Missing iPhones May Be in Hong Kong

From InformationWeek -

Wireless industry analysts have been investigating a mystery involving iPhones. The number of phones that Apple says it has shipped doesn't match up with the number of iPhones that AT&T (and other wireless carriers have activated. In reporting quarterly earnings last week, Apple said it had shipped some 4 million iPhones, while AT&T said it had about 2 million iPhone customers as of the end of 2007, in its quarterly report. More than a million iPhones seem to be unaccounted for.

Online retailer Wireless Imports thinks many of them are in Hong Kong. Wireless Imports has 500 to 1,000 iPhones that it has shipped locked in their original boxes. A large chunk of those units, estimated at 100,00 - 200,000 were sent to Hong Kong, presumably to be unlocked.

For the majority of Wireless Imports' wholesale orders, the iPhones are shipped locked. But for retail unlocked units, Wireless Imports sells them at $600. And while Apple recently cut its retail price on the iPhone, Wireless Imports hasn't marked down its units because of the extra cost involved in unlocking them.

Upon launching the iPhone in Europe, Apple changed the bootloader that cannot be altered by a simple software downgrade to a previous software version that would unlock the phone. The bootloader restricts people from using a software-based fix to unlock their iPhones.

But it's only a matter of time before various unlocking methods flood the European market. In fact, the iPhone 1.1.2 Unlocking Solution offered by Wireless Imports is SIM card-based, not a software-based fix.

More of Europe to be on the iPhone bandwagon shortly

From 9to5Mac -

Italy, Spain and Switzerland are next in line in getting the iPhone officially from Apple.

Spain Telefonica and Telecom Italia Mobile for Italy are both said to be in the latter stages of a planned release while Switzerland's Swisscom reportedly will start carrying the iPhone starting late this month. iPhone's software is rumored to already include code that strongly suggests support for the Italian network is already being built-in.

Wall Street Noticing That The Math On iPhones Doesn't Add Up

From Techdirt comes a report on a significant discrepancy between Apple and AT&T announcing numbers on iPhone sales and iPhone activations - about a difference of 1.7 million phones.

Taking into account international sales (350,000 to 400,000) and a 20% estimate on people buying iPhones solely for unlocking, there are still nearly 700,000 units unaccounted for. This suggests they are piling up as unsold inventory.

PocketGuitar Lets You Kick Out Riffs With Your iPhone

From Gizmodo -




Shinya Kasatani has released PocketGuitar for the iPhone and iPod touch, which turns your device into a touchscreen guitar. The application looks insanely great.

To get your fingers strumming, launch Installer and follow these instructions: Installer > Sources > Add http://podmap.net/apps to your repositories. PockeGuitar is filed under the Toys category. If this takes off in a big way, expect iPhone finger board extension peripherals soon.

The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry

Wired has a very interesting and revealing story on the making of the Apple iPhone, especially regarding how Steve Jobs was able to convince ATT (Cingular at that time) to offer the iPhone on HIS terms - in return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10% of iPhone sales in ATT stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue.

In addition, he succeeded in getting ATT into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He also got a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's ATT bill.

On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry. The deal had given Jobs, and Apple, unprecedented power and effectively rewrote the book on how phone manufacturers deal with telcos.

Complete story is available here.

Hacked iPhones Confirmed As Bricking With Latest Update

From Slashdot -

The latest Software Update for the iPhone has been confirmed to brick hacked units.

The BBC reported that Apple's warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update. Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the US but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.

The only remedy is to do undo the hack.

iPhone Human Interface Guidelines

Apple has posted guidelines for developing the UI for iPhone applications here.