Department of Defense Unhappy With Apple Chip Company Purchase

P.A. Semi, the chip design company Apple picked up for a song, is best known for its super-efficient PWRficient processor, a PowerPC variant. One of the big customers for the CPU is the Department of Defense, which makes use of it in programs in every major branch of the military, and they’re not thrilled by the possibility of Apple ending production of the chips.

Ten defense systems, to the tune of $100 million in products over the next four years, use P.A. Semi’s PWRficient processor. On Monday, P.A. Semi told its customers they were being acquired and couldn’t guarantee chip supplies anymore. (Brings us back to the problem of obsolete tech in the military.)

It’s possible the licensing issues could get worked out to maintain supply “on an end-of-life basis” but in that same statement, P.A. noted that their buyer (Apple) wasn’t interested in their products or roadmap, just their IP and engineering skills. Which means Apple has no interest in anything their currently making or about to make, despite Blam’s reasonable assumption that was the case. So it’s all about their design chops, or they really are just a bargaining chip. [EETimes via GigaOM]

iPhone SDK goes international, T-Mobile on 3G iPhone in Austria
Apple has started to make available to international developers its iPhone software developers kit (SDK). Meanwhile, official commentary out of T-Mobile Austria indicates the region will serve as some form of test market for the upcoming 3G iPhone. …

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smartRSS is a great RSS aggregator with some nifty animations. Available in English and French. Available via Installer on the ModMyiFone source| Discuss

Friday Freebie
If you re sick and tired of your sleek iPhone slipping out of your hands, or the thought of a scratch defacing the back of your iPhone makes you cringe, the folks over at 1 Sale A Day are offering (for a limited time) a free black silicone case for…

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Supposed iPhone 2.0 photos

Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

The folks at iPhon.fr have got what appear to be two photos of iPhone 2.0 in the wild. It’s in keeping with the other photo we saw of a black iPhone, though the logo appears grey this time, as opposed to the bright white, and the rear of the case seems less rounded.

The only thing we dislike about this shot is how scratched up the rear of the unit appears to be. My own phone is (I assume) older than this model and not nearly as scratched - and I don’t use a case!

Of course, we could be comparing fake photo #1 to fake photo #2 here, so take all of this with a grain of iSalt. We’ll all see the real thing soon enough, and we can look back on Photoshop jobs like this and laugh and laugh.

[Via Engadget]

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It’s official: iPhones in Canada

Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

According to The Star, Canadian communications firm Rogers Wireless has finally announced plans to carry the iPhone.

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the
iPhone to Canada later this year,” they said in a statement. “We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

This comes after nearly a year of back-and-forth between the two companies and the Canadian public. In April of last year, Rogers made a point of telling CBC News Online that they had not reached an agreement to carry the iPhone. At the time, they were the only GSM carrier in the country (all others used he CDMA standard). So no Rogers meant no iPhone.

Then, an article in The National Post suggested that Rogers would price the iPhone out of the hands of most Canadians, comparing it to their “Right Fit” plan, which offered (as of July ‘07) 250 anytime, zero weekends, 25MB of data and an additional fee for texts for a whopping Canadian $97/mo.

That was speculation, of course, and today’s cryptic message from Rogers doesn’t offer any contradictory details. However, the brief announcement should make many Canadians happy.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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UK’s Carphone Warehouse now completely out of iPhones
Carphone Warehouse, the high street retailer of UK-based wireless operator and exclusive iPhone provider O2, has completely run dry of both iPhone models as Apple is reported to have permanently ceased production of the 8GB model. Word of the dro…

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Courvoisier Branded iPhone and iPod Make Us Talk Like the Ladies Man

Hello callah. This here is the ladieth man. Today we have an extra special thurprise for you, Courvoisier branded iPhones, BlackBerry 8800 and iPods. You thee, I want to do something thpecial for the ladieth of the world, which is why I’m working with Complex Magazine to auction off these fine thpecimens on eBay come May 19. And if there’s one thing the ladieth man likes, it’s Courvoisier. If there’s two things the ladieth man likes, it’s Courvoisier and iPhones that look like they’re made by Colorware. Oooh, ith’s a lady!

[Complex]

RIM Engineers Call Touchscreen Blackberry “Apple Killer”

A New York Times story about the iPhone’s assault on Blackberry-maker RIM has a couple of interesting bits in it, notably that RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis isn’t a fan of touchscreens (”I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it”) but RIM’s hard at work on the long-rumored touchscreen Blackberry anyway, which RIM engineers have privately dubbed “the A.K.—for ‘Apple Killer.’”

Obviously fighting words, but they still make us more eager than ever to see their efforts on the touchscreen front—especially given how much RIM’s CEO dislikes touchscreen keyboards. Can they make a touchscreen phone that’ll satisfy hardcore Crackberry addicts weaned on a physical keyboard and swipe some of the iPhone’s cachet at the same time?

The other morsel is that one of their major strategies is to stick close to carriers, rather than the odd frenemy relationship Apple and Google have with them, even if it winds up killing RIM. Its other CEO, Jim Balsillie, says that “It may be a better strategy to fight the carrier. We may be wrong. The carrier may get disintermediated, in which case we fade with them.” Guess he’s not of the “better to burn out” philosophy—though a hot new Blackberry wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for RIM right now. [NYT]

Two numbers on your iPhone

Filed under: Hacks, iPhone

Over at UNEASYsilence that have quick tutorial on hacking your iPhone to support two different numbers by using two SIM cards. Basically this involves using a dual SIM card holder and manually trimming down the cards to fit into the adapter. With one kind of adapter the active SIM card automatically switches each time you turn the phone off and back on. If you have two AT&T SIM cards you don’t have to do anything else to get two number support.

On the other hand, if you want to use non-AT&T SIM cards you’ll want a different adapter and then you’ll need to jailbreak, unlock and activate your phone with ZiPhone. The neat thing about this method, however, is that Apple has apparently built dual SIM support into the iPhone OS. So once that’s done you’ll be able to switch between the SIM cards in the Phone submenu of the Settings.

As Dan notes this is not for the faint of heart since it involves actually cutting the SIM cards and the hacking the iPhone with ZiPhone. Nonetheless, if you want to use your iPhone with two different numbers and you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty, head over to UNEASYsilence for the step by step.

Update: I’m neither endorsing nor not endorsing the use of ZiPhone. I’m reporting the methodology Dan used. Also the support for two SIM cards is apparently built in to the adapter, not directly in the iPhone OS which rather has support for SIM applications.

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