Former Apple product manager, Bob Brochers, recently gave a lecture to students where he spoke about how the original iPhone was realized by a small team of engineers put together by the late Steve Jobs. MacNN went over some of the talking points:

"What's interesting is that the challenge Steve laid out for us when we created the iPhone wasn't to make a touch-screen device that would play apps and do all of this stuff," Borchers told students. "His [charge] was simple. He wanted to create the first phone that people would fall in love with. That's what he told us." [...] "Now if you're an engineer, like I am by training, you're like 'what the heck does that mean?'," he said. "But he was right. The idea was, he wanted to create something that was so instrumental and integrated in peoples' lives that you'd rather leave your wallet at home than your iPhone."

Brochers went on to talk about how Apple's idea of success with the iPhone was initially rooted in a small handful of tightly focused concepts, breaking the rules of the game while paying attention to detail and helping people "think differently" about the way they associate with their smartphones. It wasn't about wiz-bang capabilities of the device like GPS or ground-breaking apps from the App Store, but instead simplicity in design and overall usability and user-experience.

But the hardware and software combination wasn't the only thing they changed about the business. Brochers described how Jobs and his team wanted to setup a different relationship with their customers -- a direct relationship -- instead of allowing the carrier to control the rules.

"[We said] 'no, we don't want to do that,'" Borchers said. "We want to be able to sell the iPhone. We want to be able to talk directly to the customer. That was a big, big change for the industry.”

Another interesting aspect of the discussion was the oft-heard story about Apple making the switch from a plastic touchscreen to a glass display after Jobs confronted the team with his own iPhone screen, scratched by the keys in his pocket. They called up Corning and convinced them to jump back into their abandoned Gorilla Glass efforts shortly before the iPhone was announced -- a great pivot at the last minute. (Interestingly, while Gorilla Glass is a feature now touted by many rival manufacturers and devices, neither Apple nor Corning to this day will confirm its use on the iPhone.)

The discussion was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, however it has since been removed. Overall, it's a great look into how Apple brought the iPhone to the world and ended up changing the way we think about our smartphones.

Source: MacNN

A hack called Whited00r allows iOS 5 features to be installed on the original iPhone and iPhone 3G devices, as well as the early iPod touch models.

Whited00r will automatically jailbreak your device, and the latest version of Cydia, 1.1.3, will be installed on it. The biggest advantage of the tool, is that you will get true multitasking, and apps will keep in running state in the background.

It's as simple as running a manual IPSW install via iTunes before Whited00r takes over and installs a custom iOS firmware package. Apparently you'll be running a heavily modified iOS 3.1.3 IPSW, which is required on older iOS devices. As such, this version of iOS comes with a custom iCloud setup, and also doesn't include the new Notification Center included in iOS 5.

Source: Whited00r via AddictiveTips

Still have a working original iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G (or an iPod touch 1 or 2) and wondering how to get iOS4 features like Multitasking, Folders or Tethering? If you're willing to Jailbreak with WhiteD00r, you can enable most of these new features with a simple install. We'll show you how after the break!

Steps

1. Head over to whited00r.com and select your device from the “firmware download” page.

2. Extract the .zip file (make sure that your unarchiver/unzip utility doesn’t extract the contents of the .ipsw as well!)

3. Plug your iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, or iPod touch 1 or 2 into iTunes

4. Once detected, hold down the ALT (Mac OS X) or SHIFT (Windows) key, and then browse to unzipped .ipsw on your computer.

5. Be patient! It can take between 10 and 15 minutes for your iPhone or iPod to to activate.

6. That's it! You'll now be able to enjoy such features as Multitasking, Folders, custom wallpapers and more.

Additionally, your phone is now jailbroken, so you can install the vast library of Jailbreak apps.

Unfortunately, there are some things missing in WhiteD00r, like access to Game Center, the auto naming of Folders, your video camera comes in a separate app, and doesn’t save to the camera roll without some minor post-installation tweaks. However, for a unofficial hack, it works very well.

