Last year AT&T took on temporary workers to help bolster their retail force for the days leading up to and the weeks following the launch of the first generation iPhone. So guess what’s happening this year, just around the time of the scheduled WWDC Steve Jobs Keynote on June 9 and almost spot on the dates given in the last set of release rumors for June 19?
Yup, AT&T is taking on temps again! Secret “Summer Project Pro” is a G.O. from June 16 - August 16, 2008.
Wanna bet their training will begin with “Now, this is how you activate HSDPA for iChat Mobile…” ?
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Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!
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Trying to break records on your iPhone? Can’t manage to do it with the touchscreen? Well jailbreak nation, it looks like there is a solution—iControlpad!
Though the image above is just a prototype, it takes obvious visual cues from the PSP, just take a look at the button layout and form factor. Supposedly, it works via serial port and is currently supported by GBA, PSX (ZodTTD developed) emulators. They are planning on releasing the source code and SDK soon so hopefully more developers can jump on board.
Honestly, I’m tempering my excitement for this. I personally feel as if putting buttons and an analog stick will trap iPhone’s games ‘in the box’. But emulators are for re-creating the original experience, so I’ll let it slide. Either way, it could be a great idea if utilized the right way.
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Rick Lindner, CFO of a little telco called AT&T, recently dropped some knowledge about all things iPhone, past and future, including word that AT&T now boasts upwards of 2.5 million iPhone subscribers.
At an average of $100 per subscriber per month x 24 months per contract x 2.5 million that’s a lot of green for old blue. $6 billion, to be dashboard calc precise about it.
(With Apple rumored to get $15 per subscriber per month x 24 months per contract x 2.5 million = 900 million reasons for them to favor those revenue sharing models as well…)
When it comes to iPhone 3G, however, Lindner was more reticent:
“There’s not been a product announcement. There hasn’t been any pricing decisions made. That’s yet to come.”
Tease.
Photoshop an attempt to recreate the greatness of Mike’s meme
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Looks like we’ll have to add analyzing shipping manifests and tracking import/export data to help wanted ads and patent watching. It’s tough being an Apple enthusiast, no?
The folks over at Import Genius have reason to believe that the 3G iPhone is already stateside. After analyzing data from thousands of U.S. customs declarations for Apple, Inc. they have found 188 unidentified containers of a product never before imported by the company. Hint, hint: 3G iPhone.
“They have never before reported this product on their customs declarations,” says Ryan Petersen of ImportGenius.com. “The fact that they are importing millions of units, combined with dwindling stocks of the first generation of iPhones, clearly supports the Citi analysts predictions.”
Citi analysts prediction: June 9th. Granted they didn’t provide the exact documents for proof, this bit of news furthers the theory of a June launch and adds more buzz to the already busy rumor-pile.
So where are we going to get the next 3G rumor from? Someone who dug through Steve Job’s trash? Should the paparazzi start following him around? Can’t we just fast-forward to June already?
Thanks Ryan
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One huge benefit of the iPhone’s superb web browser are all the web applications that have sprouted up since the iPhone’s release. Just like in Field of Dreams, if you build it, they (developers) will come. Among the plethora of web apps available, several social networking sites have popped up and this week’s Tip is about a unique angle on this genre. Floort at Floort.com is a site that boasts “We know what you’re thinking”, and as a matter of fact, they DO! Read on for this week’s Tip and how you can give someone else (or even the world) a piece of your mind!
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Going along with our own Blackberry vs iPhone comparison and Crackberry’s 10 Reasons Why the iPhone is NO Blackberry , we realized we should cover some basic reasons why people should ‘switch’ over to TiPb’s favorite toy. With Palm fading into obscurity and Windows Mobile feature strapped and overextended, RIM and Apple have become perhaps the two most relevant phone makers today. Which begs the question, which one should you pick?
I’ll offer you ten reasons why you should leave your Blackberry behind and choose to phone different*
*In this article, I am using the Curve as the measuring stick for all things ‘Blackberry’
Read on for the rest of the article!
