iPhone 3G - Even Faster (Comedy?)

Getting juicy tips and phone rumors is always incredibly exciting… but on the flipside you get “news” announcements like the iPhone 3G is even faster music video:

We have no clue what the heck this is or what it is supposed to mean. Is it iPhone 3Gay Pride? Is it dissing the iPhone? We don’t know but its funny in a pitiful way.

[Thanks bizarre, anonymous tipster and watermarker!]

iPhone 3G Guided Tour

All you iPhone Fanatics eagerly awaiting July 11th like little kids on Christmas Eve, feast your eyes on the iPhone 3G guided tour which should distract you from the fact that you don’t have the device for about 10 minutes and 28 seconds:

Finished watching? Now you probably remember that you don’t yet have the iPhone. Gotta love/hate that itching sensation called yearning.

uReady for the iPhone 3G?

AT&T has just released details on their July 11th launch of the iPhone 3G complete with in-store information, pricing plans and more. What do you know - they seem to have tacked on some additional fees and charges that make the $199 pricetag a bit more irrelevant.

Interesting points to note:

Here is info on the Service Plans available with the iPhone 3G:

And if you really feel like reading the entire press release, we’ve posted it below. Please note that there is a website set up for iPhone 3G FAQ and such here. And the PR text you requested:

AT&T Announces iPhone 3G Pricing and Tips to be iReady

Online Resources Available to Help Customers Prepare for Purchase

Variety of Attractive Plans Combine Voice and Unlimited Data

Dallas, Texas, July 1, 2008

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced iPhone 3G pricing for new and existing AT&T customers, several attractive voice and data plans, and tips on how to be “iReady” when iPhone 3G goes on sale at AT&T retail stores at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, July 11.

“We can’t wait to offer iPhone 3G to our customers, and we want to make sure the buying process is as easy as possible,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T’s wireless unit. “Considering all the great new features of iPhone 3G, we think our pricing and monthly plans present a tremendous value for consumers and businesses alike.”

Pricing and Eligibility

AT&T is making it easy for customers to prepare for their iPhone 3G purchase by posting “Get iReady” tips and frequently asked questions at www.att.com/iphone. The site also will include a link for customers to check their upgrade eligibility and other wireless account information.

iPhone 3G will be available for $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. These prices require two-year contracts and are available to the following customers:

  • iPhone customers who purchased before July 11
  • Customers activating a new line with AT&T
  • Current AT&T customers who are eligible, at the time of purchase, for an upgrade discount

Existing AT&T customers who are not currently eligible for an upgrade discount can purchase iPhone 3G for $399 for the 8GB model or $499 for the 16GB model. Both options require a new two-year service agreement. In the future, AT&T will offer a no-contract-required option for $599 (8GB) or $699 (16GB).

Current customers may also choose to wait until they become eligible for an upgrade discount. Eligibility is generally determined by amount of time remaining on a current contract and payment history.

Current AT&T customers who are upgrading to iPhone 3G will pay an $18 upgrade fee and new AT&T customers will pay the standard $36 activation fee.

Voice, Data and Text Messaging Plans

AT&T brings iPhone 3G customers the best coverage on the globe and the largest mobile-to-mobile calling community with unlimited calling to AT&T’s 71.4 million wireless customers. iPhone 3G customers can choose from four individual AT&T Nation plans, which bundle voice and unlimited data (e-mail and Web browsing).

  • AT&T NationSM Unlimited: Includes unlimited Anytime Minutes for $129.99 a month.
  • AT&T Nation 1350: Includes 1350 Anytime Minutes and unlimited Night & Weekend Minutes for $109.99 a month.
  • AT&T Nation 900: Includes 900 Anytime Minutes and unlimited Night & Weekend Minutes for $89.99 a month.
  • AT&T Nation 450: Includes 450 Anytime Minutes and 5,000 Night & Weekend Minutes for $69.99 a month.

