About two weeks ago I broke down, again. By that I mean Apple’s shiny dark magic took over my thought process. I did not even know what happened; it was like I was in a trance. I found myself standing outside an Apple store with an iPhone in my right hand and my soul in the other. I turned around to look into the store and all that I saw were droves of people that looked the same, everyone was just a walking Gap commercial. I then saw myself in the window; I had my black hood up with my black Boston cap on, and my black down vest on. I looked like I usually do, but something happened to me at that moment. I knew in my heart I was different then these people, I was an individual, not some drone. But what the hell was I doing buying this novelty that I swore I would never touch ever again? I walked through the mall talking to myself and my conscience was fighting itself. Deep down my heart was telling me to go back and return it. One side was saying “Yo dude, this device is going to bring so much trouble in you life”, and the other was saying to me “All your friends will finally think you are cool”.  Steve Jobs and the Cupertino soul reapers got the best of me that day, but it will never happen again!

So once I purchased the phone I wanted to activate it. I wanted to activate the iPhone with our tax id number so I could charge it to the business. Well obviously the iTunes activation process would not allow that. So I had some extra time one day and drove over to the local AT&T store. I wanted to ask them a couple of questions and see if I could activate the iPhone with the tax id number. I was told by the AT&T rep that it is possible, so he gave me instructions on how to do it. So I went home hopped onto iTunes activation to see if it would work, nope no dice.

So I give AT&T customer support a phone call, I spoke to nice gentlemen and he transferred me directly to the AT&T iPhone division. I guess it was too late because they were not home. So I am starting to get pretty frustrated. I obviously do not want to activate this thing under my own social. I have had my identity stolen once before so now I am very weary of giving it out for anything. So the next day I run over to the same AT&T store, the store is packed. So I head on over to another AT&T store in our local mall. The customer support rep pretty much refused to look at me. He told me he could not help me at all, honestly he did not even look at me. I was just amazed at how poor his customer service was. So he tells me I need to go to the Apple store and talk to them. So I go back to the Apple store I purchased the phone at. I wait in line for about 20 minutes to talk to one of the Apple rep’s, he tells me that he has never heard of anyone activating the iPhone with a tax id number. I asked him how do businesses activate the iPhone then? He responded by telling my “they don’t, corporations have to have each individual user activate it under their own social security number, and they just use the companies billing address instead of their own home address.” He also told me that this was an AT&T matter not Apple’s. He gave me the AT&T customer support number I originally called. I was so furious at that moment. So I went back home, sat down and tried to relax. I told myself I would try one more time to get this activated.

So two days later I went to the original AT&T store thinking I might get lucky and find the original AT&T rep that told me I could activate it with a tax id number. Well no luck, but I did get a rep that seemed really informed on how to activate it with a tax id, he actually told me that he just did for a customer two days ago. So I am pretty excited at this point. So he is telling my how to do it on iTunes. He tells me I first have to have an AT&T number and account. So he signs me up with a 2 year contract and gives me a number and an extra nokia phone just in case I have some problems with the activation at first. He tells me when I start the activation process on iTunes that I need to put that “I am replacing an AT&T phone with the iPhone”. So I do so, I proceed to enter my AT&T mobile number he gave me and my zip code. He also told me “instead of entering the last four of your social enter the last four of your tax id number”. After that I hit the activation button, at this point I am on cloud nine, finally I will have this thing up and running! I wait about a minute and I get a message saying “iTunes cannot activate this phone with the current credit information.” I try it one more time, same thing happens. I am going crazy at this point!!

I call the AT&T store back, and that last rep I spoke to answered the phone. I proceed to tell him what is going on. He tells me to try again in the morning, and proceeds to pitch me wood to get me off the phone. At this point I am ready to drive my car into the store. So I call AT&T customer support. I finally find someone that really knows her stuff. She was amazing. I proceeded to tell her about my past week and all of the drama that occurred. She starts to apologize, and then I tell her what the last rep told me. She flat out said that he took me. She said in no possible way can you activate your iPhone with a tax id. She said even the largest corporations cannot do it. She told me Disney could not even do it. They had to have their employees activate them with their own social and bill the company. At this point I was just dumb founded.

She took all my information down; she took the last reps information down as well. She cancelled my two year plan, and told me the rep most likely lied to me so he could get a commission. She told me even if I cancelled my account he would get credit for the sign up. She was a breath of fresh air. She and I chatted for about 10 minutes on how lame the activation process is for businesses. She fully agreed with me that Apple could have sold a lot more iPhones if they would allow tax id activations.  

So at this point I feel better, I still have the iPhone, still not activated, and I am most likely going to take it back. I should have listened to my conscience, at this point the allure and luster has worn off. I still love my ppc6700 with my hacked WM6 rom; I will be sticking with that until I can get the HTC touch via Sprint. 

