Silicon Alley Insider reports on rumors from a mobile industry source saying that the next-generation iPhone will have "a significantly faster Internet connection." While no further information is given as to whether this is referring to cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity, Silicon Alley Insider lays out some possibilities based on what is known about the state of the technology.
- This can't be referring to AT&T's 4G (LTE) network, because that won't be ready for a year or more. - This might be referring to faster wifi, and not faster 3G access? (802.11n vs. its current 802.11g/b.) - AT&T has repeatedly vowed to speed up its 3G network via updates to the network. Is it possible that the current iPhone can't support those increased speeds? - We don't expect Apple to comment, but we've asked.
Electronista provides more detail on AT&T's plans for faster 3G running at 7.2 Mbps, up from the 3.6 Mbps speed of the current network.
However, the most likely change is the addition of support for speed-doubled 7.2Mbps 3G given both hardware manufacturer and carrier plans. Infineon should have a new 3G chipset starting from mid-year that would support the faster speeds while also improving battery life. At the same time, AT&T has been trialing 7.2Mbps 3G since late 2008 and should roll out the speedier service this year. The provider has stressed that many of its cell towers can be upgraded solely through software rather than new equipment.
Current iPhones are limited in hardware to 3.6Mbps 3G and couldn't themselves be upgraded.
Electronista also points to the possibility of a new Broadcom 802.11n chipset being used in the next-generation iPhone to bring increased Wi-Fi speeds.
According to the Associated Press, AT&T has confirmed yesterday's rumor that they will begin offering no-contract iPhone 3Gs to existing mobile customers. The phones will be priced at $599 for the 8 GB model and $699 for the 16 GB model.
The new phones will still be "locked" to AT&T and won't work with any other cellular carrier unless they're modified. AT&T will only activate them on the regular iPhone plans, which include a $30 monthly charge for data access. Prepaid service will not be available.
Apple declined to comment about whether they too would begin offering no-contract iPhone 3Gs.
Apple today announced that they are now offering high-definition movie sales and rentals through the iTunes Store.
Starting today, movie fans can purchase box office blockbusters for download in HD for $19.99 from iTunes, and films will be available as iTunes Movie Rentals in HD for $4.99 within 30 days after release. Customers can enjoy these films in HD on their Mac or PC and on their widescreen TV with Apple TV, as well as in standard definition on their iPhone or iPod with video.
A dedicated HD Movies page has been added to the iTunes Store [iTunes] to highlight the new content. Pre-orders for the James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" and the thriller "Twilight" are currently being featured, with additional movies already available.
Previously, Apple had only offered high-definition movie rentals through the Apple TV in January 2008 and later added support for high-definition TV shows via iTunes in September 2008.
Ars Technica reports that a property list file in the iPhone OS 3.0 beta reveals the existence of four unknown products. The file references products known as "iPhone3,1", "iPod3,1", "iFPGA", and "iProd0,1".
These products are listed in addition to entries for the existing two iPhone models (known as "iPhone1,1" and "iPhone1,2") and two iPod touch models (known as "iPod1,1" and "iPod2,1"). An entry for another unknown model, "iPhone2,1" was discovered in January in the iPhone OS 2 software and revealed to have been spotted on ad delivery networks as early as October 2008. That model is also listed in the iPhone 3.0 property list file.
The file, /System/Library/AppleUSBDevice/USBDeviceConfiguration.plist, lists details about the USB configuration of the various iPhone and iPod touch models, as well as the device ID and product names. The same file in iPhone OS 2.2.1 lists the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first- and second-gen iPod touches, referred to as iPhone1,1; iPhone1,2; iPod1,1; and iPod2,1 respectively. It also lists an unknown iPhone model, labelled iPhone2,1, which starting turning up in web server logs as far back as October 2008.
In addition to these references, USBDeviceConfiguration.plist in iPhone OS 3.0 beta contains references to iPhone3,1; iPod3,1; iFPGA; and iProd0,1. All of the products are assigned unique productID numbers, though all are assigned a productString of iPhone. These details are reported to Mac OS X when the devices are plugged in via USB, and would show up in System Profiler, for instance.
