Man is it fast!!!! I’ve been using it this evening and it really flies. While it supposedly uses more memory than other browsers, this use of extra memory is due to the fact that it spawns a new process for each tab, so if, for example, some nasty JavaScript on a particular page decides to strangle your browser, justthat one tab will be affected. And this also alledgedly prevents the memory leaks that plague other browsers.

It’s only available to Windows XP/Vista users at this stage; I’m eagerly awaiting the Mac version.

Any, back to some awesome browsing…

And wow, the reaction has been nothing less than scathing across the board! I think I saw perhaps one positive tweet, but otherwise there was lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Cost to purchase an iPhone outright:
8GB: $979NZD = $740USD
16GB: $1129NZD = $853USD

Ouch. More detailed pricing and plans are here.

While Vodafone spokeman Kursten Shalfoon says the data prices are sharp by New Zealand standards (and in all honesty, he’s probably right), that’s only because NZ is still behind the rest of the world when it comes to mobile (and fixed line) pricing/performance.
To be fair, a smaller market and fewer market competitors (or as some would say, a monopoly) has dictated this, but people were really expecting something more inline with US pricing.

Ars Technica have a table of global pricing. While the NZ prices haven’t been added yet, it’s clear that NZ is the most expensive market by a long shot.

• It’s in the box on the left.
• Ohh Ahh!
• The box within a box.
• Pretty polystyrene
• Even the handle is smiling
• With all the bits
• And there it is.

I thought WordPress made thumbnails, but I can’t seem to get it to work, so you’ll have to make do with the list of links.

The NZ Herald says it could be here in July.

I’m tipping that it will be the new, yet-to-be-released, 3G version that we go live with.

Luckily for me, every man and his dog are talking about it. And so I found Alex Roy’s site, Team Polizei, learned some more, and then bought the book; The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World.

This is an incredible account of Alex’s road rally career, blasting though several Gumball 3000 events, the Bullrun, and ultimately, Alex’s attempts at a record transcontinental drive across the US.

This is totally gripping stuff. This is not just about having fun in cars; Alex’s determination to win is matched only by his dedication to his friends; forfeiting stages to help those who have broken down, etc.

Now, you’re probably asking yourselves why I’m writing about this on a geek blog. But I can assure you that Alex Roy is a certifiable geek of the highest order (right down to the ‘GE3K’ badge on his Polizei144 jackets). The sheer quantity of gadgetry packed into his blue BMW M5 is mightily impressive; 4 Garmin GPS units, 2 police scanners, radar/laser detectors and jammers, thermal imaging camera, to name just a few bits. All this gear enables Alex and crew to drive as fast as possible, as safely as possible. Alex takes considerable care to drive courteously and safely, often at the expensive of a position lost to a reckless competitor (and often regained again further down the track).

Auckland to Wellington?

So, I’ve been thinking; what’s the fastest you could drive from Auckland to Wellington?
Alex averaged 90.1mph across the States; that’s 145kmph. Google Maps tells me that the distance from Auckland to Wellington is 640kms. So, at Alex’s average speed, you’d get to Wellington in 4 hours and 25 minutes. His fuel economy in his 4.9 V8 BMW M5 was 17.6mpg = 7.48 km/litre.

Choice of car

But is a BMW M5 the best car for an Auckland-to-Wellington run? There are several options that come to mind: Subaru WRX (and so I guess a Mitsubishi Evo, also), Toyota Caldina GT-T, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Volkswagen Golf R32, Audi RS4 or RS6, BMW M3, M5, M6.

I think I’d rule out all of the Japanese cars; they’re all speed-limited to 190km/h or thereabouts (although this can be overcome), they’re not really designed for high-speed open-road performance (except maybe the GT-R), and if you’re driving one of these cars in NZ, a cop will pull you up if you even just think about speeding – they attract too much attention.

The Golf might be a bit small for extended open-road driving with lots of gear, although the R32 has plenty of power (3.2 litre V6) and four-wheel-drive.

I think that the Audi RS4 or RS6 would be ideal, a fairly nondescript family-wagon type machine, and you get the added safety of four-wheel-drive, but at the expense of poorer fuel economy. (There’s an awesome RS2 for sale on TradeMe at the moment – another ideal car). Another down-side of the Audi is its cost – A current model low-mileage RS4 (4.2 litre V8) will set you back NZD$150,000+ while an older RS4 (2.7 litre twin turbo) is still NZD$70,000+.

But a E39 BMW M5 like Alex’s can be had for around NZD$50,000.

So you’d need at least 85 litres of fuel capacity. The BMW M5 has a 70 litre fuel tank, so I’d need to either stop once for gas (not a good idea) or install a fuel cell (a great idea).
You could theoretically drive it all yourself, but I’m sure a co-pilot/navigator would be almost essential.
You’d also need somewhere in Wellington to stash the car out-of-sight for a few weeks.
I’ve heard a rumour that someone in a Holden drove it in 4 hours, but I don’t have any details; I doubt they could. That would mean an average speed of 160kmph – surely our roads just aren’t up to it.

But you can see that I haven’t really thought about it much.

That’s entirely up to you — but here’s how I did it:

Prerequisites

• Read this article last July. You have to have read it last July; any more recently and you won’t have forgotten enough of it to make this task a challenge.
• Have some of the right tools, but not all of them. If you don’t use a flat-blade screwdriver instead of the more appropriate phillips-head tool, then you won’t achieve the same smug sense of ingenuous hacking-ness that I felt.
  Oh and you’ll also need a replacement battery. I got mine off a mate.