It certainly gave my old iPhone a new lease of life, and if you have any additional suggestions for getting more out of your old devices, let us know!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

While everyone waits for the big Verizon iPhone announcement tomorrow it's a touch poetic to remember that the original Cingular/AT&T iPhone was announced on January 9, 2007 -- almost four years ago to to the day.

Do you remember what smartphones were like before Steve Jobs took to the Macworld stage and finally revealed Apple's wide screen iPod, internet communicator and revolutionary phone? Can you believe how far they've come since?

Let us know what you remember the most about the original iPhone introduction, what phone you were using at the time, and how in your opinion Apple has changed things (for good or for bad) since?

Video after the break!

When Apple announced Find my iPhone was going free this morning they seemed to restrict it to 2010 hardware: iPhone 4, iPod touch 4, and iPad, but now it looks like there may be a way to get it working on iPhone 3GS and other unsupported devices. In fact, Apple.com tells you how:

Create a free Find My iPhone account on any iPhone 4, iPad, or iPod touch (4th generation) running iOS 4.2. Once you create an account on a qualifying device, use your Apple ID and password to enable Find My iPhone on your other devices running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone is not available in all countries.

UPDATE: Looks like there may be a limit of 3 free accounts per 2010 iOS device.

[Find my iPhone page via @jsnell]

If you are a fan of some of the features the Android OS has to offer and currently have a jailbroken iPhone then you will be very happy to know that Bootlace v2.1 will now allow you to install Android on your device without even hooking up to your computer.

According to Twitter user @cpich3g:

Bootlace 2.1 Released, Installs OpeniBoot from userland! - http://bit.ly/a8ELoV Congrats to @nidawson @bluerisEN @nickpack

If you are unaware of what OpeniBoot or even Bootlace are here is a quick explanation:

Bootlace is an iOS application which allows the installation of iDroid and OpeniBoot as well as configuration of OpeniBoot settings. Also supported is QuickBoot – a way of directly booting into the selected OS without modifying normal OpeniBoot settings.

Bootlace can be found at the following repo in Cydia:

http://repo.neonkoala.co.uk

This version currently supports the iPhone 2G running 3.1.2 or 3.1.3 firmware and the iPhone 3G running 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2 or 4.1 firmwares. If you are currently using backgrounder for multitasking on your 3G or even 2G iPhones then be sure to disable backgrounder to utilize Bootlace as there are known issues between the two applications.

If you utilize this feature and install Android onto your device let us know how it is running and how the entire process went in the comments section below.

[ GeekWord ]

Big week for Apple patent pr0n, as in addition to getting a patent for the original 2007 iPhone 2G design, Steve Jobs, Jonathan Ive, et al are not being granted a patent for the 2008/2009 iPhone 3G/iPhone 3GS design as well. And not content with hardware alone, Apple has filed for patents on almost all their Home Screen and App Store icons (we couldn't find Calendar, which means its either too generic or we just couldn't find it).

So fair warning to all the iClone manufacturers without prior art or $40 billion in the bank -- start visual differentiation plans now.

As to the icons, at almost 1000x1000 pixels and with detail to match, it shows just how obsessive Apple is when it comes to their products and while other OS and devices may use the same app-launcher paradigms, they don't seem to be slaving over every last detail -- in art, consistency, multitouch panel quality, and touch detection software quality -- Apple is putting in. Just amazing. (Except for those diagonal stripes).

Gallery after the break!

[Patently Apple, GoRumors via Engadget]

According to yet another claim of Steve Jobs replying to a customer email, Apple will no longer be offering updates to the original 2007 iPhone 2G, including iPhone OS 4.

The question:

Is Apple supporting/updating the iPhone 2G in the Future?

Cheers Niko

Steve Jobs' answer:

“Sorry, no.