Steven Troughton-Smith, who spotted the entries, is the same developer who activated tethering on the iPhone OS 3.0 beta yesterday. He speculates that "iFPGA" may be a device that utilizes a field-programmable gate array. The numbering designation of "0,1" for the "iProd" device may signify that it is a prototype device of an unknown type.
No other details on the products have been discovered, and there is no word on when or if they may be ready for release.
Update: Boy Genius Report is also reporting the existence of an "iPod2,2" entry, which we've confirmed.
In an article making a broad sweep of claims, SmartHouse revives rumors that Apple will be moving its computer and iPhone/iPod touch displays to OLED technology, claiming that a representative of display manufacturer LG has confirmed the news.
According to the source, OLED technology will be making its way into Apple's entire lineup of displays, from notebooks and standalone displays to the iPhone and iPod touch. SmartHouse also cites another source claiming that Apple has already created a prototype netbook using an OLED display.
In addition, SmartHouse reports on OLED touchscreen-based notebooks under consideration by Apple:
Sources in Taiwan told ChannelNews last month that Apple were looking at an OLED based notebook that will also incorporate new touch screen technology. Now sources in Korea are saying that this information is correct and that one area where LG has been testing OLED panels is in the area of touch sensitivity and "leave behind finger marks".
The sources claim that in recent testing OLED screens used on a notebook attracted "body oils and sweat" when a finger was constantly used on a screen. LG believe that by adding a layer in the manufacturing process that they can eliminate "finger marking".
Finally, SmartHouse's sources point to a "wafer thin" OLED screen capable of interfacing with an Apple TV-like product, although no additional details on this are provided.
While the reduced power consumption and superior contrast ratio of OLEDs when compared to traditional LCDs and LEDs have made such a move an attractive rumor since at least 2003, Apple has yet to adopt the technology in any of its products. Pricing and various technical challenges such as limited lifetimes of the organic components in OLEDs are typically regarded as the most significant barrier to adoption.
The sheer number of claims offered, along with a lack of detail and the revival of a long-standing yet unfulfilled rumor, lead us to be skeptical of these assertions, so we have published this story on Page 2 for interest and discussion.
Engadget Mobile discovered an interesting screenshot from the iPhone 3.0 beta operating system that is labeled "Upload Video". The screen reportedly appears when you try to upload photos to MobileMe. While Engadget is labeling it as an interesting "typo", we feel it likely suggests that video recording and upload capabilities will arrive in the next generation iPhone which could be released as early as this summer.
There have been intermittent reports about the next iPhone revision, but few solid leads. Still, whispers have suggested that June/July is the timeframe for the next iPhone which is said to be a major upgrade over today's model. Talk of multi-core CPUs and GPUs suggest the next iPhone could be significantly more powerful than the iPhone 3G. This could pave the way for rumored features such as background processes, and even video recording. While Apple has made no references to a new hardware revision, we feel the timing of the iPhone 3.0 operating system due out this summer provides Apple an easy way to introduce a major hardware revision at the same time.
As a result, it wouldn't surprise us that this "Video Upload" screen was misplaced rather than mistyped.
One developer was "hacking around" with some carrier bundle files and iPhone 3.0 and somehow managed to activate the tethering preferences. Not only that, he was also able to actually tether his iPhone 3G to his laptop over USB. Based on the preference panel, it appears that you will be able to tether via USB or Bluetooth.
Tethering is a feature that allows you to share your iPhone's internet connection with your laptop, but has not been an allowed feature up until iPhone 3.0. Even with iPhone 3.0, mobile carriers generally charge an extra fee in the U.S. to allow tethering access.
Apple admitted that they had built in tethering support into the 3.0 release but had not yet coordinated with mobile carriers.
