Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

The iPodObserver is claiming that the new iPhone 3G will have a uniform, glossy back surface. As this proved to be true with iPods as they evolved and became sleeker, single-piece-construction units, there’s no reason why it is not also true for the iPhone 2.0:

If this photo is real, it wouldn’t be the first time a photo leaked of a new Apple product. We’ll wait for the lawyers to come knocking, at which point we will all know.

If you’ve ever thought about getting a Pink iPhone for yourself, look no further than Colorware PC, who will let you pick out a custom paint job for your iPhone in the colors you want. For example, a classic AdSense like blue/green/white job looks like this:

The cost? Just $200 and 2-3 weeks of processing time, plus additional time to ship it there and back. Looking at their gallery of samples, the painting appears extremely high quality, precise, and on-color. They even off pantone matching for those colors you absolutely need to have. Behind the scenes, they use a custom UV resistant plastic coating they call “X2″ and (probably) paint robots to precisely paint your device.

They also can paint notebooks, macbooks, iPods, PC computers, the Sony PSP, your blackberry, an xBox or PS3, and a host of other commercial products.

The Techmeme page for iPhone new isn’t as bad this time. If you look an archive you’ll see it’s taken over with news about the iPhone 2.0 and SDK, but not too badly:

Yes, it was much worse a year ago, when the iPhone was first announced at Macworld by Steve Jobs. There, the Techmeme page got extremely long, and covered in Apple news.

I bought a pair of Shure E4c-n earphones about 6 months ago from Amazon, and I have to say they are the best I’ve ever owned. They have a 4/5 star review on Amazon with 50 reviews; their newer cousin the SE420 has similar reviews. Here’s what they look like:

The sound isolation is orders better than any other headphones I’ve tried, and the frequency response is excellent. My coworkers, two of whom bought similar or identical Shure earphones, also swear by them. You can be sitting on the worst part of the NYC subway line with them on, and not hear the pain of the wheels screeching on ill fitted metal tracks.

A reviewer on Amazon praises the sound quality better than I can:

These IEMs sound absolutely incredible. They sound is so clear and detailed that I notice new details in songs that I had listened to dozens if not hundreds of time. In a complex musical passage it is easy to follow every note of a single instrument which is not an easy feat with most headphones.

As for Customer Service, it’s the best. My earphones started wearing out in 6 months at the cord junction where it meets the plug, and they are sending me an advance replacement (against my CC) of the SE420s. When I get them I’ll send back the defectives to the Customer rep who took my warranty replacement and they’ll reverse the charge. Another customer had a similar, great experience:

As for Shure customer service–I had a suspected loose wire in one of the E3 earphones (used for 8 months) leading to dropouts when I would move my head. I got a return form off the Shure website–filled it out and sent it along with a copy of my receipt to Shure. Within 10 days, they had sent out a completely new pair at no charge.

Even Apple doesn’t offer this level of personalized customer service. I’m extremely impressed, and with their 2 year warranty, I’ll definitely buy again!

If you bought an iPhone this Christmas hoping for some unlocking love, chances are you were disappointed. The new iPhones have a 4.6 bootloader which hasn’t yet been hacked. Specifically, they come in the following versions:

• Firmware: 1.1.2
• Bootloader:4.6_M3S2
• Modem: 04.02.13_G

For now, all OOTB iPhones with this configuration (or newer, we know 1.1.3 is coming soon) cannot be unlocked. They expect a new 1.1.3 firmware to come out in January that will contain enough information to allow them to unlock new 1.1.2 iPhones, but you never know. For now, your options are limited to:

• Buying an actually unlocked iPhone from Germany or France and paying the high unlock cost via iTunes
• Buying a Turbosim or Stealthsim card for about $100, which should be resistant to further software updates.

Good luck to everyone who bough an iPhone this Christmas and doesn’t have AT&T service. You’ll need that, and a large bucket of patience.

Update: Now that the 1.1.3 firmware is out, a method for flashing the bootloader to 3.9 has emerged. Looks complicated and risky; an official release should be out soon.

Update: There’s now a software unlock, and it’s easy. Just do:

• Set “autolock” in settings to never: Settings, General, Auto-Lock
• Add this installer location: iphone.sleepers.net/repobeta.xml
• Install the “Geohots Gunlock Script” unlock script package from BigBoss’ Experimental/Beta Repo
• Install BSD Subsystem + Term vt100
• On 1.1.2 or 1.1.3, go to settings, and set AIRPLANE mode to ON
• Open termvt100 and type:
  cd /usr/bin
  geounlock

And, that’s it! Only for 4.6 Bootloader (BL) iPhones on 1.1.2 or 1.1.3, and not from the iPhone dev team, who aren’t as elite as they wanna be.