do everything but make phone calls and surf using an EDGE connection to the Internet.

Naturally, users trying to make phone calls find that it simply doesn’t work, as there is no connection to any cell phone networks without a proper SIM card, activation through AT&T and a valid contract.

Yet predictions that the iPhone would be ‘unlocked’ within one to two weeks are raging online, with the expectation that iPhone users will in theory be able to insert any SIM card from any GSM provider worldwide.

If hackers are successful, it could easily unleash a worldwide frenzy of grey importing as iPod and Apple fans around the world try to get their hands on a iPhone long before their official release in other countries.

But Apple is known to not look upon such activity favorably at all, with the likely outcome being that Apple attempts to block any hacks or cracks through an iTunes and iPhone software update.

This could cause updated iPhones to stop working in other countries, causing grief for overseas iPhone owners and more work for hackers who will need to find new ways to play the cat and mouse game of hack and repair with Apple.

As rumors swirl that an updated 3G iPhone will appear in Europe rather than the existing EDGE model, and with the reviews all generally quite positive, the issue of being able to only buy the iPhone in the US will soon be eliminated as the iPhone starts going on sale worldwide.
But even when that happens, the issue of being able to use an iPhone without needing to have a phone contract will still be officially impossible, even though DVD Jon proves it’s easy.

With the iPhone barely more than a week old, the story and saga of the iPhone’s future is still being written, and what the iPhone’s conditions of use will look like with future versions is unknown.

For now, what we do know is that the hackers are no doubt causing Apple to iMoan internally about their vaunted iPhone, as hackers react to consumer demand to make the iPhone operate the way they want it to – not entirely the way that Apple wants.

iTWire

Another iPhone feature — it crashes!

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When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January, I wrote,

The other problem is that computers are inherently buggy. Macs crash, and it’s frustrating when they do. It’s even more frustrating, however, when your music player crashes, and if your phone or your TV crashes, you’ll probably want to tear your hair out. The iPhone is so complex — it’s got an accelerometer in it to detect when you flip it sideways, it’s got a proximity sensor to tell when it’s near your face, it’s got to understand myriad finger gestures — that crashing, or at least slowing down, the way an overworked computer sometimes does, might be a real possibility.

A bunch of MacHeads jumped on me for that, claiming that Macs never crash and that Apple’s phone would be similarly solid. This was absurd; the Mac OS is very forgiving, and you’ve got to do a lot of crazy things to it to bring it down, but it certainly can crash. (For examples, see here and here.) And iPods — if you’ve never crashed your iPod, you’ve never used your iPod; who of us isn’t familiar with the Menu + Select button method of reseting an unresponsive Pod?

Well, the iPhone crashes too. My first brush with iPhone death occurred Friday night, shortly after activation. I called the phone from another number to see if its activation had taken — and when the iPhone began to ring, I hung up on the calling phone. But the iPhone didn’t stop ringing. For 10, 15, 20 seconds it continued, ignoring my tapping on the on-screen and physical buttons. Remembering the way to force a PC to turn off, I held down the iPhone’s Sleep button — and after about about 10 seconds, it gave me the shut-down screen.

On Saturday afternoon, I managed an even wilder crash while I was trying to get the phone to connect with a Wi-Fi router that has always been a bit picky. After connecting and disconnecting from the network a few times, I loaded up a Wikipedia page. Halfway through the loading, the phone froze. And now even holding down the Sleep button did nothing.

The third screen of Apple’s iPhone Troubleshooting Assistant came to my rescue. It turns out that you restart a frozen iPhone in much the same way you revive a chilled iPod — “press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time until you see the Apple logo.”

The MacHeads are going to tell me that all smart phones crash. Well, sure they do. My Windows phone goes down about once a month, and sometimes the only way to get it back up is to pop out the battery for a bit. Not a pretty thing. And Apple, of course, has never promised a crash-free phone — that it set up a page to help people combat “frozen iPhone and common issues” suggests as much. Indeed, the iPhone even reports its crashes to Apple — when you sync back up after a crash (even if just a single app, and not the whole phone, has gone down), iTunes asks if you’re OK with sending a log to Apple. (Daring Fireball has posted a crash log; scroll to the bottom here.)

Are two crashes in a weekend a bad sign? I should say that neither freeze bothered me too much; each occurred during non-critical tasks — I wasn’t talking on the phone or listening to music — so I found them more curious than frustrating. Plus the iPhone starts up again in about 20 seconds, much quicker than a Mac or PC. Still, I can’t fathom why a missed call caused my phone to fall apart. Is occasional crashing just the cost of being amazing? I hope not. But in case, just remember: Sleep + Home.

