Apple’s White House Hotline
I will not be the one to draw any connections, but the White House decision to support the ITC ruling to embargo smart phones containing Qualcomm chipsets could lead to a dumbing down of the U.S. (at least in consumer technology). Enter the blue jean and black turtleneck bedecked superhero with the iPhone. Steve would argue – and would
receive support from many users and gadget reviewers – that the iPhone’s predecessors were not really smart anyway. Fortunately for the technical intelligence of American consumers, Apple has designed alternatives into their smart phone. The iPhone uses an Infineon baseband processor and Samsung 
applications processor.
Followers of the iPhone – especially here in Canada where it is not yet available – will know that hackers are still working at unlocking the functionality for use on service providers other than 
AT&T. According to hackers, the toughest nut to crack in the iPhone has been the Infineon S-Gold 2 baseband processor. The S-Gold 2 chip contains an ARM926 core and EDGE modem. Since Apple has been very stringent about control of the software and use of the iPhone so far, perhaps this was part of the decision to go with Infineon in the baseband socket.
Unfortunately for Apple, there seems to be an effective hardware hack for the phone using the TurboSIM from Bladox.
So look for increased iPhone sales in the short term and for the second generation device if it comes before the end of the year.