Now let’s get started…

The Instructions

1. It helps if your iPod has been dropped on one of its corners, once or twice. On the concrete. That way you can start prying off the plastic end-covers and the ensuing damage made by your inappropriate tool will be somewhat disguised. The inappropriate tool I used was a flat-bladed screwdriver.

   I also had some fairly useless iPod Opening Tools; they were no good for starting to lift the end-covers, but once one end was up, you could slide them around the edge of the rest of the cap and not scratch your iPod’s aluminium case.

   The end-covers take a little encouragement — they’re each held on with a bit of glue. Once you’ve removed them, place them somewhere safe where they won’t fall on the floor and get squashed under the boots of the construction worker seated next to you.

2. Now, this is the part where you must listen carefully, because here is the one thing I remembered from the article I read in July: You have to pop off the metal clip from the bottom of the iPod to get at the connector for the clickwheel. If you don’t disconnect the clickwheel, it’s almost certain that you’ll totally destroy the cable in a subsequent step.

   The clip is annoyingly difficult to remove. The article above makes it seem easy, but it’s not. I had a pair of tweezers with me which, at first, seemed like an appropriate tool to use here, but they weren’t.

   I ended up just sticking the little jeweler’s screwdriver through each of the 4 little round holes and forced each corner of the clip to release without snapping the shaft of the screwdriver, which, at one stage seemed inevitable given the amount of force I needed to apply.

   Once the clip is free, put it away safely with your end-covers to prevent it escaping.

3. Remove the clickwheel connector. This is fairly easy to do, but very important, nonetheless (see step 2). The most appropriate tool I found for this job was my thumbnail.
4. Unscrew and remove the two phillips-head screws from the top of the iPod. These are small, and will fall out the holes in the little plastic bag in which you’re keeping the end-covers and metal clip. This is where the one redeeming aspect of working on a tray-table comes into play; the round indent for holding a cup will stop your screws from rolling away.
5. Go back and make doubly sure that you’ve completed step 3, (this is the ‘subsequent step’ mentioned in step 2.) then carefully slide/pull/push the innards out. Take care not to get dust, fingerprints or construction worker on the screen – it needs to stay clean!
6. The battery is now quite obvious, and is kinda held on by that sticky-sided foam tape stuff.

   Unplug the battery lead from the main board.

7. Now try and pull the battery off without damaging the sticky foam pad thing.

   I know, I couldn’t do it either; half of the sticky pad tape stuff stayed on the board and half stayed on the battery. Nevermind.

8. Plug in your new battery and fit it up against the mainboard; you can try and make it stick to the remaining foam thingy if you want.
9. Carefully side the whole assembly back into the case. Yes, it will fit without you having to force it; there are slots that it slides into, and you may need to adjust the angle at which you’re sliding it in.
10. Pick your two screws up off the floor from under the seat in front of you and replace them. I found that mine weren’t done up very tight to start with, so I didn’t over-tighten them when I replaced them.
11. Reconnect the clickwheel connector
12. Replace the metal clip. It’s nearly as tricky to put back in as it was to get out. Try not to damage the case as you force it back it; teeth gritted and hands shaking, and praying that you’re not going to slip and stab your hand (or someone else’s) with the inappropriate jeweler’s screwdriver.
13. Another important bit is coming up, so stay alert. Replace the bottom end-cover. The residual glue should still be sufficiently sticky to hold it on. I wasn’t prepared for the eventuality that it wasn’t, but thankfully it’s still stuck, even today.

    Pause before you replace the top cover — this is an important bit: look into the open top of the iPod and check the position of the ‘Hold’ switch and make sure that the outer switch on the top end-cover is in the same position when you fit it back on. If it’s not, you’ll probably damage the wee microswitch.

14. I think you’ll find that you’re finished. If you discover that there are no bits left over, you can do as I did and now start grinning like an idiot, just hoping that someone will ask why you look so happy so you can, in minute detail, explain to them what you’ve just done.

So that’s it. It took me longer to write it up that to do the swap.

If you break anything along the way, here are two important pieces of information: a) I will not be held responsible. I might commiserate with you if I feel so inclined, but I hereby place all responsibility in your own geeky hands, and b) replacement Apple iPod Mini parts are cheap and easy to get from ifixit.com. So you can relax a bit.

I know this article looks long and boring; it’s because there are no photos.
I was holding the iPod in one hand, a spudger in the other, and an array of screwdrivers between my teeth. My nose is not dexterous enough to hold and operate a camera. Go look at the article I refer to if you want photos.

parallelimported.co.nz have the iPhone for $1199, including GST with a 12 month warranty. This unit is ready to go on the Vodafone NZ network, and it seems that Parallel Imported will provide support for upgrading to future firmware releases.

There’s the odd unit that pops up on zillion.co.nz or sellmefree.co.nz, but they’re usually sold by people who haven’t seen the toshcomputers.com deal.

I’m still googling regularly for a WPA Enterprise hack/update/application for the iPhone.
I’ve found nothing as yet, although I do have a couple of leads to follow.

That’s nearly half the price of some other places: Parallel Imported are selling them for $1499.00.

I think this is crap.

Sure, it’s their service, so they can ban what they like, but in reality there are many more products sold via TradeMe that have equal or greater fraud potential than iPhones.
By this reasoning, they should ban the sale of parallel imported GSM phones that aren’t available in NZ via Vodafone-affiliated resellers.

TradeMe FTL.

[hat tip sportsthought.com]

Update 20/09/07:

The NZ Herald reports about this. They note that sellmefree.co.nz “…is not prepared to deny New Zealanders the chance to get their hands on the hot gadget, and are authenticating each auction individually…” Nice!

Here’s a page of sellmefree.co.nz search results for the Apple iPhone.

Now who in their right mind would not want an iPhone?