Japan’s fastest growing mobile operator, [ SoftBank Mobile Corp. ],  announced today that it has signed an agreement with Apple to offer the iPhone to its customers later this year.

Given that the carrier operates only 2G and 3G networks, the announcement further supports expectations that Apple is on the verge of introducing the 3G iPhone.

SoftBank Mobile Corp, Japan’s No. 3 wireless operator, recently beat all of its peers in annual net mobile subscriber growth for fiscal 2007, adding 2,676,500 subscribers thanks to its White Plan featuring lower fees.

As of April, SoftBank maintained a combined subscriber base of 18,779,100, which included 14,453,100 customers on its 3G network and 4,326,000 on its 2G network.

Read Users' Comments (0)

Claims are being made that AT&T is pushing their tower climbing workers too had as they make a final push to get the 3G network up and running pre-iPhone release, and it could be costing thos workers their lives.

Phillip Elmer-Dewitt from [ Apple 2.0 ] notes that cell-tower deaths are on the rise.  Since April 12th, six employees have fallen to their deaths, and half of them were working on AT&T projects.  Previous to that, there has not been a cell tower death in four months.

AT&T obviously denies any connection, and has indicated that all that is required for the 3G upgrade is a software install at the base of the tower, but any time there are problems with the software upgrade, it is likely that a tower climb is necessary to troubleshoot that upgrade.  So, ultimately the question becomes, how much is AT&T willing to sacrifice to ensure 3G connections are ready for the iPhone release in June?

Read Users' Comments (0)

If you’re trolling eBay and craigslist trying to find out what you can get for your old iPhone, you might want to take a moment to consider your file privacy.

There have been a series of discussions about file security on the iPhone since it was released.  Apple’s restore (even the “Erase all content and settings”) feature on the iPhone does not actually delete the data, which means that is completely accessible to anyone with the proper software tools.

So what is an eager wannabe 3G iPhone owner to do?

1. Keep your old iPhone as a backup, and don’t sell it all.

2. Use the Erase all content and settings, and then completely fill the phone with mp3 files (legal ones of course.. ) and rinse and repeat x 3…

Once you have put a collection of useless data on the phone ( filling the memory completely is a vital step here) it will make retrieving any of the actual data that was on the phone originally a heck of a lot harder.  However, it is still possible for the more zealous voyeur of your data.

The iPhone has been targeted more then other devices for this particular issue, but it should be noted that data recovery is almost always possible on any type of media.  Remember the Columbia space shuttle the crashed,  the drive was found in a dry lake bed and handed to a team at Kroll Ontrack about six months after the tragedy,, and yet… [  99% data recovery ]

So, the lesson here is that unless you REALLY REALLY need the money, selling old hard drives, and other memory storage devices is not a good idea.  As far as the iPhone goes, most of your buyers will not be doing the Columbia style data recovery, so step 2 should be sufficient to feel comfortable dumping it for the 3G.

Read Users' Comments (5)

After months and months of rumor, speculation, and rampant guessing, we finally have a launch date for the 3g iPhone.

Gizmodo, and others, are reporting that a June 9th launch date has been confirmed.  The new device will be announced at the keynote address at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco.  It will also be made available worldwide immediately following the launch, rather then at the end of the year, as was previously assumed.

There is speculation now, that the 3G iPhone will no longer have a fixed price point, at least in some countries, and that there will be new policies surrounding the sale of the iPhone.  Some countries will get variable pricing on new iPhones based on enticements to switch carriers. There’s no word on which countries will be subject to this pricing structure.

Read Users' Comments (0)