I don’t know Arabic but my Arabic friends are very happy that they can now read and write Arabic in their iPhones natively.

Here are some of my screenshots.

Browing Arabic websites in Safari is not a problem anymore.

Arabic note taking is now also available!

Sending and receiving Arabic Email is just perfect!

And finally, the most requested hack - to received and send Arabic SMS!

Thanks to Essa, Fady and iTarek.

As Tanc said, it could be a while before iPhone will hit other countries other than US. Our only hope of seeing it earlier, is if somebody can unlock it and let us use other carrier’s SIM card other than AT&T. A removable SIM card in iPhone is a good sign for hackers, because it indicates that the phone is locked using firmware, which can likely be cracked. Using SIM card from other carrier will not work as you still need to activate your iPhone using your iTunes.

So what's the status now of iPhone being used as open and not exclusive only to AT&T and other future authorized only carriers? When we can expect an iPhone that is just like most of the common Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung cellphones that we can purchase over the counter, pop-in any available SIM card, and simply use it (no activation required).

Or at least not even as a phone, I know some people want to use iPhone as Internet device (surfing thru Wifi) and as a touch-screen iPod Video; unfortunately even up to now, for you to enable all those functions including the camera, you still need iTunes activation which means 2 years contract to AT$T.

Here's some good news: I’m reading Gj’s Notes in iPhone Dev Wiki and seems like they will be able to hack iPhone within this week. He even suggests: “I firmly believe the phone can be unlocked and activated even without iTunes... I think we can do it using # codes or keypad presses.” Whoa!

People already disassembled iPhones and studied what's inside - here’s one of them. They found that iPhone’s processor is Samsung S3C6400. It runs at a whopping 667 Mhz, the fastest available on a consumer handheld as the high-end Intel-based handhelds processor is at 624 Mhz only, although Marvell and Qualcomm have both announced faster chips in the future.

Some other features of this chip are:

Do you think when you locked your doors and gates you are safe?

Watching this and reading this, makes me think of changing some important locks like our main door into electronic one. But still given enough time and resources electronic locks are also hackable.

You can always do this using Chikka, and now with the convenience of your Google Talk or Gmail Chat, you can now send SMS to Globe/Smart/Sun mobile phones in the Philippines.

To send to a mobile phone, simply add a new contact on your Google Talk client or Gmail Chat, using the format 639xxxxxxxxx@chikkatalk.com.

I just tried it and it works both in Google Talk client and in Gmail Chat.