iphone 2.0

While the iPhone deal did not work out for KTF’s Japanese partners NTT DoCoMo, things are looking much brighter for Korea’s KTF subscribers.  Originally the plan was to bring a joint venture for the iPhone to reach Korea and Japan as they did with the LG Wine in the past.  This time, Softbank made sure that it would be the carrier of choice for Apple’s iPhone in Japan, leaving NTT DoCoMo in the dust (for now).  While Korean Telecom Freetel (KTF) is looking for it’s own deal with Apple to be the carrier of choice for Korea, the definitive agreement has not been met between Apple and itself.  Unfortunately as much as KTF wants to add the iPhone to its portfolio of cell phones, technical issues are plaguing the deal.  Apparently there are technical issues in question related to iPhone’s Safari browser and the necessity for a local wireless Internet platform to be built around it.  On a side note we have also heard reports that Apple is double dipping by speaking with SK Telecom (another WCDMA provider) in Korea for a possible iPhone launch on their network.

With only a few days before the 3g iPhone announcement (iPhone 2.0 / iPhone version 2.0) we hope that a deal can materialize between KTF and Apple.  Whether SK Telecom can squeak out a deal before KTF and Apple can come to an agreement remains to be seen, but in either case Korea will be seeing the iPhone this year in 3g fashion.  These technical issues between KTF and Apple remind us way too much of the BlackBerry issues between RIM and India, but let’s hope for a quick fix and less headaches.

There are five days left until the Apple WWDC kicks off June 9 - June 13 and the 3g iPhone rumors are flooding the Internet.  While GPS support is not much of a rumor at this point, the front facing camera still falls into that category.  The origin of the rumor began with At&t announcing that they had completed 90% of their HSPA network which brings HSUPA (uploads) capable of transmitting at 800kbps.  With this type of upload speed, the capacity to transmit 3g video chats on At&t’s network is possible, but whether Steve Jobs decided to develop the next generation iPhone towards this goal is unclear.  Obviously the idea that iChat on the iPhone could mimic that of a MacBook or iMac would be nice, but with 10 million iPhone users all video chatting over iChat could At&t’s network handle the bandwidth load?  Probably not, but this is where the rumors meet the facts thanks to the latest iPhone patent by Cupertino’s camp.

The patent (seen below) describes several processes which are only going to stir up additional 3g iPhone rumors, but the most prominent is a front facing camera.  Within the Video Conference Module all the requirements for a front facing camera are met and now we have some concrete evidence.  Additional details of an “optical sensor” which is located at the top of the device are also within the patent filing.  With a Video Conference Module and an “optical sensor”, the front facing camera on the 3g iPhone might turn out to be a little more fact than fiction.  Whether or not we see the front facing camera in the second generation iPhone or not until version 3 remains to be seen, but at least we know it exists.

 

Everyday we get countless amounts of questions regarding cell phones and today we are going to answer the most common question; should I upgrade to the new 3g iPhone 2.0 coming out this June or stick with the original? Well to answer the question as simple as possible, yes. Honestly Apple has almost answered this question for potential buyers and existing owners with the lack of inventory and availability in both the US and Europe. Currently we are seeing iPhones selling for as much as $700 which faintly reminds us of the outrageous iPhone prices of iDay last June when the iPhone was first launched. Now for T-mobile subscribers and hopefully unlocked iPhone owners, the answer to this question might have a slightly different answer.

Clearly the main focus of the update to the iPhone will be the inclusion of 3g connectivity, but T-mobile USA uses the 1700MHz 3g band which will not be supported on the 3g iPhone.  The other factor contributing to the decision is that the new iPhone has not been unlocked, although unlockers are already capable of handling the new iPhone 2.0 Software which will be pre-loaded on the 3g iPhone.  So why upgrade to the 3g iPhone if you have T-mobile?  At this point there are not many reasons to do so, since ZiPhone is a solid unlocking, jailbreaking and activation bypass tool which gets the job done for all current generation iPhones running firmware 1.1.4 and prior.  If you want the safe bet, you can always stick with the current generation iPhone and then sell it unlocked once the 3g iPhone is released.  Our thoughts are that the best road to venture is to give the unlockers some time and confirm that ZiPhone will work on the 3g iPhone and then make that purchase since you will be paying the same $399 as the original.

So what will be different in the 3g iPhone versus the original iPhone?  Besides data speeds there are few details leaking any other prominent features.  What we can tell you is that first generation Apple products are always less stable and buggy than their future generations so this could be a big factor in your purchasing decision.  On the back burner, At&t has recently completed most of their HSPA network upgrade which would make it possible for the 3g iPhone to complete video calling so it is possible that we will see a front-facing camera on the new iPhone.  As far as dimensions go, the leaked icons for the iPhone in the new iPhone SDK and the MacOS X update hint that the bezel will be narrower, but no major size modifications are expected.

The real questions left to be unanswered are whether the 3g iPhone will sport an improved camera, since 2.0 megapixels is not cutting it these days and we really want to see 3.0+ if possible.  The existing 624MHz processor is plenty fast and we have no complaints on the multi-touch or computing speed of the existing iPhone since it has speedy performance and equally impressive battery life.  It will be interesting to see if Apple is able to maintain the battery life of the existing iPhone since more speed equals less battery, but we expect the settings option to disable 3g Internet to be the path of max battery life.

