OrbLive streams live television to your iPhone

Here at Gear Live, we’ve been big fans of Orb for quite a while. Back in the original iPhone days, they made an app that was only available on jailbroken phones that we really liked - we just knew it needed to run at 3G speeds to be useful when on the go. The time has finally come, though, as OrbLive has hit the App Store. To back up for a moment, Orb allows you to access files and media on your home computer while on the go. This means that any music on your home computer can now be played on your iPhone from wherever you are. Videos too. Oh, and if you have a TV tuner in your computer, Orb will even allow you to tap into that and watch live television on the go as well. Isn’t that off the hook?

The one caveat for the time being is that the Orb PC software is only available for Windows - but the Orb folks are promising that versions for Mac and Linux are coming soon. We definitely recommend this one - grab the full version of OrbLive for $9.99, or if you are on the fence, there is also a demo version, OrbLive Free.

Apple iphone Hacking is okay... sometimes

Apple's stance on stopping hackers is different depending on the hack. When it came to hacking the Apple TV and introducing the first set of native iPhone applications—something that cannot be done the "legit" way because of Apple's lack of a formal SDK for developers—Apple took a neutral stance. Apple's Greg Joswiak said last week that Apple wouldn't stop anyone from writing the apps or actively work against them, but the company would also not make an effort not to break the hacks when releasing its own software updates. After all, the hacks are not officially supported.

But when it comes to SIM unlocking the iPhone, the game changes drastically. Although Apple has less to lose by customers unlocking the device than AT&T, the company is bound by its contract to AT&T to do what it can to ensure that customers use the designated carrier. And Apple does have something to lose—the company is widely known to be getting a cut of subscription fees from AT&T for each person that buys and uses an iPhone. While it's unclear exactly how much Apple gets per customer, analyst estimates amount to millions of dollars per year in subscription fees going directly to Apple.

Apple's contractual obligations aside, consumers in the US are legally allowed to unlock their mobile handsets after the US Register of Copyrights approved an exemption to the DMCA late last year, noting that "The underlying activity sought to be performed by the owner of the handset is to allow the handset to do what it was manufactured to do—lawfully connect to any carrier." But don't tell that to Apple and AT&T—unless the government bars them from locking out the unlocks, there's virtually nothing stopping them from making sure that the unlocks mysteriously stop working.

Apple's fight against iPhone unlocks

Iphone unlocks

Apple will actively work against any SIM unlocks of the iPhone, says Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs made the comments during a Q&A session that took place after yesterday's press event in London announcing availability details of the iPhone in the UK. When asked by a journalist whether unlocking was a concern for the company, Jobs said, "It's a constant cat and mouse game," according to ComputerWorld's account of the discussion. "We try to stay ahead. People will try to break in, and it's our job to stop them breaking in."

The break-ins that Jobs spoke of have been flying fast and furious in the last month or so. One of the first full SIM unlocks involved using a Turbo SIM card, a somewhat complex process for the average consumer. Then teenager George Holtz published a way to hardware unlock his iPhone with some soldering iron-fu and released instructions for other adventurous unlockers. But none of this was "big" news to the world until the first (commercial) software unlock of the iPhone was announced by iPhoneSIMfree. This sent waves through the iPhone community to push for a free unlock from the iPhone Dev Team, which was achieved just this week with the release of iUnlock, followed by the GUI app to go along with it, anySIM. This app began to appear in the third-party iPhone software update app, Installer, which enabled many iPhone users to install the unlock and experiment with ease.

Apple's fight against iPhone unlocks may result in expensive bricks

3G iPhone : Not too far away!

3G iPhone :

Ok for all you Apple iPhone fanboy and fangirls...it's official, AT&T have confirmed that next year you'll finally get that 3G version of the iPhone! I think with the new speed should come a more stable gadget, with time to have ironed out most bugs.

Enjoy the wait :)

Details at Computerworld.

Apple iPhone Screen Protectors here.

Apple iPhone 3G could arrive by the mid of this year

Apple iPhone 3G

Market analysts have said that they believe that Apple would bring out the 3G edition of their highly successful iPhone mobile phone by the mid of the current year.

Apple needs a 3G iPhone to enhance the appeal of the device in the European countries. Sales of the first generation iPhone have been slowing down in the recent times.

Richard Gardner of Citigroup spoke about their analysis: “We believe that lack of 3G has been a significant headwind for iPhone in Europe where 3G is already pervasive.”

Apple aims to sell as many as 10 million devices by the end of the year. And they are expected to launch the device in Asian countries along with some other European markets in the coming months.

Popularity: 4%

AT&T Expanding Their 3G Network in 2008

AT&T announced today that they will be deploying third generation (3G) wireless broadband service to more than 80 additional cities as part of its 2008 wireless network expansion plans.This will bring 3G services to nearly 350 U.S. markets by the end of 2008, including the top 100 U.S. cities. This news is relevant, in that Apple users AT&T as their exclusive iPhone carrier in the U.S. and has a multi-year commitment with them. One of the main criticisms of the iPhone when it was launched was a lack of 3G networking, which is typically much faster than the EGDE network that is presently offered with the iPhone.AT&T's CEO confirmed that the 3G iPhone would become available in 2008, confirming comments by Steve Jobs at the original iPhone launch that Apple planned on making "3g phones and all sorts of other amazing things in the future". The reason that 3G was not included in the original iPhone was due to concerns about excessive battery usage:

When we looked at 3G, the chipsets were not low-enough power for what we were looking for. They were not integrated enough, so they took up too much physical space. We cared a lot about battery life and we cared a lot about physical size. Down the road, I'm sure some of those tradeoffs will become more favorable towards 3G but as of now we think we made a pretty good doggone decision.