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With the recent hype about iPhone 3.0 OS, I decided to jump the gun and try installing 3.0 in it’s beta stages on my own iPhone, which resulted in the death of my iPhone.

First, I downloaded the iPhone 3.0 restore file (iPhone1,2_3.0_7A238j_Restore.ipsw) via bit torrent and attempted to manually restore my iPhone from iTunes with the 3.0 file which was located on my desktop. Everything was going smoothly, it took a couple of minutes for the update to install on my iPhone then my phone restarts and I see this lovely screen in iTunes.

After doing some research I learned that in order to use the 3.0 beta OS you must be apart of the Apple Developers Program which came along with a price of $99/year for the standard package and $299/year for the enterprise. At this point I figured I’d just wait a couple months for the 3.0 OS to be released to the public and decided to restore my iPhone to latest backup which was that day, before I attempted the 3.0 upgrade. Unfortinuately there was no way to restore my iPhone from iTunes, so after a bit more research, I learned that by a specific key stroke I can reboot my iPhone in something called “Restore Mode” which will give me the option to restore my iPhone from iTunes from a file on my computer.

I was able to successfully restore the 2.2.1 OS on my iPhone but after the completion of the software update my phone would reboot as always and iTunes would give me the error below (1013). Apparently the baseband that comes with OS 3.0 won’t downgrade using any method on either the 2st Gen or iPhone 3G. There is no unlock for the new baseband (or the current one for that matter).

When you DFU restore to 2.2.1 iTunes will give you an error at the end (most likely 1015 or 1013) indicating a baseband/firmware mismatch.

So feeling pretty frustrated at this point, I decided I would just put 3.0 back on my iPhone and purchase the Developers Program from Apple. I filled out the application and at the end was notified that the Application has been submitted and I will be contacted by a representative within 5-7 business days. Meanwhile I have no phone, so I figured the best thing to do at this point would be to bring it in to the Apple Store and have them take a shot at recovering it.

Of course the Apple Store in the Fashion Show mall was busy and had no openings to see me until the following day. I was without my phone for over 24hours and it was pretty bad, but when I finally got it into the Apple Store, they attempted the same restore I did, failing as I did and ended up just replacing the device with a new one.

So all is well again and I guess I’ll just have to wait like everyone else for MMS, Landscape texts, Internet Tethering and copy & paste.

I picked up a new toy at the Apple Store the other day. I was skeptical about it at first, since it doesn’t get the best reviews, nor is it the most popular Apple product, but so far I think it’s the perfect solution for me. I don’t watch much TV but when I do it’s usually pretty late at night and nothing actually good is on. For example I use to watch The Office every week, which airs at like 8/9PM on NBC problem is I’m never watching TV around that time to catch the new episodes. I know there are solutions, such as TiVO and DVR to accommodate me, but they come with monthly service fees and hardware rentals.

One of the first things I did after unpacking the Apple TV was hacked it using the following tutorial: Hack Your Apple TV With Boxee. It was a painless process and only took me 20 minutes to do. Now that I have installed the patch I can now watch any type of DRM free multimedia (e.g., DIVX, AVI, MKV, ISO and BIN) from any computer connected to my network. I can even play multimedia through internet streams (e.g. hulu, YouTube, podcast videos) which consist of a large collection of movies as well as many popular TV series. As long as you have a good internet connection, the video streaming works flawlessly and it’s nice to be able to browser through all the episodes of your favorite TV series and watch the latest episode from the series when you’re ready to watch it.

Even without hacking the Apple TV you can still rent or buy all new DVD titles and TV series for a reasonable price, but with the Boxee Patch you aren’t required to purchase anything, really. Another feature that comes with the Apple TV is the ability to share iTunes libraries on your network. So if you have a desktop computer on your network with all your music and videos, the Apple TV will make all the media available to you, similar to the Remote iPhone application. The Apple TV also makes it easy to stay up to date with your favorite Podcasts, if you enjoy a specific podcast, you can set it in your favorites and watch the latest episode as soon as it comes out.

Now I just need to find a good Home Theatre system and I’ll be set up nicely in my home office.

At the Apple Town hall meeting last week, Steve Jobs (CEO Apple) announced two major things for the iPhone: 1) support for Microsoft Exchange and 2) the iPhone SDK. This is HUGE for the company and heres why: Why Apple will dominate next generation computing

Apple has made this play flawlessly. The enterprise and SDK solutions will go hand-in-hand to propel the iPhone to be THE handheld device of the future. Ironically, the PC just got its final blow not from a MacBook (which has been on the rise too!), but from a small new computer. Apple got its revenge elegantly, relentlessly and creatively.

I was considering canceling my order for a MBP with the Apple Store due to the fact it’s been about 2 weeks and my order status still shows item not yet shipped. So yesterday I called to complain to a representative which in result getting free priority shipping insuring me it will be delivered within the next 3 days, which satisfied me. Then I wake up this morning jump on Digg.com and see that as of today new versions of the MacBook Pro have been released. Nothing to major about the about the update that would make me feel like a sucker, they come loaded with up to 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processors, and the MacBook Air’s trackpad which allows for multi-touch gestures. After seeing this I had to check the prices of the older generation MBP’s (which I just ordered) and as I suspected the price had dropped on all of the Macbooks significantly. So I called back in to Apple and they allowed me to cancel my previous order and get the upgraded model of the MBP for the same price. I went from 1GB RAM to 2GB, 128MB Video Memory to 256MB, a glossy widescreen display and from a 2.16 GHz processor to 2.33 GHz. So I guess the backorder was a good thing, and if you happen to be in the market for a Macbook on a budget, check out these great deals from the Apple Store.

So February has finally came and thanks to income tax plus bonus incentives from my company I bought a new laptop. I Decided I should go with a Mac and try out OS X. I bought a refurbished model because I saved about 25% off the total retail of a new MBP ($1,999.00), plus it comes with a 1-year warranty so at least I won’t be screwed if something does go wrong. I went with the 15″ monitor and the 2.16 ghz processor (Intel Core Duo). This will be my main work horse, I plan on running a dual boot system with XP and OS X so I can travel with one laptop. I wish it came in black, but oh well. I love getting new toys, review coming soon…

UPDATE:Check out this post to see the upgraded model I received.