Burris is from Illinois (unfortunately), not Connecticut.

They upgraded the logic board when they added the NVIDIA graphics chip. All MacBooks support up to 4GB of RAM (except the Air).

OK, now can Nokia release one of its higher-end phones, like the N95, to support T-Mobile's 3G network? The unfortunate thing is that T-Mobile's market share is probably too small to support unlocked phones by itself, and T-Mobile only seems to buy every manufacturer's cheapest and lowest-end phones.

@9, Virtual GPS is already on Google Maps for other phones. I've used it on my Nokia N95 when out of GPS range. It's OK, but no real substitute for true GPS. It can be up to a mile off (usually it's within two blocks or so). It makes Google Maps searches far more useful (since it kind of knows where you are), but I suspect iPhone will add real GPS sometime this year (maybe next week). I used Nokia Maps while on a trip, and it came in handy (although voice navigation costs extra).

@ author - French law allows the phone to be unlocked for free after six months, and Orange offers 12-month contracts for an extra €5/month so I'm not totally surprised at the number of unlocked phones. It will be interesting to see how many customers stick with Orange, and whether other operators start offering true unlimited data plans in 6 months or a year, hoping to attract "switchers." It probably depends on how well iPhone sales continue in 2008. 70,000 isn't bad, but I think it will dampen expectations of 5 million iPhone sales by next week (1 million of which were to have come from Europe according to the rumor), unless it REALLY sold well in the US. If it did, it points to a huge disparity between US and European sales, and perhaps points to a separate Euro line in the future. A tri-band 3G variant would be much appreciated, but I wonder how Qualcomm's latest court setback would affect that prospect.

I think they recognize that, Doug, and have stated that they want to increase their share in the US. They have started by releasing basic phones for AT&T (6555) and T-Mobile's new 3G network. They are also attempting to sell their high-end phones such as the N95 unlocked through other channels. Verizon's decision to open their network (and switch to 3GSM's successor LTE in the future) may also open the door for Nokia to return to the CDMA market. Their abandonment of CDMA is the real reason they have lost a lot of market share. You can't expect to be number 1 when more than half of mobile subscribers can't use your phones.

I think they recognize that, Doug, and have stated that they want to increase their share in the US. They have started by releasing basic phones for AT&T (6555) and T-Mobile's new 3G network. They are also attempting to sell their high-end phones such as the N95 unlocked through other channels. Verizon's decision to open their network (and switch to 3GSM's successor LTE in the future) may also open the door for Nokia to return to the CDMA market. Their abandonment of CDMA is the real reason they have lost a lot of market share. You can't expect to be number 1 when more than half of mobile subscribers can't use your phones.

To take this thread back to its intended purpose, I'll add some word about my experience. I installed the firmware upgrade and think most users can skip it for now. V10 of the N95-3's firmware was already pretty stable (far more stable than the v12 firmware in the original N95-1). I don't think the supposed "new features" are anything new, as they were on my N95-3 before. I think this is a standard fare bug fix upgrade before the (hopefully) much more substantial upgrade that will come soon to add N-Gage support and the features that were added to the N95-1 in v20 (which, incidentally has not yet been released in the US).

That said, I did notice that one rather silly bug has been fixed. The help screen for the WLAN wizard was originally written in Spanish in the original N95-3 firmware. It's now in English. :-)

I also think a few submenus might be a tad faster, but it could just be the placebo effect. I'll see what impact the upgrade has on battery life over the coming days.

There's a difference between being SIM-locked and using a non-standard SIM or having a user-non-accessible SIM. Matthew's question about being able to sign up for AT&T, and then remove the SIM and use it in another phone is a valid one. iPhone may be hardwired to accept only one specific SIM (i.e. not just an AT&T SIM, but that specific SIM that it comes with), but that doesn't necessarily mean I couldn't pull that SIM out and use it in another phone. It would be nice to know the answer to that one. For instance, some of us may use a different AT&T phone at the office (say a Treo), or might travel overseas with a cheap phone (not wanting to risk having your fancy new $600 phone swiped while going through airport security), and thus it might be appealing to be able to use the AT&T SIM in another phone. There's no logical reason why either Apple or AT&T would block that.

Leonard, if they announced the plans today, rather than on 6/28 ("pre-6/29"), they'd generate more buzz if the plan were cheap (e.g. $15 unlimited). For all you know, AT&T's trying to gauge reaction and see if they will still be able to sell out their inventory with a pricey $40 unlimited plan.

Nick, the n95 is one of the most returned phones in Europe, but it's also one of the best selling (which may explain it). I don't know how it's return rates compare with other phones. It's almost unheard of in the US for a top-selling phone to run into the hundreds of dollars. I think that will be iPhone's biggest impact on the market. Nokia has this habit of releasing products too quickly (hence the firmware updates and the bugs upfront). Apple went through a stretch with the initial MacBooks where there were a lot of issues, so they aren't immune to it, either. It remains to be seen how iPhone will fare.