All Articles in Rumors

Oft rumored, is Sony ready to leverage both the struggling Sony Ericsson partnership and the still fairly solid Sony Playstation brand to produce a Playstation Phone? (PSP Phone? PSPhone? PSP Go-Call-Someone?).

Makes sense from a competitive point of view, and something we certainly thought we’d see sooner. If Sony can get passed their historic intra-company integration problems, and avoid doing anything silly like ATRAC DRM or root kits — if they could get a product manager who could cut through the quagmire and drive everything that’s good about Sony into the product — it could be an interesting contender.

For the iPhone, of course:

Nikkei says it will directly compete with the iPhone, and that a project team was set up last July to start working on the console/phone hybrid. So basically, it’s the same rumor we’ve been hearing for years, except this time from a reliable source. Whether it’s got any truth to it remains to be seen. Note: The above image is a mockup. Seems obvious but sometimes you gotta say it out loud.

[Gizmodo via Reuters]

We haven’t seen or heard about this at TiPb, though it did happen once upon a time with Apple’s white MacBooks — heat related discoloration. We hope and imagine Apple learned from this, but have any of you experienced your white iPhone 3GS suddenly getting a tan? If so, let us know in the comments and more importantly, make an appointment at the Apple Store to get it swapped out ASAP!

[Engadget via Nowhereelse.fr]

BGR served up a rumor that Telus in Canada was getting the iPhone 3GS in October. How will a CDMA carrier get the GSM iPhone? Simple, as mentioned last year, Telus has partnered with Bell to expand their CDMA network by adding in HSPA. That means Bell Mobility could support the iPhone 3GS as well, and the rumor’s TiPb’s hearing is they just might (though exact timing will of course depend on how fast they get HSPA up and running).

If Rogers/Fido’s Canadian iPhone 3GS exclusivity was tied only to their GSM monopoly, and that suddenly becomes an oligopoly, will the increased competition lead to better iPhone plans and prices for Canadian consumers? Well, oligopolies are historically only slightly better than monopolies, so we won’t get our hopes up any time soon.

So Canadians, anyone rather have their iPhone on Telus or Bell?

A couple of our readers have written in over the weekend concerned that they still can’t activate their iPhone 3G S on AT&T’s network. Greg let us know that he was originally assured his Apple Store-purchased iPhone 3G S would be activated within 48 hrs (?!) but now it looks like that’s been pushed back another 48 hrs — or 4 days total.

He forwarded us an email he claims to have received from Apple offering a $30 iTunes credit by way of apology.

Isolated incident or is anyone else experiencing the same problem?

Full text after the break!

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UPDATE: Daring Fireball takes apart the Wall Street Journal story about Steve Jobs recovering from a liver transplant, his time table on returning to Apple, and what — if any — changes we may see in his role there. Gruber sifts the sources and ranks the theories. If this interests you, check it out.

ORIGINAL: We’re really not sure how, or even if and when, to cover Steve Jobs anymore. We’d just rather report he’s back at work, personally carving the 4th gen iPhone out of adamantium, and not telling Kevin Rose anything about Video iChat.

Absent information, rumor spreads, however, and given that — we’re not really sure where the Wall Street Journal’s latest piece falls exactly.

If you don’t care about the details, they claim Jobs is recovering from surgery and still expected back at Apple later this month, just like Apple has been saying all along.

If you do want more, check out their article.

Either way, get well soon Steve Jobs.

(Thanks to RascalsBarbers and DigitalLifeDad for the tips)

This was sent our way along with a tip saying almost a dozen people had successfully processed US apple.com iPhone 3G S orders using this hack to avoid AT&T’s online contract sign-up.

It doesn’t get you the subsidized $199/$299 price, nor an unlocked iPhone, of course, so don’t get too excited.

We have no idea if it actually works either — if orders placed this way will actually ship, or if AT&T goons in black will show up at your door for a little curb-stomping contract reminder. We obviously can’t condone it either, so we link to it strictly for educational and entertainment sake, knowing our readers are all responsible adults. Right?

Check out iTalkiPhone for the details…

While previous rumors had Apple announcing iPhone video tomorrow at WWDC 2009, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has just put up his predictions and, at least in code name form, they’re going with “iPhone 3GS” — though they don’t offer what the “S” stands for…

In the past, Daring Fireball’s predictions have at times seemed closer akin to inside information, so it’s worth paying attention to. In terms of specs, Gruber is sticking with what he previously predicted:

significantly faster processors, twice the RAM, and twice the storage. I expected prices to remain the same as the current lineup: $199/299 for 16/32 GB, respectively. The video camera is going to be a major selling point. [...] battery life: 15-20 percent longer than the iPhone 3G.

As to the oft rumored iPhone nano/mini, while he does see Apple eventually doing a distinct iPhone nano model, much like the iPod nano, for now:

I would wager heavily on [the iPhone 3G 8GB becoming the $99 iPhone] — that the new iPhone 3GS models will not replace the 3G, but rather assume the flagship position while the year-old 3G slides down to the second spot in the product lineup.

On the subject of the equally oft rumored iTablet, Gruber thinks it’s real, but not yet ready to be announced.

In less than a day, we’ll all know for sure!

The WWDC Keynote is tomorrow. Phil Schiller and Apple Execs take the stage as Moscone to update us on iPhone 3.0 and — hopefully! — announce iPhone 2,1 hardware (iPhone video in the latest rumors).

Makes sense that them rumors then would be hitting the high point of crazy today? By way of iSpazio (via Gizmodo), we get the above shot of a supposed iPhone with Mobile iChat video (is that why the ear piece has been raised up, to make room for the camera?), a two-tone iPhone, and the mother load of all whacky leaks:

A supposed Canadian source with inventory listings for — we kid you not — multicolor 64GB iPhones with flowers and bunnies on them. Yeah, somebody is having a little fun there in data entry… But here’s the thing:

Make. It. Stop.

Seriously Phil.

Announce it tomorrow. The insanity must end…

(At least until speculation for 2010 starts!)

Yeah, we’re suffering just as much anticipointment over all these possible maybe blurry photoshopped “leaks” of the 3rd gen iPhone as you are. But the wait for WWDC’s Monday keynote — for the real answers! — is just about driving us batty anyway, so we might as well distract ourselves.

Engadget grabbed this one from Nowhere Else. How does it grab your?

We get leaked third generation iPhone pictures. Not all of them are compelling enough to post or link to, but every once and a while, something comes in that fires off the old brainstorms. See above.

This one was sent to us by Emanuel who said simply, “Hello, this is leaked Photo of the iPhone video coming out June 9.”

Date aside — how tall is that screen now? Quite a bit taller than the current iPhones and iPods touch. We’ve heard rumors of a repositioned ear piece before, and this could certainly be a reason for it.

Not only is it taller, however, it’s also exactly 16×9, that magical widescreen video ration the current iPhone achieves by letter-boxing, and what the Zune HD will have by going with a slimmer 272×480 display.

Apple can’t cut pixels — it would play havoc with all those 40,000ish apps that count on every single one of the current 320×480. Assuming Apple adds to them then, we’ll be looking at 320×570.

Adding pixels wouldn’t create the same problem for developers, since current apps would still fit on the wider screen. However, instead of having to letter-box video as much (some video is even wider than 16×9), Apple would suddenly be letter-boxing (or pillar-boxing) everything else. That doesn’t sound like Apple.

We’ll speculate after the break!

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