I was not a big fan of 3rd party applications on the iPhone. I’m one of those who think that it is perfect for what it is because it does everything I expected it to do. Also, a big reason for not installing apps is most of them are pretty useless and, dare I say it, ugly. Well, not anymore. Though a lot of them still are ugly (who am I to complain? they’re free), there are notable ones which will definitely add the much-needed functionality that we had to do without before. I assume you already have a jailbroken iPhone and have Installer.app installed.

weTool

Pretty much every one I show my iPhone to ended up being wowed by it. Until I tell them that it cannot forward SMS and for most it definitely is a deal-breaker. Luckily, weTool now lets you forward messages to any of your contacts. If that’s not enough, you can also use it to send texts to multiple recipients and copy messages to the Notes application. Call logs can also be manage allowing you to delete individual entries for whatever reason (I can only think of bad ones).

weTool is not yet available via Community Sources so you need to add: http://app.weiphone.com/installer/ in your source list.

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It was a pretty normal Thursday morning. I got up, had breakfast, went through a little chaotic morning commute and when I arrived at the office, I was getting ready to count the hours before 5:30 pm. About half an hour before lunch, my phone rang, I answered and it was Jesus calling telling me the package containing my iPhone is ready for pickup. OK, it was really some guy from Johnny Air Cargo but for me he is the savior and the bearer of good news. I broke the silence of our extremely quiet office by exclaiming a really loud ‘YES!’

I can’t seem to remember the events that happened after that. Next thing I know, it’s seven o’clock at night and I was sitting at my desk, preparing to do one of the rituals of Apple fanboyism–unboxing an Apple product. I did not get the fancy black iPhone box since mine was a refurbished unit (I use the $50 I saved for shipping!) but a rather plain and simple sealed white box.

Package contents are the same and looks very pristine. All accessories look like they weren’t touched by human hands and the phone itself is shiny and flawless. It makes you wonder what form of magic Apple uses in their refurbishing process.

I am sure you have read a review somewhere before, seeing this is a 3-month old product so I’m not going to review it. But let me talk a bit about the unlocking process. Unlocking this thing is not hard at all though I can see how average folks would cringe reading about it. I followed every step on Hack the iPhone I am used to tinkering stuff so I was pretty confident. However, I did feel like iTunes is a ticking timebomb as I was dreading that Apple would push the new firmware 1.1.1 out anytime so there is no room for errors while my firmware is still 1.02 (it went out after I unlock my phone so I consider myself really lucky). After going through it all, I let out a cry of joy as I see the signal bar comes to life with SMART (my carrier) right beside it.

Everything, save for visual voicemail works perfect: calls, SMS, YouTube, WiFi, EDGE, etc. And I was pretty surprised that Smart’s EDGE is actually not bad. I love every part of it and I am willing to forego with the stuff that it doesn’t have. I ditched a 3G phone for this and I absolutely have no regrets. The intelligent keyboard is pretty amazing. I followed iPhone guy’s advice to trust it and next thing I know, I am typing with 2 fingers faster than I have ever done with a numeric keypad. I did compromise typing in Tagalog and TXTspeak though as obviously it only knows English words. Now my friends probably think I am a pretentious English-speaking bastard.

I am using an iPhone, I still cannot believe this. I am hearing loud gasps everytime I took it out in public and that is something I should probably get used to.

As you have probably heard by now, all iPods have been refreshed. Shuffle, nano, classic and the all-new touch, pretty much covering all bases. And yes, the iPhone is still there with a $200 price drop. For $399 it’s a friggin’ awesome deal. I want to take a moment of silence for the early adaptors who got screwed…moment’s over.

The timing of this announcement is perfect for me since my 5th-generation iPod is almost a couple of years old already and replacing it by this time sounds just about right. I still want the iPhone. I know, not officially released in Manila blah blah blah but the software unlock hack, despite the delays, is inevitable and I can finally buy and use one here.

Oh…how I wish I don’t give a damn about these things and just be contented on what I have now.

It seems just like yesterday that I switched to Mac having been a Microsoft fanboy ever since I’ve known and use computers. I wanted to write about how me and my iBook has been through together but that’s just a tad too weird. My iBook is clearly begging for a replacement, the hinge which is supporting the top cover is cracked and looks like that it might fall off anytime now. The once-shiny white exterior is now yellowish and the palmrest and trackpad area have signs of coffee stains and ketchup.

I’m holding off getting a new laptop as I want mine to come with Leopard. June was a likely date but that changed as Leopard’s release has been pushed back to October and I just can’t wait that long anymore. Buying something that you know will be heavily used for a couple of years is harder than I thought, specially with prices so close together and your budget is extremely limited.

The Apple Store’s special deals section is a haven for good deals. $799 for the base core duo MacBook with the same warranty as a brand new one is really cheap. I was almost certain I will buy that one but decided against it as I remember the problems most people had with the first generation MacBooks. There’s also the base Core 2 Duo Macbook from Amazon.com for just $1024 after rebate but the mid-range model is also tempting and $200 is a small price to add for extra memory and double-layer Superdrive. And then there’s the black one, which is sleek-looking and will be easier to maintain as dirt and stains will be less noticeable in black.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been thinking about this stupid thing way too much. Actually, that’s all I think about this past 2 weeks. Heck, I even created an Excel worksheet to weigh the pros and cons of buying a certain model. Oh well, My Amazon Prime membership expires in 2 days so I have to make a decision by then to take advantage of the free 2-day shipping.

That didn’t take long. As hordes of holiday shoppers bought their tiny little silver iPod Shuffles Apple gave them a big “Hah!” and release a new version with bunch of different colors just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s cheap for a bunch of people in the first world and will probably buy that as a second, third or whatever number easily but for poor freaks like us, one iPod or (insert name crappy CD-R King MP3 player here) is enough.

Excuse me while I take my big, clunky, not-green-but-white iPod running.