Today at&t announced a 20 percent increase to the typical download speeds across its 3G wireless network and a 50 percent increase to typical upload speeds.
The mobile operator and exclusive provider for Apple’s iPhone in the US said the upgrades are results of recent network enhancements, including the deployment of High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology across all existing 3G markets that is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Customers on the network should now achieved download speeds between 700 Kbps (kilobits per second) and 1.7 Mbps (megabits per second), up from 600 Kbps to 1.4 Mbps. Meanwhile, upload speeds should jump to the 500 Kbps - 1.2 Mbps range, up from 500 to 800 Kbps.
The announcement comes just days before Apple is expected to take the wraps off its version 2 iPhone which will use this 3G network.
at&t says its 3G mobile network is available in more than 275 major U.S. metropolitan areas, adding that later this month it will become the first U.S. carrier to have fully deployed High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology across its entire 3G network.
By year-end, the company plans to offer 3G service in nearly 350 major metropolitan U.S. areas.
According to the Apple rumor mill, which seems to be working more then overtime lately, some specs of the iPhone have been released, by “a programmer at a major software publisher.”
The following should be taken with a grain of salt, because salt makes everything more tasty.
According to [ Cult of Mac ] the iPhone 2 will have:
- 3G
- GPS
- 2 x memory (16GB and 32GB)
- 22 % thinner
- Longer battery life
The tipster says Apple will subsidize the iPhone’s price to better compete with RIM’s Blackberry. The London Times is reporting the same thing — that [ the iPhone will cost about $200 in the UK ] when it goes on sale in July.
In a move that makes very little sense to this particular mac fanboy, Apple will be re-branding their very cool .mac service and begin calling it “mobile me”.
This is, of course, all rumor and conjecture, but given a lot of the buzz going on in the interwebs it seems likely.
Apple has bought a slew of .me domains, the soon-to-be-launched domain suffix for Montenegro that’s scheduled to go live on July 17th. Macworld UK spoke to Predrag Lesic, in charge of the Montenegro’s .me registry, and he thinks the domain will be an international hit.
Speculation around the web says Apple may be planning to re-brand its web service, .Mac, as Mobile Me. Daring Fireball points out that there is a new string inside one of iCal’s resource files hinting that .Mac will indeed be getting a new name, although it remains unknown what it will be.
These two facts go nicely together and it points to a whole new service coming through the .Mac gateway, hopefully it will integrate into the iPhone as well. I just wish they would leave the name alone, or at least pick something that is not so “windowish”.
There are plenty of iPhone/iPod Touch “stands” out there that are, basically, just for the purpose of watching, or listening to content on your iPhone. This one is by far the coolest, and not just because of the name.
The [ iClooly ], from Japanese manufacturer RockRidgeSound, is a stand for your iPhone that makes it look like a lil’ baby iMac.
The iClooly even pivots 90º for landscape/portrait swapping goodness and has a dock connection inside. It’ll be ¥4,980 (roughly $47) when it hits the streets June 7th
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?
In a recent interview with Australia’s ChannelNews, an unamed Telstra Executive made the following comments:
“We know what is coming, we have seen the new device and it will be available on our network as soon as it is launched in the USA, By christmas this phone will be capable of 42mbs which will make it faster than a lot of broadband offerings and the fastest iPhone on any network in the world.”
If true it would suggest that Apple is building a wireless broadband chip into the new iPhones that support an advanced High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) protocol known as Evolved HSPA.
However, this should be taken with a LARGE grain of salt, since the current speed cap is 7.2 Mbps, which is a hardware cap set by the chip used on the iPhone, and unless the folks at Apple have mass-produced a chip that doesn’t exist yet, it is doubtful that the iPhone will be able to handle these type of download speeds, even if the telecom company Telstra is offering it.
Geo-tagging for the iPhone camera.
Yep, you heard correctly, Apple wants to give you the ability to Geo-Tag your pictures, in the same way you can find yourself on the google map.
