iPhone News
Current consumer, business and technology news about the Apple iPhone multi-function
mobile device (cell phone, media player and Web browser). Constantly updated
from news sources around the world. For consumer news about cell phones,
see Mobilook's Cell Phone Consumer News.
Google Talk Revamped For Apple's iPhone - Jul 3
In order to accommodate the restrictions that Apple placed on iPhone apps to conserve system resources, this version of Google Talk shuts down if you launch another application.
Pricing for iPhone 3G Reflects a New Value Proposition
(NewsFactor)
- Jul 2
NewsFactor - Last month, Apple announced that its new iPhone 3G would cost just $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB version. AT&T confirmed that pricing Tuesday, but clarified that those prices are only for certain users -- buyers of any iPhone before the iPhone 3G goes on sale July 11, new AT&T customers, or subscribers eligible for an upgrade discount.
Pricing for iPhone 3G Reflects a New Value Proposition - Jul 2
Last month, Apple announced that its new iPhone 3G would cost just $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB version. AT&T confirmed that pricing Tuesday, but clarified that those prices are only for certain users -- buyers of any iPhone before the iPhone 3G goes on sale July 11, new AT&T customers, or subscribers eligible for an upgrade discount. For all others, the price is $399 for the 8GB iPhone and $499 for the 16GB iPhone 3G. In a new wrinkle, customers can buy the iPhone 3G without a service plan, but the price is steep at $599 for the 8GB iPhone 3G and $699 for the 16GB iPhone 3G. AT&T also announced monthly service plans for the 3G iPhone, ranging from $69.99 for 450 anytime minutes to $129.99 for unlimited minutes. The plans include unlimited Web and e-mail access, but not texting. AT&T will charge $20 for unlimited text messages. Those monthly service fees are higher than for the original iPhone. So will customers blink at those rates, even with a subsidized service plan? New 'Value Proposition' Tim Bajarin, principal analyst at Creative Strategies, doesn't think there will be much blinking. "I believe the new iPhone delivers a different value proposition via software, so the pricing plans will be viewed through the lens of its new software applications capabilities," he said in an e-mail. Apple's iPhone 2.0 software will be preloaded on all 3G iPhones, AT&T said. The software supports a new ecosystem of third-party software and will connect to the Apps Store, Apple's mechanism for users to download software over the air. Apple's Web site advertises that users will "find applications in every category, from games to business, education to entertainment, finance to health and fitness, productivity to social networking." And it boasts that the apps will exploit iPhone technologies...
Correction: AT&T-iPhone
(AP)
- Jul 2
AP - In a July 1 story about the new version of the iPhone, The Associated Press, relying on information from an AT&T spokesman, erroneously reported that the carrier is working on creating a prepaid plan for the phone. Spokesman Michael Coe later said he miscommunicated, and that there will be no prepaid plan for the iPhone 3G.
56% Smartphone Buyers Want iPhone 3G
(TechWeb)
- Jul 2
TechWeb - InformationWeek - Consumers are drawn to the price point, 3G capabilities, and the integrated GPS, a study from RBC Capital said.
56% Smartphone Buyers Want iPhone 3G - Jul 2
Consumers are drawn to the price point, 3G capabilities, and the integrated GPS, a study from RBC Capital said.
AT&T Unveils Pricing Plans for Apple's iPhone 3G
(NewsFactor)
- Jul 1
NewsFactor - AT&T on Tuesday announced iPhone 3G pricing for new and existing AT&T customers, several voice and data plans, and tips on how to be "iReady" when Apple's iPhone 3G goes on sale. AT&T retail stores will begin offering the new iPhone at 8 a.m. on Friday, July 11.
AT&T Unveils Pricing Plans for Apple's iPhone 3G - Jul 1
AT&T on Tuesday announced iPhone 3G pricing for new and existing AT&T customers, several voice and data plans, and tips on how to be "iReady" when Apple's iPhone 3G goes on sale. AT&T retail stores will begin offering the new iPhone at 8 a.m. on Friday, July 11. iPhone 3G will be available for $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. These prices require two-year contracts and are available to iPhone customers who purchased before July 11, customers activating a new line with AT&T, and current AT&T customers who are eligible for an upgrade discount. "We can't wait to offer iPhone 3G to our customers, and we want to make sure the buying process is as easy as possible," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T's wireless unit. "Considering all the great new features of iPhone 3G, we think our pricing and monthly plans present a tremendous value for consumers and businesses alike." Voice, Data and Text Plans AT&T's iPhone 3G customers can choose from four AT&T Nation plans, which bundle voice and unlimited data (e-mail and Web browsing). The first plan, dubbed AT&T Nation Unlimited, includes unlimited anytime minutes for $129.99 a month. AT&T is also offering a Nation 1350 plan that includes 1,350 anytime minutes and unlimited night and weekend minutes for $109.99 a month, a 900-minute plan with free nights and weekends for $89.99 a month, and a 450-minute plan with free nights and weekends for $69.99 a month. All AT&T Nation and AT&T FamilyTalk plans for iPhone 3G include nationwide long distance and roaming, visual voicemail, rollover, unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling, call forwarding, call waiting, three-way calling and caller ID. AT&T will offer FamilyTalk plans, with bundled voice and unlimited data, starting at $129.99 a month for two iPhone 3G lines. Up to three additional iPhone...
