Hey everyone, this is interesting. Apple may be prepping to sell its iPhone 3G S for the low low price of $99!

The Boy Genius Report reports that somebody inside of Rogers, a Canadian cellular network, snapped a picture of a soon to be released notification, indicating that Rogers, as well as AT&T, have been lowering the price of the iPhone 3G in order to sell off its remaining inventory. Why? Why else. To replace it with the iPhone 3G S!

So if you want an iPhone 3G (refurbished) for $49, I suggest buying now because the iPhone 3G S is on the way for a higher $99!

The iPhone 3G S set to replace the regular iPhone 3G will be an 8GB model. It is still unclear whether it will be a white or black colored iPhone 3G S.

Wow! One of the biggest leaks coming to us via iPhone OS 3.1! Well, again, some new strings have been clearly found. As I had said before, iPod3,1 is still hanging in there.

As you may recall, I discovered the iPod touch 3rd Gen.’s boot sequence in the 3.0 betas a while back. I also discovered iPhone 3,1’s (iPhone 4G, or 4th gen.) boot sequence in the betas as well.

Also, the mysterious iProd0,1 that I (and others) discovered during the beta period.

Well, now the plot thickens. iProd1,1 has also appeared in iPhone OS 3.1! Along with some interesting descriptions.

iProd0,1’s description indicates that it is a standardMuxPTP model. Also, as I previously said during the 3.0 beta testing periods, the “0,1″ in iProd’s name probably means that it is still a prototype, now whether this is a 2nd gen or still a 1st gen protoype, is still unclear.

iProd1,1 is a StandardMuxPTPEthernet model, this is the exact description that can be found on the iPhone, which suggests that this has some major internet capabilities, again, pointing to a new internet capable device, such as the rumored MacBook tablet.

Again, the iPhone 3,1 model has no description, just like all other unannounced devices had in that early of a stage. Also, an iPhone 3,1 could be released before 2009 is over!

No other iPhone model has appeared that early to be unreleased until the next year. Seems fishy.

I am declaring this a 100% confirmed leak. Why? This comes to us from Apple themselves. Not only has this appeared since March, but its still here! If “iProd” was a type-o, wouldn’t Apple have fixed it by now?

It just dawned on me that “iProd” could mean “iProduct”. This is a possibility. I can basically confirm a MacBook tablet before 2009 is over.

UPDATE 1: I am being told by our good friends at SpiritOfLogic that iRealQuickSMS is indeed 2.x compatable, and that previous 2.x licenses work on the 3.x version. I have edited the article accordingly.

Well, today I have a very cool (one of my favorites) Cydia package for you all. Today, I will give you my review of iRealQuickSMS by SpiritOfLogic!

Now, basically, this mobilesubstrate application allows you to do some pretty amazing things. It allows you to “quick reply” or “quick send” an SMS text message from any application!

This is great! This is just one of those things you cannot live without! This is also one of those things that Apple should have always had since iPhone OS 1.0.

Okay? So why should I care? Well, how many texts do people get/send every day on their iPhones? 1, 10, 20? No, its sometimes hundreds of texts a day! Now, Apple got the very intelligent idea of making it so that you have to quit what you are doing, let that be watching a video or whatever, to kill your app that you are using and launch their messages app to take its place, then you have to relaunch the app you were in, and you do this over and over and over.

It’s annoying! I tolerated it for a while, then at one point, I’m like “OMG, I am sick and tired of this”. I was looking for something to fix this annoying lack of features, then I found iRealQuickSMS.

iRealQuickSMS is awesome because it uses such little RAM and CPU, so your iPhone is running snappy. It can also go into landscape, as well as into portrait view.

It doesn’t replace your messages application, but rather, it works with it to deliver and send your text messages with a very easy to use interface. It has a seperate application that acts as settings for iRealQuickSMS, you can configure it to your needs and preferences.

Now, you may not only continue a conversation (or conversations) with people using “quick reply”, but you can also start conversations with a great feature called “quick send”.