All AT&T Nation and AT&T FamilyTalk® plans for iPhone 3G include nationwide long distance and roaming, Visual Voicemail, Rollover®, unlimited Mobile to Mobile calling, Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling and Caller ID.

AT&T will offer FamilyTalk plans, with bundled voice and unlimited data, starting as low as $129.99 a month for two iPhone 3G lines. Up to three additional iPhone lines can be added for $39.99 each.

Unlimited text messaging can be added for an additional $20 ($30 for FamilyTalk plans of up to five lines); $15 (1,500 messages), or $5 (200 messages).

iPhone for Business

Business customers interested in iPhone 3G should contact an AT&T business sales representative or review their account information online to determine their eligibility for upgrade pricing. Corporate e-mail and other business applications require the Enterprise Data Plan for iPhone, which is $45 a month and bundled with an eligible voice plan. Small business customers may qualify for AT&T BusinessTalk, the industry’s only shared plan specifically for small businesses. Additional details on iPhone business offerings are available at www.att.com/iphoneforbusiness.

iPhone 2.0 Software

All iPhone customers will benefit from the iPhone 2.0 software, which will be pre-loaded on all iPhone 3Gs and available as a free download for current iPhone customers. The new software will include numerous enhancements, such as business-class e-mail access via Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync; the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK), which allows a business to easily create applications customized to its needs; and the App Store, which offers a wide-range of applications — from games to business, education to entertainment and productivity to social networking. For example, AT&T has developed YELLOWPAGES.COM Mobile for iPhone, which takes local mobile search to a new level by allowing users to discover businesses and local events based on their popularity among other iPhone users, get directions and access business reviews.

[Via AT&T]

Omnia vs. iPhone

We’re not going to make any reference the letter after H cellular device murderer here… those talks are tired. But what we WILL do is show some pictures comparing the Samsung Omnia with the iPhone. Afterall, both of these bad boys will be on AT&T and before you drop some hefty coin, you want to make sure you’re buying what you want.

Not bad looking - either of them - eh? See the difference in the upper left hand corner? That’s the Omnia’s 5MP phone compared to the 2MP of the iPhone - one of the nice edges that the Omnia offers.

The Omnia also appears to be slightly thicker but also shorter and less wide. But don’t get the idea that its “stocky” or “frumpy”… they are pretty compareable as you can see below:

[Via IntoMobile]

iPhone Remote Control for iTunes

Apple seems to be proving themselves as perpetual innovators… and successful ones at that. In the readme of an upcoming iTunes update released only to developers, the following lines were found:

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.

And you thought nobody would ever read the fineprint… HA!

We see what you’re doing there Apple. Anybody will be able to download an application to their iPhone via the application store, for free, and sync it via Wi-Fi to the iTunes on their computer. WIth that connection established, you’ll be able to use your iPhone as a remote control for your iTunes from anywhere in your house!

That’s pretty sweet if we may say so ourselves. While the initial iPhone 3G announcement didn’t seem too mind blowing, these little details that seem to be trickling out 1 by 1 are pretty intriguing - we admit.

[Via MacRumors]

Best iPhone Applications, More Store Info

We’re getting some details, slowly but surely, about the composition of the iPhone App store including some of the top applications identified by Apple and some of the limits/restrictions that come with the territory. First - the exciting part - the applications:

Last week, Apple actually held an awards ceremony where they announced the top applications in various categories. For current iPhone owners and iPhone 3G hopefuls, you’ll want to jot these down and/or bookmark this page so when the iPhone app store launches, you can check these promising applications out first.

Best iPhone Game: Enigmo

In this puzzle game, the purpose is to get the water droplet into the bucket. Using the laws of physics with various tools, trinkets and objects put into motion and placed on each stage, you can get the drop in the bucket!

Here is the live announcement of Enigmo, featuring a demo of the game:

You’ll also see the caveman car racing game called cromag rally in the above video.

