As far as I know, while there are plenty of
iPhone 3G problems to talk about, only a few of them are related to the GPS features of Apple's device. Even more - I happen to have a few friends in the military, and I know one thing for sure - they don't need Google Maps or the GPS feature of some smartphone to find their way around, and that's why it seems really strange to find out that the Egyptian government is afraid of the iPhone GPS...
...because I can't see any other reason for Apple to disable the GPS functionality of the iPhone 3G in Egypt, as a recent report published in
New York Times says.
While no details on
how they managed to disable the GPS feature of the iPhone 3G emerged, but inside sources claim that all started because of the government's fear of anti-military/anti-Egyptian applications using the iPhone. Now, what could they do with the iPhone 3G against the military? Throw it at a tank, maybe? Damn, where is this whole terrorism paranoia leading to!
If you ask me, I find it normal to sell old iPhones without GPS features on the Egyptian market, but hearing that normal iPhones are being crippled because some strange fear of a certain government makes me shiver, and remember those days when 80486 CPUs weren't allowed to get out of the US without knowing exactly where were they sold and for what purpose...