iPhone now Simlock Free in Germany!

From today T-Mobile is selling the iPhone without any SIM Lock or special T-Mobile Contract. You can buy the iPhone SIM-Lock free at the local T-Mobile stores for €999,-- and can put in any SIM-Card you want. Sources are telling that the T-Mobile Logo is still present when you activate the iPhone via iTunes. Seems that T-Mobile unlocked all the iPhones but you can see still the T-mobile Logo when you activate it via iTunes. T-Mobile seems to react fast after Vodafone and later Debitel started an interim injunction on T-Mobile for selling the iPhone exclusivly.

UPDATE: According to German Newsmagazin Heise, T-Mobile offers customers who recently bought the Phone a service to unlock their locked iPhones. T-Mobile also said that some special functionality is still only available to T-Mobile customers that are using the "complete" plan. 

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Nice!

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Vodafone Starts Interim Injunction Against T-Mobile for Selling the iPhone!

The Vodafone boys seems not amused about the always present iPhone in T-Mobile Shops around Germany. According to German Newspaper Suedeutsche - Vodafone starts an interim injunction against T-Mobile and that they are selling the iPhone exclusivly at T-Mobile since November 9th. Joussen - CEO of Vodafone says that they don't want to stop the selling yet but they want to investigate further if it is good for customers to sell a mobile phone this way.

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No Comment!

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Weird iMac Intel Pixel Crash - When will Apple Release a Fix?

Yesterday evening I was really upset, because my iMac started to die. After I woke him up from a one hour sleep in power safe mode - my screen looked like this:

Click on the screen to see the original size on my flickr account.

I tried several things to refresh the screen but nothing really helped - the desktop was dead. Everything worked well but the desktop itself showed me this nice checkerboard - but I don't want to play chess. So I tried to log out and log in again - but the iMac freezes with a bluescreen and I need to hard reset the iMac to get it back again. It took a lot more to load the OS then on a normal start. After it was back on the Desktop I saw that some images from my Dashboard Apps were broken and there were still some pixel crunch.

I heard about freezing problems on the iMac but not about those pixel hickups and I took a look at the Apple Support Forum to see whats going on here. After a quick search I found a lot of postings about the freezing problem - most of them have many posts from many users reporting that their iMac freezes 10 times a day - some of them even reported that they can't work with their iMac after upgrading to Leopard - because its freezing during boot up.

Most of the people in the forum reporting that they have returned their iMac to the Apple Store and that they will get a new board and video card. Some of them that already did that step reporting that the issue is solved but also some say it is still the same. I also read that some people think it is only a software problem and that Apple will soon release a fix and that the problem causes the memory from the video card. Seems that there are two different vendors used to deliver the mem for this video cards from ATI. Well these are all speculations and I hope that Apple releasing a fix soon. My iMac is not freezing all the time - but I don't know if I'd better give it back to the Apple Store for a board and videocard replacement - or wait for the software update. Updates for the iMac 1.2 and 1.2.1 didn't make a change on my machine. There is also an iMac update 1.3 for Leopard users available - but most of them reporting that this also not helped solving the issue.

I hope Apple can solve this problem - I see that the Tiger update 10.4.11 is out - perhaps this will fix the problem - but I don't think so. Updates soon.

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Will the iPhone soon run with Googles Android?

We all know that Apple and Google working close together on some services like Google Maps in the iPhone and Google Search integration. Google was one of the first companies that saw the iPhone and developed the Google Maps application for the iPhone. Yesterday Google launched "android" - a multiplattform mobile operating system which is easy to use and even easier to code for. So I ask myself - what about the iPhone and Android? I can remember that Steve Jobs said that they have a very "clever and secure" way to open the iPhone to external developers. Is this a sign that the iPhone will run Android soon and that this will be open to developers from February 2008? We don't know but we all know that both companies can surprise the world day by day.

Is this prototype running Android on an iPhone or iPod touch?


android google apple iphone ipod+touch developers

Google Android

More Details at http://code.google.com/android

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iPhone in Germany not only at T-Mobile

Gravis, Germanys biggest Apple Hardware Retailer is a bid sad about that only T-Mobile can sell the iPhone. T-Mobile sold over 10,000 devices on the first day and it seems that the iPhone will go on with strong sales. Now Gravis is in talk with T-Mobile about a possible solution to sell the iPhone within the Gravis Stores that are available throughout a lot of cities in Germany. Gravis soon also starts over 90 shops at global German Shopping Mall Karstadt.

gravis t-mobile apple iphone tmobile

Switcher Tip #3 - Software that makes you feel happy

When moving from a PC to a Mac the first things that come in mind are - "Does the Mac run all the software I need to get my work done?", "Does a Mac have all the free software available that I downloaded to my Windows PC?". The Answer is yes - and even more than yes. When I moved to my Mac and started looking for Mac Versions of my Windows Software - I found out that there are "a lot" of small and mid sized developers out there that create a huge bunch of nice Applications that can run on your Mac. I also saw that Software Developers on the Mac "really" take care about the design and the functionality of their application - they all follow the same rule - "It's simple and it just works". When you vist websites like panic.com and see their wonderfull FTP Application "Transmit" or their development tool "Coda" - you can see, those people love to write great applications that doesn't cost a hell and works really well.

I don't know why, but there is a huge gab between Windows Developers and Mac Developers - you will see that when you install your first applications and work with them. To say it with Steve Jobs words - Windows Developers seems to have "absolutly no taste". Even the websites of Mac Developers are looking great and it's make you happy to use great software that is designed very well, because their developers love their product. Take a look at Checkoutapp.com or Pixelmator.com and you know what I mean.