Best iPhone Health & Fitness App: MIM 1.0 from MIMVista

The mobile space promises to offer doctors and the healthcare field more immediate access to information that can help them save time… and in turn - lives. MIM 1.0 is a great example of this as it allows doctors to view MRI and CAT scan images directly on the iPhone. They can also manipulate the images for different views and data mining.

MIM 1.0 was demoed at Apple’s WWDC and we’ve got a sample video below. Another application, Modality, is shown first but the entire clip is under 3 minutes so be patient!

Best iPhone Social Networking App: Twiterrific 1.0 from the Iconfactory

Twitter is an uncommonly simple social networking application that allows “friends” to contact eachother through short notes of a little over 100 characters. Twiterrific takes Twitter and makes it available on your iPhone in a clean and concise application.

Twitter is so simple to begin with that, in reality, this doesn’t seem like any huge breakthrough. There is a free version that has ads embedded and a paid version that removes all the ads. Here is one person’s review of the app from a few months back:

Best iPhone Entertainment App: AOL Radio 1.0 from AOL

You can listen to 200 AOL radio stations and/or 150 CBS Radio Stations from around the United States with AOL Radio 1.0 from AOL. Even cooler, you can look at local radio stations based on your current location. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t listen to a station in San Diego if you’re sitting in New York City.

Here is a pretty stupid commercial for AOL Radio that isn’t iPhone specific. We figured we’d help you waste your time:

Best iPhone Productivity App: OmniFocus by the Omni Group

OmniFocus is a task management system that helps you organize your priorities, from business to personal and entertainment. It integrates with the desktop version and adds mobile features such as geo-picture tagging and location based services.

The following commercial is a branding commercial for the OmniGroup and really has nothing to do with OmniFocus. But, its freaking hilarious and we recommend you watch:

Best iPhone Optimized Web App: Remember The Milk for iPhone

This is a mobile version of “Remember the Milk” that is optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch. You can add tasks and lists such as grocery shopping lists - hence “Remember the Milk”- and be notified when you are nearby a task, share tasks with others, etc…

iPhone Application Limits

An interesting development in the iPhone Application world are apparent restrictions on the size and price for each application. Applications will be limited to 2GB each and the maximum price is $20. The size restriction isn’t surprising - if you get the 8GB iPhone 3G model, you’d be taking up 1/4th of the entire phone storage with a single application. But limiting the applications to $20 each seems somewhat odd.

When considering the scale of an application that would work in the medical industry for example, the $20 application price limit might turn off companies from developing fully integrated solutions that worth much more and cost much more to develop.

You could relate this to concept of the Research & Development of drugs for pharmaceutical companies. Would they want to put in the millions of dollars in R&D costs if when their drug is complete and proves effective, they could only sell prescriptions for $20 a pop? What if that $20 per prescription would prevent them from recovering the costs of developing the drug to begin with? Well, they would probably have known this before they started working on the drug, and thus never begun work on the drug to begin with. And if thats the case, the price maximum is stifling progress and development anyways.

Why not let the market determine what the fair price of a product is? If it’s overpriced and over $20 - people won’t buy it. If it’s over $20 and worth every penny, then people will buy it and the company deserves every penny they get for it.

We’ll see how long that holds up. It’s perceivable that medical software companies would bundle iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile versions of their products into larger packages, avoiding the application price maximum by selling the product as a bundle through different chanels.

We’ll see how it plays out… don’t forget that the application store will probably launch on July 11th, 2008 when the iPhone 3G is first made available for sale!

[Via MocoNews,

Instinct vs. iPhone 3G Heats Up at $199/Each

Samsung and Sprint themselves played up the whole Instinct vs. iPhone thing with a $100 million dollar advertising campaign featuring promotional videos that directly pit the two phones against eachother. Obviously, the Instinct won each “battle”.

