Specs

We’ve reported before that AT&T is scrambling to upgrade its network capacity in time for the next generation iPhone’s launch this summer but an interesting tidbit of news has slipped by that may shed some more light on what Apple will be packing in its new handheld: much faster data speeds.

Scott McElroy, AT&T Mobility’s vice president of technology announced the plans to move data speeds from the current 3.6Mb/s to 7.2Mb/s through a simple Software upgrade at their cellular towers. Of course this would require a change in hardware for any cellular device that connects to it if a wireless subscribers wants to take advantage of the higher throughput but it does give some credence towards the next generation iPhone’s wireless capabilities and it would be surprising if Apple didn’t support the faster HSPA + spec with speeds of 7.2/14.4 and 21Mb/s.

McElroy didn’t give an estimation on when the faster 3G network would launch but did say that it will be tested in two markets shortly and reiterated AT&T’s focus on upgrading the cellular baseband through software upgrades within their towers to boost speed over installing… more...

One of the most consistent complaints about the iPhone is that the camera is only two megapixels. When compared to other phones that does seem a bit anemic but complaints about the number of megapixels are perhaps misguided. People are confusing the number of megapixels with the ability to purchase talent.

Consider your golf head buddy. You know the guy who always has the latest gear because as long as Ping or Cobra can come up with a new alloy or catchphrase people will think they can buy a golf swing. So every year they go out, buy the new clubs and end up still sucking tee to green.

Back to the question at hand: Would more megapixels on the iPhone make you a better photographer? The answer? No. Turns out that two megapixels and some talent is plenty to crank out great snaps. For evidence check out Photocritic.org’s gallery of 100 fantastic photos taken with the iPhone.

It won’t be long until you can get all the media you own (or have downloaded) on your iPhone wherever you happen to be. There are actually instructions how to do just that in The Big Book of Apple Hacks. The trouble is that it is a hassle. To pull it off you’ll have to do a little work with your computer and a little work with your iPhone.

But it is going to get easier. iPodnn is reporting that a Sourceforge project is in the works to simplify the process. The program is basically a UPnP client (Universal Plug-and-Play) for the iPhone should be pretty nice.

It won’t be nice enough that everyone adopts it of course. But if you’re one of the folks who want that terabyte of stored movies to be with you all the time the Sourceforge project will do what you want.

If you’re one of the many who want the coolness of all your media everywhere but don’t want the hassle of a Sourceforge project don’t worry. This is the kind of thing Apple can put some polish on, call revolutionary and… more...

Jailbreaking your iPhone was the first thing a lot of users did before the 2.0 revision and App store rolled out. It was a little bit of hassle, but the payoff was huge: Your iPhone could run a variety of cool apps. Once the App store was revealed the impetuous to jailbreak the iPhone dwindled. Why even bother with the warranty voiding hassle of jailbreaking your iPhone when there are a bajillion (give or take) applications you can buy (or download for free) in the App store?

Personal reasons vary. There’s the “just because they made it hard for me” reason. Which is great, it is the same reason people climb mountains. There’s the “it’s my hardware I should be able to do whatever I want one it is mine” reason. Also great, once you buy something it is yours (or it should be). There’s the “I’m writing a book so I have to” reason which is really just a lame excuse, no one believes you. Finally there is the “I want my phone to do more” reason. Also great, who can freakin blame you for wanting… more...

Gizmodo is reporting that the iPhone is able to play 1080P video. Which is frickin’ awesome cause on a three inch screen if you’re not seeing everything in 1080P you’ll see all kind of jaggies and and the background will look… Wait, wait that isn’t even close to true. There is absolutely no reason to watch 1080P on a screen as small as the iPhone. Most videophiles will tell you that 1080P isn’t really useful until you get to really large screens (50 inches and up).

But the iPhones ability to play 1080 P does have interesting ramifications if iTunes HD is on the way as rumored. Plus, as time goes by and the iPhone’s storage capacity increases being able to hook your iPhone to a TV for hi def playback would be a interesting option. Of course, if you want to do that you’ll need something special from Apple.

