New Year, New phone, New competition...

Aah...the new year ushers in, and with it brings on new products, new competition and new technology. The net gainer, obviously the customer. Strangely there seems no end to the smartphone (or super smart phones as they call it now) madness. Where are we really headed ? Will there be no computers 5 years or 10 years down the line ? Looks like this one device in your hand will control everything in your life. One wonders what new could they add in these super smart phones ? What do they lack ?

I don't see anything really new in the Google phone that would make people really want to own it (like they did when the iPhone came out), however it is certainly competition for the likes of the iPhone, Droid, Palm Pre and the Blackberry. Would be interesting to see how Apple, Nokia, Blackberry and Microsoft react to this.

Catch a preview of the Nexus One below



More at

www.google.com/phone

and here is a comparison chart, just in case you plan to get a 'super smart phone' for yourself !

Jailbreak and Unlock iPhone 3g/3gs running 3.1.2 firmware

Thanks to GeoHot @ (www.blackra1n.com) we now have a very easy and simple jailbreak and unlock available for the iPhone 3g/3gs running on firmware 3.1.2. I have tried this myself and was able to use any Indian SIM CARD on my iPhone 3g. Here are the steps, with details of the time it takes to perform each step.

1. Download the 3.1.2 firmware for the iPhone 3g or iPhone3gs from the below sites

Download iPhone OS 3.1.2 for iPhone 3G (~240MB)
Download iPhone OS 3.1.2 for iPhone 3GS (~300MB)

[Time for download could vary based on your connection speed.]

2.Take a backup of your contacts and (eg. by syncing your iPhone contacts with the windows address book, using iTunes) before installing the new firmware. If you have been connecting your iPhone to iTunes regularly then it would have already been backed most of your stuff once before. (Read : http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766)

3.Open iTunes and press the SHIFT (key) + Restore option (in iTunes), to upgrade to a custom firmware (and not Apple's official firmware). Then choose the firmware downloaded in step 1. Do not let iTunes upgrade your iPhone's firmware. [ Time it takes ~ 10-15 mins to install the new firmware]

4. Once you have installed the firmware, follow steps mentioned here to install and unlock your phone.This process installs Cydia (the jailbreak app) and Sn0w (the unlock by 'geohot'') on your iPhone. Vola ! you are done and you should see your carrier signal after this step ! If you r carrier does not support 3G please turn it off and reboot your iPhone once. [~ Time : 10 mins]

5. Alternatively if you are familiar with Cydia you can also unlock you iPhone (after jailbreaking and installing Cydia in step 3) using method mentioned here.

Enjoy your unlocked iPhone and hats off to GeoHot !!!

For iPhone 2g users follow these instructions from the  Simons blog to use 'blackra1n' to unlock your iPhone 2g.

Share your comments and feedback on the process. I would be more than welcome to help out with questions if required.