May 24
Rumor: Simultaneous iPhone 2.0 release for Korea, Japan
Filed under: Rumors, iPhone
3G iPhone rumors are like summer evening mosquitoes: very annoying but also impossible to ignore. Fortune is the most recent buzzing in our ears with a report that the next major iPhone release will include Korea and Japan at the same time.
Specifically, tech news coming from Korea suggests that Apple is in talks with NTT DoCoMo of Japan and Korea’s own Telecom Freetel. Both are big players in the 3G market in that part of the world. In fact, NTT DoCoMo is credited with having pioneered 3G mobile phone technology.
Both Korea and Japan are huge markets that Cupertino would certainly love to grab hold of. Of course, this will all be clear in just a few weeks. Most likely.
Now, where’s the insect repellent?
[Via MacDailyNews]
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May 24
Golf Driving Range
FORE! MyNuMo brings the classic golf driving range to the iPhone. Play for accuracy and move onto more difficult levels. No need to wait for t-times, just fire up the iPhone and swing away. Golf Driving Range features MyNuMos new “press to play” sports game system that makes iPhone gaming fast and fun. http://mynumo.com/iphone/golf/main.htm
May 24
Newsflash: SMS text messages way too expensive
On the many, many, many lists we’ve compiled of missing iPhone features, the lack of Instant Messaging has consistently been towards the top. Among the theories (conspiracy or otherwise) behind the lack of IM on the iPhone is the suggestion that IM would cut too much into AT&T’s revenue from…
May 24
Trivia Why?s Daily Quiz
Specifically created for the iPhone and iPod Touch but playable in any modern web browser, Trivia Why’s Daily Quiz keeps you sharp with a few minutes of exercise for the left side of your brain and a touch of wit for the right. Know all the answers? Congratulations, you’re a trivia genius! Not so sharp […]
May 24
iPhone 2 Advertisement Being Shot Today?
I’ve got it on good authority that an iPhone ad is being shot today by a big name director. It’s probably Apple’s traditional ad agency, and the only thing that my source and I can’t confirm is whether this is for iPhone 2 or the first gen. I’m guessing it’s for the second generation given the scope of the ad’s resources and the timing.
May 24
AT&T making out like bandit on iPhone
Filed under: iPhone
Apparently AT&T is making out pretty well on this whole iPhone thing. According to a Rubicon Consulting study (NYT link, registration required) of 460 iPhone users about half (47%) switched to AT&T to get the iPhone and agreed to pay an average of $19 more per month to use the iPhone over their previous cell. Those numbers are just about right in my case from when I traded in my Treo on Sprint.
What about you guys? How many of you switched to get an iPhone and how much more are you paying per month than you were before?
[via iPhone Central]
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May 24
Orange to grow iPhones in Europe, Middle East, and Africa
More fun with carriers! Orange, who already has an exclusive deal with Apple for providing the iPhone in France, has now announced that it’s made a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to other countries under their dominion. As of “later this year” (which we are awarding “most favored…
May 24
Napster MP3 store to rival iTunes store with 6 million DRM-free tracks
Filed under: iPod Family, iTS, iPhone
Napster has announced that it is now offering DRM-free MP3 downloads that play on the iPod family and the iPhone. Furthermore, the library is 6 million songs which puts it in the same league as the iTunes Store, and indeed far eclipses the latter in DRM-free offerings. The MP3s are 256kbps and cost 99 cents per track with “most” MP3 albums at $9.95.
Personally, I had long since moved most of my download music buying to Amazon MP3 to take advantage of the DRM-free offerings (and slightly lower price) versus the iTunes Store. The main disadvantage to Amazon MP3 was the smaller library; now with Napster offering a similar sized library to the iTunes Store it will be interesting to see if and how Apple responds. Indeed it will be interesting to see if Apple is able to respond with more DRM-free music since it seems clear that the record companies are basically triangulating against Cupertino in a bid to undermine Apple’s online music dominance.
[via Engadget]
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May 24
AT&T to Complete Their 3G Network in June
This isn’t huge news that will change your life, but AT&T is aiming to have the first round of their HSPA 3G network complete by the end of June. The company is addressing their network’s upload speed, bringing High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) in to complement the existing High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in their last six markets.