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Crikey! Add 3G speed to the list of beer-brewing, croc-hunting, and bum-booting that Australians claim to do better, stronger, and faster than just about everyone else in the world. Or so an anonymous Telstra exec would have us believe:
“We know what is coming we have seen the new device and it will be available on our network as soon as it is launched in the USA. By Christmas this phone will be capable of 42Mbps which will make it faster than a lot of broadband offerings and the fastest iPhone on any network in the world.”
Hard to believe anyone outside the Jobspod has seen the actual device (remember AT&T hadn’t even seen the first gen model until Macworld 2007), so this one sounds fishy from the get-go.
Also, 42Mbps is jaw-dropping, face-smacking fast, and would pretty much require the next-next gen, tippity-top end HSDPA technology, known as HSDPA+ or HSDPA Evolution. Right now Telstra maxes out at around 14.4 and while they reportedly claimed they will reach 21 by the end of 2008, that’s a far cry from delivering twice that in half the time, which is what making the rumored June iPhone 3G launch would require.
I’m calling shenanigans. What do you think?
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Let’s face it, Apple could teach the NSA a thing or two about security. Nothing like putting the fear of Steve into someone to get them to bear down and clam up. So, along with patent-watching and the occasional partner leak, about the only way to get any real information about what’s new at Apple is via the good old help wanted adds.
Yesterday we mentioned in passing they were interested in a:
Camera Engineer with responsibilities for evaluation, qualification, implementation and tuning of camera subsystems in iPhone products.
While today it looks like they’ve set their iSights firmly on:
Sr. Wireless system Engineer [...] Familiar with RF fundamentals and RF test equipments (spectrum analyzer, network analyzer, signal generator), hands on for wireless system validation automation. Familiar with PC and network architecture. [...] Design and qualification expertise with IEEE 802.11
[...] Knowledge about Bluetooth, 3G, UWB, WiMAX, GPS, Mobile TV and similar wireless technologies and/or experience with wireless module integration into PC system or consumer products is a strong plus. The system integration issues include: radio coexistence, platform noise, module and system power consumption.
Though not as specific, this certainly seems to indicate Apple is looking increasingly towards the ultra-mobile, ubiquitously connected market they’re working to establish with products like the iPhone, Mac Book Air, and perhaps… iTablet?
What do you think? Have the skills and want to work for Apple? Give them a call. Then give us a call and tell us everything you can before they drop the Glass and Aluminum Curtain down on you, b’okay?
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One of the hottest and most persistent rumors for the next generation iPhone is GPS, either built in or via BlueTooth hardware module (the former favored by techies, the latter by battery-lifers). One of the most constant and most rewarding (at least sometimes…) factors of the 2.0 firmware beta is developers raking through the code to find every new string and buried screen setting.
Put them together and what do we get? According to some “private” updates delivered to “select developers” (check out the screen shots), we get Geo Tagging!
For the non-world traveling cameraphiles among us, Geo Tagging involves adding location-specific metadata to your photographs. For example, snap a pic of the Eiffel Tower, and the camera records not only time, date, camera, lens, etc. but the longitude and latitude of precisely where you were standing when you decided to take the 297 billionth shot of that ginormous mechano cliche…
Why’s that important? Well, it saves you the effort of manually recording where you were when you took each and every snapshot, it allows social services like Flickr to search and sort images based on location information, and it enables freaky-cool next gen image manipulation and compositing technologies like Microsoft’s Photosynth to positively blow our minds.
Now, reports don’t actually indicate anything about GPS, only location-based services (like the current gen’s Google cell tower mapping and Skyhook Wi-Fi router mapping), but these can sometimes only narrow location down to an area roughly the size of a town — not always very useful. For real Geo Tagging, GPS (which gets down to under 20 feet) seems a must.
Of course, this also rather nicely dangles the question of what type of camera will the iPhone 3G sport? 2 megapixels like before? 3? 5?
Apple is hiring photo techs, after all…
What do you think?
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