Sent from my iPhone”

Apple's subscription accounting method for iPhone was said to allow for 2 years of free updates, including iPhone 2.0 in 2008 and iPhone 3.0 in 2009. Since that period is now over, we were left to wonder if Apple would charge for iPhone OS 4 (iPhone 4.0) in 2010 like they do for iPod touch updates, or just not provide it at all. If this email exchange is accurate, we have our answer.

What say you?

[Macstories via TechCrunch]

iPhone 3.1 apparently fixes a bug that didn't properly enforce Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 encryption policies, and that looks to be causing problems for users of the iPhone 3G and iPhone 2G (and likely first and second gen iPod touch users as well).

While the iPhone 3GS supports Exchange encryption and is thus unaffected, the previous generation devices reportedly do not, leading to the error shown above.

Outside buying an iPhone 3GS or getting your Exchange Admin to turn off the encryption requirement (good luck with that!) we're not sure if there's a fix for this fix yet.

If you've run into the problem, however, drop us a note in the comments.

[BroadbandReports.com via TUAW]

Apple's Knowledge Base once again steps up in the handy-dandy reference chart department with a feature check-list showing highlighting some major features supported by all iPhone models, by the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S, and by the new iPhone 3G S alone.

There are some caveats, however:

1. Peer-to-peer connectivity requires compatible applications, which can be downloaded from the App Store when available.
2. The original iPhone does not support using Bluetooth for peer-to-peer connectivity. It can use Wi-Fi and cellular data networks for peer-to-peer connectivity.
3. MMS is not available in all areas; fees may apply. See your carrier for availability.
4. Internet tethering is not currently offered in the United States and some other countries. See your carrier for availability.

[via Daring Fireball]

NOTE: iPhone 3G S need not apply!

While I don't have anywhere near the midichlorians Jeremy has for all things Jailbreak, I can tell when the infamous iPhone Dev-Team has their game on:

redsn0w is an easy to use, multi-platform, multi-device jailbreaking and unlocking (iPhone 2G only) tool for the iPhone 2G (original iPhone), the iPhone 3G (but not the 3GS) and also the iPod touch (first and second generation). Currently it is available for Windows and Mac OS X (there are some issues using redsn0w with OS X PPC, please use an Intel Mac until we have this problem resolved).

They point out that that redsn0w provides similar functionality to Quickpwn, and provide more instructions in their full post.

As always, experts only and proceed completely at your own risk. If you don't understand something -- put your iPhone down and back away slowly!

If you need help, check out our iPhone Jailbreak Central forums.

Tomorrow is WWDC 2009. We'll no doubt get a second preview of iPhone 3.0 and hopefully a release date to go along with it -- if not the actual release itself.

We've done our best to cover iPhone 3.0, both through our massive and continuously updated iPhone 3.0 Beta Walkthrough, and our ongoing iPhone 3.0 blog posts. But what will that release -- tomorrow, later this week, or later this "summer" -- mean for current owners of the 2007 original iPhone 2G and the 2008 iPhone 3G, never mind the 2009 iPhone... whatever it ends up being called.

Let's take a look!

2007 iPhone 2G on 3.0

Apple has provided an unprecedented amount of software updates -- free software updates -- for iPhone owners. What originally shipped with OS 1.0 received a series of interim updates until 2008, when they got 2.0, and now 2.2.1.

Even after the 2-year subscription accounting model Apple users is on the verge of expiring, Apple announced back at the iPhone 3.0 Sneak Preview Event that they would also be providing 3.0, free of charge, to iPhone 2G owners. (That expiration date might even play a factor in the 3.0 release date, who knows?)

Controversially citing hardware limitations, however, at least 2 major features won't be made available:

• MMS
• Stereo Bluetooth

Of course, it won't get new features tied to the new hardware. It didn't get GPS and 3G last year, and it won't get the presumed digital compass, storage, RAM, CPU, etc. upgrades this year -- which means video recording is likely off the table as well. Other than that, your 2007 iPhone be made 2009 hardware fresh.

2008 iPhone 3G on 3.0

Apple demonstrated iPhone 3.0 on the current, iPhone 3G, and all the improvements publicly shown so far were shown specifically for the iPhone 3G.