Now, “quick reply” is automatically triggered when you recieve a text message. To reply, just type in what you want to say, and hit “send”. Its that easy!

QuickSend can be triggered by the home button or by the volume up button, or a combination of hardware and software. I use a configuration where you press the up volume button, and then tap on the screen to bring the quicksend “window” and keyboard.

Now also, you can call people using iRealQuickSMS, just use “quick send” and choose the person from your contacts, and tap “call”. Can’t be any simpler than that.

They fixed a lot of bugs and gave us some new features since our original iRealSMS review that Mike did last year for you guys.

Well, overall, I give this app a 10 out of 10! Its simply something that you cannot live without. It makes texting super easy to do on the iPhone.

Tthis is a must have. It is available via the BigBoss repo in Cydia. Just install it, and respring. Then tap on the green “iRealQuickSMS” icon, and take it for a trial. If you love it as much as I do, you can purchase a license for $10 Euros. In the U.S., that would be about $12.50, it really depends what the Dollar and Euro are at.

So give it a try for yourself, and I really recommend you buy this if you haven’t done so yet! You won’t regret it! 

Well, due to popular demand, I have been asked to provide a tutorial, based on my experiences, on how to get a T-Mobile Sidekick prepaid plan onto the iPhone. I will cover, getting the SIM, payment, porting your old number, and setting it all up on the iPhone in this tutorial. So let’s get started!

The first step is to get a T-Mobile SIM card. Well, if you don’t have a T-Mobile SIM that came from an actual Sidekick phone already, read this carefully. Well, I went to one of my local T-Mobile stores in order to obtain my T-Mobile SIM card.

Well, as you may have know, I had AT&T GoPhone before I had T-Mobile on my iPhone, so obviously I didn’t have a T-Mobile SIM. Well, like I said, go to the T-Mobile store, and ask for a SIM kit for the prepaid sidekick plan. (Its a special SIM, so make sure you tell them what you want, with a straight face.

Now, also make sure to tell them, “I bought a Sidekick on eBay, and I haven’t gotten it yet, but I need the SIM so I can use it when it gets here”. Just make sure you tell them you “have a Sidekick, but its not with you”. If you have a non-caring T-Mobile employee, you’re golden. If they tell you no, say “alright, thank you” and go to another T-Mobile store or go back on a different time and day. It worked on my first attempt, they really shouldn’t care.

So now, that the T-Mobile person has the SIM (Make sure on the package that he/she brings back has a “$30″ in a big pink square”. Also, make sure you have $35 with you to buy the SIM kit and pay the tax (it depends on where you live, there are different taxes everywhere, its 6% here, very cheap).

Cool! You now have everything you need from the T-Mobile store!

Before they do anything, if you want to keep your number (doesn’t matter what carrier you have, they made a pact with all the major companies to port numbers) tell them. They will tell you that they will give you a new number, then they will call T-Mobile customer service for you to get it changed.

VERY IMPORTANT: I had huge issues here. If you have AT&T call their asses at customer service and get your account number!!! Prepaid customers have an account number as well, I didn’t know prepaid customers had account numbers so I had to spend 3 days (I did it on Friday, and. i had to wait to call them on Monday morning, because I had a b-day party on Sunday and they said wait 24 hours so Saturday wasn’t a good day to do it.) waiting to get ported until i called and the issue was AT&T didn’t want me to port my number because I didn’t give them my account number, because I didn’t know.

SO GET THAT NUMBER! Then tell them your name, bring some ID, bring the money, write down the number you want to get ported, get your account number, and most of all, stay cool.

So let them set your new T-Mobile prepaid (sidekick) service up. Make sure its not regular T-Mobile prepaid or else you will not be able to get the full internet, as some of you have found out by me emailing you.

Now, after you’ve paid and gotten your SIM, take out your iPhone, and go into Cydia, and add the repo http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com/ and refresh. this is your unlock solution. This is where you unlock with ultrasn0w. Install ultrasn0w and reboot.