It’s been speculated for a while and we’ve all heard that it will cost us a couple thousand for 2 years just to have an iPhone on AT&T’s network but in traditional Apple style 3 new, simple plans have been announced for the iPhone.

With the exception of the last plan which costs 100 dollars it won’t be a couple thousand dollars for the duration of your contract to use an iPhone but excuse me if this hasn’t been applied to other smartphones as well, just seems kind of ironic that the iPhone has been knocked for having an expensive plan when other phones can run more per month. Anywho the first plan offers 450 minutes, 5,000 Night & Weekend Minutes plus Unlimited Data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS Text Messages, Rollover Minutes and Unlimited Mobile To Mobile for $59.99. The only thing that differentiates the others two plans is the price ($79.99 and $99.99) and the amount of minutes (900 for the $79.99 plan and 1350 for the $99.99 plan) but both have unlimited Night and Weekend minutes.

What seems odd though is the inclusion of Visual Voicemail with the 3… more...

Check out this from USA Today where Larry Carter, SVP of Sales for AT&T says that there will be new service plans announced to coincide with the launch of the iPhone.

There are other surprises in the works for June 29. In addition to launching the iPhone that day, Carter says AT&T also will announce new service plans for it.

He declined to be specific, but says plans will be customized for the iPhone. Translation: The iPhone may offer cool features such as unlimited Web browsing, but you’ll have to pay for them.

Now, in all fairness to Larry Carter he doesn’t say what USA Today infers. However, in all fairness to USA Today being suspicious of any service plans is certainly warranted given the history of our cell carriers have screwed us in the past.

I just hope it doesn’t mean my iPhone is gonna cost me 100 bucks a month just to use Safari every now and again to make a call. I’m also worried that AT&T will see an opportunity in the fact that people are going to pay double, triple, or more for a phone to fleece us on monthly fees.

In the current TV advertisements for the iPhone, Apple claims that “this is not a watered down version of the internet.”

But according to Mobile Business Magazine, this claim may be a tad misleading.

Near essential applications such as Flash and Java will not be viewable at all on the iPhone and JavaScript applications will be limited to just five seconds runtime when using the built-in Safari browser

The YouTube announcement is certainly a huge development for Apple and the iPhone but based on this Java and Flash limitation, fully-blown websites won’t be accurately viewed on the iPhone’s version of Safari.

So will this limitation play a huge role towards the success of the iPhone? And will the majority of people really notice a difference?

[Via MBMagazine]

AT&T announced a great new service called Video Share. The only problem is the jewel in AT&T’s crown, the Apple iPhone will not be able to take advantage of it.

This new service will allow users to take video with their mobile device and stream it live to another caller on their phone. But the best part is the ability each end of the call has to converse while the video is being streamed.

It’s a feature that is sure to be a hit. The only problem is it requires AT&T’s 3G netowrk to run and unfortunately (at least from what we hear) the iphone is not 3G compatible yet.

According to freep.com:

Video Share is initially available only in Dallas, Atlanta and San Antonio (the corporate HQ city), although company CEO Randall Stephenson says it will expand to other 3G cities nationwide starting next month (including Detroit).

Yet another reason why Apple’s iPhone (said to run only on the EDGE network) could be limited by their initial launch offering’s network compatibility.

So a guy who authored a third-party app for the iPhone checks his web log and sees visitors that are using the iPhone. By doing further digging, he thinks he learns more about some specs used on the iPhone.

The author of Gas.App for Safari checked his web logs and noticed the iPhone users were running Safari 419.3 (the older version of Safari), viewing on a 320x396 pixel screen and does not have Flash support.

It is unclear why the iPhones are not running the new Safari 3.0 Beta. Could it be that only the pre-released iPhones out there in the wild are running old versions and the major release will be more current?

[Via ZDNet]