AT&T Finalizes iPhone 3G Pricing Plans - Jul 1
Customers will have to pay more to use Apple's latest smartphone -- including an extra fee for text messaging.
AT&T Finalizes iPhone 3G Pricing Plans
(TechWeb)
- Jul 1
TechWeb - InformationWeek - Customers will have to pay more to use Apple's latest smartphone -- including an extra fee for text messaging.
Hot-Selling Instinct Phone May Lead a Sprint Comeback - Jul 1
Wall Street has been snapping up Sprint Nextel shares recently amid signs the struggling communications giant may be resolving problems that have plagued it since the second half of last year. Perhaps the most encouraging sign comes in the form of record sales for the new "iPhone killer" Sprint co-developed with Samsung. Despite mixed reviews, the Instinct smartphone broke the company's record for the first week of sales for any high-speed EVDO mobile device. "The strong early response tells us that wireless customers recognize Instinct as a highly innovative and convenient touchscreen device combined with the fast speeds available on the largest national mobile broadband network," said John Garcia, president of Sprint's wireless division. The Comeback Road Since joining the company early this year, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has been leading efforts to stem subscriber defections through the launch of beefed-up customer service and a $99 voice/data plan. That renewed focus on subscribers appears to be paying off. During a recent meeting with investors, Verizon Communications President Denny Strigl noted that Sprint's performance had picked up in the past 30 days, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sprint has also agreed to spin off its fledgling WiMAX network, which had been threatening to drain as much as $5 billion from the company. A joint Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX deal announced last year will launch with a combined $3.2 billion investment from industry giants Comcast, Intel, Time Warner, Google and Bright House Networks. And last month Sprint and infrastructure partner Samsung Telecommunications said WiMAX was ready for prime time. Recent tests in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., areas show that the network has passed rigorous performance criteria pertaining to signal-handoff problems Sprint encountered earlier this year, the companies said. In the short term, however, Sprint is relying on the Samsung Instinct to keep Apple's new iPhone...
The Mobile Web Industry Takes Center Stage - Jul 1
Wait. Scroll. Scroll. Tap-tap. Wait. Wait. For many years, that was the typical experience of someone surfing the Web using a mobile phone or PDA, at least in the U.S. Although some content providers offered stripped-down versions of their sites specially designed for mobile users, most did not, and reading a page designed to be viewed on a PC on the small screen was about as much fun as sitting in a dark room reading a newspaper by flashlight. Today, the mobile Web environment is in a period of rapid change, thanks in no small part to Apple's iPhone. From the phone's introduction in June, 2007, through March, 2008, 5.4 million iPhones have sold, and to date developers have created more than 17,000 sites or "Web applications" optimized for the device. But this isn't a story about the iPhone, per se; it's a story about designing for the mobile Web. The iPhone was just a catalyst of sorts, bringing buzz, investors, and new technology to the sector. As a result, the mobile Web design and customer experience bar has been raised. Changing the Game "Mobile Web used to be WAP," says Matt Murphy, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, the venture capital firm that has started a $100 million "iFund" to develop applications for the iPhone. "Now you have a real browser and a real device. The iPhone is a game-changer." "From a design experience perspective, it's changing the way people view the Web and the value of the mobile Web," says Kelly Goto, the founder and CEO of San Francisco-based GotoDesign. Pre-iPhone, says Cameron Moll, principal interaction designer at LDS Church and author of the influential e-book Mobile Web Design, companies typically took one of four approaches to the mobile Web: 1] do nothing and let mobile users scroll their way around sites designed...