That means, come iPhone 3.0 release day, the very least iPhone 3G owners can expect is what Apple showed -- and what most developers have been using since March.

Of course, developers who dug into the 3.0 code have found extra functionality. Some of it, like the digital compass, would require new hardware. Video recording may or may not require the additional storage, RAM, CPU power, of the new hardware.

Everything else, however, will be made 2009 good for your 2008 iPhone.

2009 iPhone ? on 3.0

Well, that's the question now isn't it? Apple hasn't announced any new iPhone for 2009 yet, but they're widely expected to tomorrow. Based on the code strings referenced about, it will include new hardware features and boosted internals.

So, at the very least, if you decide to upgrade to new hardware along with your new software, you'll get everything the iPhone 3G gets... and probably more.

Conclusion

So, if you're still rocking the iPhone 2G with no interest in upgrading, Apple still has a pretty nice present coming your way with 3.0. Feature-set alone, it will be like getting a whole new phone.

For iPhone 3G owners with not intention of changing, you'll still get everything you've been promised so far. And, yeah, it'll feel like a whole new phone.

And for those of you who simply must have the third generation hardware, either as an upgrade or as a first time iPhone owner, well, we ain't seen nothing yet.

MacNN brings word that Apple, along with other assorted patents for the Mac Pro's riser card housing, OS X's GUI drawer-like windows, and the MacBook Air's multi-touch trackpad, Apple has been awarded a patent for:

the iPhone's casing design, highlighting elements like a divided construction and the ports at the top and bottom. Also visible are assorted speakers, buttons and switches, as well as the rough positioning of the camera. Many individuals are credited for the work, though notable inclusions are Apple's lead designer, Jonathan Ive, and the company's CEO, Steve Jobs.

Looks like the original iPhone 2G aluminum and plastic combo casing to our eyes, so unless the next-generation iPhone comes dressed a lot like the first gen, we'll just chalk this up to better late than un-awarded...

The forum community here at TiPb keeps growing in numbers every day! With more and more great threads getting posted it's been hard to try and keep up. Today on the forums, we have a few more good ones that you should definitely check out!

First thread up was started by Dizzy, Google Sync (Beta). For more information about Google Sync for iPhone be sure to check out Dieter's post from the other day. I'm sure a lot of Gmail users are happy campers at this point.

Next thread comes to us from a new forum member, fallingsenses, he seems to think a lot of people have the iPhone 2G rather then the 3G. What do you usually see? More 3G's than 2G's or vice versa? Be sure to chime in!

This thread is pretty straight forward, Will you renew MobileMe? I know without hesitation I will be giving more money to Apple when the time comes. How about you?

Lastly, I'd like everyone to know about our iPhone Help forum. If you have any questions regarding the iPhone please head into this forum and post your issue or question. There are a so many knowledgeable forum members that are always willing to help you out.

In order to get in on the forum action you must register. It's a quick painless process which can be done at this link right here.

See you on the forums!

The Griffin California Roll for iPhone 2G and 3G is in stock and ready to ship from the iPhone Blog Store for $19.95. Personally, I'm not much for sushi, but this is a California Roll I can sink my teeth into. If you want something to carry your iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and other small accessories and to organize them into one case, Griffin's California Roll could be what you are looking for. Follow me after the break to get to know this case a little better!

Overview and Design

Made of durable high-tech synthetic materials, the Griffin California Roll has a stylish design with built-in elastic band for securing your valuable items. The exterior of the case is glossy with an interesting visual design. It's a bit difficult to describe, but there appears to be a dark green textured material just under the glossy exterior material, making the outside of the case interesting to look at.

Opening the case reveals a tri-fold configuration with a Velcro-secured middle compartment with similar Velcro-secured compartments on either side. The side compartments are constructed with a mesh material so you can get a better idea what's in the pockets without having to remove the item. Each of the compartments are about the same size and the interior of the Roll is a soft suede-like material to gently cushion your valuables and protect from scratches and impacts.

