A number of folks have gotten ahold of flash software from the Motorola E790 and have loaded it on their E398 with mixed results…

A number of cell phone message boards and Engadget have gotten ahold of the flash software that supposedly runs on the E790 iTunes (which I guess we can confirm now that it exists, if the software exists). Some have managed to erase the software on their current E398 and flash it with the E790 software, with mixed results.

Here’s a summary of what we know from the posts on the message boards:

• Because the software is made for a different phone, there are bugs when installed on the E398: 1. to use the iTunes software, you have to set the phone’s date to before May 5, 2005 (likely done because the software is beta software); 2. the backlight tends to stay on too long; 3. incompatibility can cause the phone to become an expensive paper weight (do people even use paper-weights anymore?!).

• The E398 cannot be sync’d with iTunes over bluetooth, only via USB. This makes sense because the files are rather large and would take a long time to add to the phone. It’s unknown whether this is a limitation of the E398 or the iTunes software itself.

Regardless, the proof of concept exists and according to the message boards, it’s only a matter of time before someone creates an easy to install software package to load the software onto your E398. (NOTE: Of course, this all ignores that even though the software might appear numerous places for download, it’s likely not authorized by Apple, and users of it could be held liable for copyright infringement.)

I’ll most more information when I hear about it. Click on comments below to let me know what you’ve heard.