Apple 3G iPhone unlocked

Well that didn’t take long.

Despite the best efforts of Apple and AT&T, it appears that the latest version of the iPhone has been unlocked via the same method as used on the original iPhone.

A Brazilian blog, TechGuru, posted the first report of it. Gizmodo checked it out, and said the method involves using a special SIM card adapter. It tricks the phone into thinking it’s on an approved network.

“This method forges the International Mobile Subscriber Identity, making the phone believe it’s working in the network in which it’s supposed to work,” Gizmodo writes.

The Brazilian group posted a video showing an unlocked handset making a phone call earlier this week. When interviewed, leader Breno MacMasi said that the company plans to charge between $250-375 to unlock iPhone 3G cell phones.

Separately, the group known as the iPhone Dev Team claims they have removed the controls that restrict independent applications from running on the iPhone. Termed ‘jailbreaking’, the process supposedly allows Apple-approved applications from the AppStore to run side-by-side with non-approved independent applications.

U.S. takes lead in mobile web usage

A report that may seem somewhat surprising shows that the U.S. leads in mobile Internet penetration. According to a recent Nielsen Mobile report (see below), 16% of mobile phone users, or 40 million people, in the U.S. accessed the Internet (based on a 30-day time frame). This is up from 22.4 million in July 2006. The 16% accessing the Internet via their phones puts the U.S. above the U.K., at 13% and Italy, at 12%.

Another interesting stat released by Nielsen; people are spending 3 hours and 15 minutes a month watching videos on their cell phones. This compares to 2 hours watching video on the computer.

Other findings from the Nielsen Mobile report are:

• There were 254 million mobile phone subscribers in the U.S. in the first quarter 2008, according to CTIA.
• 57% of the 254 million U.S. subscribers were data users, meaning they accessed the Internet or sent text messages
• 37% of mobile users paid to access the Internet, either as part of subscription or transactionally

Mobile Internet use accounted for $1.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter of this year, putting it on a higher run-rate than the $5 billion for all of 2007.

Apple 3G iPhone

Over the past several months, I’ve slowly begun experimenting in the Apple camp.  Having recently purchased a new macBook Pro laptop, to be used as my primary machine, officially combining my previous Toshiba Tecra M4 and Dell Precision desktop – and must admit, my new MacBook Pro trumps them both, its the single best machine I’ve ever owned, sure there’s a few grips, but I’ll save that for another post.

It is probably noteworthy to point out, I’ve been a long-time supporter of Microsoft tools and technologies, and continue to be.  Our organization is vested deeply in Microsoft tools, and support/compatibility is key for us.  We own several Macs, in addition to my own, from notebooks to the power G5 – and most dual boot OSX with Vista.

So, like most technophiles I was pretty excited to see the new Apple 3G iPhone finally hit the market.  I watched (and read) progress of the first generation iPhone, and like most corporate buyers, I sat on the sideline waiting, as I’ve gotten burned with previous first generation phones (such as HPs iPAQ).  This time around though, Apple seems more dedicated to the corporate market, by adding features such as 3G, GPS, bluetooth and exchange support.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to appeal to mainstream buyers also by reducing the entry price to $199 (with a new 2yr contract.)

While I’m not going to rush out and pick one up on day one, like most, I’ll be watching this phone closely.  With mobile software development aspirations, the new iPhone may just be ready to replace my trusty TMobile Dash, which overall I’ve been very happy with.

At this point I only have two issues.  The first, I’d prefer to keep TMobile vs. ATT, with the previous iPhone i understand it was rather easy to retro fit iPhones for other GSM carriers, so that was interesting to me.  This time around however, as I’ve read in several sources, Apple/ATT aim to hedge the unlocked/iPhone black market by forcing buyers to actually return the iPhone before ATT will cancel their subscription.  They clearly don’t want phones floating around not tied to ATT, regarless of the “bricking” technique used last time around.

The other issue to me, which is equally painful, is lack of A2DP aka Bluetooth Stereo.  How can Apple even think of doing such a thing?  Sure, they’re now offering a mini-headphone jack, but who the heck wants wires these days??  To date, I still do not own a iPod, I’ve been quite happy playing music thru my Dash (wirelessly) and hate the idea of having to carry multiple devices.  I guess a final complaint, which I’m not surprised by, would be the lack of support for microSD cards.  I guess I understand this one.

So with Windows 6.1 on the horizon and the new Apple 3G iPhone now available, us corporate buyers have some decisions to make.

Hyper-V RTM

From Microsoft TechNet:

The next generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology for Windows Server 2008 is here. Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is now released to manufacturing (RTM) and is available for deployment into production environments. You can download the Hyper-V role update here.

With Hyper-V you can consolidate workloads of underutilized server machines onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Fewer physical machines can lead to reduced costs through lower hardware, energy, and management overhead. The thin microkernel hypervisor architecture with integrated management tools allows you to manage both physical and virtual resources. Hyper-V easily plugs into your IT infrastructure to leverage your existing patching, provisioning, management, support tools, and processes.

At Billhighway, we’re been evaluating Virtualization software for some time now, including previous versions of Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 (& R2), and Virtual PC, as well as VMWare, Parallels & BootCamp.  Each has strengths and weaknesses, but overall if you haven’t yet begun evaluating virtualization software there’s never been a better time.

Over the past year, we’ve successfully consolidated about 25 servers onto 3 physical servers, most recently with Hyper-V.  Our latest deployment features a Dell PowerEdge R905 and boasts 4 quad core procs (16 cpu total) with 8 – 2.5″ 10K SAS hard drives and 16GB of memory.  Its a beefy server that is currently running about 15 virtual servers with utilization at a mere 15%.  That said, our implementations of virtualization targets application servers, whereas we do alot of backend processing in a GRID-computing fashion, so workloads are fairly optimized, which make them ideal candidates for virtualization.

If you’ve deployed RC0/1 the upgrade path is pretty straightforward, if you were working with beta’s prior, you’ll need to install the update and re-deploy your virtual machines.  Integration components will also have to be updated.