A week ago we linked to a story that brought fresh iPhone Nano rumors to the foreground. Today those rumors are picking up a tiny bit of speed. Seems the folks who brought us leaked iPhone 3G and 4th gen iPod Nano cases are listing an iPhone Nano case.
Of course, an iPhone Nano presents certain problems. Would Apple just stuff a standard 320×480 iPhone screen into a tighter package, like the iPod Nano? (Or BlackBerry Bold for that matter). They’d need to do something to avoid fracturing the mobile WiFi platform they’ve taken so much trouble to establish. And capacitive touch screens, for all their responsiveness, require beefy enough targets to hit with a finger. Would certain features be cut that just couldn’t scale down effectively? Or would this truly be phone-and-iPod only (see mock up, above), leaving the “breakthrough internet device” space for the full featured, full sized model?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Could just be the lack of Macworld hype making the intertubes all crazy. Macrumors, for their part, says:
To add more uncertainty into the mix, we’ve heard that some of Apple’s initial plans for Macworld may have been delayed. So, even if an iPhone Nano was originally in the works, we’re not sure when we’d actually see one.
At a special event, on Apple’s schedule, on Apple’s terms, with Steve Jobs on a stage maybe?
Huge rumor. No corroboration. Not journalism. Posting this from a first time, antonymous tipster and if it doesn’t pan out… well… I’ll be boiled in clam chowder eventually anyway… But it’s Friday and this is FUN. Of course, Dieter already told us about the complicated legal quagmire surrounding turn-by-turn GPS, but dagnabit, we wants it!
Apple has begun quietly demonstrating an internally developed iPhone GPS Navigator program that includes turn-by-turn, 3d views etc. Visually, it is very similar to Tom-Tom, but with the expected Apple eye candy. They were sketchy about the details, but it seem that this will not be part of the core software (I.E. they intend to charge for it). It was also unclear whether they were using cellular-based data to share traffic information, but some of the screens seemed to indicate that it would.
Our nameless could be friend — might be prankster — says this will be released after 2.2, but in time for the holidays.
Are we getting played? Or is this happening? Again — not news, not reliable leakage, but pure rumormongering at its most unsubstantiated. Take it for what that’s worth.
Reports of Steve’s death have been greatly exaggerated… and in this particular case, a report of Steve Jobs having a heart attack. Can we leave this guy alone people? And is his health any of your business anyways? This time the heart attack rumor started over at a CNN website, iReport.com. It remained on CNN’s website for about 30 minutes before being pulled.
CNN has since made the following statement:
iReport.com is an entirely user-generated site where the content is determined by the community. Content that does not comply with Community Guidelines will be removed. After the content in question was uploaded to iReport.com, the community brought it to our attention. Based on our Terms of Use that govern user behavior on iReport.com, the fraudulent content was removed from the site and the user’s account was disabled.
Of course this lie led to a steep drop in Apple stock, a drop of 5.4% to be exact after CNN reported the lie. Since it was proven not to be fact, Apple’s stock rose $3.82 to $103.92 at 11:32 a.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market after earlier falling to $94.65.
So again, can we all leave Steve be? He is a human being with a family just like the rest of us. Mostly.
[Via MacDailyNews]
The trouble with Steve Jobs (or an anonymous iMinion thereof) sometimes mailing off blunt-force rejoinders to disgruntled Apple customers? The intertubes suddenly become awash in Jobsmail, making it impossible to sort the real from the decidedly not so. Case in point: a Gizmodo reader claims to have emailed Jobs about the possibility of maybe potentially one day considering tethering (allowing your computer to connect to the ‘net via your iPhone’s 3G or EDGE connection). The alleged response:
We agree, and are discussing it with ATT.
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
Yeah, we can has big old doubts as well…
Oh, Apple, you tease! It’s not enough we’ve all heard the iPhone began life as the Safari Pad tablet? That Intel has leaked Atom-powered portable hints? That the rumors start up again every time the blogsphere even thinks you have a “Special Event” coming our way? Do you really have to go and show us your patents?
Apple Insider says:
Much of the 52-page filing describes methods for accurately detecting and deciphering a plurality of simultaneous contacts on a touch screen, which sets the foundation for future tablet-based products that users can manipulate using not only more than one finger, but more than one hand.
Design guru Jonathan Ive, among others, is credited with the innovation, which includes examples of window control, virtual keyboards, and virtual scroll-wheels.
No word, of course, on when or if we’ll ever actually get to hold such awesome mobile power with our own multi-touching hands…
Can’t keep a good iTablet rumor down, can you?
While Windows-based tablets have never successfully penetrated the mainstream market, a vocal contingent have long been clamoring for an Apple Tablet (iTablet, MacBook Touch, Safari Pad, etc.). Modbook rolls their own and Alex Lindsay of PixelCorps/MacBreak Weekly fame contemplated making one himself. Heck, even TechCrunch wants a FrankenLinFox pad!
