A shot of the iPhone 3GS prototype for sale on eBay

A pretty non functional prototype version of the new iPhone 3GS has showed up on everyone’s favourite auction site, eBay. The seller claims to have also bought it on eBay from someone who ‘found it’ at an airoprt. Sounds like stolen goods to me, but I’m not sure how the finders keepers laws work over there in the US. It’s currently running at just over $500, which sounds pretty pricey for a paperweight to me, especially with the whack conversion rate we’re getting here in Blighty recently. If you’re rich and love your gadgets, it may be your cup of tea!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320389513212&viewitem=&afsrc=1&salenotsupported

Sometimes it’s fun to make friends with an alternative network, especially while on holidays and sometimes at home. I wanted to show my MDA Compact IV variant of the HTC Touch Diamond family some love and went in search of a solution.

I found Olipro, a talented software developer over on the XDA Developers forums (a fountain of knowledge for customising your HTC manufactured device) and his application did the trick with ease. You can get your variant unlocked, regardless of where it is from. Whether you have a T-Mobile MDA Compact IV, Sprint Touch Diamond or operator locked standard design Touch Diamond e.t.c. I recommend Olipro’s website, Olipro Creations. This easy solution is yours for just 10 GBP or 14 EUR – he can also unlock the HTC Touch Pro and a couple of older models too.

HTC Touch Diamond in white?

Coolsmartphone are reporting that a white variant of the HTC Touch Diamond has been spotted deep in the foreign interweb. They don’t mention though that the photographs on said site show a white Diamond with classic black front facia. A little strange design wise if you ask me… Whether this whole thing is some kind of wishful thinking or not is yet to be determined, but with no official announcement it seems unusual but not impossible that this is genuine. The rough Google translation mentions a “car edition package” so perhaps the colours are intended to match some kind of car kit – someone who speaks the lingo please enlighten us; it’s all Greek to me.

Update: Engadget have confirmed that this is the real deal – linking to a Spanish page on HTC-User. I must admit I’m a little jealous and want to trade mine in! Expect them on the shelves in October.

The Pro, on general release SIM free for some time now is only available with Vodafone UK. The Vodafone UK Business on-line shop always seems very prompt in such matters. T-Mobile’s variant, the hotly anticipated MDA Vario IV has now apparantly been delayed in Europe due to quality issues until no earlier than December 1st. That’s cutting it a bit fine for the holiday season and stock issues are likely to be a nightmare. So does this mean that T-Mobile, known for thoroughly testing handsets have been put off by similar gripes to those you’ll hear about netside, or has Vodafone rushed this baby out the door with a handful of issues?

From the video recording it looks as if the interface is much more refined, although not as polished and shiny as some had hoped. But in reality, nobody is really expecting the default G theme to survive manufacturer customisations anyway. The demonstration also showed OpenGL, Java and how easily applications can be integrated into device hardware. Developers will be able to open a can of whoop-ass without the shackles of dealing with closed source operating systems.

Google executive Mike Jennings is said to have remarked that the Android OS should be suitable for any device. Details of the mobile operater relationship with the applicaiton market are still unknown. The lucky guy is apparantly using one as his primary device in private – it must be a pain in the ass to have to sync everything twice though.

Check out the video:

Mystery Android 1.0 handset shown at Google conference