Their HSPA network will then be finalized, bringing 1.4 Mbps (Down) and 800 Kbps (Up) to all users in its range. AT&T’s next move will be offering HSPA in more markets. By the end of June, HSPA will be in 275 US markets. But by the end of the year, AT&T plans for that number to grow to 350. [AT&T via Phone Scoop]
May 24
Refurb iPhones still contain previous users’ data
Filed under: Security, iPhone
Here’s a slightly disturbing story from iPhone Atlas. Apparently user data is recoverable from iPhones that are being sold as refurbished. A detective from the Oregon State police recovered email, photos, and other user data from an “out-of-the-box refurbished iPhone.” Indeed the image to the right is a partial screen capture from the refurbished iPhone.
According to the iPhone developer Jonathan Zdziarski “all of the personal information that was sitting on [his iPhone] prior to the erase or restore is still left sitting in the unallocated blocks of the iPhone’s NAND memory.” In other words doing a Restore operation through iTunes will not actually fully delete all the data on the iPhone. What’s needed is a low-level format of the NAND, but there doesn’t seem to be a readily available means for doing this.
With the 3G iPhone presumably about to drop it seems safe to assume a lot of second-hand iPhones are about to become available on eBay, etc. It would be nice if there were some fully reliable way to ensure that all personal data is expunged from the device. The original information is on Zdziarski’s blog.
Update: Just to be clear, the data was recovered using forensics software. Average users who buy refurbished iPhones will not have easy access to the previous userss data, though it will still be there waiting to be recovered by anyone with the proper expertise.
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May 24
MegaPhone now PhoneView: an app by any other name would smell as sweet
When you want to get the most out of your iPhone, there’s one app you turn to: iPhoneDrive. Er, wait. MegaPhone. Aw, bugger. PhoneView. Look: we don’t care much what it’s called; what we do care about is the fact that it lets us do things with our iPhone and…
May 24
IntelliScreen Brings Useful Widgets to iPhone’s Home Screen
Instead of just staring the time, date and your choice of wallpaper when you start up the iPhone, why not make it more Windows Mobile-y by putting useful information there*? The app IntelliScreen lets you show either your upcoming calendar items, recent emails, recent text messages, the weather, or even an RSS feed up on the standby screen, letting you see what you need to see without even unlocking your phone. Useful? Definitely. Cluttered? For sure.
It’s also in beta, and may crash or even wipe some of your data if it conflicts with some of your other apps. Be careful.
* Yes this is one of the few times that people want to make the iPhone more like Windows Mobile.
[ModMyiPhone via Just Another iPhone Blog via Lifehacker]
May 24
Apple sued for callings its mouse Mighty
A small accessory maker is taking Apple and CBS to court because it wants the Mac maker to stop calling its standard desktop computer mouse the “Mighty Mouse.” Landover-based Man & Machine, Inc. (M&M) filed the 14-page formal complaint in a Maryla…
May 24
RIM CEO: BlackBerry Bold Not Inspired by the iPhone At All, Really
RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, who was hating hard on touchscreen keyboards last time we heard from him, took the defensive on the BlackBerry Bold’s iPhone-esque aesthetics at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium, saying that the Bold “wasn’t a response to another device…. This was actually designed three years ago and the actual physical design of this product—I have the original models from 2006.” Syncing to iTunes aside, Mike, I take it that this would be your response to the iPhone then? What do you guys think? Update: Changed the picture to live shot comparison, rather than renders.
Lazaridis also continued proselytizing for the full, physical QWERTY, calling it “the most exciting mobile trend,” arguing that
“I’m not making this up. People are running out of their two-year contracts and they’re coming into the stores and they want to be able to do Facebook and they want to be able to do instant messaging and they want to be able to do e-mail and they ask for those features thinking that they’re going to get another flip phone and they’re walking out with a (BlackBerry) Curve or a Pearl because they’re the best devices for doing those kinds of activities.”
Man, it sure would be great if there was a BlackBerry flip phone, wouldn’t it ? All mocking aside, I think he’s kinda right—look at the success of the Sidekick and LG’s various QWERTY-but-basic phones, like the Rumor and enV. [Cnet via Daring Fireball]