Boy Genius Report claims to have received slides from an internal AT&T training presentation revealing that AT&T will be offering contract-free iPhone 3Gs to existing customers beginning on March 26th. iPhone 3Gs will be priced at $599 for the 8 GB model and $699 for the 16 GB model, and no service agreement or device activation is required.
By limiting the "No-Commit" pricing option to existing customers and one per active mobile number, AT&T is apparently aiming to limit the number of phones being purchased for unlocking and use on other networks.
AT&T is restricting the No-Commit price to existing customers who wish to add a line, purchase as a gift, or perform and [sic] upgrade and are not eligible for the Qualified or Early upgrade price.
While AT&T is planning to limit sales to one per active mobile number, the training materials apparently reveal that AT&T has only limited means of enforcing this restriction. Only sales made at company-owned retail (COR) stores will show up in OPUS, AT&T's point-of-sale system. Otherwise, there is no indicator in the billing system denoting such sales.
In other words, the SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application. All that complex data/pipeline/thread management is done in hardware. No muss, no fuss.
The Register then makes a questionable leap that this could power an Apple Tablet. Still, Apple's interest in the technology seems certain as they are a licensee and investor of Imagination Technologies and currently uses the company's PowerVR chip in the iPhone and iPod Touch.
According to the press release, the new chips are being delivered to customers in two-core and 16-core variants and appear to incorporate support for OpenGL and OpenCL. While Apple has not announced any new hardware revisions to the iPhone, many believe that the next generation iPhone will likely be released alongside the public release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware this summer.
- Spotlight (search) is said to work well - SMS messages are sent in the background, which means you can type a new message while the old one is sending - Notes can be used in landscape - "Find my iPhone/iPod Touch" option available under MobileMe, which presumably allows you to locate your iPhone from Me.com - Backups of your iPhone or iPod Touch can be encrypted in iTunes - Notes will sync
The QuickTime stream for yesterday's event demonstrates many of the new features found in iPhone 3.0. The 3.0 firmware will be available to end-users this summer.
Update: Video of someone demonstrating iPhone 3.0.
Google's Mac Blog yesterday highlighted Health Cloud [App Store, Free], an application released last month that serves as a native iPhone and iPod touch client for Google Health. Google Health is a Personal Health Record service that enables users to maintain all of their health records in one central online location. Health Cloud, created by a third-party developer, is the first application to use Google Data APIs Objective-C Client Library's support for the Google Health Data API.
Health Cloud is not developed by Google. Rather it uses Google Health's publicly available API (the Objective-C GData libraries) to communicate with Google's servers to retrieve a view of the PHR in the form of a Continuity of Care Record (CCR). The XML-based CCR is then passed through an XSL stylesheet developed by The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and displayed on your iPhone's screen.
The developer notes that a new version of Health Cloud has been submitted to Apple for approval. The new version adds the ability to display additional health data, as well as notices from health care providers. The update also improves the format of the displayed health record.
A QuickTime stream of Apple's iPhone 3.0 media event has been posted. The event revealed a massive list of new features for developers and end-users which we summarized in a previous post.
The iPhone 3.0 software will be available to existing iPhone and iPod Touch users in the summer. Meanwhile, a beta version of the software is available to registered developers starting today.
This firmware update addresses intermittent flickering and compatibility issues such as no video on some external displays when using the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter on your Mini DisplayPort enabled Mac.
Apple notes that in order to apply the update, the Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter must be plugged into both the Mac and a compatible VGA display. The Mac must also be plugged in rather than running on battery power.
The update weighs in at 11.4 MB and requires OS X 10.5.6.
