Engadget’s reporting that we won’t see just two new iPhones, not just three, but a whopping four next-generation iPhones coming soon!
we’re hearing from a trusted source that new iPhones in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities just garnered approval by the PCS Type Review Certification Board, the standards body responsible for certificating handsets for use with some carriers (AT&T, for instance).
Only a week remains before WWDC 2009, so we’re deep behind crazy lines here, people, and anything is possible. But four new models? What about the CDMA version for China? The iPhone nano and iTablet for Verizon? The flying model that oinks?
We’ll find out next Monday!
[Thanks to Jeffdc5 for the head's up!]
Curiouser and crazier is our motto of the moment, as we get what could be our third (3rd!) carrier leak of the day, following the T-Mobile Austria faux pas highlight an iPhone 32GB and the Vodafone Australia early EOL notice for the 16GB.
This one, according to PhoneArena.com, comes courtesy of and AT&T, which — if accurate — is offering to take in your as yet non-existent iPhone 32GB and give you $355.00 towards a trade in for last year’s BlackBerry Bold.
Okay…
Colossal blunder to be sure, but is it a blunder in content, or was it just made live before it was finished and authorized? Are we seeing the first signs of a real, honest-to-Jobs iPhone 32G? Decide for yourselves, though Engadget reminds us that the original iPhone was prematurely posted by T-Mo Germany two years ago. Could this be the double d’oh!?
(But really, T-Mo, you couldn’t have used a faded out, stock photo of an iPhone 3G there? My eyes. Ouch. My eyes…)
[via AreaMobile]
DigiTimes (via Engadget) is reporting that Apple is once again draining the world dry of NAND Flash memory chips ahead of an anticipated summer iPhone hardware refresh.
The iPhone 3G has one NAND Flash memory slot, currently maxing out at the 16GB density. So, if Apple is planning to take it to 32GB, higher density chips will of course be required. Will supply and pricing allow that by the summer? If it does, it also means the dual-slotted iPod touch could hit a whopping 64GB by its next refresh cycle in the fall.
Anyone out there itching to load that much data on a multi-touch device?
Apple is perhaps the most gluttonous consumer of flash RAM chips on the planet, what with most iPod’s flash memory based and still selling in the multiple tens of millions and — oh yeah — the iPhone and iPod touch. 14 million iPhone 3Gs were sold last year alone and this year? According to Apple Insider, they’s waddled the chair up and parked it right at the buffet:
The iPhone maker has bought out Samsung’s entire available supply, putting the world’s largest producer of flash memory on allocation until April 2009, according to the report. Samsung makes just over 40% of the world’s NAND Flash RAM.
There was no indication, however, whether or not Apple has switched to the double-capacity chips they’ll need to take the iPhone to 32GB. Due to the communications radios, previous iPhones have only 1 RAM slot as opposed the 2 in the iPod touch.
But we kind of want 32GB in our iPhones, right?
MacRumors is passing on… well… rumors from MacBlogz of a 32GB iPhone! Says MacRumors:
The reason the largest iPhone (16GB) currently has 1/2 the memory of the largest iPod touch (32GB) is that the iPhone can only house a single NAND Flash chip while the iPod touch can accommodate two. The additional space in the iPhone is taken up by its communication hardware. In August, Toshiba announced that they would begin mass production of higher density 32GB chips in the 4th quarter of 2008.
Intel, they go on to say, may well bump the capacity even further — to a startling 64GB — by early next year. Sound crazy? Heh. With Macworld coming in just over a month, we ain’t seen nothing yet on the rumor front.
Still, 32GB is drool worthy, and something we here at TiPb are predicting for next year as part of a third generation iPhone HD, so you know we wants it.
How about you? Is 16GB enough, or is it always going to be a case of the more, the better?
