When I was up in Amsterdam my Nokia N95 suddenly quit working. I bought it awhile back in Bangkok at MBK relatively cheap. At the time I was really wavering back and forth whether to get the N95 or plunk down the cash and get an iPhone. I was happy at the time because most of the vendors were selling hacked iPhones and since I wasn’t going to be in Thailand the next time Apple did a firmware upgrade I couldn’t just pop into MBK and have them slap the newest Apple defeating upgrade on me.
Now, for those of you not in the iPhone fan crowd you can get an iPhone hacked to work on any network. In the US the iPhone can only be used on AT&T’s network and nearly every other country they’ve introduced the iPhone it is tied to a single carrier so if you want to switch to another mobile service provider your phone is basically becomes and MP3 player with some cool toys.
You can also do something called Jailbreaking which hacking the phone so that you can install applications on the phone that haven’t been approved by Apple and placed in their iTunes store.
Personally, I don’t care about Jailbreaking the phone but I did need one that was unlocked so when I bought the N95 it seemed like a good decision not to buy a hacked iPhone and worry that the next time I did a software upgrade I would be sitting there with a piece of junk that didn’t work.
Nowadays you can pick up Hong Kong or Italian iPhones at MBK. In both Hong Kong and Italy it’s illegal for them to lock the phone to a network like that so Apple is forced to sell them completely unlocked and ready to use on any mobile network. So I went ahead and shelled out more than a modest sum for a completely legit iPhone imported from Italy.
Anyway, that’s a lot of yapping just to tell you that I wanted to post some pics that I’ve taken with the iPhone that I hope folks might enjoy or even find funny.
These first two I took of today’s two English-language newspapers. Yes, Michael Jackson death mania has hit Thailand. Exports down 25%, millions of jobs lost, tourism numbers have fallen through the floor, and this is what makes the front page. 🙂
These next photos were taken outside a famous Bangkok restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. It’s run by the Population and Community Development Association and funds raised by the restaurant go to providing safe-sex education in Thailand. The Thai food is really very good and when your bill arrives instead of mints there’s a handful of condoms.