So again Apple almost gives me a heart attack, the stress this device caused me was incredible. Some of you will say “why don’t you just use your SSN to activate it”. Because I have principles, and I will not give in just to get a novelty.

Oh and to top it all off I have the last AT&T in store rep on tape telling me how to do everything, from start to finish. I also have the nice lady I spoke to last on tape. If anyone from AT&T or Apple would like to hear them then feel free to contact us. I don’t think it is necessary for us to release these tapes publicly; we don’t want anyone to get in trouble.

The Geekery’s own iPhone commercial will be published in about an about 30 minutes or so.  

Just checking in again. Still feel a bit silly, I kind of want to crawl under a rock and hide. I just cant believe they came out with this on the eve of my iPhone rant. If it was a week a later I would not be even be writing any of this, but they just had to rub it in my eyes. At least I own up to it, not like some others that should remain nameless.

On that note lets push forward, this is a great milestone for the iPhone and all of the people that want to obtain that mythical creature they call the “JesusPhone”. Now we are still in this things infancy, so we are still not sure that this software from iPhoneSimFree.com will revert with a simple update from Apple, but the site guarantees it will stay put with whatever sim card of your choosing.

So really what is their to talk about other then when can we all get this software. Obviously iPhoneSimFree.com is trying to make a buck, but nipping on their heels is another group of developers working on making this free. Now I would not mind paying a little dough for this software from iPhoneSimFree.com just on principal alone knowing that they have been working on this since the release date of the iPhone.

So get ready for a flood of duplicate posts from other sites going on and on about this topic. Which in its right is a great piece of industry news. but we will try to keep it fresh with new stories and new findings here at The Geekery.

Well maybe not. I know everyone is sick of hearing about the Jesus phone, I know I most certainly am. But I wanted to touch on a topic that is driving me insane. I see new articles about it everyday. Its driving me crazy. Now all of you are saying, “What is driving you crazy?”, all the articles about people finally UNLOCKING THE iPhone! I have read hundreds of claims that people have unlocked the iPhone. But the thing is that is all we ever hear are claims. I know some people have actually done it, but to what extent are you prepared to go to unlock that ironclad device. In the end you might find yourself spending more on unlocking it then actually ponying up the cash for AT&T.

I understand the people that don’t want to give into the system, and that’s neat and all. But really why waste your time, energy, and hard earned money on simply unlocking a phone that might or might not work with your carrier. Plus what happens when your phone dies, or has a malfunction. Do you take it back to Apple? I don’t think that will really work. Granted most of the people that are trying to unlock these things are pretty savy with the gadgets, so I assume they would probably be able to fix most issues on their own, and that’s the rub, not everyone is savy with the gadgets. Its a glass half full type of situation.

Now some people are claiming they unlocked the phone monkeying around with the internal hardware, and some claim the TurboSim card unlocks the phone via blocking it from getting any AT&T info, and a recent one I heard today about people doing it via a firmware hack. Once again I reiterate that this is not a bad thing. This is how people discover things about technology and how innovations are created in the marketplace, simply by taking a device apart and seeing how it works. That’s how technology evolves, which is a great thing. But as these shenanigans keep on progressing I really do not see one true process to unlock these devious devices. So I say this once and once only, that the Apple iPhone is the most secure smart-phone to date. If the Apple iPhone was a building it would be Fort Knox, but I think it would be even more secure then Fort Knox. You see Fort Knox is not open to the public, which the iPhone is, and if Fort Knox was open to the public for 2 months people would have already found a way into the safes. But their are many claims of partially unlocked iPhones as well (Thats like partially stealing the gold then getting shot on the way out by the tower guards).

When I say secure, I don’t mean secure software, or secure from software exploits, I mean it is locked down to the mother-ship and the tractor beam is strong. Their are thousands of some of the best PDA/Smart-phone crackers in the world working on this, and no one has came out with a true unlock method for the masses. The funny thing is that whenever if ever their is one Golden Key to unlock the palace, Apple and AT&T will sit and watch as people start unlocking the phones. Now this is the painful part, they will watch, but they wont be upset. They will be sitting over a tech’s pc telling him to deploy the new firmware that will brick every single one. ONE KEYSTROKE. Then the process begins all over again.

My point to all of this is that the masses will not go along. Once they have touched that glassy interface they will not be able to go back to any other smart-phone. So they will eventually cough up the cash for the AT&T service, and it will come with another rush of profits for the two companies.

Like I wrote about last week, these companies thrive off control. They want to control the influx of information, they want to control your hardware and software. Frustrating at best, but what can we do? Except not buy there hardware and software. This is why I have taken a stand. I would love to have that gorgeous phone, but it does not work with my carrier. So I am waiting for the revised version of the HTC Touch.  To me its as close to an iPhone as any other device.

I guess I have not been struck with the Jesus phone syndrome yet?

