Picture: The president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushenko, yakking on his iPhone. The iPhone is hot in the Slavic country. From iPhone Code.

Used iPhones are worth more than $1,000 in Ukraine, according to the Craigslist buyer who just purchased my slightly scratched iPhone for (get this) $350.

The buyer, named Claude, is heading to Ukraine next week on business and everyone he meets will ask him for an iPhone, he says. He’s sold dozens of iPhones, new and used: It doesn’t really matter.

In fact, I sold him two iPhones: a virgin 16-Gbyte model still sealed in its box, and my slightly worn day-to-day iPhone, an original 8-Gbyte model.

I got $850 for both phones — $500 for the new one (it retails for $500 + $40 tax) and $350 for the used iPhone (it sells new for $400 + $34 tax. I paid $600 minus a $100 rebate).

I felt pretty good until Claude told me he’ll be getting at least $1,000 for the used iPhone in Ukraine, and more for the new one. WTF! — thanks for telling me!

Still, it’s not all gravy. Claude says he has to keep the iPhones on his person when passing through customs, or they disappear from his luggage. Likewise the chargers, cords and everything else. Plus, he has to bribe every official he meets.

Claude wasn’t aware there’s a new iPhone model expected next month (which is why I’m selling). Not that it mattered. He says he’ll take all and any iPhones I can send his way.

Anyone want to get rid of their old iPhone?

The lines are 30-people deep for an iPhone in NYC, Gizmodo reports. And that’s for the current generation iPhone — not version 2.0 excepted in a month.

It seems there’s lots of people desperate to get their hands on unopened iPhones — even a couple of weeks before older models are outdated.

A couple of months ago I bought a 16-Gbyte iPhone at the Apple Store, thinking I’d upgrade from my original 8-Gbyte iPhone. But then rumors of the iPhone 2.0 started catching fire, so I didn’t open it. With the release of a 3G iPhone looking likely in early June, I thought it better to wait.

Trouble is, I waited too long to return the unopened iPhone to the Apple Store, which has a two-week return policy. So earlier this week, I put it on Craigslist for $550 ($50 over retail) and crossed my fingers.

Boy, was I surprised. I’ve had several offers, many of them for the inflated price. Most of these buyers asked me if I had more than one phone.

The first offer came in just a few seconds after I posted the ad. The buyer, who I’m meeting this afternoon, wrote: “I will need as many as you have. no receipt needed if you know what I mean.”

The iPhone must be headed overseas. Apple has a policy limiting sales to five iPhones per customer — checked against their credit card.

I’ll be asking the buyer some questions this afternoon about his interest in buying multiple, unopened iPhones.

Link to “iPhone wanted” ads on SF Craigslist.

Take this with a grain of salt, but Fortune’s Scott Moritz has filed a report claiming that AT&T will subsidize the price of the hotly awaited 3G iPhone down to start at $199 with a two-year agreement, which would be a clear sign that the company is serious about starting to move some massive numbers of the device when it drops in June.

There are definitely parts of the story that I don’t buy — I don’t think Apple is going to go 8 and 16 gig on the new iPhone, let alone “8-gigabit-memory and 16-gigabit-memory,” and the pricing strategy only makes sense if the iPhone is non-exclusive to AT&T. If Apple’s selling the 3G iPhone unlocked at Apple Stores for $200 more, this makes sense. If not, this is just bizarre.

Thoughts? I really hope we see a 32-gigabyte model of the 3G iPhone - that makes it not just a nano replacement for me, but an actual iPod replacement.

FORTUNE: Techland AT&T to cut the price of Apple’s new iPhone

Thanks, Matt!

Tags: iphone, rumor, at&t, speculation

While I’m sticking to my original guess that we won’t see a new version of the iPhone until June to coincide with the final release of the 2.0 firmware and enterprise support, everyone’s starting to agitate for a 3G iPhone sooner rather than later. First it was Kevin Rose, and, continuing the cycle, a credulous analyst has entered the fray.

Gartner’s Ken Dulaney, citing foreign sources, says 10 million 3G iPhones have been ordered by Apple for delivery in the near future. He cites European demand for greater data speed as driving Apple’s decision.