Apple today hosted a preview event for its upcoming iPhone OS 3.0, highlighting a few of over 1,000 new APIs for developers and over 100 new features for users. Full details are available in our live updates, but here are some of the highlights:
- In-App Purchasing: Allows developers to sell additional content from within applications. Highlighted uses include magazine subscriptions, eBooks, additional levels and items for games. - Peer-to-Peer Connectivity: Find other devices running the app via Bonjour over Wi-Fi of Bluetooth. Good for gaming, but also other applications for sharing data. - Third-Party Accessory Apps: Allowing accessory manufacturers to create applications to interface with their hardware accessories. - Push Notification: Rather than using background processes that hamper battery life, utilize third-party server to push badge, text, and audio alerts from applications. - Turn by Turn: Apple will allow developers to use CoreLocation for turn-by-turn GPS directions. - Cut, Copy and Paste: Available across all apps. Shake to undo or redo. - Landscape keyboard: Available in all key applications, including Mail. - MMS: Picture messaging now available. - Voice Memos: Record notes, lectures, interviews, etc. - Spotlight Search: Available across all applications. Systemwide search available from main home screen by flicking to the left. - A2DP Bluetooth: Support for stereo bluetooth headsets.
Tethering, another much-requested feature, was addressed in the Q&A section of the event. Apple is building the client side of tethering into OS 3.0, but cooperation from carriers is also required in order for it to be offered.
The new iPhone OS 3.0 is available to all registered iPhone developers today as a free beta. Full release to customers will be this summer. OS 3.0 will be free for all iPhone users and a $9.95 upgrade for all iPod touch users. Most features will be available for the first-generation iPhone, although hardware limitations will prevent some features, such as MMS and stereo Bluetooth, from being added to those devices. Meanwhile, Apple also revealed that Bluetooth support can be activated in the 2nd generation iPod Touches.
Apple has posted an iPhone OS 3.0 Preview page listing a few of the highlights. A video of today's media event will also be posted to the page later today.
Apple's iPhone 3.0 media event is about to kick off. Here are a collection of links for live text and photo coverage of the event which takes place starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, 10 a.m. Pacific.
MacRumors will also provide a summary of announcements in this article as well. MacRumorsLive will return at WWDC 2009.
Summary of News- Doors have opened, audience has taken their seats. Coldplay is of course playing in the background. - Lights down, Greg Joswiak on stage. Scott Forstall will also be presenting. - Gizmodo: "iPhone sales are up to 17 million through December 2008. If you count iPod Touch together with iPhones, theyve sold 30 million devices." - Engadget: "This has been great for devs. In one year's time we've had over 800,000 downloads of the free SDK. We've had over 50,000 companies and individuals join our dev program. And most of them, over 60%, have never developed for any Apple platform before." - Promoting Gameloft: "They've had over 2m paid downloads for Gameloft." - Short video feature on Trism developer Steve Demeter - Announced 800 million app downloads for the App Store. Big applause. - 25,000 apps in the App Store. For their most current month of data, 96% of apps have been approved. Of those, 98% have been approved in a week or less. - Scott Forstall now on stage. - Gdgt: A year ago we announced the native iPhone SDK we enabled devs to use the same APIs and tools that we use. We gave them the best tools, APIs, and frameworks EVER for building apps. What they did with this blew. Us. Away. So weve been working hard to make this even better. And with 3.0 comes the next generation of apps and with that over 1,000 new APIs. Wow, 1k new APIs! - App Store enhancements. Devs want other business models, such as subscriptions. - Game developers want to sell additional levels, eBook developers want to sell one app and then sell books inside it. - We're supporting this now with "In-App Purchase". - Purchasing continuing issues of a magazine. Purchase one city guide, and then purchase additional guides from within the original app. All tied to your iTunes account. - For paid apps only. You won't be asked to buy anything in a free app. - Next, peer-to-peer connectivity. - Engadget: "With the new APIs, you can bring up a standard system panel which finds other touches or iPhones which are in the same app. You form an IP connection, and you can game together. This will automatically discover running apps, wirelessly over