Essentially, geo-tagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to media files such as latitude and longitude coordinates — or even names of places — so that those files can later be referenced, searched, and grouped based on their origin.
Side by side pics have been spotted online :
Location-aware services such as “Maps” and “Camera” on the iPhone v2 will ask the user’s permission before transmitting data used to identify their current geographical location.
In addition, iPhone’s general preference pane will have a toggle that will allow users to enable/disable Location Services.
A lot of phones have this ability, so it is not blazingly new technology, but in true Apple fashin, I am sure it will be slicker and cooler on the iPhone.
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.
Just one day after [ instituting a policy ] of one [ iPhone ] sale per customer, [ AT&T ] said Thursday that it has discontinued the policy both on its Web site and in its retail stores.
Customers will now be able to buy three iPhones per person, a limit that the carrier enacted when the device first went on sale almost a year ago. Apparently AT&T has decided that they do in fact have enough inventory to leave the three phone per person limit in place.
“Our No. 1 concern is to make sure that every customer who wants an iPhone gets one,” an AT&T spokesman said. “We thought yesterday that the fairest way to do that was to limit customers to one iPhone. Then we realized that we have sufficient inventory to go back to our original policy.”
Apple iPhone’s have been running out all over in the US and UK, and apple.com is not selling them online at all anymore, stating that they are out of stock.
All of this smacks of the upcoming 3G release, and while all of this makes me hate AT&T even more then normal, I am happy to see the trail leading directly to 3G iPhones.
There is no current information on when AT&T will change it’s mind again, but we are sure it won’t take long.
I recently attended MacWorld in San Francisco. When people would ask me what that was, I would stare at them blankly, and just shake my head… Thanks to the iMac, iPod, and now the iPhone, I get a lot fewer of those types of questions then I did in years past when I attended.
MacWorld is Disneyland for geeks… or at least it always has been. This year was little disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, met some cool new vendors and got to play with the new MacBook Air. However. You knew there was a however coming. This year, they should have renamed the show “iPhoneWorld”. Now, bear in mind that I am a proud iPhone owner, and my friends are endlessly annoyed by how I can take any topic and swing it around to talking about how great my iPhone is. The show, though, is supposed to be about MACs.. all macs, not just the iPhone. I swear there were probably about 70 vendors doing nothing but showcasing iPhone accessories. Now at first I thought this was great, since I wanted to get a few accessories for my iPhone (have I mentioned how great it is?). This brings me to my next problem with the show. No one was selling anything… NO ONE. On the last day a new booth magically appeared and they were selling a smattering of supplies, but for the majority of the show, no one was selling, only showing. Everyone of them told me that I could purchase online. ONLINE!?!?! REALLY?!?!? I am standing 2 feet from the product and you want me to go online, and pay for shipping … WOW!.. it was really really frustrating.
Also odd to me, was the lack of love for the iMac. In every show I have attended, since the iMac was released, there have always been an area where they showed off the iMac… not this year.. Other then the iMacs in use by the vendors, there were none to be found.
Now, the MacBook Air is very cool… Let me state that up front. It feels great, and has a geek cool factor that tops the charts… BUT!! You knew there was a but coming…
$1799.00 for the low end.. are you kidding me ? There is no optical drive, no expansion whatsoever, no access to the RAM, and the battery is safely locked away from access as well. HMMM… Mr. Jobs, while I realize you believe that you can ween us off the Optical drives, a concept I am not on board with, you can not possibly imagine that people are going to want to spend as much on a sub-notebook computer as they will on the MacBook Pro..
This really should have been a computer to compete with the lower priced PC’s on the market.
Anyway, Steve Jobs does not care what I think… Heck, you probably don’t care what I think, but there it is … what I think for all to see.
The last complaint I have is why was the show so small ? Where have all the vendors gone? COME BACK! and next year, sell me something.. I bring a WAD of cash with me to MacWorld, and my wife doesn’t come.. you do the math..