Then again, he also says the next iPhone will have an OLED screen which…ain’t happening, not in this life. We should be in for a couple of fun months, though.

iPod Observer via Epicenter

Technology analysts are always on the cutting edge of the news out of Silicon Valley. Why, just last night, Gartner Research realized that Apple had licensed Exchange Active Sync, making the iPhone a great option for smart phone users. And they only noticed two weeks after it was announced!

I kid, of course, The report praising the iPhone’s readiness for business customers puts Apple firmly on a competitive plane with Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and S60 phones. Less than a year after its launch as a multimedia device, the iPhone is poised to really take charge in the smart phone space. That’s a big deal, and the endorsement from Gartner does mean a lot to some people making IT support decisions in big companies.

Apple has never had real success in corporate sales, so I can’t wait to see how the iPhone does once it’s ready for its close-up. This note is a sign that it has a fair shot at success.

Via Barrons

Even though it was announced a month ago that “American Idol” had made the iPhone its official phone, and we all know that “Idol” is the most crassly commercial TV show in the history of the galaxy, I don’t think anyone was prepared for the abomination that aired midway through last night’s episode.

After “returning” from an ad break, host Ryan Seacrest reached into the audience to pull an iPhone from the hands of a female “audience member.” He then used the iPhone to visit the “Idol” website, text in a vote for a contestant, and show how easy it is to use the WiFi iTunes Store to download content “directly to your device.” I threw up in my mouth during the segment - A LOT.

I don’t know, can association with Ryan Seacrest make the iPhone less appealing? It’ll take a little while for the taint to wash away, so far as I’m concerned. I’ll post the clip if and when it turns up…

Read the rest of this entry »

Int13, a prominent mobile games developer, has released a video showing its racing game, “Crazy Kart 2,” running on the iPhone. I hadn’t seen the title before, but I’m pretty impressed by the demo. Nice environments and graphics, wacky gameplay highly reminiscent of “Mario Kart,” but, you know, touch-controlled steering wheel! I can’t wait to see the state of the iPhone gaming platform a year from today…

Via iPhoneAlley

I’ve been saying for quite some time that the iPhone and iPod touch would eventually become killer gaming devices. Last week’s SDK presentation in Cupertino finally showed what was possible: Multi-touch and accelerometer-driven GameCube and PS2-quality visuals on the most compelling mobile multimedia platform in the world. It’s actually a lot better than what I was expecting in terms of 3-D visuals performance. Right now, it blows the DS and PSP away visually.

But does that matter? Do we need another portable games platform?

Yes. But not the way you might think. Though Apple is dazzling with visuals and gameplay from upcoming major publisher titles. And iPhone Spore and Monkey Ball will be cool, as will Pac-Man and the new version of Galaga that have been announced. But that’s not what will make the iPhone and touch must-have gaming platforms. What will make them take off and start to pull players away from PSP in particular will be the user-generated games. The creativity of the developer community. Anyone who comes up with a good game can get it published on the App Store and make some serious cash off of it if it takes off. That’s one hell of an incentive to break new ground. I’m tempted myself.

Now, on computers, and even on cell phones, user-designed games are a dime a dozen, and many of them are of far lower-quality than what the commercial publishers create. But this is different. This is a real platform with sophisticated tools available to everyone. There has never been a portable games platform of this power and pro-gaming features that has been this open to outsiders and upstarts. The DS is closed. So’s the PSP. Most cell phones have horrendous gaming interfaces. Keyboards and mice are great for MMORPGs and First Person Shooters but little else. The iPhone will be relatively open, has a great distribution model, and the best interface in the world for portable games.

So keep an eye out. I’m willing to forecast here and now that the best-selling game for iPhone by the end of 2008 will be made by a virtual unknown. Anyone throwing in?

In just four days, Apple has seen the iPhone SDK downloaded more than 100,000 times. In the release, Cupertino notes that ever more major developers are getting on-board with iPhone development, including blogging kingpins Six Apart and Pac-Man purveyors Namco.

I think that’s all fine and good, but I’m not excited to see what the existing powers can do with the iPhone. I’m psyched about what the freeware and shareware community can do on this platform, particularly for games. I have a lot more to say about that (see the previous post), but I’m most interested to hear if any of you are in the development community yet. If so, what are you working on? I’d love to spotlight some Apple fan creativity on this page.