Hm – perhaps those iPhone 3GS mounts aren’t as silly as we thought (Not really- they’re still silly.)

When videographer Kenny Mosher was tasked with shooting a music video for acoustic-folk band BJSR, he decided to skip the usual rig for something a bit more relevant in the moment: the iPhone 3GS.

Ryan wanted to add a flash to his iPhone so he cut open a Mophie JuicePack and connected a bright white LED and tiny switch. Boom: instant flash.

We’ve made no secret of our admiration of the iPhone 3GS’s video capabilities — Apple has managed to integrate a video camera that’s both easy to use and surprisingly high quality into an already-stellar device. But for all its merits, the iPhone 3GS suffers from being, well, a phone. No matter how good the phone’s video quality is, it’s still prone to shakiness as its director moves around. And while the microphone may be high quality, its position at the bottom of the phone definitely isn’t ideal recording whatever you’re pointing the camera lens at.

Fortunately, an answer is on the way for all you mobile videographers. A new startup called OWLE (Optical Widgets For Life Enhancement), is currently working on a mount that should resolve most of these issues. The mount, which you can see in the images and videos below, gives you a much more stable way to hold the phone, making it much less prone to bumps and shakes. The mount also improves your recording quality by including a 37mm camcorder lense and a front facing microphone, which plugs into the phone’s headphone/mic jack. There’s also planned support for external lighting and power. All in a package that could slip easily into a backpack or laptop case. In short, this is exactly what you need if you frequently use the iPhone for video.

There’s a bit of a kerfluffle arising from the discolored iPhone 3GSes out there. Some users insist that the new phone is to fast for its britches and is cooking the case, but one Apple technician seems to think it could be the result of faulty cases.

Really, sir. I find your ideas fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Only a couple of days after George Hotz became the first hacker to release a jailbreak app for the iPhone 3GS on Windows, there’s a Mac-compatible version out too. This time, Hotz got some help from two fellow coders to be able to please the Mac folks, but he also made some improvements to the Windows version.

Happy jailbreaking, and in case you didn’t know yet: happy unlocking too.

Before I go defile myself with burgers and beer I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone 3GS for you all. The process was amazingly simple. Using a Windows netbook – it doesn’t work under Windows 7 – I simply installed iTunes and ran purplera1n. It took a second to reboot then it rolled through recovery mode, rebooted, and an app called Freeze appeared. Freeze then installed Cydia and all was right with the world.

George Hotz, the 20-year old hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has released a jailbreaking application for the iPhone 3GS codenamed “purplera1n.” It’s currently Windows-only (Windows 7 not supported), and requires the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware.

Hotz mentions in a blog post that the jailbreak for Mac is “coming soon.” The iPhone Dev Team did release a unlock for 3.0 which did not work on the iPhone 3GS, but Hotz’s version does (although it doesn’t free you from your current carrier).

The Wired Gang has an investigation into the hot and burny iPhones 3GS that are coming out, finding that many are getting so hot as to be uncomfortable. Once these reach a certain point they become a toasty brown and could completely fail.

The Interweb is a tizzy over the 3GS unlock/jailbreak and the Dev Teams decision not to release it until there is a new firmware update immanent. Why would they do this? Well, if they release now, Apple can close the hole with the new release, something they’d be loathe to do if the unlock happened closer to launch. While this isn’t very nice, it’s amazingly practical and forward thinking.

The drama in iPhone porn world continues. Yesterday, Hottest Girls, the first app with nudity was accepted into the App Store. But early this morning it was made unavailable, and everyone presumed Apple was behind it. But apparently, the app has not been pulled from the App Store by Apple, but rather by the developers because of high demand.

The guy team behind the app, Allen the Geek, writes on its site:

The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again. -ATG dev team

So is this BS? Is this just them covering up for Apple pulling it? I don’t think so.

If there was any question about the significance of the iPhone 3GS’s impressive video functionality, here’s your answer: YouTube reports that in the six days since the iPhone 3GS was released last week, the number of mobile uploads has increased by a whopping 400%. For a single phone model to have such a major impact on the site is simply phenomenal.

Even without the iPhone, YouTube is seeing major growth across the entire mobile space — the site has seen uploads go up 1700% over the last six months. It’s not hard to guess why. Video-enabled smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, as are high speed data connections. YouTube also attributes part of the growth to a streamlined upload flow (note how easy it is to upload a video from your iPhone to the site), as well as its improved sharing capabilities (you can now syndicate your videos to services like Facebook and Twitter).

I just came back from the official pre-launch event for the iPhone 3GS in Japan, organized by telecommunications giant SoftBank (the exclusive carrier in Nippon). The iPhone is often said to be rather unpopular in this country (which isn’t true), but even though the event began at 10 in the night, it was totally packed.