Vegard Skjefstad

Ever since I bought the first generation iPhone about a year ago I’ve been rather quick to update the firmware whenever Apple released a new version. Updating the phone used to be a rather stressful affair, not because it it was hard physical labour, but because my phone was jailbroken and unlocked with the dirtiest hacks available on the interweb, hacks that often meant that I had to run various command line tools on the handset itself and pray that I would not end up with a bricked iPhone; often referred to as an “iPod Touch”.

Now, with the brilliant work of the Russian iPhone Dev Team, the process of updating the firmware is a breeze, simply just click around a little in a graphical tool and the phone is updated, jailbroken and unlocked once again. Thanks to the unlock I can use the phone with any operator and the jailbrake makes it possible to install unsigned applications that are not available through Apple’s own App Store (which iPhone application sucks monkey balls, by the way).

The most popular installer on the first generation iPhone firmware was Installer. Perhaps not the most imaginative name, but you knew what it was doing. On the second generation, however, Installer has been surpassed by Cydia as the number one choice of application for managing applications not officially signed by Apple. The beta version of Installer is just a shadow of it former first generation self.

Everything that is distributed by the official Apple App Store is checked and validated by Apple, this probably to make sure that the applications are not stuffed with code to steal passwords, personal notes and whatnot. I’ve always blindly downloaded and installed all kinds of applications from Installer and Cydia, and only recently the thought of malicious code struck me.

Am I getting old and paranoid? Maybe being a bit paranoid is healthy.

If you have read any kind of tech-related online site today you probably know that Apple announced the 3G version of their iPhone yesterday. 3G is not the only new feature, it also has a GPS, Exchange support, a new version of Safari and even a scientific calculator – among other things. Hopefully, all the software related features will be available on the first generation iPhone as well, because I very much doubt that I will get the 3G version.

Apple will release its phone in several new markets, including Norway, where the operator NetCom has struck a deal through their parent company, TeliaSonera. It will be interesting to see if they can cope with the demand on the release date. Perhaps it will be even more interesting to see if there will even be noticeable demand. Norway is a tiny country, and without TeliaSonera I doubt that we would have been an interesting market. We are, however, first movers when it comes to new gadgets, and a lot of people have already bought an iPhone despite the fact that it has never been available for sale in the country. That makes me think that the people who will queue up for an iPhone already owns one.

Maybe the GPS is what will make them replace their old first generation unit.

And this site design? Getting mighty tired of it already.