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Canadian cell provider Rogers Wireless and its sub-brand Fido today listed their iPhone 3G plans, revealing the strategy for carrying the device in the country. All plans will need both voice and data and have finite data limits; unlike previous rumors, there will be no option for unlimited access with either service, though all will include Visual Voicemail as well as unlimited weekend and evening calling; incoming SMS messages are also unlimited, as is access to Rogers- and Fido-owned Wi-Fi hotspots.

Both Rogers and Fido plans are identical. A base $60 plan gives callers 150 minutes of air time, 75 outgoing SMS messages, and 400MB of data for use with any app; a $75 plan boosts call time to 300 minutes while almost doubling the transfer limit to 750MB and increasing the number of outbound messages to 100. A $100 monthly plan gives 600 minutes of calls, 1GB of data, and 200 messages, while an ultimate $115 plan supplies 800 minutes, 2GB of data, and 300 messages. Additional data is 50 cents per megabyte through the first 60MB, but drops to three cents per megabyte afterwards.

Unique among most current iPhone plans are the ability to add Value Packs. A $15 pack adds Call Display, WhoCalled, ringback tones, 2,500 minutes of call forwarding time and increases the number of outgoing SMS texts to 2,500. A $20 pack both supplies 10,000 SMS messages and drops the 9PM evening calling threshold to 6PM for very frequent users.

Every iPhone plan requires a three-year contract; the company has already outlined pricing for the phones themselves, which match the US prices of $199 for an 8GB model and $299 for a 16GB version. Both the plans and the phones become available on July 11th.

The caps are already expected to be controversial for offering less to Canadian users than American counterparts but are considered improvements over recently unveiled BlackBerry plans, which offer 300MB of data for $30 on top of a voice plan.

source: electronista.com

Vodafone India has already begun taking contract pre-registrations on the iPhone 3G, according to an announcement. The move is unusual in that the company has yet to disclose a final release date for the device, although rival Bharti Airtel is expected to release it on July 11th along with the initial wave of iPhone 3G deployments. Bharti has not formally announced any iPhone plans, including any registration campaigns.

Problematic for both companies is that the new phone will not have a 3G network to operate on. The Indian government has yet to finalize guidelines on an auction of 3G frequencies and licenses, meaning that iPhone owners will be forced to run on 2 or 2.5G technology for months or years. One major obstacle is said to be whether foreign companies will be eligible for bidding on 3G spectrum.

It is meanwhile rumored that in the UK and Ireland, O2’s pre-registration is set to begin on July 1st. The goal is to alleviate traffic due to Apple’s mandatory in-store activation policy, and as a result people will allegedly be able to visit an O2 store early, run through credit checks, and have a “paused” contract put in place. To get a phone working on launch day, shoppers will simply have to supply a registration code when picking up the device.

source: macnn.com

The iPhone 3G carries a lower price, but it also costs about half as much to make, according to a report in the EETimes. The report says tests by teardown specialist Portelligent put the bill of materials for the new model as low as $100. That should help offset the 3G’s lower $199 price point. Portelligent estimates that based on materials alone, Apple’s gross profit on the iPhone 3G totals about $99, compared to $229 for the previous version. Apparently, Apple is counting on sales volume to make up the difference and Apple may also be receiving a payut for each carrier activation, although the revenue sharing plan with carriers, as with the original device, is no longer in place.

Portelligent says the cost savings comes from a variety of areas, including a touch screen assembly which, at roughly $30, cost half that of the original iPhone. Additional costs associated with the 3G upgrade were more than offset by savings in memory, improvements in engineering and other areas, according to the EETimes.

The report also says the iPhone 3G uses the HSDPA version of W-CDMA, supporting a minimum of 1.5 Mbits per second, up to a maximum of 7.5Mbits/s. Will Strauss, President of Tempe, Az. based Forward Concepts, told the publication he believes Apple is using an infineon baseband and RF transceiver and a Samsung Applications processor, based on sources he would not name. Strauss says the the new iPhone uses a GPS chip from Infineon with technology licensed from the startup Global Locate, now owned by Broadcom.

“Gen2 iPhone pricing is aggressive enough that it made me think Apple’s really taking the gloves off on this one,” said said David Carey, president of Portelligent. “They are probably not as worried about iPhone hardware profits as they are about getting a piece of the action on service revenues and getting more Macs in homes and offices all around the globe,” he told EETimes. The iPhone 3G is scheduled to go on sale July 11th.

source: macnn.com

Apple may replicate the success of the iPod with the iPhone 3G, argues RBC’s Mike Abramsky. The analyst suggests that in the September quarter of 2008 Apple will sell 5.1 million iPhones, 70 percent more than consensus estimates of 3 million. This would make for an increase of 356 percent year-over-year, paralleling Apple’s December 2005 quarter, which saw an approximate threefold growth in iPod numbers. This year’s December-quarter iPhone sales are expected to amount to 6.5 million, but this would only be a jump of 181 percent over 2007.

In total Abramsky expects Apple to sell 14 million iPhones by the end of the year, easily surpassing Steve Jobs’ goal of 10 million. For 2009 though Abramsky is only predicting sales of 24 million, a drastic difference from Piper Jaffray estimates of 45 million. Observes note however that Piper is factoring in unannounced sibling iPhones, which could make the device more affordable for the average person.

