Apple Iphone Exposed - News, Hacks, Demos

From the Washington Post, a cartoon from Nick Anderson

According to this post, Tom Raferty has sources that indicate the SIM cards in the iPhone are not removable.  While apparently there will be a process to convert your existing SIM number to your new iPhone, that doesn’t change the fact that one of the reasons the GSM network has been so successful is due to the transportability factor.

And that is now gone.  Again this has not been verified but if it true, that would be a large oversight.  And a disappointment for anyone who hoped to get their hands on an unlocked iPhone.

Apple today announced that YouTube will be available both on the Apple TV as well as on the iPhone.

How important is this?  Two sides to this.  Everyone that slags Apple because there is no keyboard, corporate email (we think), etc. will see this as no big deal.  But who cares about those people?  Seriously, they are the PC character in the Mac and PC ads.  They don’t think its important to have any features on a device that makes it fun to use.

I use a Blackberry Pearl every day and have used a Win Mobile device.  The Blackberry is great at…email.  Nothing else. Wait  - one more thing - SMS messages.  If you need to type it you cant beat the experience.

But if you need to go beyond that, it is really lacking.  The people who are happy that YouTube is available on iPhone are the same ones who think that MySpace or Facebook are vital to what they experience on the Internet.  Neither one of those is usable on my Blackberry even if I do have a keyboard. Why - because the rest of the experience is like going to the dentist - PAINFUL.

So in and of itself YouTube isn’t that big of a deal, but it signals the way this device will be used and who will use it.  Really if only 1 per cent the audience that uses YouTube or Facebook or Myspace decided that they needed to have an iPhone, that wouldn’t be too bad for sales would it?

According to this posting at TUAW, it’s now official that Flash will not be available this month with the launch.  Its likely that this won’t be the case for very long.  My bet would be in a month - how else can you say that, as they do in the commercials, that it is not the “watered down Internet” or the “mobile Internet”.  Its supposed to be just “the Internet”

Controversy continues in the developer ranks about the iPhone “SDK“.

David Cann has created a demo page that shows you what using DIGG might look like on the iPhone.  The source code is there so you can test it.