Usability

I was able to fit my iPhone 3G in the left pocket, my big fat iPod 160GB Classic in the middle, and a set of earphones in the right pocket. I then folded up the case and secured it with the built-in elastic band and was ready to roll (no pun intended). The case folds up reasonably well, even with all that stuff packed inside of it. The whole point of this case is that it's soft and flexible, allowing you the most flexibility with different kinds of devices and accessories. The stitching around the case seems top-notch and the elastic band for securing the case is sewn into the case well and stretches just enough to secure the case but is tight enough to stay in place.

Conclusion

The Griffin California Roll case is one of those cases that will meet certain needs. It may not be a case that you use for everyday use, but then again, if you are "gadgety" and carry a phone, iPod, earphones, and other stuff around with you on a regular basis, this is a great case for securing everything in one place and it offers some protection against the cold, cruel world that would be harsh and unkind to your expensive tech gear. I think it makes an excellent travel case, perfect for keeping everything together for use on the airplane, then easily taken with you to your rental car, and finally resting at your side by the swimming pool while you sip a drink.

But why limit yourself to traveling? This is a good case for just carrying all your stuff around with you, secured in one place inside the Roll. As you can see in this picture, I successfully crammed my iPhone 3G, my iPod, and not seen are the earphones stuffed in there as well. Even if you aren't a fan of sushi, for $19.95, you may want to give this California Roll a try.

Pros

• Flexible case to accommodate many types and sizes of devices
• Built-in elastic to secure items
• Three storage compartments

Cons

• A little big to carry around as your regular case

TiPb Rating:

Still got that original iPhone 2G running on AT&T? Get ready to suffer, luddite! Gizmodo reports on OFB's findings:

Timothy Butler over at OFB did some sleuthing and found that AT&T is downgrading its EDGE/2G service to the weaker 1900 MHz band. Their response to those with newly-lousy service? Buy a new phone.

Specifically, the weaker band means less bars in less places, like inside homes and offices and, out of the way regions -- like maybe where you are?

Additionally, this leads TiPb to wonder what will happen to iPhone 3G users in 2G-only areas? Will AT&T leave the 850 band for them until 3G rolls in? And what about users switching to 2G to save battery life? Will it now come at the expense of their signal? How about it, AT&T?

I don't know if you have tried this (I have), but if you attempt to sync your iPhone with any computer other than the one you originally synced with your iPhone, you will receive a warning that your iPhone is "synced with another iTunes library."  Your only choice at this point is to "Cancel" the operation or "Erase and Sync" because your iPhone can only be synced to one iTunes library at a time.  Or CAN it?

Thanks to a set of most excellent instructions from the Shiny Things blog of Andrew Grant located here, you can sync your iPhone with one or more additional computers. Read on to learn more!

As I said before, Andrew Grant has posted excellent instructions to sync your iPhone with computers other than your original. Rather than go into repeating all the details of this method, I will instead provide an overview of the steps that Andrew has put together and refer you to his blog for the detailed, play-by-play so you can do this yourself!

In order to sync to more than one computer, there are some needed modifications to iTunes that will then let you sync different data on your iPhone with more than one computer. For example, you may want to sync contacts and calendar items on your work machine, but sync all your media (songs, podcasts, movies, etc.) on your home computer.

According to Andrew Grant (thanks for your hard work on this, Andrew!), the first thing you want to do is backup "iTunes Music Library.xml" and "iTunes Music Library" (Tunes Music Library.itl on a PC) to a safe location on the computer you want to sync with. You will modify these files so you can safely sync with this computer.

On the computer you currently sync your iPhone with, find your iTunes Library ID. Andrew has posted instructions on how this is done. The idea here is that you want your second machine to have the same iTunes Library ID that the original has so your iPhone won't know the difference. Again, this process is explained in detail by Andrew.

