Category / IPhone

by Chirag Shah

App upgrade to iPod 2.0 not free

Apple is really is trying to make money off this App store business. They are charging iPod users an additional 9.95 for the software update in order to use applications from the app store. When I purchased my iPod Touch 32GB, it was w/software updates. I plan on to sell my iPod Touch. Best way to get free software and not pay a dime, Jailbreak. Not sure how it works for the iPhone.

by Chirag Shah

Apple release 3g iPhone due July 11 worldwide

Steve Job held his keynote before the WWDC today and it had a lot of hype surrounding the event. Its almost that everyone was looking for a surprise for the event but there was a lot of blabbering about iPhone 2.0 interface and how great it is. Then was followed by a bunch of demo’s that were quite boring. Next was MobileMe, a neat web application that allows you to be in sync on your iPhone, Mac and PC. Finally an hour and half through the keynote Jobs introduced the much anticipated 3g iPhone and nice price tag of only $199 w/ 2 year contract. How much will the phone cost for the people that already have iPhone? I at least was expecting an updated price on the iPod touch. Once jailbreak hits the street no one is going to purchase an iPod touch if the price remains the same.

What this meant for Apple stock price? Apple (aapl) opened about 2 dollars down at 181 and dipped as low as 176 during the keynote. The 3g iPhone was expected, so no real surprise. The o’s and ah’s this company has provided the last 4 years wasn’t there at the keynote today.

Final thought: Apple is definitely going have introduce something more amazing if they want to keep investors interested. I am very disappointed with the keynote, I was expecting more since the cost of technology has dropped drastically. The keynote has not inspired me to get the iPhone. I will stick to Sprint and my Pam Centro. Might go for the Samsung Instinct June 20th.

by Chirag Shah

Apple AT&T relationship a good one?

This is follow up to this story http://valleywag.com/tech/apple/apple-profits-half-a-grand-per-iphone-314408.php
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a.Yir.VaIVZk&refer=us

Valleywag reported that Apple will make a lot of dollars on each iPhone users over 2 year span. I just think Steve could cash in even if he didn’t make an exclusive deal with AT&T.

Apple Gets $135/per 8 GB iPhone (probably more now, since costs have gone down)
Apple Gets $18/month per user, using iPhone.. $216/2yrs
= 135 + 216 = $351/iPhone
Apple has sold 5.4 million iPhones
AT&T in march reported to have 2.5 million iPhone customers

Steve is losing out on $216 on almost 2 million iPhones.

My rant:
I am sure Apple could have made a deal that would have worked with multiple carriers. They probably would have reached the 10 million goal if the supported CDMA networks.

For example Palm. Palm sells the Centro for AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Palm also sells an unlocked version of the phone for 200 dollars more then the carrier specific phones.

Apple knows, the industry knows – iPhone is the best phone out there. But as for many companies they have contracts with Verizon and Sprint. Imagine if the iPhone was able to those markets. The reasons are quiet apparent why Apple is 2nd to Rimm’s Blackberry. It will continue to stay this way until Apple offers the iPhone to other carriers.

The math

$216 x 2.5 million = $540 million –> not all upfront
$135 x 5.4 million = $729 million
Total = $1.269 billion

$135 x 10 million (estimated users, if phone was available to verizon and sprint) = $1.35 billion
also all upfront, there is no waiting on the money.

$100 million isn’t exactly chump change..

Bias:
I am a Sprint user. Why? Cause its cheap and I am a happy Palm Centro user. If the iPhone was available to Sprint, I would have it.

by Chirag Shah

AnySim iPhone Unlocking Guide

AnySim iPhone Unlocking Guide (with images coming shortly)

WARNING: THIS GUIDE SHOULD BE USED AT YOUR OWN RISK. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THIS MAY CAUSE THE IPHONE. UNLOCKING THE IPHONE WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY. THIS PROCEDURE IS INTENDED FOR ADVANCE COMPUTER USERS. IF YOU DON’T LIKE COMPUTERS DO NOT TRY UNLOCKING YOUR PHONE.

Files Needed:

iBrickr – Client to break activation (www.iBrickr.com)

anysim – PXL file to install on iPhone (google anysim)

PACAY – used to enable YouTube support. (google PACAY)

All files should be downloaded and extracted in iBrickr folder. I placed them on my desktop.

Before you begin: it is assumed you have unboxed the iPhone and has been charged

1. Open iBrickr
2. Connect iPhone to PC
3. iBrickr will check if the iPhone has right version of firmware
4. Follow the on screen instructions
5. If that fails do this:
a. Plug your phone in / dock it, and turn it off
b. Power it on
c. While the grey apple appears, press and hold both the power and home buttons until a Yellow triangle sign appears and says “Please connect to iTunes”
d. iTunes will pop up talking about restoring your phone. Select restore, and once it starts downloading unplug the phone, then press and hold power and home buttons again, until the phone restarts
e. Wait for the restore to fail in iTunes, and then start up iBrickr again.
6. Once you get this down, iBrickr will walk you through the next steps
7. Once Completed. Exit iBrickr
8. Go to the PACAY folder within iBrickr folder and run the “(CLICK HERE) activate.bat” file. This will enable YouTube. Follow the on screen instructions.
9. Once you complete PACAY make sure you follow the instructions and have restarted.
10. Open iBrickr click applications and let it install the PXL service. Follow onscreen instructions in the iBrickr program.
11. After you have rebooted the phone one final time, select Check PXL. This will verify the installation of PXL.
12. Close iBrickr and reopen it. Click Application -> Install from PXL or Browse Application (Browsing is the best way use the latest version of anysim – the first release of anysim had a bug – but still successfully unlocked the phone)
13. If you selected install from file, select th anysim.pxl file. If you selected browse, select AnySim
14. The installation will be quick.
15. Navigate on you iPhone and go to Settings -> General -> auto lock. Set the setting to never.
16. Hit the home key. Click on the AnySim icon to start the unlock.
17. Agree to the disclaimer. (Again stating use at your own risk)
18. AnySim will take 15-20 minutes to unlock the phone.
19. I used the first release of anysim which had the bug. It will successfully patch the phone but state it failed to unlock. Insert a sim card and place a call. If you can successful place a class that means the unlock worked.
20. Many people have asked about removing the AnySim program. You can do that from iBrickr

by Chirag Shah

iPhone is truely amazing


Job’s started the press conference at about 11am central time. My speculation were some right.
He started by announcing that Apple will be working with Intel to release new processors for the system monthly. Then as expected he presented iTV which has been renamed to Apple TV.

But the big news is the iPhone. It is really big news. Its pratcally a smart phone, and iPod put together. It sports a 8GB hard drive, touch screen, bluetooth, wifi and edge, quality iPod audio, oh yea can’t forget its running OS X on it.

So how much does this all cost?

Pretty expensive but hopefully some rebates will help this deal.
$499 for 4GB
$599 for 8GB

I’m still amazed. Picture copyrighted to engadget. Visit Engadget for the latest details on Apple’s new releases.

More information later today.

by Chirag Shah

Job’s to speak today

There is speculation that Apple with introduce the iPod Phone today. There are several fake images on the internet but not confirmation what the iPod phone looks like. There is confirmation that IPod phone will be in service by Cingular.

Steve Jobs is also expected to release something that will totally blow everyone away with an interesting message on the Apple website. ‘The first 30 years was just the beganning.’ This is my prediction what will be release today is iTV, iPod Phone, and maybe a tablet mac.

I will post updates as they become available.