All Articles Tagged kevin rose

One of the most important aspects of the iPhone is how it’s breathed the air of change into long stodgy, backwards thinking mobile cellular providers. We can argue whether its been less effective post iPhone 3G where subsidies have returned, but either way Apple fairly neatly removed the carrier middleman from its usual intrusive position in the smartphone space. App Store is clearly the crowning example thus far, but frequent firmware updates is sometimes likewise cited.

On the latest This Week in Tech (TWiT) podcast, however, Digg founder Kevin Rose credited an unnamed source inside Apple as saying AT&T had to approve the next iPhone firmware update. Of course, Rose has been, er… somewhat less than accurate in regards to iPhone news in the past (including his reports that the iPhone 3G would have video iChat). In his corner this time, however, are server logs showing iPhone 2.0.1 traffic on popular Apple news sites originating from both Cupertino and AT&T HQ regions.

Has AT&T always played a role in firmware testing or is this a new factor in a post 3G world? If it’s new, will it make 2.x updates take longer than 1.x did? And do international carriers like 02, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Rogers, Orange, etc. all have similar advanced testing privileges? If so, will 22+ (70+ eventually) carriers wanting to test new firmware result in huge delays or staggered launches? Or is this just another well Dugg tempest in a Royal Jasmine teapot?

On a side note, the same episode of TWiT saw the crankiest of geeks, John C. Dvorak “dot org slash blog” claim that one particularly damaging rumor circulating about Steve Jobs current health was deliberately and maliciously spread at an exclusive CEO gathering by an as-yet unnamed but well known executive with a personal grudge against Jobs and Apple. Dvorak maintains the rumor, which recent reports have indicated is false, was spread to other CEOs who then propagated it, adding to the confusion and downward pressure on Apple’s stock. If he can get a second anonymous confirmation on the story, Dvorak claims he will name names in his Marketwatch column.

As a huge fan of Karma, that should make for an interesting day, and likely more than a “slime bucket” response from El Jobso.

“Inside Steve’s Brain” author Leander Kahney of Wired magazine is reporting a programmer source inside a major software house has revealed that the next generation iPhone 3G will thinner — we’re talking Paris Hilton thinner — by a whopping 22%.

Not only that, it will sport better battery life than the already impressive 8 hours talk time of the first gen model, and twice the NAND flash capacity, topping out at 32GB. (Paving the way for 64GB iPod Touch’s?)

Still not enough, echoing Kevin Rose (historically not the most reliable of iPhone prognosticators), Kahney thinks the phone may be heavily carrier subsidized — down to the $200 level in some cases — in an effort to put the hurt on Blackberry.

Okay, fess up, who left the rumor mill jacked up to max?!

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Joking that the iPhone Risk map was getting a little crowded up in Europe… turns out not to be a joke anymore:

Swisscom on Wednesday confirmed it will begin selling Apple’s iPhone in Switzerland this year, possibly bolstering a recent report on the matter which also stated that the handset would arrive with video conferencing and other fresh features.

What fresh new features? As if borrowing from Kevin Rose’s twitter feed, GPS, bi-direction video iChat Mobile, and mobile TV.

Checking the score board:

Personally, I’m not sold on 2-way iChat yet, or Mobile TV unless Apple can break it out of the carrier-controlled sandbox in which it now languishes. This is a little too close to rumor-regurgitation for now. GPS, on the other hand, seems likely.

What do you think?

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“Phone different, real posts no gimmicks”

[With apologies to Eminem and - ahem - our readers.]

Rumor’s back. Back again. iPhone packed. Tell your friends.
From VP. Close to APPL. Kevin tweets. He’s top lvl.
3G soon. GPS spin. Here by June. FTW!
Kevin’s back. Back again. {interweb hums}

For those of you who aren’t up on either your Eminem or your Twitter, the story here is Kevin Rose posted up another teaser, this time on Twitter, that he has the inside line on the 3G iPhone with the above specs. He’s playing with us, right?

Right?

Digg and Pownce founder and web 2.0 darling Kevin Rose, during the latest Diggnation podcast, made the following prognostications about the eventual 3G iPhone (via Apple Insider):

[Kevin Rose] claims that a 3G version of the iPhone hardware due in a few months will employ two digital cameras situated back-to-back — one on the front side of the unit behind the transparent touch-screen, and a second one on the back of the handset as it exists today.

Rose also conjectures that this may be why Apple has limited background processes in the current SDK: to prevent competition to their upcoming iChat Touch application.

iChat Touch, according to Rose, will allow full-on video conferencing via high-speed HSDPA between 3G iPhone users and desktop iChat users alike.

As to how reliable Rose’s predictions may be, Apple Insider reminds us:

In the week’s leading up to last year’s iPhone introduction, the Digg founder cited sources in saying Apple would introduce the handset with a slide-out keyboard, two separate battery compartments, and make it available for both CDMA and GSM networks — all of which turned out to be false.

So, um… er… yeah — we’ll take this with a shovel full of salt for now.

Still, the idea iChat Touch with video is exciting and functionality I’d love to see on the second generation iPhone. What do you think?