Once you have followed all of Andrew's instructions, you should be able to plug your iPhone into the second machine, select "Manually manage music and videos", you will NOT be prompted to erase any data, and you are ready to roll! Again, special thanks to Andrew Grant for posting this handy tip on his blog. Make sure you go to his blog and follow the steps precisely.

The iPhone is an excellent traveling companion, whether you are still sporting the iPhone 2G or loving you some GPS-equipped iPhone 3G. Google Maps, music, movies, and apps are several of the features that make traveling more sublime, but all this functionality requires a lot of juice, and if you haven't noticed by now, you can't swap your iPhone battery when you've run it dry. What to do? Read on for this week's Tip!

Following are some suggestions for the road warriors and frequent flyers who must conserve power and/or be opportunistic about charging their iPhones!

1. Carry a spare battery. Ha, just kidding. Unlike most other smartphones, the iPhone does not have a user-replaceable battery. Instead, you have to be prepared to charge at anytime, anywhere. Carry your iPhone's power adapter with you (the new ones are quite small, but apparently pose a risk of breaking and electrocuting -- be careful, and trade it in for replacement as soon as you can!). Airports have power outlets scattered throughout and if you have a little spare time before or after your flight, plug in to juice up your iPhone.
2. If you are in a meeting or conference, try to arrive early enough that you can sit near a power outlet, if possible. You can also charge your iPhone via USB connected to your laptop. When you need power, it doesn't hurt to get creative!
3. If you have an iPhone 3G, try disabling 3G under "Settings" to conserve power. The 3G network is faster, but just like a car using more gas the faster you drive, so goes the battery life of your iPhone when on the 3G network. Unless you really, REALLY need speed while surfing the net, drop down to EDGE for a while to save your battery.
4. Dim your screen. The brighter your screen is, the more power you are using. If you can handle a dimmer screen for a while, then save your battery life by adjusting the brightness to a lower setting.
5. For convenience, take along something like the Belkin Mini Surge Protector with USB Charger. Hotel rooms are sorely lacking in available power outlets, so if you have a Belkin Mini Surge Protector with you, you just added THREE power outlets and two USB charging ports to hopefully meet all of your power needs. You can get it here in the iMore Store.

It seems like ages ago that our iPhones were updated to allow moving icons around and, lo and behold, even to a 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.) screen! Back then, it was gratifying to have the capability to do it, but unless you had a ton of web pages bookmarked and web apps galore, there wasn't much need to go beyond screen #2, maybe to screen #3.

Now, everything has changed. With the advent of the iTunes App Store, there are a bazillion apps available for download, many of them FREE! If you are like me, you've already downloaded like crazy and now you're staring at an iPhone with apps occupying six screens of real estate and threatening a seventh. Feeling more and more like a hoarder every day, I need to get organized! How so on the iPhone? Read on for this week's Tip!

The iPhone isn't your grandpappy's phone. Nosiree! There are no "categories" to sort your apps into. One thing I miss when I'm using my iPhone is the feature found on a basic Palm device - categories. Sorting apps is easy if you can put them in their own "bucket". With the iPhone, we're pretty much left to our own devices with respect to organizing our apps. Perhaps this is so because, aside from bookmarked web pages and web apps, 3rd party apps were not considered at first.

Now, we have to make some choices with respect to organizing the growing number of apps on our iPhones. I've decided to include a couple of the more obvious methods, and then I'm throwing this problem out to everyone else - "everyone else" is YOU, faithful reader. Leave your comments and/or get cracking in the forums if you haven't done so already!

