Gizmodo listed these quotes from 2007 before the launch of the iPhone. Most of them from Apple’s competitors, and how they predicted the iPhone was doomed. Were they honestly surprised by Apple’s success, or were they posturing because they knew that it would dramatically change their business?

Go to the full article to see a video of Steve Ballmer laughing at the iPhone.

John C. Dvorak

Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone… What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a ‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures… Otherwise I’d advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you’ll see.

Jon Rubinstein, Palm CEO

Is there a toaster that also knows how to brew coffee? There is no such combined device, because it would not make anything better than an individual toaster or coffee machine. It works the same way with the iPod, the digital camera or mobile phone: it is important to have specialized devices.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

Ed Colligan, ex-Palm CEO

We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia Chief Strategist

The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well.

Jailbroken iPhones all have one thing in common, the SSH application is installed on them. This is used as part of the jailbreaking process. Thing is, someone can use this to log into your phone and wreck havoc on it. Especially since the default password is well known.

Follow this tutorial to change the default password of your Jailbroken iPhone. If you’re not jailbroken, don’t worry, you are safe.

If you’ve been lamenting that you can’t get an iPhone because you are with Bell or Telus, next week everything is going to change. On Nov. 4th, Telus starts selling the iPhone, and Bell will follow suit.

Prices are exactly the same as Rogers, and come with a 3 yr contract. There is a non-contract price but I don’t think many people will be willing to go for it.

• 8GB 3G for $100 or $600 without contract
• 16GB 3GS for $200 or $700 without contract
• 32GB 3GS for $300 or $800 without contract

According to this article by the Globe and Mail, Bell and Telus may soon announce the availability of the iPhone to their customers. This is a boon for existing customers that have wanted the iPhone but haven’t switched to Rogers yet.

While this is great news for Bell and Telus customers, I think this will play out more of a retention strategy than a new customer acquisition strategy. Many of the pro-iPhone users have already left Bell and Telus for Rogers, by offering the iPhone, they will prevent more from leaving. Likely they will match the Rogers price, rather than beat it, in order to lock all users onto new 3 year contracts, right before Wind Mobile goes live. I bet the top benchmark at all three companies will be percentage of customers on long-term contracts, which will try to prevent people from leaving based on price competition from new entrants.

Google has provided a mechanism for iPhone users to get Push Email functionality. Apple is still dragging it’s feet for allowing the iPhone to support it natively, so Google has enabled mail to be synced via the ActiveSync mechanism that is available on the iPhone.

However, there is one limitation. iPhone users that already have an ActiveSync account enabled (e.g. for work email) will not be able to use this option. This is because Apple only allows a single ActiveSync account on the iPhone. This is an Apple limitation, not Microsoft or Google.

Boy Genius Report posted a great overview of the upcoming Blackberry 9700. This device will come to Rogers and AT&T in October or November so if you can wait, definitely do so. This model gets rid of the failure-prone trackball and replaces it with a touchpad. It’s smaller, lighter and thinner and will be the next “it” device from RIM. Expect the existing Bold device to be lowered in price, and this device to fill it’s pricing void.

For years, Rogers has allowed users of their cable internet service to check their usage. Even more recently, they gave alerts to people as they neared their usage cap and about to be charged more.

Well, tracking your wireless data has now become easier. Rogers added this functionality to their website this week. If you have a data plan, definitely check this service out because it could save you a lot of money.

Better instructions to navigate to this page can be found at Boy Genius Reports.

The LA Times broke news today that the most popular camera on Flickr is the iPhone. And yes, the Flickr stats do support this, but I’m not really inclined to believe it. If you read the article from the Times, the most important line is at the very end:

“…the iPhone now includes two models whereas other manufacturers separate out their models, which could explain the inflated numbers.”

The iPhone stats are actually stats of all three models of the iPhone – the original, the 3G and the 3Gs. However camera manufacturers differentiate their cameras by model; Nikon’s D70, D70s, D80 and D90 are all different even though they are in the same “family” like the iPhones.

If the data was mined for some better info, I think we would find that while the iPhone is popular, no single model would beat out a single model of some of the SLR or point-and-shoot cameras.

The Kensington LiquidAUX is an iPod/iPhone kit for your car. It’s made for cars that already come with an AUX port like my current car. Best yet, my current car has the AUX and power port right beside each other in the central storage bin, so installing this was a snap and easily hidden away with no wires.

The best feature of this kit is the remote control that can be used to control the iPod or iPhone while driving, and it comes with a clip for the steering wheel, but I just leave it in a small storage compartment near the gearshift.

Jalopnik lists the 25 most useful car technologies and I tend to agree with all of them, save one:

• Rain-X (there is Rain-X wiper fluid now, which refreshes the treatment when you use power washers)
• Airbags
• Anti-lock Brakes
• Traction and Stability Control
• Muffler Valves
• Clean Diesel
• SynchroRev Match (found on the Nissan 370z)
• iPod/iPhone integration
• Variable valve timing, event and lift systems
• Radar/Laser detectors (illegal in Ontario)
• Heated Seats (my last car didn’t have these)
• Lightweight materials (carbon fiber)
• Crumple zones
• Stop/Start Engines
• Satellite Weather and Traffic Reports (I don’t think any of these systems work in Canada)
• Pushbutton locking differentials
• Turbocharging (woohoo!)
• LED lights
• Torque vectoring differentials
• Direct Fuel Injection
• Real power outlets
• Folding hard tops
• Hood scoops (wtf?)
• Adaptive headlights
• Regenerative Braking

I’m not sure about hood scoops, but the rest of the list is pretty cool. Recently I bought a new car, and it was nice to have features that my old car didn’t have, like adaptive lights, turbocharged direct-injection engine, heated seats and iPhone integration. Technology is wonderful.