IPhone Cafe

Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone 3G in San Fransisco today. 

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The new iPhone will be availible beginning July 11th through AT&T and Apple retail stores.  Apple will deliver two models both of which cost less than the current iPhone. The new 8GB iPhone 3G goes for $199 USD, while the 16GB is $299.

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Both models use higher performance 3G wireless networks which should provide faster downloads than Edge. Jobs say’s 3G downloads are “Amazingly zippy”. The iPhone drops back to standard AT&T Edge when 3G is out of range.

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Other features include:

• Longer lasting battery life
• Built in GPS
• Smaller, sleaker case design

Steve Jobs demo’ed the GPS tracking feature today showing Google maps continually updated while the phone was driven down (a twisty) Lombard St in San Fransisco.

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The new 3G iPhone will be availible in 70 countries vs. 6 countries for the current model.

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For the U.S. market, the iPhone will be sold through AT&T retail stores. According to CNET, AT&T announced today that 3G iPhones will be sold on two year contracts only and the monthly charge will be $30/month vs. the previous $20/month for the 2G model.

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For more on the new 3G iPhone see Apple Aims for the Masses with a Cheaper iPhone, Apple Announces Cheaper 3G iPhone, or visit Apple’s iPhone page.

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Apple’s software update page implies that owners of the current iPhone can upgrade to version 2.0 and recieve:

• Push email, calendar, and contacts from Microsoft Exchange
• New iPhone applications based on the accelerometer, Multi-Touch; 3D positional sound and GPS.
• MobileMe

Catherine said she had heard that Apple is preparing to halt production of the iPhone. I didn’t believe her.

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I said “no freaking way!!!!@*%@*&”. That’s liberal conspiracy theory talk! Why would Apple, maker of the most innovative and popular cell phone in the history of the world, just stop making it?  That defies logic and is just not credible so take a hike!!!@@@!!!%.

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I convinced myself (but not Catherine) that Apple would, in no way, halt production and distribution of the iPhone. I mean, what other mobile device has “converged” functions into a single device like the iPhone?

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The answer is none. The iPhone is unique amoung moble devices. No other cell phone pulls together email from Yahoo and Google, Maps from Google, YouTube videos, Itunes audio, Weather, the Stock Market, Alarm clocks and Timers together onto a single device. Only Apple’s iPhone.

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Oh…..Yes, in addition to all of the above, the iPhone works quite nicely as a mobile phone.

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Other cell phones from Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, et al,  are “Also Ran’s” whose’ butts will be kicked by the iPhone.

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Speaking of news; my iPhone doubles as a newspaper reader for a several papers including the New York Times (other online papers for mobile phones are BBC, Christian Science Monitor, CBS).  Okay, I live in Seattle, located across the continent from New York, and I only recieve the New York Times in hard copy form on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  For most of my week, there’s no conflict between the hard copy newspaper and online editions of the New York Times. However, at week end, things begin to get wieird.

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For one thing,  I’ll read stories on New York Times hard copy that have already appeared online.   What’s up with that? Makes me wonder why I’m paying to recieve hard copy of the newspaper.

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Anyway, While reading the New York Times on my iPhone, I found an article titleld “The Guessing Game Has Begun on the Next iPhone“.  The article contains the following:

“Although AT&T stores still have phones in stock, according to a company spokesman, the supply has largely dried up in Apple’s retail outlets, and the phones are no longer available through the company’s online store.”

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So, I guess, maybe, Catherine was right after all….. Apple is halting production of the current iPhone. 

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Apple wants to clear disitribution channels, because they are preparing to deliver the “Next Generation” iPhone and by clearing disitribution channels, Apple reduces the chances that customers will buy an iPhone only to learn they just bought an obsolete model.

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See The 3-G iPhone: What To Expect for more about the next generation iPhone.

CBS bought CNet Networks for $1.8B in cash.

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With your iPhone, take a look at CBS’s iPhone interface.

CBS iPhone

and compare with the CiUI iPhone interface developed at CNet before the purchase.

CiUI Interface 

Do they look the same? Makes me wonder if the CBS tech team got hold of CiUI’s framework and used it to deploy an iPhone interface for CBS news?  Or, did CBS use iUI?

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The CBS version seems a bit smoother than CiUI.  Horizontal scrolling is smoother.  Clicking an option highlights the entire row not just a portion of the row.  Of the frameworks that imitate iPhone’s horizontal scrolling menu’s in a Safari application, the CBS site seems to be the best.