Here are some sorting methods in my order of preference:

1. Popularity - place the apps you use the most on the first couple screens. Don't be afraid to move some of the default Apple apps off the front page, especially the ones you seldom use. You'll create more instant access to your prime-time apps!
2. Categories - although there is no way to designate categories on the iPhone, you can sort them in categories of your own by memory. For example, your first screen could be your most accessed apps, your "home" screen. The next screen could be apps that you classify as "utilities", then "media", "web apps", "games", and so on. If one category is far and away larger than the rest, put it at the end so you have room to add more!
3. Alphabetical - simply A to Z; could be challenging for some, but ask a friend for help if you get stuck.
4. Chaos Theory - just don't worry about it and let them all fall where they may. The nice thing about the iPhone is the ease of flipping to the next screen. All the apps are large icons for easy finding. No worries.
5. WARNING: this method is NOT tested by TiPb and you're on your own with this one. Peter Ha over at CrunchGear has posted a method for moving apps to a mysterious and invisible 10th screen. Apparently, you can push apps into the iPhone Ether (a virtual storage area when the number of apps on your iPhone exceed 148. Wow.)

This week's Tip brought to you with thanks to clayrussell over on Twitter. 

On the eve of the much-anticipated iPhone update 2.1, this Tip is timely and will hopefully help you avoid much pain and suffering. As I said before, my iPhone sync times are somewhat horrendous. Although you can manually cancel a backup, my iPhone always defaults to performing an automatic backup before syncing my data, and the backup time is long.

Most of my syncing is uneventful, but sometimes a call comes through in the middle of a sync and effectively torpedoes the process. I could eat breakfast during my first sync attempt and, if interrupted by a call, I could have lunch over my second sync attempt (I kid, I kid!). Seriously, though, the last thing you want is a phone call during your sync. To avoid this problem, there is a very simple solution.

1. Tap "Settings" on your iPhone
2. Slide "Airplane Mode" to "On"
3. Sync as normal
4. Enjoy!

We've covered the "what to do with your old iPhone" question before in a previous Tip. Although you could feasibly use your old iPhone as an iPod Touch, backup phone, paperweight, doorstop, etc., money can have a strange way of changing attitudes and behaviors. If you have a strong sentimental attachment to your old trusty 2G iPhone and want to keep it that way, stop reading now and continue your 2G love-fest. If you think you can handle an extra $500 or $600 bones in your purse or wallet, then this Tip is for you.

The venerable Erica Sadun over at tuaw.com posted about this very subject about the steady rise of first-gen iPhone prices. She wrote the following:

From easy-unlocking to contract-free usage to eco-consumerism, consumers are looking for those original units and paying premium prices to get them. A majority of phones are heading outside the US for resale while growing demand at home keeps resale prices high.

It's just the good old-fashioned basic economics of supply and demand. New iPhones require a contract with AT&T and, unlike the first-gen iPhone, they can't be bought off the shelf for later activation. The 2G iPhone can be bought, unlocked, and used contract-free. Just a quick browse on eBay and you will find that 2G iPhones are selling for about $500 for the 8GB model and $600 for the 16GB model, respectively. Obviously, the better the condition, the more likely you'll fetch a higher price.

As I write this, I'm staring into my open nightstand drawer at my 2G iPhone. Do I see an older, unused iPhone or do I see a stack of Benjamin's? Needless to say, it's very tempting right now to take advantage of the current market conditions where you can get top-dollar for your used iPhone. What are you waiting for? If you won't sell, then what are you doing with your old iPhone?

Disclaimer:  Tip o' the Week makes no guarantee, express or implied, that any tip found herein will be new or particularly useful to the reader (and make sure you let eBay know where you got this Tip -- I want a piece of the action!). 

We know Apple VP of Design, Jonathan Ive loves him some Braun, but who knew he also drew inspiration from Ford? Harrison Ford, that is. Norwegian site Design4Dough spotted the 1982-era Blade Runner iPhone, wall-mount edition:

The likeness is exceptional. The metallic outline, the pictogram-matrix-touchscreen, the black chassie and the designated home-button area at the bottom.

Next up: Take our chrome, it's too bland; modify our Apple brand. We don't care, it's shiny; Russian mod for iPhone 2G! (With apologies to Joss Whedon and our readers!) Says iPhone Alley:

The device was the handywork of the people at GPDA.ru. The mod involves simply removing the chrome logo and replacing it with a glowy one. This video was created of one of a modded device in action.

(Thanks to "replicant browncoat" for the tips!)