All Gadgets Aside...

So here we are, it has been a decent amount of time now since the release of the iPhone. For the most part people seem to be pretty happy with the iPhone. I have had the chance to play with for a little while and it definitely does what it's intended to do. What prompted me to write this article though, is not to write a review but to shed some light on all of the unlocking hoopla bouncing around right now.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am strong supporter of unlocked phones. When I heard that the iPhone was able to be unlocked by the software solutions announced last week I was overjoyed. Does it mean I would buy an iPhone, probably not, but at least it would give people the freedom to move from GSM provider to GSM provider and roam in countries without paying gigantic fees to the provider they are with.

I am not sure you have been following this news as it's been unfolding but last week when the unlocking software was supposed to be released to the public, AT&T dropped a legal letter on UniquePhones' desk. At this point the software release has been suspended indefinitely. Obviously it's not like Apple should care, sales of iPhones would go up if people could use them more freely. AT&T on the other hand is afraid of losing the exclusivity that has attracted 500,000+ new customers to buy and iPhone from them. They do have every right to be afraid of losing exclusivity but they do not have a right to prevent people from getting decent prices on service while going overseas. I also believe that they do not have the right to leave people with a brick of a gadget at the end of their service contract, you should be able to take your device to whom you please.

As it is now, an unnamed person has layed out a bounty of $100,000 for the release of the software unlock to the public. Another individual recieved his bill after traveling overseas to find out that his bill was over $2000. This particular indiviual has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple because he feels (and he is correct) that if his phone was unlocked from the beginning or if he had the ability to unlock it then he would be able to put a SIM in his phone from the country he traveled to, avoiding extra charges. Although I don't think suing Apple will accomplish what he is looking for, I can say that I don't necessarily think he is out of line going after someone in this instance.

(Keep in mind, any and all views expressed in my blog are not the views expressed by Opera or the My Opera Community.)

So the release of the iPhone has come and gone. All in all the near immediate sell out of iPhones across the country would definitely make the initial launch a success. As most people that know me will tell you, I am a fan of just about everything Apple related. So why don't I have an iPhone in my pocket? Before I get into why let me give a quick review of the iPhone itself and what I have seen from it.

So the iPhone is a great device. Aesthetically pleasing, well designed (thanks to the infamous Jonathan Ives), has great battery life, a decent camera, and a very beautiful OS with complimenting applications. The device makes a great iPod, works very well with google maps, the safari browser is right at home on the device as well. One of the greatest assets the iPhone has is it's multi-point touch screen in which allows you expans pictures and web pages by simply stretching them out. I have had sometime to play with the device and I think it does everything it's intended to do very well. On the downside, I have also seen a couple things that make me wonder what Apple was thinking. First off, where is the MMS support. When I have sent MMS messages to my co-worker who proudly owns an iPhone he gets a standard SMS message with a link to the location of where the image is stored on the internet. This is hardly an MMS solution, it will take you substantially longer to view your message than if it would have gone straight to your device. The second downfall is the lack of a development platform beyond web apps. Web apps will work but this doesn't seem the way to go to get a dedicated program that will work wherever you are and perform as snappy as it should. The rest of my complaints about it are more specific, which brings me to why I don't own an iPhone.

First and foremost, one of the biggest things for me when it comes to a phone is freedom. The freedom to use your phone as you please, install what you want and turn around and sell it for what it's worth rather than be stuck with a device locked to one network. So it goes without saying that this shoudl be an unlocked device. Unfortunately here in the US the top GSM providers will not sell you a phone unless you buy a contract thus making it difficult for Apple to justify selling it unlocked and free to be used on whatever network you please. This doesn't mean that people aren't willing to dive into a contract to own a device that is free from being locked. Second, the iPhone does what it's intended to well. What about everything else? My current Nokia can do everything the iPhone can plus about a million things more that the iPhone can't do. My Nokia N73 cost me $350 and it has a 3.2mp Camera, takes decent quality video, surfs the internet with the best of them using Nokia's browser, or in my case Opera. On top of that the Series 60 platform has a multitude of applications that have been developed and more constantly being developed.

Basically what it boils down to is that Apple will have to kick up it's game to compete in the game of a making a full featured phone with heavyweights like Nokia. Even mobile manufacturers like Sony Ericsson and LG have mobiles with feature sets that vastly outweigh what the iPhone can offer. Apple, you wil have to do more to impress even your most seasoned customers.

So, a long while back I did a post about the Sushi thumb drives in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Now it looks like Solid Alliance is at it again with another crazy shaped USB drive. This months flavor is the Squid. Why a squid? Who knows. I think the philosophy of Solid Alliance is to just make as many flash drives in as many possible shapes. Nonetheless, this thing looks pretty real and it even comes packed like fresh squid. If you own this thing you will probably have more fun than Joe Schmoe over there with a plain old flash drive. Spec wise the device isn't all that impressive and it only sports 512mb of storage space, but frankly who cares? It's a freaking squid!

Pantech/Curitel have a new phone on the market under their high end name brand, SKY. This new phone, the IM-R200, has a standard feature set for phones these days but has a secret under it's slider hood that is surely going to turn some heads with it's clean look. The standard feature set that this mobile includes are 116mb of built in memory, micro SD slot, multimedia player and 2 megapixel camera with autofocus. What makes this handset stand out is the second LCD display, hidden beneath this sliders main display, that turns out to be a keypad. A very interesting use of a secondary display for sure. As with most good bits of technology, we won't see it outside of Korea, at least not for now.

I have been thinking about this long and hard and I have decided that as my interests change and I gadget related news has become slightly stale that I will add a new aspect to my blog. From here on out I will cover Vinyl/Designer Toys in my blog in addition to the tech and gadget related news I have already been covering. To get this started off I will direct you to my Toy Gallery located in the photos tab above. Most of the pictures are items from my collection with a few random pictures as well.

Some of you that read this might be scratching your head thinking, "well these are just toys, what is so special?" Well Designer toys are toys that are generally created by an artist and/or painted by an artist. Many of the toys are "platform toys" which means that its one general toy design that many artists paint or use any variety of mediums to translate into their own work of art. You might be familiar with some of the more famous designer toys out there like Qees from Toy2r, Dunnys from KidRobot or Be@rbricks from Medicom. Beyond the more famous brands there are many small companies or independent people making toys that are completely amazing and deserve recognition(although their sales prove how sought after they are).

To make this transition easier to you the readers I will be adding special icons/tags to distinguish a toy post from a tech post, I will post what these look like very soon.

Update: I have added pictures for the tags to reduce any confusion and to easily identify what the post is about. You will notice in the upper right hand corner there are 2 icons. One icon for posts tagged with the word Toy and pretaining to anything related to designer toys. The other icon is for posts tagged with the word tech and pretaining to anything technology or gadget related.