Yup, iPhone 3G is in the hizzy! Looks like AT&T is getting crazy massive stock of both the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G Black, not to mention the exclusive 16GB iPhone 3G White — in elegant white boxes no less — as well.
Anyone seeing similar in their countries? Or is the USA hoarding the special editions? Let us know!
Since the iPhone SDK launch in March, developers accepted into the program have been bound via NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to Apple-institutionalized uber-secrecy (leading one noted developer to cleverly refer to the SDK as [REDACTED] on Twitter). Tech Crunch says, like .Mac, that may end later today:
Apple finally let developers know when their iPhone apps will be live on the App Store for users to download and use: around 9 am PST Thursday morning. That, at least, is when the embargo lifts and press can start writing about the specific applications. Presumably the App Store will go live, along with iPhone 2.0 software in general, around that time.
So get ready to push-update your new MobileMe calendars and launch your iTunes 7.7, because it looks like the App Store cometh. (Thanks again, New Zealand!) In a few short hours, we may just know who made it into the launch party. (And Dieter, Brian, and Casey may be slap-fighting over who gets to rock Super Monkey Ball first — at least until they add network multiplayer 
)
It’s the end of the blogsphere as we know it, and dagnabit I don’t feel fine. Why? Fake Steve is retiring. Former Forbes columnist Dan Lyons, who once panned bloggers and later rose to internet stardom after being exposed as one of the most infamous — and best in some opinions — bloggers of them all, is heading to Newsweek and will be switching his posting over to his own name. No doubt his content will continue to be razor sharp and wickedly insightful — if not inciting — but Fake Steve has become such an icon of the Web 2.0 age that I can’t help but think the loss of Dear Leader, El Jobso, the wake-and-baker himself will leave the net just a little emptier.
Sappy much? Go read his Greatest Hits (scroll down the sidebar) if you haven’t already. iPhone fans may want to start here.
Now let’s all raise our precisely 98 degree organic, monkey-picked health teas (in bone-white #7 porcelain cups) in toast, b’okay?
Namaste Fake Steve. We honor the place where your sarcastic wit and our laughter met.
ChangeWave is back with trends in intended smartphone buying for June 2008. The good? The iPhone has soared from 29% to 56% from a low this time last year of 18%. The bad? Rim has tumbled from 29% to 23% from a high of 33% last July. The ugly? Palm has held steady at 3%, having free fallen from 24% way back in late 2006.
The iPhone dominated almost all rounds, causing an overall increase in planned smartphone purchases to 10%. Satisfaction levels were through the roof at 78% (way above RIM’s 54% and trouncing Palm’s 29%)
Blackberry held on to the title of reigning email monster, with a holding-steady 42% ownership of that space, but Apple is making inroads even there, up to 11%.
The KO? Of those planning to buy a smartphone fully 50% plan on getting an iPhone over the Blackberry and Palm.
We expect Big John to jump in and end the slaughter any minute…
With the second coming of the iPhone at our doorsteps (3G for those of you living in a cave), there has been an intriguing amount of comparison between the “old” iPhone 2G and the shiny new 3G Wonder. The coming of 2.0 and the App Store has everyone a-twitter, but lest we forget, there are still a plethora of web-based apps out there that are just darn good and useful. This week’s Tip, courtesy of Fiona King and currencytrading.net (a BIG thanks, Fiona!), is all about helpful financial apps for the iPhone. Read on, friends!
Pop quiz: You’re not Mossberg, Pogue, or Baig and you don’t work for anything like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or USA Today, so you don’t have a shiny new iPhone 3G to review, but you do have a couple minutes of web vid to fill, and a massive amount of iPhone hype to jack. What do you do?
If you’re theStreet.com’s Gary Krakow — the genius who previously suggested that the iPhone should dump OS X and run Windows-fr33kin-Mobile — then you pump yourself up as much as possible, and dump all over the BIG 3’s reviews.