In terms of profit Abramsky is predicting a gain of $1.8 to $6.8 billion in incremental revenue in FY09, with $2.50-9.50 of free cash flow, and $0.29-1.09 per share in forward-12-month EPS, factoring in the absence of revenue sharing from cellphone carriers. General revenue is expected to be $42.5 billion, with a $6.50 EPS.

source: ipodnn.com

iPhone 3G for Canada site revealed that the new iPhone 3G will be available for both Fido and its parent company Rogers Wireless in the country. The news expands on the previous Rogers-only announcement and will let users of either service buy the phone when it becomes available in Canada on July 11th. Rogers says it will sell the phone at the same $199 (8GB) and $299 (16GB) prices as in the US, but will require a longer three-year contract common to providers in the territory.
Full plan pricing and costs for the phone with shorter plans or contract-free service are unavailable. Rogers doesn’t currently offer an unlimited smartphone data plan and instead relies on a $7 unlimited web browsing plan for most of its devices, including a handful of smartphone-class devices such as the Nokia N95 8GB. These plans typically charge a per-kilobyte rate for data used outside of the browser itself or through specially-authorized applications, though Rogers hasn’t said whether these rules will apply to Apple’s product.

source: electronista.com

Managers at retail locations of Rogers Wireless, one of Canada’s three major cellular companies, are being told not to take vacations during a specific period beginning later this month, a source from within the company claims. The “blackout” stretch is said to extend from June 23rd through July 16th, although no reason for the dates has been given. Apple is widely expected to announce the 3G iPhone on Monday, however, and Rogers has confirmed that it will carry the iPhone “later this year.”

A similar vacation blockage is alleged to have been imposed on AT&T staff in the US, with a slightly different timeframe falling between June 15th and July 12th. This coincides with an anticipated launch period for the 3G iPhone, and the release date of the original device, which debuted on June 29th of last year. AT&T employees were said to have been barred from vacations then as well.

source: macnn.com

Several Apple patent applications have today been published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, focusing around wireless location technology. The first involves Bluetooth devices, and specifically a means of finding them when they are lost; a master device “pings” the lost slave, which in turn makes audible or visible signals to lure a person towards its hiding place. The master could also be used gauge the distance to the slave, narrowing its location down even further.

The application makes specific reference to a cellphone as the master, and the slave being a headset; in theory this would allow iPhone owners to locate missing earpieces, but the current model does not have such a function. The invention was first submitted to the USPTO in November of 2006.

Another published document describes a technology related to wireless range, in which users of a device would be warned that they are wandering out of range. Apple notes that while many devices will tell people that their signal is low, its invention would deliver an estimated time before signal is lost. The technology would again apply mainly to cellphones, but virtually any kind of wireless could be supported, including WiFi, PCM and even infrared. This patent was also originally filed for in 2006.

source: macnn.com

The 3G iPhone is not only coming in June, but its early production numbers are already known, a Taiwanese newspaper claims. Industry publication Commercial Times is citing institutional investors, who say that Foxconn has landed a contract to begin assembling new iPhones for shipment in June. While this echoes earlier reports from March, CT says it has also obtained information from component suppliers, who have been told by Apple that the should begin preparing material supplies.

Foxconn is expected to ship over 3 million 3G iPhones in June, and produce as many as 24 to 25 million units before Apple switches to another product. Foxconn already assembles the current 2.5G iPhone. A 3G iPhone has long been expected this year due to a brief mention by the CEO of AT&T, but until recently it was assumed it would ship late in the year; recent reports have, however, increasingly pointed to a June/July launch, much as with the original iPhone. This would also coincide with the release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware and its accompanying App Store.

source: macnn.com

Apple has announced that in the first four days following the release of the beta iPhone SDK, over 100,000 downloads have been processed through the Apple Developer Connection, to which people must officially belong before they can use the software. “Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible with more than 100,000 downloads in the first four days,” reads a statement by Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Philip Schiller. “Also, over one million people have watched the launch video on Apple.com, further demonstrating the incredible interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone.”Apple has also let slip the names of some more companies planning iPhone software. These include Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks; NetSuite, who plan to upgrade SuitePhone; and Six Apart, who are developing a native iPhone application for TypePad. Apple has also revealed that PopCap is porting games such as Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle to the iPhone platform, while Namco is bringing updated versions of Pac-Man and Galaga.

source: ipodnn.com

iAno, the new application you can try out on your favorite Apple gadget: mister aardvark’s virtual piano application entitled iAno. Compatible with the latest 1.1.3 firmware from Apple for both the iPhone and iPod Touch, it features a complete four octave keyboard with realistic sounds samples to tickle your musical fancy.

iAno features a complete four octave keyboard. Multi-touch. Up to 5 keys can be pressed at once allowing complex chords. Sounds like a real piano with realistic piano multi-samples. Animated piano keys react to your touch. Play along to all your MP3s. On-screen keyboard navigation allows you to easily move up and down by octaves or “part octaves” (ie. left-most key is a C or an F). To install iAno on your Apple device, make sure to enter the following URL repository to your Installer.app: “http://modmyifone/installer.xml”. The program should then appear under the “Toys” section of the installer.

The developer still has a couple of additions in store for iAno’s future updates, such as a navigation bar which extends the keyboard based on various octaves, a record and playback option, and much more. Watch it now:

source: apple.qj.net