Though we can't definitively say this will end up being the priciest iPhone 3G this side of eBay, there's a good chance it will be. Word has it that Vodafone will be offering up Apple's latest 8GB handset for a mind-boggling Rs 31,000 ($712), or Rs 36,100 ($830) for the 16 gigger. Why so serious high? Because neither Vodafone nor Airtel will subsidize the phone, and to add insult to injury, there's not even a 3G highway up and running in India. Grey market operators to capitalize in T-minus 3, 2, 1...

[Via Cellpassion]

Billed as a "compliment" to the existing PwnageTool, iphone-dev has released a working beta of what it calls QuickPwn, a utility that uses a crafty new jailbreaking method to forgo the installation of a fresh IPSW. In layman's terms, that means you can have a fully jailbroken phone running 2.0.1 (and soon 2.0.2, we'd imagine) without the mild discomfort of having to restore your precious sidearm from scratch. The tool's still being developed and is currently only available on Windows, though the team is quick to point out that because QuickPwn operates only on the iPhone's app processor, any screw-ups should be totally undoable. Be that as it may, you know the drill: keep your gloves up, protect yourselves at all times, and let's have a clean fight.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Hopes were high that 2.0.2 would decisively crush the reception woes some iPhone 3G owners have experienced since taking delivery of their cracking beauties; dropped calls, latching onto EDGE reception when 3G (also known as "the good stuff") is available, and general signal strength wonkiness have all plagued a select group of handsets since launch, making for a decidedly MobileMe-like user experience. Some upgraders are actually reporting just the opposite, though -- for these lucky few, 2.0.2 seems to be making reception somehow worse than it already was, and what's more, there are intermittent reports cropping up of broken third-party apps, too. With the 1.x line of builds having chugged along with relatively little drama for a year, here's our question: what the hell is going on? Why does 2.0, after two post-launch builds, still feel like a beta? MobileMe took the lion's share of the fall for Apple having spread itself too thin through the launch-heavy summer months, but did some of that fire-drill mentality trickle over to the breadwinner, too? Sound off in comments with your experiences putting 2.0.2 through its paces so far!

[Via Mobility Site]

Update: Apparently Steve Jobs, who should have his face buried in a developer workstation somewhere in Cupertino slaving away on iPhone bug fixes, somehow found the time to slack off for half an hour and fire off an email to some guy who wrote him complaining about third-party apps that are crashing on startup. Jobs allegedly says that the issue is a "known iPhone bug" and that it'll be fixed in the next update come September -- but frankly, we wish he'd let his assistants attend to this sort of needless communication so he could get back to, you know, writing code and inventing phones. Thanks, Alexander!

It has taken its sweet, sweet time in arriving, but it seems the iPhone Nike+ running application is just... about... here. A slew of new screenshots of the application have emerged, and while there are no juicy tidbits to accompany 'em (release date, cost, etc.), we all know how many lines of text a single snapshot is worth. Hang tight runners, the app you've been waiting (and waiting) for can't be far from the finish line now.

[Via MacRumors]

Well okay, we don't know if it's angry or not, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the 2.0.2 update of Apple's phone OS is out there for your downloading pleasure (via iTunes, specifically). So far, all we know is that this iteration tackles those pesky "bugs," but what those exact bugs are, we couldn't say... nor could Apple. We're grabbing now and will update with any exciting developments.

Update: Well we've got the new firmware up and running, and it's true -- those bugs have been fixed. Which bugs? Well, it's still hard to say, but our voice suddenly sounds deeper, and we've noticed improved grammar during calls.

Well whaddya know? The iTreo 800p is finally selling on eBay! We thought the day would never come that we could actually get our hands on this totally sweet -- and absolutely real -- phone. Man were we wrong. Sure, the listing says you're selling off a Treo 800W, but given the large amount of completely reassuring blue text, scrolling text, and large font text, we'll happily accept that we will, in fact, receive the device pictured above via UPS Next Day Air. So, yes. Yes. We will "buy it now" for $349.99, safe in the knowledge that by this time tomorrow, we'll be the only guy on our block busting out the iTreo 800p at parties, pool halls, and any place else where all the happenin' stuff happens. Thanks "naseemajid" -- you're A+++++ in our book.

Update: It appears the eBay auction has been pulled. We can't imagine why.

[Thanks, Spencer]

Of course, it all seems so obvious now! How did we not interpret El Jobso's true meaning of the iPhone kill-switch -- it actually kills you. We have noted iPhone expert Stephen Colbert to thank not just for this brilliant deduction, but also for sticking up for the lot of us and giving the iPhone 3G a cold staredown -- but not before declaring, "I knew I should have gotten a Zune! They can't kill me... or do anything else." Zing! Clip after the break (iPhone at 5:45).