Now, before poping in the SIM, go back into Cydia, and go into the Modmyi repo, or search for “T-Mobile”, now look for the “T-Mobile -US Prepaid Sidekick Support” package, install it.

(This will enable you to use the full unrestricted internet (not just the 5 wap sites you get with the regular T-Mobile prepaid (non-sidekick), teathering, and MMS (well, I have not gotten MMS to work, I called the creator of the package, and he said he called T-Mobile and none of the MMS APNs they gave him worked, so don’t be surprised that MMS doesn’t work.)

Now, MMS does work with the T-Mobile Flexpay Sidekick plan with this same package.

Alright, turn your iPhone off (slide the red slider by holding the power button), now take out the old AT&T SIM you had in it, and pop in your new T-Mobile SIM. Now, turn the iPhone back on.

You should see a delay, or it saying “…” in the status bar, let ultrasn0w kick in and recognize you now unlocking, and you should see an “E” symbol for EDGE after a few seconds, and then T-Mobile, then more bars pop up.

I had huge issues when I did this. I was scared out of my mind, thinking I had canceled my AT&T service for a non-working T-Mobile sidekick service, I rebooted and still “Searching…” and it would hang….

Turns out, I had “3G” on. Lol. Make sure you turn 3G off. If you forgot to turn 3G off before turning your phone off to take the SIM out, turn 3G off in the Settings app, and reboot again, this time, you should finally see a T-Mobile carrier with bars! So don’t be stupid like me and leave 3G on. 

So, now go into Settings->Phone->My Number, now it will say “unknown” like mine did, change it to (country code first, then area code, then number)

Example:
1 (800) 444-4444

Cool, so there you go! You should now have T-Mobile Prepaid on the $1 a day Sidekick plan on your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G S running (and only running) iPhone OS 3.0 (7A341).

Now, if you didn’t receive an SMS text message saying that your number had been ported in the 24 hours they told you it would (and I mean 24 hours), call 1(877)789-3106 to see what’s going on. This is T-Mobile’s number porting hotline. Call that number to begin porting your number or to see what’s taking so long.

Once you get everything done and straightened out here and you have your number, go to Settings->Phone->My Number and delete the old number, and type in your new number. Now, go ahead and reboot one last time.

Now, on to payment, you will get a month of “free” (you pay $30 bucks at the T-Mobile store to get the SIM kit so its not exactly free) T-Mobile service.

So what happens when you run out of money the next month? Well, just pick up a T-Mobile refil card at your local Walmart, Target, Best Buy, convenience store, or T-Mobile store. They come in denominations from $10-$100.

To add funds to your account, dial *223 on your iPhone.

Or go to Settings->Phone->T-Mobile Services and tap on the service that you need.

The T-Mobile Prepaid Sidekick plan includes: Unlimited SMS text messaging, unlimited internet (EDGE & GRPS, 3G doesn’t work due to hardware differences), unlimited teathering, possible MMS for 25 cents sent 10 cents received (if someone can get this going), and 10 cents a minute!

Now compare that to AT&T’s Prepaid GoPhone plan: $20 for 100MB of data, $20 for unlimited texting, teathering block, MMS block, and 25 cents a minute.

Now you see why I switched! 

Well guys, this topic may be “old news” but lately I’m not the only one asking this, many analysts have been pondering this very same thing now that Apple has been put to the test after all these months without good-old Steve Jobs holding their hand the entire way. Well, its almost time for Mr. Jobs to return to Apple as CEO once more. So let’s take a look at Apple in 2009…

Well, back in January, Steve Jobs had finally admitted that something was wrong and that he had to leave Apple until “the end of June”. If you recall, he had said that he had a simple “hormonal imbalance”, which we later learned that he actually was more severe than that. This had a chilling effect on Apple stock, their stock plummeted to as low as $78.20.

