Officially Unlocked iPhones On Sale at Hong Kong Apple Store

From Gizmodo -

The Hong Kong Apple online store is selling unlocked iPhone 3Gs: "iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation."

An unlocked 8GB will set you back USD700, the 16GB, USD800.

Apple iPhone 3G Hides Secret QR Code

From Gizmodo -

While videotaping the iPhone 3G in nightshot, a Gizmodo reader spotted a matrix code on the left side of the phone. Per Gizmodo the guys think it is the serial/IMEI data that's often shoved in a phone's battery compartment.

4 Reasons the iPhone is Evil

iPhone Applications That Replace Your Tools

The Wired Blog has an interesting list of applications that emulate and replace actual hardware tools -




A Level, which uses the iPhone's tilt-sensors to emulate a spirit level, complete with a virtual bobbing bubble in a tube. Its latest version now includes calibration. It is surprisingly accurate.




TapeMeasure, as its name implies, is used for length/distance measurements. However it use the 3G's GPS to do so and hence can't be that precise.




Speed Alert replaces your car's speedometer with a far less accurate, GPS-based speedometer. A useful feature though is the alarm when you exceed a pre-set speed limit.




Caliper intended for close-up work measurement and is simple to use but is limited to the length of the iPhone's screen.

More details, including product pages, are available here.

The iPhone Handles 1080P Video Just Fine

Gizmodo is reporting that H.264 1080P videos are playing fine on the iPhone. While the resolution is overkill for the screen, it means significant potential for iTunes 8 HD. For one, that means the iPhone is more than ready to run its content natively since iTunes HD clips would probably be the same as Apple TV's (720P). And with the right hardware adapters, the iPhone can also output to HDTV.

Webcast - iPhone Forensics 101: Bypassing the iPhone Passcode

In a live webcast scheduled for Thursday, September 11, 2008 17:00 GMT, iPhone hacker and data forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski will provide the the steps used by law enforcement agencies to bypass the iPhone 3G's passcode lock by creating a custom firmware bundle.

Author of the upcoming book, iPhone Forensics, Jonathan has devoted much of his talent supporting law enforcement personnel with his development of a forensics toolkit that allows them to recover, process, and remove sensitive data stored on the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch. The live presentation is aimed towards law enforcement and anyone else who has a need to access the not-so-readily available data on an iPhone.

More details available at the O'Reilly website.