Source

IPhone activation headaches still trouble users

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AT&T, Apple won’t say how many users have had problems, but some have been waiting nearly 60 hours.

It took Iain Gillott 47 hours to activate his iPhone after waiting in the Texas heat Friday afternoon to buy one.

He has been an AT&T Inc./Cingular Wireless customer for 12 years, so he never dreamed there would be any trouble setting up service. But after a day of trying, he learned that his family rate plan wouldn’t accommodate an additional line, and once that problem was solved, he learned AT&T sent Apple Inc. a message to activate, but the Apple servers had timed out.

So, basically, both the maker and the carrier for the iPhone screwed up, from Gillott’s point of view. “When the next big device comes out, I’m not rushing out to buy one,” Gillott said in an interview. Both AT&T and Apple “had the opportunity to set a benchmark for customer service but haven’t solved any problems at all. They’ve done nothing apart from pissing off a lot of people.”

Gillott, a market analyst for wireless products and services at IGR Inc. in Austin, waited 47 hours for service, but that might not be the longest to wait, according to Apple’s support blog, where one person known as “SVDaily” waited more than 59 hours and still did not have service today.

Apple and AT&T officials have not responded to requests asking how many iPhone customers faced long waits for activation or what has caused the problems. One Apple official yesterday told the Associated Press that a small percentage of iPhone customers had an activation problem, while AT&T said overloaded servers were to blame and that adjustments were in the works.

An online poll at Engadget.com started on Sunday morning recorded by midday today more than 5,300 users who said they were “still dead in the water” and upset about activation delays, while another 1,600 said they were indeed activated after facing problems. Another 6,800 reported that their activations went smoothly, nearly half the survey group.

Rumor: PSP recall in the Netherlands, possible attempt to reduce homebrew?

Posted by multippt

There are rumors ongoing that Sony has recalled all of it’s current PSPs from retailers in the Netherland in order to replace it with new, “unflashable” units. This might have been in response to the growing popularity of custom firmwares.

Of course, this piece of information is not comfirmed yet, and if these new units were to be “unflashable”, it probably could render the PSP un-updatable even with the official PSP firmware updates. Poor game sales was seen as a possible reason as to why Sony attempted this move.

Due to the nationwide recall, the PSP would be out of stock for a period of time in the Netherlands. It’s not known if Sony would do the same for other retailers in other countries.

Via MaxConsole

See-through battery in development

Posted by multippt

Researchers at Waseda University have just come out with a battery that is flexible, and transparent. This battery requires 1 minute to charge, and can last for over 1000 cycles (there’s no information on the amount of energy that it produces when it is in use).

These batteries may be nice to look at, but, don’t expect to see them out yet - it’s still a prototype. Well… at least it won’t be soon well most of our gadgets are near invisible.

via Gizmag

HTC Adopts Yahoo Go

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Yahoo has teamed with High Tech Computer (HTC) to put a suite of Internet software applications on millions of Windows Mobile handsets, the companies said Wednesday.

The deal puts Yahoo a step ahead of rivals with its Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0. HTC, the latest of a number of companies Yahoo has signed on to use its software, is the world’s largest maker of handsets that run Windows Mobile. The OS is normally found on the kind of high end smartphones that Yahoo is targeting.

“We don’t have any kind of agreement with Google right now, but we do provide pocket MSN and IE on our Windows Mobile handsets and we will continue to do so,” said an HTC representative.

Yahoo said it would put the gamma, or release candidate, version of the mobile software on HTC handsets. Previously, only a test version had been available. Once aoftware is ready for general release, it moves from gamma to gold.

Supporting Devices

HTC will preload Yahoo Go 2.0 on millions of devices, the companies said in a statement. HTC joins a host of other companies announcing support for the new applications, including Nokia, Research In Motion, Motorola, and Samsung.

Users can download Yahoo Go 2.0 for free on more than 75 Windows Mobile devices via a link at a special section of Yahoo’s Web site. The site also offers a place for users to input their mobile phone numbers to determine if their handset can run the suite.

In all, Go 2.0 can be used on over 100 different mobile phone models, a number that will rise to 175 models in the near future, according to Yahoo. The company is aiming for 400 devices by the end of the year.

Launched early this year, Yahoo Go 2.0 offers users oneSearch, which serves up useful information for Internet searches instead of just a list of Web sites. For example, if a user types in “pizza,” the search engine will display phone numbers for local pizzerias. It also offers a number of widgets including e-mail, local information, maps, news, sports, finance and more.

Interview: D2C’s Scott Orr Talks PSP, Digital Comics, And Ease Of Play

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Representatives have officially announced the formation of D2C Games, a new video game publisher founded by former Electronic Arts executive and John Madden Football originator Scott Orr and technology expert Bart Besseling focused on delivering social games delivered through digital distribution.