While looking through the server logs of iPhone Cafe, I noticed several hundred visits with the following URL: 

/wpblog/wp-trackback.php?tb_id=1

At first I thought this was another attack like the SQL injection attack that occured in May. These transactions had an ip address of 87.118.112.44 which when Googled, identified a site called RIPE Network Coordination Centre . I had never heard of the site, but it seems to be legitimate.  There’s a Wikipedia entry for it. I did, however, find this post asking for thoughts on how to block access from IP addresses connected to RIPE, so the visits may not be entirely benign.

According to an April 3rd Bloomberg report, there are about 250,000 people in Russia using the iPhone, which is more than any country except the United States and China.  Phones cost about $1,000 and can be unlocked to work on local networks for $100.  See more from Bloomberg…..

iPhone SDK Announcement 

In an article titled Apple to Encourage iPhone Programmers the New York Times reports that Steve Jobs will encourage 3rd party developers to write iPhone applications. 

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Venture capitalist John Doerr will invest up to $100 million to support 3rd application development and Apple will release a $99 SDK to support game and business program development.  According to the Read-Me file, iPhone’s SDK requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X v10.5.2 or later.

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Applications developed by 3rd parties will be availible only through a new iPhone service called Apps Store which will allow Apple to keep a percentage of sales.

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March 8th - Related to the SDK, Apple and Sun have announced development of a Java Virtual Machine for the iPhone. The version will be Java Micro Edition and will be availible along with the new SDK.  See MacRumors for early commentary on possible Java liimitations.

March 30th - This InfoWord page has kind words for Apple’s iPhone SDK.

My iPhone has been upgraded to version 1.1.3 so I thought it might be nice to start a list of things I like and don’t like about the new version of iPhone’s operating system……

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What Works:

• GPS-Like Maps. Google maps has a new button in the lower left corner. Push it and iPhone displays a map with the phone’s current position. It doesn’t use a satelite so it’s not as accurate as GPS; but it is nifty and has proved useful.  An improvement would an option to run the locator every 30 to 60 seconds.  Instead, in the current version, the Locate button must be pushed to update the position.  For more, see iPhone and GPS.
• Satelite View for Maps. With the new version of iPhone, Google maps includes an option mixing terrain and road maps into one view called Hybrid. Press a button in the lower right corner of Google maps to peel back the map revealing a menu with the Hybrid option. For example, here’s Norms Ale House in  Hybrid view.
• After Sending Photos or Web Site URLs. In the previous version of iPhone, the display returned to the main desktop whenever a website, photograph, or U-Tube link was shared by e-mail. The new version doesn’t behave this way.  Now, after sharing by email, the display remains where it should; on the page that was being viewed. 

Not so Great:

• The 1.1.3 Upgrade Process. I figured iTunes could upgrade my iPhone software from 1.1.2 to 1.1.3.  However, upgrading with iTunes failed twice and I ended up driving over to the Apple store. **** The first upgrade attempt used iTunes and followed directions presented by Apple. With iPhone connected, iTunes prompted me that a new version of the software was availible; and to click Yes to continue. I did so and let the upgrade proceed; it kept running and running; and then after about 15 minutes, the computer and the iPhone both quit making noises like they were doing anything useful. There was no disk activity or flickering lights. I unplugged the iPhone which was totally locked up and, at that point,  iTunes displayed a fatal error message. The phone became functional after turning it off and then back on. A second upgrade attempt using iTunes produced the same result; a locked iPhone and a fatal error. So, I drove to the Apple store where they performed the upgrade at no charge and didn’t lose my contacts, photos or music; which was cool and mostly made up for problems encountered earlier.
• Sharing Web Pages. With earlier versions of iPhone software, while viewing a web page, a Share button let you send an email containing the URL for the currently viewed page. This was a handy feature which got lots of use. The Share button appears to be missing in version 1.1.3. That’s not good. Update 2/23 : Okay, now I see where they replaced the Share button with a Mail Link to this Page option that appears when the page is bookmarked. So, I’m happy again. I can mail photos and web pages to my friends and familly much to their annoyance.

Other notes: The site, Alternative Channel lets you make Web Clips for your iPhone.

In an article at at Silicom.com, Natasha Lomas describes how the IPhone has moved past Motorola and is now next in line behind RIM for mobile phone market share. As of the 4th quarter 2007, the IPhone had 6.5% while Rim had  11.4% of the market.