We should also be aware that at that time, the world was in the middle of a recession so we can also relate some of those losses twards the bad economy, I would like to think that its very stupid to assume that Apple stock only fell due to Steve’s poor health.

By February, their highest value was $102.51. Not much happened during February 2009, so this is just speculation from investors.

March was an even better month for Apple, they announced iPhone OS 3.0 to the world at a special event led by Scott Forstall. Their stock was at $105.12 by March, 31, 2009. Still nothing like what they were a year ago at nearly $200 a share.

April, a huge month for Apple, they were, in fact, in the middle of their beta testing for iPhone OS 3.0, they sold their one billionth application on their highly sucessful App Store on April 23, 2009, and they were actively testing Snow leopard with their developers. They ended off at $125.83.

May, another huge month for Apple. They were finishing off iPhone OS 3.0 beta testing and Snow Leopard was also recieving beta releases, also Apple stated that all major work to the frameworks was done, and that developers should start making new applications as the next releases were going to be simple bug fixes.

New beta releases were available for both platforms. Also speculation about Apple’s newest iPhone device were at their peak as references to “Jibbler” (voice-control) , “Accessibility”, Magnetometer (digital-compass), and video capabilities had been found in the iPhone OS 3.0 firmware during beta testing. They ended off at $135.81.

Now onto June. Apple’s biggest month since Steve Jobs’ absence. This is where WWDC 2009 was at. They announced their new (more affordable) MacBook line starting at $1,199, Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) starting at just $29 (for Leopard users), QuickTime X, Safari 4, iPhone OS 3.0 (GM seed released to developers, June 17th release for the rest of the world), and the highly anticipated iPhone 3G S (the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet).

Well, on June 5th (Friday before WWDC) they ended up at $144.67. Great price. Now after WWDC 2009 they ended off at $142.35.

This has basically a tradition, Apple stock falls after their keynotes, no one is exactly sure why that is, even if the announcements are ground breaking, it still falls no matter what.

At the time I am writing this, they are at $139.48. A slight dip from their pre-WWDC value. This is due to glitches with iPhone 3G S activations and iPhone OS 3.0 activation complications, and AT&T’s uncanny ability to ruin a great launch by not supporting MMS or teathering at launch.

Investors have liked the way Apple has been running so far under Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Scott Forstall, and Bertrand Serlet’s leadership at Apple during Steve Jobs’ absence from the company.

I agree, they have been doing a great job without Steve holding their hand the whole way. They have managed to not kill Apple, but rather survive and thrive during the harsh economic downturn. Apple has been one of the most sucessful companies during the recession.

Not even Microsoft could sustain themselves completely, they had extreme lay offs. Apple also had lay offs, but not very many. At this point, they are giving everyone their job back because they are opening 100 new stores in the U.S. alone this year.

My verdict, Apple will survive without Steve Jobs. I don’t however, see there being very many revolutionary products comming out of Apple after Mr. Jobs is gone.

I do however see them surviving as they have a set goal in mind. Steve said at the launch of Mac OS X, “Mac OS X sets Apple up for at least the next decade”, and now with the iPhone OS, there are limitless possibilities with this brilliant idea of a screen that displays whatever you want with a keyboard that only appears when you need it.

These past few months, Apple has showed us that Apple is more than just one man with brilliant ideas and vision, but rather many people who work as one to bring the world great new technology.

Steve Jobs is the key to Apple’s huge sucess, there is no denying that, but I believe he has always been looking for someone who shares his vision and passion, an heir if I may, and mabe, just mabe, he has finally found his sucessor that will take over Apple so that it continues to thrive for the many years to come.

Sources say that Steve Jobs may return to Apple as part-time CEO, but at this point, I think we should all be ready for a part-time Jobs. Many people have speculated his return to Apple will be a short one. Most don’t expect his to stay to be more than 5 years at Apple, so let’s just hope he still has time for a few more Stevenotes and revolutionary technologies that will propel Apple deep into the 21st century and beyond.