The Hong Kong government is again making urban planning decision with the excuse of improving the lives of the citizens, when in fact they are probably making their planning decisions base on revenue from development projects.
The latest taboo is route 4, which the government wants to build on the Western and South districts of Hong Kong island. The new highway will distroy yet another rare waterfront in Hong Kong.
According to the group, Design Hong Kong, none of the residences in Kennedy Town want this new highway. Building it will destroy the current waterfront, and most of all change the dynamics of Kennedy Town.
What the citizens want, according to Design Hong Kong, is a MTR (subway) extension to their area. Which the government had already agreed. To make it worst the stations for this new MTR extension are going to be on every sections of the proposed route 4. Making it less vital as a mass transport solution for the average citizen of HK; who doesn’t own a car.
The government’s reasons for the highway are the areas’ desparate need for truck transportation to Kennedy Town and Aberdeen, and to reduce the traffic congestions of the Aberdeen tunnel.
Since the Aberdeen tunnel is much more convienent access route from most areas of the North side of HK island. So even after route 4 is built, it is unlikely truckers will use it to get to Aberdeen area.
I don’t understand this HK government. Every time they make a public decision, it is always the least popular among HK citizens.
Does a person check in his common senses when he joins the government?
Many of you know I owned an iPhone (1st generation) since June 2007 and had to unlock and jailbreak it so that I can use it here in Hong Kong.
In the past 12 months I had unlocked/restored my iPhone over 30+ times, and documented much of my experience and findings with fellow readers. Much of these repeated unlocking and restoring was because I was testing various “unauthorized” 3rd party applications (”hacks”) for the iPhone, and some of them were not that stable.
So when Apple released the iPhone firmware 2.0 on July 1, 2008, I was very excited about the functionalities that it will delivers and was eager to find available an unlock & jailbreak method that will allow me to upgrade my iPhone (1st generation) to the new firmware.
The wait was finally over this past Saturday night (July 19 HKT) when the iPhone Dev Team released their “Pwnage Tool 2.0″. Although, I was eager to try it, I did not want to jump too quickly into the process, due to my past experience over the year of the various methods used to unlock/jailbreak the iPhone.
I held myself back for 24 hours to give iPhone web sites: ModMyiFone, Hack the iPhone, MacGeekBlog, etc. time to refine the procedures and all the possible things that may go wrong during the process.
Now I am happy to say that I have now successfully unlocked my iPhone running firmware 2.0. The process went without a hitch.
I did not have to do anything to my already unlocked iPhone running firmware 1.1.4. All I did to prepare myself for the unlocking was the following:
Upgrade my iTunes to 7.7
Download the firmware 2.0 (5A347), placing this firmware (IPSW file) in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates/ folder on your Mac.
Ensure there is an empty ~/Library/iTunes/Device Support/ folder on your Mac.
There was a report last night that the iPhone 3G sold by the carrier, Three, in Hong Kong is unlocked; meaning it is not tied to a specific carrier.
This news was a bit hard to believe as news from other countries like US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, the iPhone 3G sold there are all locked to the respective mobile carriers.
Therefor, if you do not want to stick with Three’s service you now have a choice, but the cheapest choice is:
HKD4680.00 + HKD188 x 24 months + MTR Fee (HKD12 x 24) = HKD9480.00 - HKD1742 = HKD7738 (including the rebate you will receive over 2 years)
Now I have first hand confirmation from a friend who purchased one of these iPhone 3G at Three HK. He was able to put in a PCCW SIM card while having full access to all functionalities of the phone including EDGE and GPRS functions.
Is this really worth it. I say not, especially if you already have an iPhone (1st generation). Wait for the other carriers in Hong Kong; namely PCCW and/or Smartone-Vodafone receive the rights to sell the iPhone 3G.
Apparently the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G will only be available to the selected few, at least in Hong Kong.
Yesterday, O2 began announced that their pre-orders for the iPhone 3G had been filled and ask interested customer to return to their web site on July 10th to find information on new inventory and next availability.
Similar situation in Hong Kong with Apple’s partner carrier, “3″. I have inside sources informs me that their initial inventory of 500 Apple iPhone 3G had already been sold out 2 weeks ago. There was no limits placed on the number of phones each person were allow to purchase. Therefore, some of the selected few were able to purchase a dozen iPhone 3G, while the rest of us, under privileged in the eyes of Li Ka Shing’s mobile carrier “3″, will not be able to get an iPhone 3G on Friday, July 11th, even if I am willing to change carrier and choose one of the high tariff plans offered. Of course, I am not, so I am not too concern.