If you are a Switcher and want to check out what Software is available - Apples Download Website is a great start or take a look at Versiontracker that host the latest updates for a huge list of applications on the Mac. If there are more that I didn't mention - just drop me a line.

Do you like this post? Subscribe to my RSS Feed - Thanks!

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Boring Sunday to Clean Up My Feedburner Email Subscriptions

Hey...Mike, no worries - thats just a joke - I still have your feed on Google Reader ;)

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Pixel Problems on my iMac (Update)

As earlier reported - I have some weird pixel bugs/errors/glitches on my fresh new iMac. The iMac don't freeze but everytime I moved my mouse along the dock or moved some windows to fast I got those pixel problems that you can see at my flickr set.
Today I thought about that some software can cause the problem and I started with excluding Safari and use Firefox. So far - no pixel problems anymore - does it really is a Safari problem? Well, I must say that I am still using Tiger and running the Safari Beta version and it seems that this causes the problem - I hope so. I hope Apple will soon release Safari Final for Tiger as well - perhaps in an 10.4.11 update.

imac apple pixel bugs errors tiger mac desktop update

Google Mail - Advanced Search Options

Did you know that you do an advanced search in Google's Gmail? When you want to look up for emails that are from "buddy@domain.com" and went to "friend@domain.com" - simply type in the following query into the search field of Google Mail:

(from:(buddy@domain.com) OR to:(friend@domain.com))

I don't know if this is new to power GMail users - for me it is new and very helpful. You can also combine different details like this:

(("Mac") AND to:(myemail@mydomain.com))

In this case, search will show you all emails that has the word "Mac" inside and were delivered to your email address "myemail@mydomain.com". I thought there must be more options an so I took a look and found the following site from Google.

advance+search gmail google google+mail search

Google Mail Ideas

Sometimes - or more than ones a week - I think it woud be great to create a calendar reminder from a special email in my GMail account. Ex: I got an email today that I need to take care of in one week again. Now it would be great if I could add a reminder to this email and to my Google Calendar. Or is this possible and I didn't see the option?!

Another great feature would be to colorize some of my emails with special colors - like in Mail App. I know there is the label feature - which I use often - but colors are a great way to sort open emails as well.   

google google+mail gmail google+calendar calendar

Switcher Tip #2 - Be Mighty

Yesterday I visited the local Apple Store and I met a Switcher. For all off you who don't know what a Switcher is - it is someone who wants to throw its PC into the garage for ever and wants to feel the world of Apple - mostly with a new shiny iMac. The first thing he mentioned  when we arrived at the store and at the first iMac he ask: "Where are the mouse buttons on that mouse?". Well, the mouse is one mouse button itself, I say, and you don't need a two button mouse -really not.

 

I know some will say "I need a second mouse button" - well, yes and no - when I bought my new iMac and came to the state where I need to plug in the mouse I though - do you really want to plug in the old two button mouse from Logitech into this new iMac - "noooo...." - ok we use the Mighty Mouse but I am sure I need a two button mouse later... 

Two weeks later I can say : "You don't need a two button mouse ... the Mighty Mouse from Apple is perfect". The best thing is the tiny scroll ball that let you scroll fast and really really slow if you like. Last option is perfect when you need to move things slowly. It took some hours to get used to but now it is perfect.  If you really need the right mouse key - simply hold down the control key while clicking and you see the right mouse button menu - simply the same as you press the right mouse button on a normal mouse.

On the downside - I personally don't like the two buttons that are right and left of the Mighty Mouse - I simply don't use them and I think they are a bit to heavy to push.

apple mouse mighty+mouse pc switcher imac

Pixel Problems on my iMac 24" Desktop

Since I updated my iMac with the latest software update from Apple (version 1.2.1 for Tiger) I have very strange pixel problems when I move things around my desktop. It doesnt matter how long the iMac is running or which software is running and in which state the iMac is - it happens at different moments. Anybody out there with the same problem?

Here are some images:

imac apple pixel desktop error bug tiger

Switcher Tip #1

Do you recently switched from PC to a fresh Mac? I did the switch some month ago and as I told before I am very happy with my move and my PC is somewhere in my dungeon covered with some dust. So what is "Switcher Tip" - well, I will start a series of tips for Switchers that made their way from a PC to a Mac and today is the first issue. Most of the tips are born during my own switch to a Mac and so they are well checked (on my system) ... so lets go.

Switcher Tip #1 - Use the keyboard for the Cancel Button on a dialog:

When you see a nice dialog from an application promting you to either press "ok" or "cancel" - OS X highlights the "Ok" button so you can easily hit the "enter" key to confirm the dialog. But what if you want to press "Cancel" - well there is - as allways - a keyboard shortcut for this. Simply press ESC or Command + to press the cancel button on a Dialog.

If you like this tip - subscribe to my RSS Feed and stay up to date with more Switcher Tips coming soon.

switch switcher switcher+tip tip mac windows pc osx os+x

New Apple iMac Software Update

Apple released a new software update for their iMac series 20" and 24" aluminium - version 1.2.1. 

From their website it says:

"This update is for 20-inch and 24-inch aluminum iMac computers with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8 GHz processors running Mac OS X Tiger. It improves the performance and reliability of graphics-intensive games and applications and fixes an issue that some customers encountered when installing Mac OS X Leopard after applying iMac Software Update 1.2."

apple update software os+x osx leopard imac mac