So I’m here at the mall in Tampa, Fl. about to activate the old Neocell 2G (soon to be the new Foxxycell) for my girl at AT&T. We gotta’ then head home to see if it can be activated and, hopefully, jailbroken. I’ll keep ya updated.

Peace, J

So here’s the deal… since the Neocell isn’t jailbreaking for some reason, I have the option of either selling her for a pretty penny in order to pay for the cost of a new 3GS through AT&T (either paying $200 or $300), or give it to my girl like I’ve been planning and having her use the “old” Neocell and I’d have a new one (a 3GS). But ****’s changed recently with AT&T.

Here’s the first new thing… you don’t have to sign a new contract (my girl’s standpoint) if you want to take an existing phone over to AT&T and sign up for new service. That’s pretty cool. But, AT&T only does “cool new things” to mask some “bad new thing”. So here’s the bad new thing… they force ALL smartphone customers to pay for a data plan for their phone. That means my girl would have to pay for wireless data, something I’m not sure she’d use enough to justify the price.

Another new thing, to me at least, is that they’ve dropped the price of data for 2G iPhones, paying only $20 for unlimited internet compared to $30 (considering your getting only half the speed, it makes since). So that’s a cool new thing, but what did I say? AT&T only does “cool new things” to mask “bad new things”, so the bad new thing is they also force you to pay for a text messaging plan, whether you want it or not. The minimum is $5. So, in actuality, they’re forcing all 2G iPhone customers not in a contract to pay $25 a month for internet and a few text messages. That’s bull ****. So what this means for my girl is… I’m not sure if she’d be willing to pay all that extra money to switch to AT&T to use the Neocell.

And here’s the other new thing… as I’ve mentioned before, new shipments of iPhone 3GS’s now are unjailbreakable. This is the part that effects me. What I’m trying desperately to do is find out if I can get my hands on a 16 or 32GB 3GS that doesn’t contain the new baseband. If I can, I’ll be a happy camper. If I can’t, I’ll be ******.

I’m not sure if this info is right, but apparently new shipments of 3GS’s have 3.1.2 already installed (this is after talking to an AT&T corp. sales rep.). This may mean that any new 3GS’s that come from a store that only contain OS 3.0… will not have the patched (unjailbreakable) baseband. In other words, if I get my hands on a new 3GS from an AT&T store that doesn’t have OS 3.0, then it can be jailbroken.

So that’s what I’m still trying to figure out and research… I’ll keep ya updated on what I find.

Peace, J

There’s a difference between iPhone 2G’s and 3G/3GS’s with the speaker… The 2G, like the Neocell, has plastic with little holes for the speaker. The 3G and 3GS has a grill mesh over the speaker and is recessed. There’s a reason they changed up the design of the speaker.

2G iPhones have the speaker “ports” on the outside of the body, and you have to rub that against your palm when you use it (“That’s what she said.”). Sweat, dirt, grim and even dead skin cells will eventually get all up in that ***** and’ll clog your holes (“That’s what she said.”). Even if your hands are clean, it’ll eventually happen (mainly when using it in landscape mode).

What happens is this gunk muffles your sound up. It ******’ sucks. I had it so bad once the sound was as bad as if I had my finger blocking the speaker. When you look at your speaker, it can look like it’s clear and nothin’s blocking it, even if the ports are clogged (“That’s what she said.”). This will also happen to your mic ports. You gotta’ clean’em, and, depending on how often you use your 2G, it could be a monthly thing.

So, how do ya clean your speaker ports? It’s ‘freakin’ easy. Just take a needle or a thumb tack or something thin like that and push it a tiny bit into each holes and work it around gently (“That’s what she said”) until all the crud it out.

And there ya go… enjoy brand new soundin’ sound once again.

Peace, J