Overall, the 3g iPhone is still expected to be announced on June 9, 2008 at the WWDC and until then you can expect more and more rumors to break.  We would also expect an equal number of “possible” 3g iPhone images to continue to surface and we will leave you with one of the first “rumor” shots.

Go ahead and file this one under our rumors, but the Mac OS X update which went live today has slipped a new icon for the iPhone which we believe is the 3g iPhone.  With the WWDC kicking off in less than 2 weeks, June 9th seems as good of a time as ever for Cupertino’s camp to spill the beans of the upcoming second generation iPhone.  We know the iPhone will bring the 3g fruits, but with a questionable front-facing camera for 3g video calling, this icon image is killing our hopes.  While the Mac OS X update is not the end-all of 3g iPhone rumors, the same icon can be found in the newly launch iPhone SDK which also went live today.  With both of Apple’s new software updates showing the same icon, we are going to hope that these pictures are actually the update to the iPod Touch and not the 3g iPhone 2.0 coming this June 2008.  We are going to leave this one up for debate and hopefully the collective minds of gadget geeks will sift through the rumors and help us locate some official news on this one.  In either case, the updated icon features a much slimmer bezel while maintaining the same screen dimensions as you can see from the images below compliments of frijole over at MacRumors.

The lack of a GPS receiver is not stopping Apple’s iPhone 2.0 software update from enjoying the fruits of location based image services.  Today some interface shots have been released that demonstrated the iPhone running the newest beta for the 2.0 software update complete with geotagging options thanks to the Maps application.  While the iPhone lacks the dedicated GPS receiver most of us desire, it still does an adequate job of positioning through cell towers and this capability has now been passed on to the Camera application which presents the user with a pop up window stating, “Camera would like to use your current location”.  By selecting OK at the prompt, the location data will be pulled from the Maps Application and ‘use your current location’ in order to deliver the appropriate tags to identify the location the photo was taken.  Sure top-end cell phones have been taking advantage of geotagging for years, but it is still nice to see additional improvements to Apple’s iPhone 2.0 software update that bring the device closer to even the utmost user expectations.  As usual the iPhone software 2.0 update is scheduled to appear in June to coincide with Apple’s WWDC running June 9 through June 13th this year.

The demise of faster speed Internet has always been the additional taxing on our batteries. Sure it’s nice to have Wi-Fi on our phones, but honestly how much battery consumption is necessary to get more than 1000kbps download speed? Well thankfully, the latest news on the 3g iPhone 2.0 has leaked some very interesting details for those of you worried about battery consumption.

Rather than forcing users to run at 3g data speeds, iPhone users will be able to either enable or disable 3g within their Network settings. The source of this tasty bit of battery saving bliss comes from the 2.0 beta 5 preferences binary which had the details tucked away. Although this option is part of the 2.0 Software update, it will only be available for the new 3g iPhone launching in June since existing iPhones lack the 3g radio to take advantage of faster data speeds. Here is what the hacker who located this feature in the iPhone 2.0 software said:

Well, when you have nothing to do all day, this is what happens. Note that this is not fake, it is in the beta 5 .ipsw, but will normally not show up on an EDGE iPhone. Turning 3-G on will just crash the phone if you use an EDGE phone. If you do not believe me, then decrypt the beta5 rootfs dmg, and see for yourself in /Applications/Preferences.app/Network.plist

With the performance of the existing iPhone running off Wi-Fi, we can only expect impressive battery life of the 3g iPhone 2.0.  On the other hand, the inclusion of a feature to enable and disable 3g data speeds could mean that the battery life of the 3g iPhone did not meet the standards of Steve Jobs.  As a result, the feature might have been added in order to keep an option available to maintain the existing battery performance on first generation iPhones.  Let the countdown for the 3g iPhone 2.0 launch begin and prepare yourself for an endless amount of rumors in the coming weeks.

Our friends to the north will be getting a taste of Apple’s goodness very soon as Rogers has announced they will be launching the iPhone later this year. There is no release date, but this is undoubtedly great news for those looking to get their hands on the next generation of the iPhone version 2.0 (yes, with 3G support). It is expected that Rogers will be skipping the iPhone version 1.0 entirely and go straight for the 3G iPhone since their network supports HSPA.

To build further excitement, Rogers is considering subsidizing the handset and avoiding the carrier kickbacks to Apple in order to boost sales of the device. This would be a first for an iPhone launch although European carriers have slashed iPhone version 1.0 pricing to empty out inventories for the 3G iPhone release.

[Source: The Star]

Everyone is expecting the iPhone 2.0 to support full GPS and today we took a step closer to complete confirmation. Steffen Voigt has given us added hope that the follow up to the iPhone will bring the publicized 3G capabilities and full-GPS support. The root of this GPS madness comes from the current iPhone SDK’s locationd component. The locationd component includes references to NMEA which is a data specification for communication between various location sensing devices (GPS units). What really brings fuel to the GPS fire is that locationd makes direct references to satellite information with strings mentioning latitude, speed, magnetic variation and satellite status. The days of cellphone triangulation for iPhones is over as the iPhone 2.0 hardware-based GPS component will trump its predecessor.

[credit: iPhoneAtlas]