It is not taking long for reviewers to pick apart the Droid and they only have themselves to blame. Starting a campaign by stating that this phone is everything that the iPhone is not sets a pretty high bar.

They set themselves up for failure in that everyone was expecting some super phone and what they are really getting is an iPhone copycat with not as many applications.

As has been stated before, there are features on the Droid that are very good and some of them may even be better than the iPhone, but it is simply not enough to warrant changing providers or doubling your cell phone bill. Most people that already have an iPhone are looking at a monthly service bill of at least $150 a month and some are up around the $200 level. That would be an extra $1,800-$2,400 a year to have both phones and it is simply not worth it.

This is

just one man’s opinion, but before the Droid took on a giant like the iPhone, they should have had a deeper library of apps to stand behind. While the iPhone had a similar amount when it was first launched, it was a one-of-a-kind and was only competing with the Blackberry as a smart phone. This is the one point that is hammered home time and time again by people that are trying out the Droid. Why change phones to a product that only offers 10% of the apps that the Apple iPhone does?

Droid may one day be a true threat to the success of the iPhone, but that time is not now. If anything, they are further convincing Verizon customers to switch over to AT&T to have a phone that can do anything from translate a baby’s crying picking a good spot to put in a wind turbine as an alternative energy source. Right now, the Droid is simply out of its league.

It was only a matter of time before someone else jumped into the ring to face off against the iPhone. Up until now, Blackberry and the iPhone have been getting along fairly well in the battle for phone supremacy. Both cater to different markets and seem to be quite happy with where they are in the cell phone niche. It is almost as though there is an unwritten law between these two not to cross the imaginary line.

That is now changing as Verizon has gone directly after the iPhone with its “Terminator” style advertising. The new Droid phone is set to hit the market later this month and it will be interesting to see if it lives up to the claims that it makes. Nobody ever said the iPhone was perfect, but it is pretty close. There is no other phone that has the amount of applications, nor the flexibility that the iPhone boasts. Now the Droid shows up and lays down a full-fledged challenge.

The funny thing is that both phones are basically sitting with the same engines inside. That being the case, the outside shell may look different, but what makes both of these phones tick inside is very similar. Motorola is launching a battle against a like minded tank and this will probably spell disaster for them. iPhone has already proven how flexible it can be and when they don’t have an application for it, they simply make a new one up to satisfy their customer’s needs.

For use of a better quote, “all we did here was wake up a sleeping lion.” Motorola has managed to pretty much stay out of the fire lanes when it comes to the iPhone and Blackberry battle, but this move will significantly change things. For every new application that they have come up with, you can expect that the iPhone team is already burning the midnight oil in order to get their new applications up and running.

When this happens, Blackberry will get a small break because the new target in iPhone’s sites is going to be Motorola. If you thought the presidential election was bad, you have not even started to see mudslinging. Expect iPhone to go for the throat on this one. While they are in competition with Blackberry, they are in essence two separate markets. Motorola is going after their direct market and that will simply not fly.

A member of MacRumors forum has reported buying and unboxing the TomTom GPS Car Kit for the iPhone, and MacRumors was nice enough to post about the experience. The kit has been delayed a few weeks, but is now being shipped to stores apparently.

More about the insert details here:
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Also found within the car kit packaging was a paper insert describing a forthcoming free TomTom iPhone application that will allow users to administer some of the technical functions of the car kit without the need for the TomTom navigation iPhone application, which is sold separately. It is possible that this free application will enable the use of third-party GPS applications with the kit, allowing them to take advantage of the kit’s built-in GPS receiver and other features.
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This isn’t a shock, given we reported on this particular issue a few weeks ago.

CNN launched their CNN Mobile iPhone app today, and it will bring full print and video news reports, and even allow users to record their own news/eyewitness accounts of stories and submit it, if need be.

More from the app description:

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“Maximizing the revolutionary features of iPhone OS 3.1, the new CNN App showcases news of the day through text, video and photos. It also features live breaking news video, push notification, localization and personalization tools, user-generated content capture and upload functionality through iReport, and more.

“The CNN App has what we think

is one of the best user experiences around, and will quickly become an essential daily news source for many iPhone and iPod touch users,”said Louis Gump, vice president of CNN Mobile. “We tailored the best of CNN specifically for them, whether they check in from the beach, the airport or the ballpark.”

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You can even personalize the news to bring local events and new reports, weather, and videos of local interest to your iPhone. It all sounds pretty solid to us.

The app sells for $1.99 in the App Store right now.

George Hotz, the first to develop an unlock for the iPhone 3GS has released an updated unlock for the device.

However, there are some caveats such as the lack of support for “hacktivation” and some minor improvements are coming soon to the App. Your iPhone 3GS must be already Jailbroken using either QuickPwn, Redsn0w or Purplera1n.

It seems there may be a line being drawn between the Dev Team and Geohot when it comes to working together to bring what is best for the end user as a whole. While some may argue that them working together is for the best, I would argue that competition between the two may end up bringing the end user slightly better tools.

Of course, my opinion is just that — my opinion. However with that, Geohot has recently released his own solution for unlocking the iPhone 3GS which has been dubbed purplesn0w. And yes that means we have yet another strange name to remember when it comes to iPhone hacking tools.

Anyway, purplesn0w is the “geohot 3GS unlock solution” and is noted as being able to help prevent you from worrying about “Wifi fails? Battery fails? Unlock fails?” after you unlock.
Basically, what purplesn0w will do is unlock your iPhone 3GS after you have already jailbroken it using purplera1n. According to Geohot, purplesn0w is;
“A soft unlock for your 3GS that I’d actually use day to day. It’s not a daemon that takes any resources, and it doesn’t add a task to your baseband. It’s very close to a true unlock. All it does is patch three files, CommCenter, lockdownd, and your wildcard activation plist(which you need, activate w at&t sim first, no hacktivation support yet). That’s it, no other files are installed.”

As always it is suggested that you back up your iPhone before beginning, but otherwise here are the steps you need to follow in order to use purplesn0w. Keep in mind, this is also assuming that your iPhone 3GS is already jailbroken.

Be sure to have legit activated 3GS
Disable 3G if you don’t have it(like T-Mobile).
Add apt.geohot.com to Cydia
Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
Watch for success output in Cydia
Reboot, and enjoy your unlocked iPhone