Apple iPhone news

[jwinslow]

For you VZW folks:
Gizmodo - Sprint Basically Confirms Verizon's Getting the Pre in January - Palm pre

You can almost hear Sprint PR's James Fisher teeth grind as responds to Verizon blabbing they'll have the Pre in 6 months: "We have the Pre through 2009." Meaning Verizon's totally getting the Pre in January. Update: Blurb from Sprint spokesman, not CEO.

Of course, by then the iphone will be rumored to be coming "soon" to Verizon, and I'll probably just never buy another phone

For those unfamiliar... the Palm Pre is a very slick smartphone (unlike most of Palm's problematic handsets) that many feel will rival the iphone. It also has a physical slideout keyboard (vertical, for one hand use), and syncs with itunes as an ipod (though Apple will probably try to block that).

Gizmodo - Possible iPhone 3G 2009 Compared to Shiny iPhone 3G - iPhone 3G 2009

 

[NFBuck]

I thought about waiting for the Pre to come out this summer, but with my contract with Sprint up, AT&T's cheaper plans and the now reasonable price of iPhones when making the switch, I just decided to go with the iPhone. I'm addicted to the damn thing now. I like it 10x better than my previous smart phones (Had a Treo and Blackberry Curve).

 

[jwinslow]

I thought about waiting for the Pre to come out this summer, but with my contract with Sprint up, AT&T's cheaper plans and the now reasonable price of iPhones when making the switch, I just decided to go with the iPhone. I'm addicted to the damn thing now. I like it 10x better than my previous smart phones (Had a Treo and Blackberry Curve).

The new iphone is being debuted in like a week at the mac convention.

You have 30 days to return your phone, but sometimes that also initiates a month or two period where you can't sign on again.

 

[NFBuck]

The new iphone is being debuted in like a week at the mac convention.

You have 30 days to return your phone, but sometimes that also initiates a month or two period where you can't sign on again.

Past that, but whatever, I'm happy with the current version.

 

[jwinslow]

Cool, well the new one isn't going to be an overhaul. Some will be covered in the new 3.0 operating system, there may be a little better internal specs, but it should function similar to the old ones.

 

[jwinslow]

Gizmodo - First iPhone 3G 2009 Screens Look Very Real To Me - iPhone 3G 2009

 

[jwinslow]

Gizmodo - Rumor: Financial Times Says Cheaper iPhone in the Works - Cheap iphone

Citing analysts at Morgan Stanley, the Financial Times claims Apple has plans to release a cheap iPhone at either a $99 or $149 price point, and could possibly announce it Monday at WWDC. The article goes on to state that the move could dramatically increase Apple's smartphone marketshare and production of the new devices is thought to begin in July. But AppleInsider is skeptical of these claims, pointing out that the analyst in question, Kathryn Huberty, has a poor track record Apple predictions. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but this does seem to fall in line with recent 4GB iPhone rumors. [FT via AppleInsider]

 

[Dryden]

Kotaku's rumor mill is speculating the new iPhone will have a dedicated 3D graphics chip, have more robust Bluetooth support, and that Apple is making a hard push towards devs leveraging the iPhone as a serious portable gaming device.

Kotaku - New iPhone Will Include 3D Graphics Chip, Hits July - iPhone

My question would be, what the hell will Apple do about the battery life? The battery life of the current 3G iPhone is, IMHO, outstanding, and has completely blown away my expectations. I thought I'd be charging the thing every six hours because of the big display and all the bells and whistles, but surprisingly, I'm not. It does run dry pretty quick if I spend 45 minutes on the can playing SimCity or Tetris or FieldRunners or some-such, so I can't imagine using this as a serious portable hand-held gaming device.

 

[jwinslow]

Gizmodo - Last Minute Rumor Updates on Apple WWDC '09 - Wwdc 2009

Apple's WWDC 2009 liveblog is just a weekend away. On the menu: Definitely Snow Leopard, new iPhone, new iPhone OS, and maybe even a guest star appearance of Steve Jobs himself. Here are the latest updates:

• Like I said above, we knew that the new iPhone was coming already, but Walter Mossberg—who is well known for having a very tight relation with Apple—strongly suggested that the new hardware is a sure shot next week. He did it in his Palm Pre review, potentially offsetting the Pre's current advantages with unrevealed incoming features in the iPhone.
• The Financial Times, BGR, and Engadget also say their sources claim that $99 iPhones are on the pipeline.
• There may be sightly different components in the design, as shown in the pages of a Chinese original components wholesaler.
• The new iPhone may also experience a change of materials, going from shiny to matte.