For the rest who are already a 3 customer or willing to switch carriers, I think this is very unfair and Apple HK should have been managed the situation better. Although, this sort of insiders privilege is a common occurrence in Hong Kong, Apple HK should have imposed a maximum purchase quantity so that as many individuals can share the Apple experience and privilege of owning an iPhone 3G on July 11th.
An hour ago Apple’s co-founder, CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the highly anticipated Apple iPhone 3G during the keynote speech at the WWDC 2008 in San Francisco. It will be available July 11, 2008 in 70 countries around the world.
The announcement had some surprises; confirmation of built-in GPS. All in all were information that many of the rumor sites had already published: 3G radio, longer battery life, multiple colours (Black and White) and lower price. What was missing, that I had hoped for was video conferencing or Mobile iChat. Well there is just over a month before the actual release date, may be there is another higher version at the USD399.00 price point: more storage 32GB and video conferencing to be announced before the date.
Yes, Apple lower the price of the 8GB version to USD199.00 and the 16GB version to USD299.00. Making one to speculate there may be yet another model at the original USD399.00 price. I think I may hold out for that.
The most interesting is that it showed up on Apple HK’s Store, but when I try to follow the “Find a store” link within the page, it gave me a “Page Not Found” error. I guess Apple forgot to put up a “Coming Soon” page for this. As Hutchison Telecom had already announced last week that it signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone 3G through is “3″ mobile brand. I just hope that it is not the only carrier that will carry the iPhone 3G in Hong Kong.
During the keynote, Steve Jobs failed to offer any details of Apple’s business arrangements with these mobile carriers in the 70 countries. It is already know from the various mobile carrier press releases in the past several weeks, there are more than one carrier in a most of these 70 countries that will be selling the iPhone 3G.
The Apple Stock had a roller coaster ride during the 2 hours of the keynote, taking a dive of almost USD4.00 during the 3rd party application demos; which most have seen during the announcement of the iPhone SDK in January, then rising to a high of USD184+ when the 3G iPhone was (”confirmed”) announced by Steve Jobs. It then drop a USD6.00 dollars when everyone realize there’s no “Just One More Thing” announcement.
I think both the market and myself was expecting Steve Jobs (Apple) to detail their future business arrangements with the mobile carriers in these 70 countries. Being a shareholder myself (full disclosure), hopefully Apple will release more details as we get closer to the actual release date of July 11th.
The one other surprise and rumor confirmation was the announcement of MobileMe, which is the next generation of .Mac for Macintosh computers, Windows computers and iPhones. To put it simply, it is a Web 2.0 refresh of (the over due revamp) .Mac service. Although, given its compatibility with iPhones (equipped with 2.0 firmware), I may again have a use for this service. Given I can install version 2.0 of the iPhone firmware on my current hacked iPhone 2G.
[Update: June 10, 2008]
Thank to the reader, AC, I just checked Apple’s “Find a Store” link and it is now pointing to a page where it lists “3″ as the mobile carrier to purchase the iPhone.
It is reported that the first of Hong Kong’s mobile carriers: CSL (with two brands 1010 and One2Free), People (recently purchased by China Telecom), Sunday (recently purchased by PCCW), Smartone-Vodafone (with a partnership involving the mobile giant, Vodafone) and Hutchison Telcom’s Orange and 3. The latter is where Hutchison announced that they will resell the Apple iPhone later this year in Hong Kong and Macau.
Recently Apple shows signs of changing their business model for the iPhone partnerships with carriers. When Apple is predicted to make their announcement of the next generation iPhone, at the keynote speech of the WWDC, there will be multiple carriers selling iPhones for any given country.
With this in mind I am hoping the big brother of Smartone-Vodafone will be reselling the iPhone also.
Many of you know I owned an iPhone (1st generation) since June 2007 and had to unlock and jailbreak it so that I can use it here in Hong Kong.
There was a report last night that the iPhone 3G sold by the carrier, Three, in Hong Kong is unlocked; meaning it is not tied to a specific carrier.
An hour ago Apple’s co-founder, CEO, Steve Jobs, announced the highly anticipated Apple 
It is reported that the first of Hong Kong’s mobile carriers: CSL (with two brands 1010 and One2Free), People (recently purchased by China Telecom), Sunday (recently purchased by PCCW), Smartone-Vodafone (with a partnership involving the mobile giant, Vodafone) and Hutchison Telcom’s Orange and 3. The latter is where Hutchison announced that they will resell the Apple iPhone later this year in Hong Kong and Macau.
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