D2C aims to partner with other companies to publish games on multiple platforms, including next-gen consoles, handhelds, 3G mobile devices, and PCs. As part of this announcement, D2C has also revealed that it has partnered with comic book and screen writers, game development studios as well as its own internal studio, Bigdog Games, to create and publish casual social sports games and episodic content.

Gamasutra recently spoke with Scott Orr to get his insight into D2C, a company that he notes as being “ideally positioned to take advantage of the casual market.”

“Our games will appeal to casual gamers as well as hard core gamers who simply don’t have the time to devote hours to a game,” Orr explained, “but who still want to be able to team up and play with friends. Social networking is a key driver that is going to set us apart, allowing users to create game content and personalize the game.”

“It goes back to basics, and being able to easily pick up and play a game without having to figure out or have to read a 50 page manual. We wont have one,” he added.

Orr, whose career highlights include managing the development group a Electronic Arts responsible for the first NHL Hockey and John Madden Football games, as well as founding leading mobile game publisher Sorrent (now Glu Mobile), also outlined D2C’s very specific focus, stating, “there are a number of things that give us an advantage…we intend to focus on two very specific areas with casual social sports on one end, and episodic sci fi on the other.”

However, the executive did note that despite this, his company does plan to support next-gen consoles as well, “including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii. Particularly, the PS3 and Xbox 360 make a lot of sense. We are a licensed Wii developer, but we continue to wait and evaluate the console in hopes that Nintendo opens up a kind of direct download service similar to what the other consoles offer.”

“To begin with, however,” he continued, “we plan to initially support the PSP. So far the PSP has had nice ports of PS2 games, but our sense is that publishers are shifting gears and putting limited resources toward next-gen development at the expense of the PSP. We will fill that gap. There is a real opportunity here to bring gamers content to that platform which is different.”

Further commenting on D2C’s decision to throw support behind Sony’s handheld, he explained, “For us, the PSP offers a platform that users look at as more than just a game machine. At GDC we will officially announce D² Comics, which will offer interactive comics for PSP users. These comics give writers and artists the opportunity to play at being movie directors, panning a scene to create a sense of motion, and letting the user dictate the pacing or let it run on its own.”

D2C has entered into a multi-format collaboration with comic book writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre) called Strange Cases. Strange Cases will be available in print from Image Comics and a digital video download format from D² Comics this fall and be released as an episodic game in 2008, something which Orr sees as a natural fit for his company.

“On the episodic side… there are a lot of consumers who love sci fi and horror, but who are intimidated by the top games in the genre or simply don’t have the time. We are all fans of these genres as well, so to us it’s an ideal fit,” he stated.

Commenting on episodic content in general, Orr offered his thoughts on the future of the medium, noting, “The challenge is how to develop the underlying engine and not charge 50-70 dollars for the end result. We have a solution to that in our proprietary Hydrant Technology. But the challenge is to keep scope in a manageable format, as well as cost in a manageable form. The temptation is to create the next great thing.”

“I think in our target segment,” he added, “greatness is not determined by scope, but by delivered quality - high quality in spoonfuls. Like anything else, there is risk, and the challenges exist at all levels. The high end game is like the movies, and episodic is like television episodes. The cost differential is huge, and there is quality TV that is every bit as good as or better than the movies.”

Shifting gears to talk about D2C’s efforts in creating social sports games, Orr explained, “In the case of sports, we have a reputation for success in this area. That said, we see a gap in the market, which focuses on low end free PC games and the high end games from EA, Sega, and others. Because of this, we see an opportunity in the middle, to bridge this gap.”

Upcoming releases from D2C include a series of real-time strategy sports games called Chalkboard Sports, which will also take advantage of the company’s emphasis on user generated content, though specifically what this content will consist of remains uncertain.

“Well, I have to be careful with what I say here so as to not give anything away that we’re not ready to talk about yet. For example, with Chalkboard Sports, players will be able to create content that allows them to personalize the experience, up to and even including putting themselves in the game,” Orr offered.

“Other than that,” he continued, “I cant really talk to that part of what we’re doing just yet, but it’s obvious that we see the power of the medium. If you give the consumers the right tools, and frame them in the way that they can get excited about the experience, then they can tailor the experience. I believe that we have the foundation for something that can be very successful.”

Finally, Orr capped off the conversation by summarizing D2C’s mission within the video game industry, commenting, “Go back to the early roots of video gaming, when games were easy to pick up and play, and emphasized the fun, as opposed to the highly complex games we see now,” he added. “These are sorts of games we are looking at. We want to create games that will be easy for anyone to pick up, and be more real-time strategy oriented rather than action or simulation.”