While the annoying “iPhone Killer” crap gets perpetuated by bloggers, analysts and fanboys across the globe, the Instinct ad campaign was the first time it was purposefully force-fed by the competing manufacturer/carrier themselves. Many predicted once the iPhone 3G was released, the Instincts talking points against the iPhone would be moot and the “iPhone Killer” hype once again debunked.

But as the story unfolds, the Instinct has gotten tremendous reviews across the board and looks to remain competitive. One of the most exciting developments for the iPhone 3G was it’s $199 price point. After spending so much on head to head comparison ads did you really think the Sprint would let them walk away with a differentiating factor of price?

Of course not, and thats why the Samsung Instinct will $199 dollars with a 2-year Sprint Contract… JUST like the iPhone 3G.

I’m not sure what the marketing guys at Sprint are thinking, but if I were them, I’d change that pricepoint to $198.99 and get some more mileage out of those head to head Instinct vs. iPhone videos. Cmon Sprint, it will be amusing!

iPhone 3G Commercial

The iPhone 3G was announced by Apple and Steve Jobs at WWDC 2008 to a loudly applauding crowd. The commercial for the 3G iPhone featured a witty joke alluding to the fact that there is no such thing as an “iPhone Killer”:

We were waiting and waiting and waiting for unveiling of the iPhone 3G, wondering what they would call it all along. Would it have a new name? Would it just be the “3G iPhone”?

Instead, Steve Jobs referred to the device over and over again as the iPhone 3G. So, we’re assuming thats what you can call it from now on. We realize that most people have thus far called it the 3G iPhone. The only other possibility is that Steve Jobs is dyslexic.

The iPhone 3G it is!

And by the way, the 8GB version will be $199 and the 16GB version will be $299 - a significant drop in price for a significantly better product. Release date is set for July 11th.

UPDATE: We almost forgot, here are some articles from some of our favorite sources who covered the WWDC event:

Keep in mind these articles were written MINUTES after the presentation ended and cover some of these sources favorite topics. They by no means offer exhaustive analysis but you just want the rundown anyway.. right?

Hit up our iPhone 3G Forum to talk about the latest…

3G iPhone Release Date: June 9th

The moment you’ve been waiting for is coming on June 9th and you heard it here… second.

Gizmodo is reporting that on June 9th, Apple will announce the 3G version of the Apple iPhone during their keynote at WWDC. But announcing it isn’t all they will do - the 3G iphone will be available for purchase just after the announcement, according to sources close to the Giz.

The official launch date might vary from country to country and the terms and price points and details will be variable and subject to change. For example, “the 3G iPhone will be available for sale at the June 18th grand opening of Telefonica’s megastore—an Apple Store-like shop located in the company’s historical building in Madrid’s Gran Vía— with nationwide availability right the next day or after a few hours.”

Sounds like they want to milk each launch in each location for as much press, publicity and fanfare as they can get. Can you blame them? On one hand, not really… but on the other, do they need any more press than they’ll already get?

Make sure to check your local newspaper the day afterwards for a priceless picture of yourself waiting in a long line that stretches numerous city blocks. Enjoy the festivities!

Apple and Google Need Eachother

There are many reasons the government cracks down on monopolies, but it all boils down to the fact that competition is good for the world. It’s even good for the companies involved. Think about it…

Competition fuels progress and just as in sports and entertainment, businesses will often “play up” to their competition. They want the edge. They need the edge. And if they feel like they are being “pushed” they will constantly strive to be ahead of the curve. Apple and Google will push eachother forward as we witness the birth of a mobile renaissance and a technological revolution.

But it’s more than that. In each of the three above cases there were fans who took “sides” and cheered on their favorite of the 2 rivals. Tupac and Biggie were just two men… but their rivalry sparked a complete rivalry between the East Coast and the West Coast in the United States. Right now there are plenty of other Mobile OS platforms out there just as there were plenty of other East Coast Rappers and West Coast Rappers when the Biggie/Pac feud began. But its a matter of timing.

