Speaking of a close environment... There is an interesting article on GigaOM today which suggests that Apple might be about to cut out the carriers.
Apparently Apple is working with SIM manufacturer Gemalto to create a unique SIM card that would be integrated inside the phone and that would allow people to buy the iPhone directly from Apple and choose a carrier via the App Store...
If for one reason or another you want to copy your iPhone contacts from your phone to your SIM card, you're pretty much screwed because Apple doesn't let you do that easily.
When there's a will, there's a jailbreak app! It's called SIManager and it will help you move your contacts from iPhone to SIM.
SIManager is available on Cydia for free from the iSpazio repo. Simply download the app and launch it to get started...
This is definitely going to make uncle Steve angry. TUAW reports that China Unicom is offering to jailbreak their customers iPhones directly from the very store they sell the devices from.
Apparently the staff will gladly hack the apparent iPhone 3GS devices (the iPhone 4 hasn't been released yet), or cut the SIM card down to fit the micro size on those who have opted to buy an iPhone 4 through alternative outlets. Some stores are even going as far as saying that they will show users how to download 3rd party applications. Wow.
More and more is being revealed regarding a story we brought you last week concerning Apple's new purchase of Liquidmetal Technologies. Ars Technica reports that the futuristic sounding material isn't so bizarre after all. Remember those hand SIM ejector tools that came with the iPhone 3G? You guessed it, those were composed of the very morphing material that they recently acquired. We should have known that Apple wouldn't have spent a bunch of cash on an item they hadn't tried out.
The co-inventor of Liquidmetal's materials, Atakan Peker, had no doubts about the tool's composition when he unveiled his very own iPhone 3G. Peker said "I recognized it immediately" and "Take it from an expert, that's Liquidmetal". The mind behind the mastery predicts Apple could use the alloy to design a new and improved antenna than the current iPhone 4 sports. The light and rigid material could also be used to make some very creative cases he says, however I don't see Apple going that route.
I'm just glad that the facts behind Liquidmetal's abilities are having some light shed on them. Why you ask? I saw today that the company's stock is trading just under $1 which makes it a potentially lucrative investment. Perhaps there are many exciting plans for the new material and perhaps not. I see the alloy having a behind-the-scenes type use, based on the initial use in the SIM ejector. So now that you have seen it in action, where do you suppose we'll see it next?