Surge of New Software To Be Available for the iPhone - Jul 1
Mark Cain felt like a rock star. The chief technology officer of medical imaging software company MIMvista got that sensation as he stepped onto the stage at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9 to demonstrate a new program that delivers medical scans to an iPhone. Suddenly he was in front of an auditorium packed with thousands of Apple faithful, reporters, and bloggers, all eager for news of the latest iteration of Apple's music-playing cell phone and the software applications designed to run on it. "We went from thousands of people knowing about our company to millions, in just a moment," he says. MIMvista's application is just one of the 4,000 applications being developed specifically to run on the iPhone. These are part of a wave of so-called native applications, meaning they're designed to run directly on the phone, as opposed to being downloaded onto the phone from a Web browser. The first of these programs becomes available by mid-July, around the time the new iPhone 3G hits store shelves. Native applications take full advantage of the new device's improved computational power, including its navigational features and ability to run on a more advanced wireless network. "[Both] Web-based and native applications have a place," says Erica Sadun of the Unofficial Apple Weblog. Yet, "native applications access location, and do a lot of things using the onboard sensors." Apple has packed plenty into the new gadget. Like the first version of the iPhone, this one boasts a 2-megapixel camera, a snazzy touchscreen, and an accelerometer that helps it respond to motion. The fancy features make this "a truly sexy device," says Kevin Burden, director of mobile devices at ABI Research. Business Class As appealing as it may be to hipsters, the iPhone 3G was designed with business users in mind as well. Software developers are all...
Samsung's Instinct a Worthy iPhone Rival - Jul 1
You've got to feel a little sorry for the folks at Samsung and Sprint Nextel. Last Friday, they launched a feature-rich, attractive and generously priced $130 smartphone called Instinct, yet all anyone wants to gab about is the new iPhone coming July 11 from Apple and AT&T. Instinct invites the inevitable comparisons to its iconic rival. Instinct and iPhone kind of resemble each other. And both run off their respective carriers' fastest cellular networks. Moreover, it may be an iPhone wannabe, but Instinct boasts features the iPhone doesn't offer. These include mobile radio and TV services, voice dialing, stereo Bluetooth, expandable memory, a camera that shoots video and a removable battery. Heck, Sprint even tosses in a spare, which you can charge outside the phone. One more thing Sprint supplies that Apple doesn't: a carrying case that in hindsight I should have used. Its touch-screen got a nasty scratch after I carried it unprotected in my pocket during tests in Manhattan, northern New Jersey and South Florida. All this indeed makes Instinct a worthy rival to the iPhone, even if it falls short. Apple's software is more intuitive and pleasurable. The iPhone makes beautiful use of an "accelerometer" for orienting the screen horizontally or vertically depending on what you are doing. With Instinct, there doesn't always seem to be a rhyme or reason for when you must rotate the device. Moreover, even with a Web browser capable of showing the real deal Internet rather than pages optimized for mobile viewing, the experience pales next to iPhone. Ditto for e-mail. Here's closer look: *The basic Instinct. At 4.4 ounces and just over 4 1/2 inches tall, 2 inches wide and a half-inch thick, Instinct is close physically to the iPhone. Its 3.1-inch display is a little smaller than Apple's, however, and of a lesser resolution. Three main touch controls...
AT&T Announces iPhone 3G Price Plans
(PC Magazine)
- Jul 1
PC Magazine - AT&T on Tuesday announced pricing for the new iPhone 3G, along with tips on how customers could find one of the new phones once it goes on sale on July 11 at 8 AM.
Put to the Test: Best Smartphone Platforms For Business
(TechWeb)
- Jul 1
TechWeb - Intelligent Enterprise - A smartphone's OS drives its productivity-enhancing powers. Here's a guide to choosing among Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia S60, and Google Android.
Garmin To Incorporate GPS into Consumer Phone - Jun 30
You're visiting Barcelona and looking for a good place to have dinner. What if you could find a restaurant nearby, and then instantly check with your friends around the world to see if any of them have eaten there? That's one of the services that could soon be available to customers of Garmin, one of the world's largest makers of personal navigation devices. On June 26, Garmin, which is based in Olathe, Kan., announced it had inked a global deal with Amsterdam-based GyPSii, a geo-location and mobile social-networking provider. GyPSii's software, which includes a friend-finder as well as functions for geographic searching, directions, and mapping, will be bundled into future navigation devices made by Garmin. GyPSii, founded by former Netscape executive Dan Harple, offers what analysts say is a unique blend -- something like a combination of Facebook and TripAdvisor, with some other location-based services thrown in. Other Web 2.0 services, such as those on offer from Nokia's Ovi, Buzzd and Loop'd, provide some of these elements, but none offers them all, says Ian Chard, an analyst at tech consultancy Jupiter Research. Handsets Get the Mapping Bug Garmin isn't saying yet which of its future devices will use GyPSii. But analysts expect the company to bundle the software in the Nuvifone, its first planned consumer phone, which will contain a navigation system. Somewhat similar in appearance to Apple's iPhone, the Nuvifone, which has a large screen, is expected to ship in the third or fourth quarter of this year. Sales of personal navigation devices have surged in recent years as consumers use mapping technology and GPS signals to find their way around. But cell-phone makers such as Nokia, which purchased mapping technology vendor Navteq, are now incorporating navigation technology into handsets, putting pressure on the likes of Garmin to respond. Location-Aware Services Canalys, a tech consultancy in...
  |
