I used to feel special. . . no privileged . . . superior even. Walking down streets in Sydney chatting on my iPhone and enjoying the odd looks I got from those parsers by noticing my shiny iPhone. But nowdays I am starting to see iPhones everywhere I look, in fact some bastard had his on in Clovefield!!!

So, now I am really interested in the ongoing debate in regards to the number of unlocked iPhones out in the wild. It goes without saying that every phone I see in Aus is part of that number. Apples insistence on holding out supplying iPhones to the Australian market seems now to only be hurting their potential launch figurers rather than helping.

I could sit here and write a detailed coverage on this issue, but this has already been expertly done by many proper journalists out there. So rather than taking it from me, follow the story in the links below and jump into the comments with your thoughts.

•  News.com.au
• BBC News
• Reuters
• ZDNet

If you have not seen this great app for the iPhone you are really missing out. Today in iPab let me introduce you to Pocket Guitar.

This great little app has been on the installer list for quite some time but was only brought to my attention last week. Pocket Guitar plays like a real guitar and even though the sounds are recorded, they sound pretty decent. It can take some time to practice at first , but after a while yo may suprise yourself by playing what sounds like music.

You can also increase/decrease the volume and even choose which guitar you want to play.The settings let you choose from:

• Distorted Guitar
• Acoustic-Electric Guitar
• Electric Bass

After the upgrade many Australian users may find that the order of SMS’s has gone out of wack. This is due to the fact that the patch now has the iPhone looking to your carriers clock for the time. By default the iPhone worked on US time, your carrier is AUS time. This is where the issue kicks in. Good news is it is easy to fix however.

To fix it just change your iPhone to auto-sync with the network so the clocks get back in sync. Click here for instructions from the Apple site 

Thanks to one of members, Murty, we have been alerted to the first iPhone 1.1.3 hack that has been released. Saldy at the moment it is PC only as it relies on iBrickr but hopefully we will see a Mac version on the horizon.

To quote the author of the hack, “As all upgrades are risky, this one is doubly so. You may have to restore your phone using iTunes and start again if it fails. Make sure to back up first!“, and I couldn’t agree more. It took two attempts for me to get the hack working. And if it hadn’t been for my backup, I would have lost everything.

How does it work? Well here is what it does.

• iBrickr grabs the 1.1.3 iPhone firmware image and extracts, decrypts, and decompresses the disk image.
• Then it applies a patch, jailbreaking the disk image and activating it, and also installing Installer.app.
• It uploads this new modified image to the phone, as 113_upgrade_image.bin.
• The “1.1.3 soft upgrade” app flashes the phone with the image and reboots.
• You have a perfect, jailbroken, upgraded 1.1.3 phone, with all your settings and music intact!

Click here for full details of the hack and to try it yourself

The new 1.1.3 has been released and hackers all over the world are yet again trying work on a sim unlock feature to allow iPhones to work without carrier restrictions. So far I have not found any software hacks and am yet to hear of any confirmed success with hardware solutions (i.e. Turbosim, Stealthsim, etc).

If you have had any success with any specific solutions, please add them to the comments so your fellow Aussie iPhone users can know what works and what doesn’t. You can also post larger posts into our forums.  

Ok, picture this, your traveling around this grand brown land of ours and your desperate for a wireless hotspot? How do you know where to go? The answer is http://iphone.spotigo.net (only works on the iPhone). This great site allows you to enter either a city or postcode and it will display all the local wireless hotspots in your immediate area. You can even choose to just have it list free or paid services if you want.

The service is global, so will also give you hotspots whenever you travel. This is now a permanent bookmark for me and I’m sure will be for many of you who travel as well.

What many people reading here will probably not know is that I am half deaf. Due to an incident in my childhood (not inclusive of chainsaws or other sharp implements) I lost just over 50% of my hearing. This has created numerous issues of the years that have caused me to sound like my grandfather as I yell “Turn it up!”

The iPhone, like many phones out there, doesn’t have the loudest speaker volume. Don’t get me wrong, it is more than adequate for an average user, but for me it is not quite enough. Well last week some daring modders have suggested a very simple yet warrant voiding trick (not that warranties really matter in Aus as we aren’t covered anyway)

To increase the volume all you need to do is pierce the thin plastic that covers the speakers at the bottom of the iPhone with a needle. This simple trick will increase your sound volume by up to 40%!!!

Be warned, this is a major increase in volume and my be too loud for some. But for me, it is a welcome change and I’m not looking back. 

Introducing Krisp. A brand new theme for Summerboard that looks, Krisp. Designed by Jack Rayers, s professional designer, Krisp is sure to excite all iPhone owners, it’s sleek icons can be placed on seemingly real shelves or hung from the wall, all in three different icon placement configurations (using different backgrounds found in the theme file); four rows, three rows or the default Apple configuration of three rows and one icon placed on the right. Krisp comes packaged with three mini themes; Krisp, Krisp Glass and Krisp Reflect, all based on the same custom designed images. Screens hots can be found here. All this for the grand total of nothing thanks to iPhoneAE.com.

Download Here.

Please Note: Although the screen shots give a basic idea of the theme, the theme looks much better when displayed on the iPhone

Installation Instructions:

Copy files to iPhone (using SSH) :  /Library/SummerBoard/Themes

To Change Background (Different icon arrangement, shelves or hanging): In each of the theme files there are six backgrounds, choose which one you want and rename it to ‘Wallpaper.png’

Installer source: COMING SOON

In one of Apples worst kept secrets, the 1.1.3 firmware for the iPhone was released this morning at Macworld. It does everything we expected and a couple of minor new features we did not already know about. Sadly no news on the rumored 3G model or Ausralian release dates.

MAJOR WARNING FOR AUSSIE iPHONE USERS - Don’t Upgrade. This will lock your iPhone. No hack has yet been released. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will see some news. Keep checking back and we will keep you posted.New features of this update include:

1. Send SMS messages to multiple recipients at once (still not by group though)
2. The 1000 SMS limit is now lifted
3. You can now “pre-type” with two thumbs (i.e. type, type, lift thumb, lift thumb — instead of the usual type, lift, type lift, which is a big slow-down).
4. Gmail IMAP is now officially supported
5. Faux-GPS on Google Maps via mobile tower triangulation
6. Google Maps showing the hybrid map view
7. drag and drop icons on the home screen and bookmarks on the home screen (i.e. Webclips)
8. Videos now can use chapters and subtitles
9. Display lyrics on music when played.

I am a sucker for a good RPG. Just finished Mass Effect on my Xbox for the second time and still occasionally pull out Balders Gate and Diablo when I am feeling sentimental. So image my surprise when I heard today about a web based 3D RPG for the iPhone. Not quite believing it, I checkout out the site.Best of all, it works as advertised.

Yes, we now have “Sunset”, a new RPG created by Donald Hayes. Now the game is not groundbreaking by any means. But considering it is playing via a web page and was created by one man in his spare time, it really needs to be appreciated for what it is. The game has all the hallmarks of a typical RPG: long convoluted story, inventory system, chat dialogues and thankfully a built in save.

So, if you have time to kill, click here and walk into the “Sunset“