Phoning from beyond the grave, the T-Mobile G2 and Palm’s triumphant return

Kia Ora!

At one time, people used to be so afraid of being buried alive they’d have a string going from the coffin to the headstone, with a bell attached so they could ring it if they happened to wake up dead. Some areas of folk etymology suggests the phrases ‘saved by the bell’ and ‘graveyard shift’ stem from this safety-coffin practice.

Well, times have moved on, and we no longer feel the need to protect ourselves using such outmoded trickery. Instead, we’re being buried with our mobile phones.

Our Pocket Picks research grave diggers have uncovered a report that more and more people are requesting to be laid to rest with their beloved mobile at their side. As weird as it sounds, it only has to pay off once for the world to see the benefits of being able to contact help from beyond the grave.

The other benefit would be that, thanks to frequenting websites like Pocket Gamer and Pocket Picks in life, you’d have some great mobile games to play while you were waiting to be dug up.

If you’re looking for some great games to play before the lid is nailed shut, however, you’ll be glad to hear that the infamous Dev Team has gone one step further with its respected iPhone jailbreaking software, and set their iPhone free on the mobile networks.

The latest tool from the code-based freedom fighters allows the iPhone to operate on any network, and although it’s not been released yet, they’re hoping to provide a similar, one-click experience to the Pwnage Tool for freeing you from Apple’s tyranny.

If Apple’s vice like grip on your property is getting too much, the news that Palm is making a return might sound very appealing. The long lost PDA developer has fallen off the face of the Earth lately, with its last real success being the wonderful Palm Tungsten T3 PDA.

Well, it’s been watching from the sidelines, and set up its own version of the App Store (called the Palm Software Store) in league with PocketGear.

This means it can launch with access to over 5000 applications - an impressive number that immediately puts it in competition with the other smartphones and pocket media devices all vying for digital download dominance.

It’s not a bad time to be investigating App Store alternatives, either, since it’s been revealed that hungry developers are exploiting iTunes’s search engine by spamming their own product pages.

This is a trick that used to work on search engines before Google came along, by saturating the text on a page with keywords that aren’t necessarily related to the actual application.

By naming a bunch of other, often more popular, apps and games, iTunes’s unsophisticated search routines offer up erroneous results designed to guide you in a different direction. Shameful, what?

It’s a slow hardware week, though we did see tonnes of new handsets last week, I suppose. The big news is probably the leaked - and mostly unsubstantiated - info on T-Mobile’s follow up Android powered device, the G2.

The rumour suggests it’ll be ready by the end of January, no less, and although its connectivity and camera hardware are quite improved from the G1, there’s surprisingly no mention of a slide-out QWERTY.

Check back here (and keep an eye on Pocket Picks, of course) for more G2 news and gossip as it escapes the blogosphere over Christmas, and we’ll see you in the New Year.

Kia Ora!