Will we ever see it? We know Apple has it in the R&D shop. Heck, the iPhone runs software originally conceived of for “Safari Pad”. Steve Jobs has said he’s just as proud of of some things Apple hasn’t released. If it wasn’t right for Apple before, is it now? Only Jobs knows for sure, but MacDailyNews (via Gizmodo) is beating the rumor drum again:
Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at “low” price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.In all honesty, we may have passed this story up, but we’ve heard vague reports from reliable sources that Quanta is busy building a touch product for Apple. This latest information seems seems to compliment what we’ve heard.
Sounds like much more of a MacBook Air cannibalizer than over-sized iPod Touch to me, but with Mobile OS X and App Store well on their way to becoming the next great computing platform, who knows how fast and hard Apple wants to seize that high ground?
UPDATE: More confusion! Stylemonkey in the comments below says Rogers claims not to be doing this when he called in over the phone. However, I spoke to a couple more Rogers reps and they’re still insisting they’re being told Rogers will bill for WiFi use, perplexingly by using the EMEI number of you phone. While they say Rogers can’t tell data usage this way, they can tell WiFi is being used, and will bill based on time. Ridiculous? Sounds like it. But what’s even more ridiculous is Rogers telling this to (some of?) their stores and people in the field. Crazy!
ORIGINAL POST:
So I was waiting in line at a Rogers store yesterday when the staff came out and said that if we didn’t take the Rogers’ iPhone specific plans, anytime we used WiFi it would be counted towards our custom plans (like the newly announced $30/6GB promo). They said that even though the iPhone would show WiFi, it would still count down (crazy fast) 3G data, and we’d only find out come bill time when charges came in. One of them said they were waiting on clarification from Rogers. Another said this was what Apple wanted and implemented. (Yeah, I know… I’m just repeating the comments).
We didn’t run the story then because we couldn’t get any confirmation of the rumor, but now other reports of people being told the same thing at different Rogers stores has turned up.
Read on for more!
Read the rest of this entry »
The iPhone 3G on Rogers saga continues! Crazy Canuck Rogers Rumor du jour? Apple, upset about Rogers disgustingly high price plans for the iPhone 3G and the negative press towards what should have been a triumphant launch for both parties, is cutting its losses and giving Rogers the same shaft Rogers has given Canadian consumers.
How so? By redirecting much of the iPhone stock once destined for Canada to Europe, leaving Rogers embarrassingly short on launch day, causing them to lay off the temp staff they’d lined up.
Caveat: So far this is only coming from a single blogger with no named sources and no history of iPhone or Rogers rumors, true of false. We’re also only a few days from launch, the peak time for hoaxes and attention seeking.
And lets not forget media manipulation. Couldn’t Rogers just as easily be panicking over the negative press and, desperate to make sure they don’t lose fence-sitters or people who might have held out on the first day just to make a protest. Nothing like false scarcity to scare up some business, eh?
Either way, we’ll probably only know for sure on Friday. Though nothing (but lack of common sense) stops Rogers from stepping up and introducing some reasonable rates before then. Monday will do. $30 on top of voice for unlimited data.
Make it so.
Read
The webs are a blogger over (some awesomely sarcastic) reports originating from iPhone Atlas that — wait for it — an internal AT&T memo has revealed that MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services) will be among the new features revealed with the immanent iPhone 2.0 firmware release.
MMS — a crusty old mobile-to-mobile technology that, once competing networks and technologies learned to play nice, let handset owners send photos, videos, and music to each other in the days when underpowered units were incapable — or diliberately walled-off from — established cross-platform file transfer standards — has been one of the top most griped about features “missing” from the original iPhone 1.x firmware.
Is it for realzy realz this time? No idea. AT&T has been silent on iPhone 3G SMS plans to data (which some take to mean there won’t be any other than the plans already available to every other smartphone), and yet Apple wouldn’t really be Apple unless they were deliberately leaving off some obvious feature or another for no apparent reason, now would they?
With more rumors saying 2.0 has gone Gold Master, we should find out one way or another soon enough!
Are you tired of hearing about whether or not we’ll get actual, real, turn-by-turn GPS on the iPhone yet? You shouldn’t be, because it’s a killer feature that a lot of other smartphone platforms are justifiably proud of and the iPhone needs to get it, Apple’s crazy rules be damned. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves when we cover all this TomTom news, from “It’s coming to iPhone” to “It’s not coming.”
The latest? Despite what you may have heard (ahem), TomTom is working on a client and has one in-house that works “pretty well” according to MacGeneration (via AppleInsider). So says TomTom press chief Yann Lafargue, who adds that as for whether or not the darn thing will ever ship, TomTom can’t really say.
We know that Apple’s SDK agreement prohibits it (probably so Apple can’t get sued when you follow your GPS directions into a lake), but we’re willing to sign away our firstborn rights to sue for this, okay Apple? Can’t you guys make nice?
