Well I’m sure by now you have heard the latest Smarthphone Experts Roundtable Podcast! (If you haven’t had a chance to listen you better get on it, great podcast!)
You may have heard our very own fearless leader, Dieter, chime in on one thing that he hates about iPhone 3G, the fact that you can not turn on Wi-Fi while the radio is off (in Airplane Mode). Or so Dieter thought. You can indeed turn Wi-Fi on while the radio is off! And doing so is a snap!
According to reports submitted to MacRumors, users are no longer able to access free Wi-Fi at Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles Locations.
I am sure this is due to a “beta” phase for AT&T to test connectivity. Once wind got out that people are accessing it, they stopped. The fact that AT&T is even doing this is really cool; it adds value to the AT&T proposition for their mobile service.
Will AT&T Extend the Wi-Fi “courtesy” officially? Perhaps AT&T will offer customers Wi-Fi for use on laptops? Who knows, we are still waiting for an official AT&T press release describing their future Wi-Fi plans.
I think anyone will agree that whatever AT&T is doing, it will be better than T-Mobile’s offerings.
When the iPhone and iPod Touch first shipped, many eager big business users and university students snapped up the “breakthrough internet devices” only to find that, because the iPhone and iPod Touch didn’t support the 802.1x protocol, they couldn’t connect to some very large Wi-Fi networks.
Posts piled up on Apple’s Discussion Boards, feature requests and bug reports flooded in (I know I sent one!), and, as of the SDK Roadmap event on Thursday, Apple has listened! 802.1x has been announced for firmware 2.0!
But what is it and why’s is it so important?
I’ve learned why the iPod Touch was snuck through without any leaks to the FCC. The trick of the trade is to certify only the wi-fi chip module that went into the iPod touch. Once that module was certified by the FCC, Apple could put it into whatever device it pleases, as long as that wi-fi module is the only transmitter present. If Apple wanted to add another radio transmitter (such as a Bluetooth chip for stereo Bluetooth / A2DP), they would have to recertify the new device.
Also of note, if Apple is planning a new 3G phone like the rumors say, they will have to recertify the iPhone 3G with the FCC. It’s worth noting that when Apple started testing their iPhone International, nothing new popped up at the FCC.
Holy smokes! Apple has put a $200 price cut on the 8 GB iPhone, and dropped the 4GB version altogether. That’s right, the 8GB iPhone is now $399. Where do I line up for my $200 check? I’m equal parts filled with rage for paying a $200 early adopter fee, and equal parts filled with glee for a $200 price cut. I’m glad that it makes the iPhone that much more accessible for everyone else. I just feel a little sore when I sit, that’s all.
I have colleagues that believe the price cut is a portent of a hardware refresh. I have a hard time believing Apple would refresh their iPhone hardware so soon after launch, but I should float the idea out as speculation. I believe a 3G version is possible, perhaps in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2008. The part of me that hopes I’m wrong is the part of me that wants my iPhone to be new forever. Sigh
There’s an iTunes update tonight that will bring Ringtones support. For a select portion of their music catalog (about 500,000 songs altogether, or 8% of the songs available on iTunes), you can make a ringtone if you’ve already purchased the song. All in all, the song to play on the iPod and the song to play as a ringtone is $1.98. Song portion: $.99, same as always. Ringtone: $.99. I think the extra fee is for the ‘public performance’ licensing aspect of ringtones. It will be interesting to see if the iTunes update breaks iToner, iFuntastic, or the indomitable iPhoneRingtoneMaker. Let’s hope not.
The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store will come to the iPhone in an update later this month. Look for it on a Tuesday afternoon this month, I’d bet. You will be able to purchase any music from the iTunes store and download it via wi-fi. I doubt you will be able to purchase it via EDGE. After all, it’s not the iTunes Wireless Music Store. Why not, though? It’s easier to say, and less cumbersome to type.
The iTunes Wi-Fi Music store will also be available from a bunch of Starbucks in most areas by 2009. The Starbucks in the larger top-ten cities in the US will get the update treatment first, and Starbucks figures they’ll have “most major metro areas” by late 2008. Um, I could rollout a storewide wi-fi network faster than that.
In other iPod news, Steve announced the iPod sister to the iPhone, the iPhone touch (8GB for $299 and 16GB is $399), to be available later this month. It’s slightly smaller, you’ll note from the picture above, and its application functionality has obviously not been totally disclosed. Notably missing from the iPod Touch thus far is a notes app and a maps app…. Hmmm.
The iPod, newly rechristened the iPod Classic, saw updates bringing a new, drastically thinner 80GB version ($249) and a thinner-than-the-previously-thickest 80GB version is the 160 GB version ($349).
The new iPod Nano, regarded by many as an ugly duckling, gets the full iPod treatment. It gains a video-quality screen, and is available in 4GB ($149) and 8GB ($199) versions, and it still works with the Nike+iPod sport kit. As you can see in the picture from Apple’s website above, it’s a little wee thing, absolutely tiny.
Huh. Apple’s iPod lineup looks like a steamroller right now. The Zune, Creative Zen, Sony Walkman line, et al, all look like bumpy roads waiting to be flattened this holiday season.
There was some brouhaha about the iPhone on Duke’s network, something about it bringing the network down, and some network or school administrator blamed it on the iPhone. Well, it turns out that maybe the iPhone wasn’t at fault. Duke officially said it was something else’s fault. I hadn’t reported on this earlier (part of that whole editorial process; why report on something that isn’t related to news?), as being a sysadmin in a former career, it sounded like there was a configuration mistake on their network. And you know, it still sounds like there was a configuration flaw in their Cisco kit to me. Let’s go to the source of it and translate. I speak a few languages poorly, and press release happens to be one of them:
“The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service. Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols.”
Translation: “It’s pretty much Cisco’s fault.” Duke’s Cisco-based wireless network sucks!
  
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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.