Without fail, the moment Apple launches a great product or new revision, within moments talk quickly shifts back to “what’s next?!” Last month it was the iPod and iTunes. This month it’s the MacBook. But with Macworld slowly ramping up, and competitors slowly turning iClones into specced out SuperClones, the blogsphere spotlight will inevitably turn back to the iPhone, and just what device they’ll dent our universe with next.
TiPb’s prediction? The iPhone HD.
We’ll tell you why after the break!
Read the rest of this entry »
Good news? Looks like there really is a new “Home” option for iPhone activation in the US. Bad news? Looks like it has nothing to do with the iPhone being sold unlocked. Apple Insider, who broke the rumor, updates as follows:
In order to service these customers, a special home pre-qualification web site has been set up so that users can find if they are qualified by AT&T for a phone unit subsidy. Users can set up their account at home so that everything is ready to go when they make their iPhone 3G purchase at a retail store. The new “Home” option that retail employees are seeing on their EasyPay terminals is designed to allow them to use this home pre-qualification step to accelerate the transaction of a new iPhone 3G. That also indicates there is no impending potential for unlocked iPhone 3G sales in the US, although this is expected at some point.
Apple Insider is also sticking to the 32GB SKU, but maybe only after the holidays (though presumably that means short term, not, you know, any point after the holidays and into future months/years…)
Magic 8-Ball?
- Unlocked iPhones in the US? Very Doubtful
- 32GB iPhone in the *near* future? It is certain
Interesting! Can’t wait to see how this one pans out!
Apple Insider in reporting that a new option has popped up in US-based Apple (Retail) Stores: Home. Previously, the only options were Upgrade existing iPhone, New AT&T Single, New AT&T Family, and Additional AT&T Line. They conjecture this may mean a new, contract-free, unlocked take your iPhone 3G home and do what you want with it. They rightly point out that this is already an option in some countries which require unlocked handsets by law, though the price is typically as astronomic as the freedom that comes with it. Will this happen? And will it be “unlocked” meaning it can run on other US carriers only (i.e. T-Mobile), or truly SIM unlocked to run with any card, in any county, around the GSM world? We’d love it, but we’ve been learned not to let our expectations get ahead of corporate avarice before…
Also, they point to a possible capacity bump in time for the holidays. With 8GB supplies running low, they say, 32GB might just be on the horizon. This, of course, would require Apple to switch from the current NAND flash chips they’re using, which max out at 16GB on the iPhone and 32GB on the iPod Touch (which lacks the radios and hence has double the space for the memory). Apple bought tons of the old NAND chips before the 3G slipped, and we haven’t seen any rumblings of them ordering the higher capacity ones yet, but the same thing did happen last year, so…
Who wants an unlocked 32GB iPhone 3G (in Product Red, no doubt!) wrapped up for them this year? And who’s got the probably close to $1K to drop on it?? Let us know!
No, that’s not spring in the air, that’s the rumor frenzy ramp-up to Apple’s June World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), and here’s the aptly titled MacRumors with a mother load:
A MacRumors reader ran across a very unusual .Mac web page yesterday and was kind enough to forward it on. The page contained promotional images for Apple products [...] including teasers for iTunes 8, a 32GB iPhone [in Australia!], and a WWDC launch date (June 10th).
Turns out, not so much. The images came courtesy of one of MacRumors own forum members (though MacRumors continues to maintain they were associated with a legit @apple.com account).
In general, a 32GB iPhone, at least for the current generation product, would require a 32GB NAND chip for the single slot (due to the cell radio and other components, unlike the iPod Touch which boasts 2 NAND slots, the iPhone only has room for 1 — hence iPod Touch always offering twice the memory). If true, it may explain the price cuts on the 8GB models. iTunes 8 would only require some boosted features (App Store support?) and Apple’s marketing desire to bump the rev a full number. Australia rumors have been building for a long time now, of course.
Also included were the first MacBook and MacBookPro case revs, going to aluminum and iMac-style black on aluminum respectively. (Both of which have also seen rampant rumor ramp ups — say that ten times fast!)
