Instead of bringing you updates, perspective and on-the-road tests from somewhere in London, we decided to take the MIR Show on the road. The first stop, of course, was Rome.

We flew out on the 730am British Airways flight to Rome and arrived on schedule at Leonardo da Vinci airport. We hit the hotel, dumped most of the non-essential kit and headed off to the Colosseum to begin the filming.

We used both Google Maps and Nokia Maps to get about the place. Central Rome is mostly walkable. The massive FAIL that is Nokia Maps (I thought it would be at least ‘ok’) came as a complete surprise.

Also, the G1 handset roamed perfectly… except for Google Maps — which spent the day displaying an error to an increasingly frustrated Ben Smith. (Ben was also trying to demonstrate Nokia Maps).

Dan Lane decided to stick with his iPhone 3G. Lucky he did. We were able to navigate around Rome thanks to Google Maps and the iPhone.

I really thought the Italians would be ultra hip — both in their fashion sense and their handset selection. Instead most of the locals around Rome were wearing relaxed garb. And when they weren’t kissing each other passionately (it is, yes, a very romantic place), they were talking on their Motorola RAZRs.

This, I think, is one of the biggest misconceptions I had about Italians and their mobile handsets: I thought they’d be up to date. I thought they’d be big into data. I thought there would be handsets all over the place. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

The best handsets we saw in use? Seriously: Motorola RAZRs. Or the odd three year old Sony Ericcson.

Once or twice I saw an iPhone — and then realised it belonged to someone from the UK.

This, despite the fact that Vodafone Italy retails both the Blackberry Storm AND the iPhone 3G.

Perhaps Saturday and Sunday were the wrong days to go and do some normob watching in the capital city? Maybe most people were out in the provinces, leaving the city centre to the proles on their RAZRs?

I wonder if Italians really DO care more about talking? Rather than texting and twittering? From what we observed over the weekend I’d say that looks to be the case. The city locals were very clearly carrying about MOBILE TELEPHONES — RAZRs and ultra slim 2-3 year old Sony Ericssons and using them to talk on. The only folk using data services on their handsets appeared to be us.

Anyway we filmed a lot of content and all things being equal, we’ll be publishing two MIR Shows from Italy soon.

Fancy a few pics meantime?

Here’s Dan on the phone to his other half, reveling in the fact that his 3-Like-Home service didn’t cost him anything extra to phone home from Rome:

Here’s Ben Smith getting more and more agitated by his N82 with Nokia Maps. Dan had already plotted the location to the Spanish Steps within 10 seconds whilst we waited for the Nokia to get on the same page:

We did some filming at most of the major landmarks. This one is Il Vittoriano:

Next stop? I’m thinking Prague. Or Marrakech.

The phone needs to be Jailbroken first (another software hack allowing 3rd party software to be installed – can be performed using Pwnage 2.0) and then Yellowsn0w is installed and run.

Apple doesn’t support iPhones using 3rd party software and says it invalidates the warranty of the phone, unlocked phones are only legal in Germany and Hong Kong where local regulations mean the phones can not be locked.

However Yellowsn0w does seem to work, even Stephen Fry has successfully installed it and unlocked at least one of his 7 iPhones!!

Christmas comes early to those who want a SIM free iPhone. Those natty guys over at the Dev-Team Blog have just aired video footage really showing you how to unlock an iPhone 3G.

The blog site has videos from a dude only known as MuscleNerd, with footage in Qik format showing the iPhone 3G being render SIM free, unlocked, not tied to a particular network, making as a free as a bird or just going ‘commando’ – you get where we’re going with this.

It’s the first ever software-unlock of the 3G handset, known as yellowsn0w. The video’s actually been streamed from a 2G iPhone we’re led to believe, with levels of irony there that just goes beyond all belief.

Within moments, he moves it from being locked to the AT&T network and on to T-Mobile. Tadarr!

The demo was all aired live from the dudes twitter account, but it was recorded and has been posted in all its viewing glory.

We won’t spoil the surprise or pass along what and how it all happened.

And without doing the website a grave injustice by imbedding the content, just head along and see all of the videos here.

It‘s really a sight to behold, dash along and watch them all now

Who’s to say don’t eat the yellowsn0w, as far as we’re concerned it’s the only way forward.

A report just came out that the iPhone has slashed the RAZR’s three year record as the number 1 selling phone in the USA, according to market research firm NPD.