Got your yuck-brown highlighter ready? Good. Go through and strike out all the positive stuff, mumble quickly what’s too important to strike out, and then harp ill-informedly about whatever tiny troubles you can find. Nothing Windows Mobile couldn’t fix anyway, right?
Sure, there’ll be a market for this type of flame-bait manipulation, lots of blog links (guilty as charged!) and fan boy fury, but is the loss of credibility really worth it Gar? And can’t they at least find a “reporter” to interview you without questions so canned and leading that the simple math they run is the only thing that makes me believe they’re not entirely animatronic?
Yeesh. When exactly did theStreet.com become roadkill?
Thanks to Joe (The Reptile) for the tip!
The response to our iPhone 3G givaway has been tremendous. We love all the new action in our forums and we fully expect it to continue after this week — which is to say that The iPhone Blog adores you and will continue to treat you right, stay tuned for future contests in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the time has come to announce the winner of our contest as chosen randomly via random.org. It’s iLoveiPhones! Check your inbox for an email from me and we’ll set you up with the $400 Gift Card we promised so you can be all set for Friday. Happy? Happy! Joy? Joy!
The air of contest finality is thick and we’re going to make it thicker still: this is our final Wait-a-Thon post: comment here for your last chance to win a $100 iTunes gift card. We’ll be sending out the final gift cards tonight (yes, it’s still tough what with Apple’s limit to the # we can buy in a month, but we figured out a workaround).
So congratulate iLoveiPhones (a username so good it’s gotta be kismet) and let us know: once the iPhone 3G is really and truly out, what sort of stuff do you want TiPb to cover in the coming weeks and months? Are apps king? Shall we pit the iPhone 3G against every other darn smartphone out there, one by one? Should we continue to bring you tips and tricks? What’ll it be?
Update: Looks like we made somebody’s day. 
I’m never gonna forget this day. Thanks so much to everyone here at the iPhone forum and the staff at the iPhone Blog. Couldn’t have done it without you guys. Being someone who’s never won anything, this is quite a day!
I shouldn’t blog this. It’ll only make the lines longer. But, dagnabit, it’s just too… well… not unlimited good… but better and somewhat less cr@ppy!
Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.
It’s a start!
(And yup, looks like Rogers’ Fido brand is following suit!)
Now, I’m in Montreal… Where do I line up?!?!
Sure, the iPhone 3G launch is tomorrow. Consider this an amuse bouche. Or the opposite of that, an annoy bouche. Whatever. Something salty to make Friday taste all the more sweet!
The subject of today’s battle royal? Nope, not iPhone vs. Blackberry. That’s old. This time it’s Blackberry vs. Blackberry, Blog vs. Blog, over the iClone to end all iClones: the touchscreen Blackberry Thunder!
Says our sister site Crackberry.com, 10th degree Blackberry belts and reigning world champions:
Touchscreen BlackBerry Thunder Keyboard To Utilize Haptic Technology… AMAZING Implementation! [...] Leave it to RIM to CRACK the touchscreen keyboard nut.
Says Boy Genius Report, craftiest of all mobile blogsphere Ninja:
The keyboard is incredibly annoying to type on, and the screen actually shows ripples even when pressed ever-so-lightly. [...] Most of the people who have handled it thinks it’s a joke.
Read on for round 2!
Rene already mentioned that Apple stores are also in on the 8am sharp sell time, but we have a few more of the nitty-gritty deets direct from Apple’s Retail Chief Ron Johnson by way of an interview with Bloomberg [via]. Here’s the news:
Good news all around, right? Well, perhaps the good news isn’t so much “all around” as it is “Just in the United States,” as iLounge is reporting that Apple stores outside the US won’t be selling the iPhone 3G because they’re not all going to be set up with each international carrier’s different activation process.
  
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The iPhone Blog merged with the Phone different site in May of 2008. Both sites were founded on a premise that comes one from one of Apple's old slogans: Think different. The iPhone Blog: for people who dare to phone different.