Blutetooth." - Utilizes Bonjour. Not just for games. - Next up, accessories. - Enabling third-party accessories developers to create custom apps to interface with the hardware accessories. - Showing example of an equalizer app controlling a third-party speaker system. - Can talk to accessories via dock or Bluetooth. - Now, maps. Google Maps can be embedded into any application. - Developers can now use CoreLocation to make Turn by Turn applications! - Due to licensing, can't use Google Maps for turn-by-turn, so "bring your own maps." - Push notification - Gizmodo: Now, Push Notification. You know, were late on this one. Theres a few reasons for this, most importantly, within two months of launching the App Store, we had over a thousand applications on the app store. - But now it's ready to go. - Had to restructure the entire architecture. Background processing doesn't work. Tested by putting an IM application in the background, and standby time dropped by up to 80%. - Uses push notifications on a third-party server to maintain communication. Can push badge alerts, text alerts, and audio alerts. - Gdgt: It preserves your battery life, maintains performance, and its optimized for mobile networks. Were in 80 countries around the world, and each carrier has slightly different network configs were doing all the hard work for you. This is just a few of the more than thousand APIs in-app email, iPod lib access, shake API, UI table view, cell styles, highlighted images, core data, nav bars, battery API, audio recorder, locatized collation, and text selection! - Asked some developers to make some apps in two weeks with the new 3.0 APIs. Now showing demos. - Starting with Meebo. Seth Sternberg, Meebo CEO is on stage. Meebo integrates chats across various networks. Push notification was the last piece they felt they needed to make a great iPhone app. - Next up, Electronic Arts. - Travis Boatman from EA showing off The Sims. - Talking about in-app purchases. Will be able to buy items in the game for $0.99. - Next up, Oracle. - iPhone app to track supply levels, integrates contacts with account reps, etc. - Next up, ESPN, showing off their native app. - Brings text alerts via push. Streaming video automatically adjusts quality based on your bandwidth. - Next up, LifeScan glucose monitoring for diabetes. - Glucose monitor can take a reading and send it to the iPhone via Bluetooth. - Can use iPhone to calculate insulin requirements based on readings. - Next up, ngmoco:), developers of Rolando. - Gizmodo: Today, theyre showing two upcoming games. First is Touch Pets, a social pet simulator. second is LiveFire, a multiplayer first person shooter over 3G or Wi-Fi. - Touch Pets: push notification for "playdates" with your virtual dogs. Or something like that. Also uses in-game commerce. - LiveFire: a first-person shooter with in-game chat - Can use push to invite friends to your game. Also uses in-game commerce...buy a virtual rocket launcher for a real $0.99! - Next up, Smule, developers of Ocarina. Ge Wang on stage. - New app: Leaf Trombone World Stage. A multiplayer music app. - Demoing an on-stage duet of "Phantom of the Opera" - Scott Forstall back on stage. - Now to the customer side. - Over 100 new features, including cut, copy and paste. - Double tap text to select, then drag two dots to adjust selection.
- Can paste between apps. Shake to undo or redo. - Now Photos. Can now send more than one at a time. - Landscape mode now available in "all key application", including Mail. - Adding MMS to Messages application. - Gizmodo: The BIG news is that theyre adding support for MMS (as we spotted earlier). You can send and receive Photos right over the network. Contacts (VCard). Audio files. Or your location. No word about video yet though. - Voice memos - Gdgt: Record voice notes, lectures, interviews, etc. Works with internal or external mic editable and sharable. - Calendar. Had personal calendars, then added Exchange and MobileMe compatibility. Now adding CalDAV, the standard for Google and Yahoo. - Can also subscribe to calendars. - Stocks. Now supports news headlines, additional data such as P/E ratios, etc. Also can use landscape mode. - Search. Now available in all key applications, including Mail. - New home screen with an integrated search ("Spotlight") across all apps. Access by flicking to the left from the main home screen. - Gizmodo: Other good features: Notes Sync, audio/video tags, live streaming, shake to shuffle, Wi-Fi auto login, Stereo Bluetooth, LDAP, iTunes account creation, YouTube ratings, Anti-Philshing, Call Log, Parental Controls, Media Scrubber, OTA profiles, VPN on demand, Languages, YouTube subscriptions, YouTube accounts and Encrypted profiles. Also, auto-fills. The biggest addition here is probably Stereo Bluetooth A2DP support.
