This has been a long time coming. But for me, the wait and the effort spent on the site's overhaul was truly worth it - given the results :)

Welcome to "version two" of Mobique. After having spent the past three-and-so years on the old platform, which - in present day environment - seems rather antiquated, I've finally decided to make the move to a site design that allows me to publish and report a broader range of content with the least of fuss. In other words, more time spent on the creation of the actual content, rather than the same effort made towards the publishing process.

It has been unfortunate that the site has taken a downturn over the past 12 months, due to my other non-Mobique commitments. The lesser time spent writing reviews meant that it was not possible for me to keep up with all the handsets that came and went, and selecting only the ones that I believe would be worth the while to take a closer look. But hopefully, from now onwards, I shall have the opportunity to get my teeth into most of the important models that makes it across my desk.

Anyway, from what you may have already noticed, Mobique is now presented in a blog-like manner - a format that I found to be very appropriate for posting up-to-the-minute news and product announcements, as well as the posting of new product reviews. Anything that's worth a mention will also be spoken about here, and categorised appropriately.

Reviews for the new site will also be a bit different. Instead of locking myself into looking at specific aspects of a handset's design, I will try and go into more detail on things that actually matter for the product being reviewed - but not compromising on the overall quality of the review. In other words, I hope to be able to provide a similar level of quality in my write-ups - a level that I've tried to maintain for the many years of being a product reviewer.

If you're after those older phone reviews of mine, these can be also accessed from the "Phone Reviews" section of the site.

And, finally, site design has been kept simple, and we've also added search capabilities should you want to look for anything specific on our site. Just remember to choose the "Mobique.com" radio button to restrict the Google search engine to look only at our repository of reviews and other articles.

I hope this refresh will bring along great things - and only time will tell (yet, I am confident that it will!)

It looks as though the iPhone unlocking saga is finally coming to a close, with the release of a free, open source, software unlock solution by the iPhone Dev Team.

Appropriately named as "anySIM", it is an iPhone-native GUI app that removes the AT&T sim lock from the smartphone device. While the installation of the app, onto the iPhone, may require going through some procedures (this is dependent on what's already been done on the device, such as jailbreaking and SSH access), the actual unlocking process will only require a simple brush of the on-screen slide bar, and make agreement to a short list of terms (which, virtually everyone, would in such a case!)

At the time of writing, the most current version of anySIM was v1.0.1, being a minor update alleviating a timing issue that was present in the initial version.

We are also aware of other software-based unlocking solutions available, with some of these charging an arm and a leg a hefty premium before the unlock package is sent out to its customer. Granted that these parties are wanting to gain a return-on-investment on the time and effort spent on developing the unlock - but it seems that they might have gone a bit overboard with their pricing structures (plus, the logistical process of obtaining the unlock seemed rather tedious).

If you're a non-AT&T user, and have found the anySIM solution useful in getting your iPhone to work, then maybe a small donation to the iPhone Dev Team for their efforts would be the way to go. These guys have certainly done a fantastic job in offering not just a software unlock solution alone, but also others that go toward making this device SO much more interesting to use!

Resources: The iPhone Dev Wiki