When Android was announced, many people were disappointed there wouldn’t be a single, heaven-sent gPhone. But when analysts explained further, people wised up a bit and the outlook became pretty sunny. The lackluster line of Mobile OS available was actually a detriment to Google. The cries of, “How will this be any different than Windows Mobile,” and “Google is only good at search and they fail at everything else,” became louder. And then along comes Apple with their SDK.

The Apple SDK was announced with much fanfare and an immediate rivalry was spawned between Apple Fanboys and Android Enthusiasts. Now that Android (and Apple) had a formidable and timely opponent, attention was refocused on what exactly an Open Mobile OS would mean. Google can thank Apple for this.

When Apple makes a move - people notice. They are already successful in the mobile arena and iPhone owners are a loyal and faithful group of people who identify with the brand. They are the brand. When they realize that APPLE is going to do what ANDROID just announced… all of a sudden the “stupid ideas that will never work,” became, “We’ll soon be living in a Mobile2.0 World and Apple, not Android, will take us there.”

Enlightening these early adopting Apple fans to the possibilities of Mobile’s next technology wave will prove instrumental in getting Android off the ground. Apple helped Android because they have the two companies have the same exact message when it comes to designing an Open Mobile OS. Apple opened the minds of early adopters to Android.

Android isn’t the only company getting a boost - this healthy rivalry is a two way street. Think about the concepts behind Mobile Applications. Many of them include social networking and user generated content integration ideas. Many, such as shopping comparisons based on your location and locational based barcode coupons, require the participation and sponsorships of businesses. These concepts won’t even approach their full potential unless these Mobile OS platforms are disseminated on a mass scale. Do you think the iPhone can do that alone?

Apple needs Android to help make the Mobile Dreams of the iPhone SDK & Android come true. Third party applications would be tremendously limited in scope and potential if the iPhone were the only host. The applications just wouldn’t be as useful.

How helpful is a permission based “track your friends” application if only 2 or 3 of your friends have iPhones? How cool would it be to have your “I’m Single” app open at the bar so single people nearby could browse/tap eachother if it were only iPhone users that could do so? Sounds more like a 21st century extension of the High School Chess Club to me.

Google Android, and lets not forget all the dedicated players of the Open Handset Alliance, will help get this new wave of Mobile Technology into the hands of the MASSES. Once the masses have the infrastructure and the capabilities of these new Mobile OS Platforms, both Apple and Google are golden. That is when the door will be opened wide for them to walk right into an industry of arguably the highest growth and profit potential.

Anyway you look at it, Apple and Google will be splitting market share for the mobile market. But with a mutually beneficial rivalry of epic proportions, Apple and Google will put their platforms into the hands of the masses and in turn, will be splitting a pie that is worth billions more than it would be if they didn’t have eachother.

Only three questions remain: Who is Ali/Tupac/McGwire and who is Frazier/Biggie/Sosa?

NokiaTube… the next iPhone Competitor

News of the next iPhone killer competitor came by way of Nokia with one source laughing off the 4 million units Apple has sold: “We’ve done that [volume] since we’ve had dinner on Friday.”

The NokiaTube

A bold statement indeed and an interesting name to boot. Sure, it’s just a codename but many of the codenames end up becoming the name and we wouldn’t be surprised if this one sticks. The iPhone is so darn generic as a word but so brandable since attributed to Apple. Google owns YouTube and the Put-Word-HereTUBE.com seems like a trend that won’t soon go away.

If Nokia is smart, though, they’ll try to find a name of their own. After all, if the piggybacking starts with the name it will give Apple Fanboys a pretty good argument that the device was an iClone from the start.

To tell you the truth, if the handset is as slick some are suggesting it might be, we could care less about the name or how much it copies the iPhone. Why try to reinvent the wheel? If something works extremely well, take its best qualities, build on its success with some unique ideas and call it your own. That’s the way it works folks.

Anssi Vanjoki - Nokia’s Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia - would agree, “If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride.”

Here is a quick video of the mobile in mention:

NokiaTube