Appleinsider.com covered the report in great detail, but it appears the bloodbath culminated in the third quarter of this year. This was the same time when the 3G iPhone came out, surely a coincidence?

To the layman, one would think that a single phone has done so well in sales for more than two years. When in actual fact there has been more RAZR’s produced in that period than there are skeletons in a presidential candidate’s closet waiting to come out.

All in all it’s kind of misleading, unless you really know the full low down. In saying that, it’s still some feat that only two models of a phone (not including the different storage sizes) have managed to unseat a successful run.

It was of course the iPhone 3G that took the Motorola RAZR to the mattresses, and we’re not denying that and the data by NPD backs it up.

Falling into third place was the Blackberry Curve, followed by LG’s Rumor, and once again LG with the enV2.

This all falls into place when you realise Apple recently released details that more handsets have shifted in Q3 than RIM’s devices.

Some other interesting stats came to light in the report, such as 43 percent of handset purchases were focussed on the camera, and 36 percent were keen on its text messaging abilities. Not all that surprising when handsets with an actual QWERTY keyboard have had the greatest rise in sales from last year, with 30 percent of phones sold having this feature.

For more on this report, see here

Invisible Shield is the well-reviewed clear-plastic wrapper for mobile devices including iPods and laptops.  Its incredible claim is that it protects devices making them scratch-proof.  Having seen the demo videos I’ve no doubt that’s true.

One of the privileges of writing for SMS Text News is that you get to review stuff that manufacturers send out.  Sure, you have to send it back eventually, but you get to give a product a good workout before buying it and recommending it to other people.  This is not one of those reviews… I paid £14.99 at my local Carphone Warehouse for an iPhone 3G wrap.  If you want the quick version take a look at the picture above (that’s my kitchen bin) and you know all you need to….

In slightly more depth: The pack comes with front and back covers and a small spray bottle of what looks like water.  Following the instructions I peeled the front cover off its backing, sprayed it with the solution, laid it on the front of the device, lined it up and used the special plastic tool to squeegee the few bubbles away. 5 minutes later it had dried and looked great.

The back was less of a success.  Whilst the front had been a simple flat-glass face, the back of the iPhone is curved and needs cut-outs for the keys, speaker, microphone and SIM tray.  I applied it twice following the same routine, but the corners wouldn’t stick… I tried again and used the techniques suggested on the manufacturer’s site.  Still no joy.  The problem (aside from getting the cover aligned) was that the corner segments overlapped the microphone slots at the bottom and the corners wrinkled – looking as if they had too much plastic in them.  I tried one last time… disaster.  In removing the cover a second time some of the adhesive remained on the phone and subsequent applications gave a bubbled, cloudy appearance.  After an hour and a half of trying I gave up…

Instead of both sides, I just considered keeping the front face-covering on and had a play with the device in this state.  However, the Invisible Shield adds a tacky finish – ideal I would imagine for the back where you hold it – but it wasn’t pleasant in comparison with the slick feel of the iPhone’s glass screen normally.  It came off.

I’ve no doubt Invisible Shield does what it says regarding protection, but it’s current iPhone 3G template (which differs significantly from that pictured on the website) didn’t fit well for me on the back of the device – the only place I’d consider using it.  I can’t recommend it.

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
[iTunes] Subscribe or listen in iTunes
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The contributors:

Ewan MacLeod is turning off Motorola RAZRs and burning phone holsters he is SMS Text News.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and their blog.
Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
Alfie Dennen is from Moblog… the original mobile blogging platform.  So that’s Mr Dennen to you m’kay?

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

Moblog

Ewan’s post on the Three store hoodie ban

The iPhone application store

Have O2 goofed MMS security?

James’s ‘Carephone Warehouse’ post

Things of the week:

Agfa Bluetooth photo frame
James’s midnite flit to York aided by Textperts
AGPS and Nokia Maps
iPhone Apps: Grafitio and Urban Spoon

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast – please let us know in the comments or tell Ewan – ewan@smstextnews.com.

Oh, how he laughed…

Of course it’s hung half-way through the process (20 mins so far and counting) and started with a load of page errors, but if you fancy an upgrade and a wait go here: http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone

The news, if anything, here is that upgrades will be shipped by courier direct to upgraders and activated from home via iTunes.