• We can say—with 99% certainty—that the new iPhone will have a magnetometer and camera autofocus, according to the screenshots that show these components in action. These new features can only be enabled in the iPhone OS 3.0 software by using the actual hardware—the current iPhone camera can't do autofocus and it doesn't have a magnetometer. The images—which confirm previous sightings—also confirm that the new iPhone will also have video recording.
• There have been some speculation about a front-facing videochat camera, but given AT&T current bandwidth problems, I doubt it, but I hope that this one is true. Maybe the 20Mbps AT&T 3G network will finally materialize for this.

• Reportedly, Steve Jobs has been seen walking healthy through the Cupertino campus. Yesterday, the WSJ is claiming that he may be join the Apple fest next monday. We can only hope.
Whatever happens, we will tell you all about it in our Apple's WWDC 2009 liveblog. Tune in next Monday at 1:00PM East/10:00AM Pacific.

 

[jwinslow]

The Apple keynote address is at 1 PM ET. Live blog here

The iPhone 2009 announcement is expected then.

 

[jwinslow]

Nothing too major after an hour...

The first two highlighted features in OS 3.0

They’re talking about Cut, Copy and Paste – it works with all apps, there’s undo support and there are developer APIs – stuff we knew

Landscape keyboard works in email, notes, and messages.

Wonderful. Apple invented copy and paste technology on a touchpad device 15 years ago, and they clearly had landscape keyboard support last generation, they just didn't bother to add universal support until now.

Two failures so far (on standard smartphone from years ago)

My guess: AT&T won’t support this until late summer either. AT&T!!!!!!!!!!!

Tethering allows you to share you iPhone internet connection with a PC.

AT&T will be ready to support MMS later this summer.

Really shouldn't be that hard, but then it took years to figure out copy and paste

Continuing on

Support for HTTP streaming audio and video. Bitrate and data quality adjust to connection speed.

Autofill allows you to optionally remember usernames and passwords.

Contact information from your phone works in autofill, too.

Find My iPhone is a “service” that’s available to MobileMe customers.

“Only” to Mobile Me customers. Only. But it’ll show you on a map where your phone is. Also useful for your family/friends to track you down.

You can message your iPhone, alerting it “whether or not you left it in silent mode.”

Good features so far, but without more of a hardware upgrade announcement, I'm not compelled to switch over from blackberry yet.

I'd rather wait for the Verizon LTE iPhone 4G or the more-upgraded iPhone 4G on ATT. This seems more like a mini-upgrade for the hardware with a lot of new software.

 

[jwinslow]

Apple certainly has a knack for innovative features

You can also send it a remote wipe command (previously not available to everybody) and will erase all your data and keep your private data private.

“If you ever do find the phone again, just plug it into iTunes and it will restore from backup.”

 

[jwinslow]

...

Push notifications allow someone’s lab to be pushed right to a doctor. The notification links more information on the patient. Hopefully the patient lives. But it can also stream EKG information over 3G.

“I don’t know about you but when I’m driving, I like to have my iPod music with me.” So yeah, you can access your iTunes music from the game.

Push Notifictions: Apple allows custom push notifications, like the ESPN SportsCenter theme, just demoed.

The book store they’re demoing works off of in-app purchase. Megan Fox! There are 50 major magazines, 170 daily newspapers and 1 million books to the app store.

They are cranking out a lot of quality add-ons. To me, the stuff here will make you very excited if you're already on board with iphone (owning or planning to do so), but probably won't get you to decide to switch.

 

[jwinslow]

And this pretty much says it all so far

What are the chances of an iPhone hardware announcement now? Not sure. If this thing goes for 2 hours, maybe. Maybe. Unlikely though?

without that, these are a lot of bells and whistles without any substance (better specs).

TomTom on the iPhone
This is the first navigational turn-by-turn on the app store. They’re bringing both applications and accessory integration to the iPhone.

The TomTom exec on stage prounounces his S’s like Sean Connery.

"It will dock the iPhone, you can use in portrait or landscape, and thanks to the accessory framework, we can enhance your GPS data. Finally, we'll power your iPhone as you drive, so you're fully charged when you arrive."

 

[Dryden]

Dear Steve Jobs,

Real fucking multitasking, please.

Pretty please, with sugar on top.

Thank you.