- Now Greg Joswiak back on stage to tell you how to get your hands on it. - Available as a beta for all developers today. - Will be available for consumers this summer for free. - Bringing App Store to 15 more countries for a total of 77. - Most of it works on original iPhone, except for things requiring changed hardware like MMS and Stereo Bluetooth). - Will be $9.95 for iPod touch users. - Schiller and Forstall on stage for Q&A.
Apple will be providing an "advance preview" of the iPhone 3.0 firmware at a special media event today. This sort of advance public unveiling has become necessary so that 3rd party developers can update their applications to accommodate any major changes to the iPhone's operating system. As a result, we're likely looking at weeks to months of beta releases before actual delivery of the firmware to end users.
The iPhone 3.0 firmware could also be the basis for the rumored next-generation iPhone. In January, ZDNet ambitiously posted that we might see a quad-core iPhone running the 3.0 firmware. While quad-core seems quite ambitious, we'd also heard rumors of a multi-core iPhone in the works. Unfortunately, the lack of availability of multi-core ARM processors this year seems to argue against this possibility.
The software features to be delivered in the 3.0 firmware have been the hot topic this past week. It seems likely that both copy/paste and an improved homepage will be featured as there have been multiple sources suggesting these features. MMS and tethering, however, seem far less certain with only a single questionable source.
We will not be providing live web coverage for today's event, but will provide twitter/SMS updates on @macrumors. Our usual RSS news-feed twitter account is @macrumorsRSS.
We will, however, provide a collection of links to other locations for live coverage as the time approaches. Our forums, of course, will also be open for live discussion of the event.
Fandango, the popular movie ticketing site, has released a native iPhone and iPod touch application that allows user to search movie showings and purchase movie tickets on the go. Fandango [App Store, Free] also provides access to fan ratings, background information on films and theaters, and trailers.
Get movie and theater listings with the flick of your finger. Watch trailers. View fan ratings. All while the devices core location feature finds the theaters closest to you and the movies playing at them. And when youre ready to buy, its as simple as, well, 1-2 with our super-quick purchasing that secures your tickets fast and drama-free. Want more? Add favorite theaters for faster searching, securely save your credit card information for expedited purchasing, discover theater amenities and more.
Fandango has long provided an iPhone-customized web application for accessing movie ticketing information, but the new native application provides a significant enhancement in features.
The Mac web has been abuzz over the past few days regarding the possibility of an "authentication" or "DRM" chip included inside the headphones for Apple's new iPod shuffle released last week. After several days of investigation, explanations, and misunderstandings, the chip appears to contain no authorization or encryption component.
Following up on comments from iLounge regarding the existence of such a chip, Boing Boing Gadgets discovered the chip located inside the new iPod shuffles' headphone control module. The discovery touched off speculation that Apple had added the chip as a means to force third-party manufacturers to pay a licensing fee in order to produce headphones compatible with the new iPod shuffle.
Macworld, however, contacted an Apple spokesman about the matter. While the spokesman confirmed the existence of the chip, its intended purpose is said to be related to the "Made for iPod" program alone. Boing Boing Gadgets was also able to speak with Apple and received what is so far the clearest explanation regarding whether the chip contains DRM:
Just spoke with Apple. There is no encryption or authentication on the chip, so clones could conceivably be made, just not with "Made for iPod" official certification. And now we know!
Update: Apple offers a "Made for iPod" licensing certification for accessories that work with their iPods. With the introduction of this chip, Apple seems to have extended "Made for iPod" certification to headphones/remotes that work with the iPod shuffle. Previously, these accessories were not required to be "Made for iPod" certified. So while there is no DRM in the chips, themselves, it is unlikely that a 3rd party manufacturer would be carried in an Apple Store unless they are "Made for iPod". The implication is that Apple has further extended their control over 3rd party accessories for the iPod.