[Thanks, Matt]

Support forum threads on Apple's site and a number of ramblings across these great interwebs are starting to complain at great length about the iPhone 3G's headlining new feature -- 3G reception, that is -- and pretty much every aspect of it: signal strength, call dropping, connecting to EDGE when 3G is present, the list goes on. Some smartypants analyst from financial firm Nomura thinks he has it all figured out, saying that the issues are "typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack" and suggesting that a firmware update pushed out to existing handsets is unlikely to ease the pain. We've been hearing that Cupertino could actually be working on just such an update at this very second, though, so this cat better get ready for the possibility that he could be eating his own words down the road. For what it's worth, intermittent issues have been reported the world over, so this doesn't seem to be anything to do with AT&T's (or anyone else's) infrastructure -- and needless to say, not everyone is having issues to start. And for anyone whose iPhone 3G we just jinxed by writing this post... well, our bad.

If you're fortunate enough to have access to a Premier (business, that is) account with AT&T, you're now able to forgo the charade of meandering down to your local store to buy -- or place an order for, more likely -- the iPhone 3G. All three varieties of the best cellphone Apple makes are now available directly through the carrier's B2B online store for the usual $199 / $299 pricing scale; if we had to guess, it's just a matter of time before they'll throw the doors open to the riff raff (read: us), too. We'll drink to that.

[Thanks, Vasudev R.]

Update: We touched base with AT&T, and it looks like the real news here is that Premier account holders who pay their own bills now have access to the iPhone 3G online, whereas before, only those whose bills were covered by their companies had access. The more, the merrier!

Softbank can safely say it has a pretty decent quarter here recently, but compared to NTT DoCoMo, it's looking weak. The exclusive iPhone 3G carrier in Japan has decided to answer outcries of "too expensive!" by lowering the minimum monthly data charge that each iPhone 3G user must pay. Previously, users were forced to hand over ¥5,985 ($55) per month for unlimited data; now, users can pay just ¥1,695 ($16) per month to cover 20,175 packets of data "after which users will pay per-packet until 71,250 packets, at which time the previous ¥5,985 charge is reached and further data use is not charged." In semi-related news, the carrier has also announced that it will begin taking reservations for the handset, so yeah, there's that.

And now for the irony: it'll be no better a buy than what you can find at ye olde Apple or AT&T store. Best Buy officially becomes the first third-party retailer in the US to sell the iPhone in an official capacity -- 3G or otherwise -- when it launches the iPhone 3G in some 970 stores plus an additional 18 dedicated Mobile locations on September 7 for the same $199 and $299 price points found elsewhere. Quoth Best Buy Mobile's CEO, "We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple and AT&T would feel good about Best Buy Mobile carrying it, and that's what we've done in the last 18 months." In other words, this has been a pretty persistent effort to score the third-party exclusive essentially since the original model was announced, and it's just now paying off. There's no indication on how the addition of Best Buy to the US sales mix will affect production or distribution, but at least there'll be one more place to try to find some frickin' stock.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Steve Jobs, presumably speaking from a hyperbaric chamber where he's being nourished with an infusion of liquefied developers-souls before his next public appearance, had a few interesting tidbits about the AppStore for the Wall Street Journal this morning. Namely, users have downloaded some 60 million programs for the iPhone representing sales of about $30 million since the launch last month -- a 30/70 revenue split between Apple and developers, respectively. "The thing's going to crest a half billion soon," Jobs added, "I've never seen anything like this in my career for software." He went on to say that phone differentiation is no longer about radios and antennas (or uh, battery life) but about software. Steve also confirmed the controversial iPhone application kill switch in the event that Apple inadvertently approves a malicious program for distribution. Jobs said, "hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull." As to the $999.99 I Am Rich application, the dubious download that displayed nothing but a glowing red gem, pulling that from the store was a "judgment" call. Sure, but that doesn't explain how it made it through the vetting process to begin with.

Not to say we really doubted it before, but what little uncertainty we had as to the validity of claims that white iPhone 3Gs were cracking has now vanished, seeing how it just happened to us. This darned thing has been handled with kid gloves, hasn't gone through any temperature extremes, and has just generally lived the kind of luxurious, pampered life your average workhorse smartphone can only dream of, so we've got to chalk it up to poor design, poor materials, poor manufacturing, or a combination of the three. So, readers -- check the backs of your iPhone 3Gs recently?

Perhaps the only part of iPhone 3G ownership more maddening than the non-removable battery is the fact that there's no hope of an internal extended pack ever materializing (at least, nothing even remotely official). That's where accessory maker mophie comes into play, announcing a new version of its Juice Pack that slides on back and alleges an additional 6 hours of data usage attached to a 3G network. It features an on-board charge indicator in the form of four LEDs and can pass a USB connection through to the iPhone 3G within, simultaneously charging both the Juice Pack and the handset. Like the headphone jack extenders for the first-gen phones, this product seems like a necessary evil (albeit a well-designed one) for a good number of owners -- particularly considering how difficult it can be to get through an average day without the 3G model passing out from malnutrition. It'll be available this fall for a hundred bucks.