Here are some examples of the claims I have been talking about:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I think ten example are enough, I could link to different stories all day.

Companies that want to bid in the FCC’s upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction had better be prepared to pay up. The agency has just released a first draft of its detailed auction rules, which include reserve prices that must be met before the auction becomes valid. The coveted C block licenses (which feature the new open access conditions) will require bidders to meet a $4.6 billion reserve; for all licenses combined, the reserve is $10 billion.

The auction date has now been set for January 16, 2008. We already knew that the bidding would be anonymous, but the bid procedures are now spelled out in excruciating detail. The FCC rationale for the move is made clear: it wants to “reduce the potential for anti-competitive bidding behavior, including bidding activity that aims to prevent the entry of new competitors.”

Five blocks of licenses will be offered (A-E), with several blocks broken into hundreds of smaller, regional licenses. In total, 1,099 licenses are on offer, but it’s the 12 C block licenses that have drawn particular attention. These are being made available in three packages for companies that want to offer national wireless service and want easy, one-stop shopping. One package will cover all 50 US states, a second will cover US Pacific territories, and the third will cover Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

The whole C block has an aggregate reserve price of $4.6 billion, but nearly all of the cash will go toward the package of US national licenses. This portion of the spectrum is also the only one encumbered with two open access conditions (any device must be allowed to access the band and any application can be run across the network), but if the reserve price isn’t met, the auction will be rerun without these two conditions in place.

Hopefully that won’t happen. Remember that Google earlier pledged to bid $4.6 billion if the FCC would apply four open conditions to the spectrum, and presumably the C block will be worth even more to incumbents now that only two of those conditions have been imposed.

I am not one to trump up stories and create chaos in the blogosphere, but supposedly the fellows over at Bladox have unlocked the iPhone from its master. They are using the Turbo Sim card toolkit that Bladox produces. They are saying over on the user forums on Bladox’s site that the phone is 100% unlocked. But it seems like only 3-4 people have successfully unlocked it.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is great and all but what happens when AT&T or Apple get word of this, which most likely has already happened. Can you smell a possible update to 1.0.2? Which in my eyes will most likely happen, and to the people that think AT&T wants the iPhone unlocked, “You are dead wrong”. Why would they want it unlocked, yeah they are making a ton of money off the hardware, but mostly everyone knows cell companies make the money off the actual plan. I guess no one has told them that the iPhone has one the highest bill ratings out of most of the smart phone plans on the market. So the answer is “no” AT&T does not want this, and Apple certainly does not want this either. They like locking people into services, ever heard of ITunes.

Both of the companies like control, more in the direction of love control. AT&T likes censoring bands and Apple likes censoring anyone they can. But large companies thrive off control.

So for all of you that want to get out and buy an iPhone ($599) plus a TurboSim Card ($80) I dare you to do it, actually I double dare you to do it. I bet you in no less then 3 months that thing will be bricked and you will be SOL.

Now I would love this not to happen to you, but like I said these are companies that love control and love to control you.

Oh by the way the 2 of the so called 4 people that have got it unlocked are from Australia (Vodaphone)

Apple’s unofficially official iPhone tool is a paperclip?? According to an iPhone user that sent his handset in for warranty service, it arrived back with this highly technical piece of equipment, with a piece of paper that included a visual instruction. If this is actually true then I have to throw out a serious WTF IGod.

Hurry up HTC ,I need a Kaiser. I need a new phone, my ppc6700 weighs to much!

A lot of people know how much I hate Google’s Adword system, but the thing is they make money and they help business’s make money, thus it is good business. I just don’t like the whole process probably because we here at TheGeekery are poor, their are lot of rumors around the net about foul play with Adwords and how Google manipulates the system as well but that is still under investigation. But I simply don’t understand this one….

Google is in the process of acquiring DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, but for some reason the FTC is already investigating them on antitrust violations just for this attempted acquisition. I understand that Google already has the largest market share for ad based e-marketing, but when Yahoo proposed its acquisition of Rights Media was proposed not to long ago it flew through the antitrust regulators stamp of approval process. The same thing happened when Microsoft proposed the acquisition of aQuantive a DoubleClick rival, no one complained no one whined. Why is Google taking so much flack for this, this is capitalism, this is big business.

The answer is in this quote

“Google, which dominates the business of placing text ads alongside search results and on sites across the Web, is expected to capture 27.4 percent of the $21.7 billion in United States online advertising in 2007, according to eMarketer, a research firm. The acquisition of DoubleClick would turn Google into a dominant player in the business of serving banners and other graphical ads that appear on Web sites.”

Yahoo, AT&T and dare I say Microsoft are afraid, very afraid. Google is starting to scare me as well, I just don’t understand how a company can spread the spectrum so wide across so many industry sectors.

Google, even though I do not enjoy some of your business models I do salute you for the massive kahoneys you have.

-TheGeek