The Inquisitr » iphone 3g

Orange UK Shows Off iPhone 3G/3GS Pricing

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:42:15 +0000

The official release of the iPhone 3GS on UK wireless carrier Orange is just one week away and with that time frame the company has officially announced their iPhone pricing packages for both the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS devices.

Users who are willing to sign a 2 year contract with an 8GB iPhone 3G can have the phone for free with a £29.36 or higher monthly package. Move up to a £122.34 ($200) offering and they’ll bump the device to the 32GB 3GS at no cost, other than the $4800 you’ll spend with your contract over two years.

Users looking for a “pay as you go plan” don’t fair quite as well with the 8GB 3G at £343 ($561) and the 32GB 3GS running £539 ($881).

Inquisitr Giveaway: Win A Free iPhone 3G/3GS iFrogz Case

James Allen Johnson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:22:54 +0000

The Inquisitr has teamed up with the eXpansys-USA team to give away 3 different iFrogz iPhone 3G/3GS cases. These are high quality cases that provide ultimate protection for your iPhone devices.

The cases provide a hard shell plastic casing that’s still very sleek with it’s metallic facade, yet they offer a “velvety soft touch.”

With the iFrogz iPhone 3G Soft Touch Crystal Case Luxe you’ll still have access to all of your phones buttons, ports and sensors, while having the piece of mind you want when protecting your device. The case also comes with a screen protector for added protection.

We have one of each color to give away: Blue, Red And Green (as pictured).

How To Enter The Contest: (Sorry but only U.S. visitors for this contest)

Just leave us a comment on this page telling us why you want the case and what color you want. We’ll announce the winners in one week (November 4th). Please don’t comment as “Guest” as we have no way to contact you.

Again, a special thanks to eXpansys-USA for providing the free wares.

iTwinge – The keyboard for your iPhone

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:58:12 +0000

iCringe iTwinge is a real feel and tactile keyboard for Apple’s iPhone 3G or 3G S from Canadian Mobile Mechatronics Inc. According to Mechatronics’ website, the keyboard will improve your typing speed by 30-40% and reduce typing errors by 70-80%.

iTwinge is ultra low power and powered by your iPhone. It doesn’t require any software and is attached within 1 second.

As an iPhone 3G S owner, I’m not sure this one is for me. I’m not ready to improve my typing speed yet, but it could be a great tool for Blackberry switchers. They can’t type without tactile feedback.

According to Mobile Mechatronics the iTwinge is released today or tomorrow:

On Thursday September 16th Mobile Mechatronics will launch the iTwinge™! The world’s first commercially available iPhone® keyboard

Shipments begin November 19th or November 12th, depending on which page you are currently reading on MobileMechatronics.com.

Who will buy one first?

iPhone 3G Bursts Into Flames. Scorches Car Seat

James Allen Johnson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:30:58 +0000

There have been plenty of iPhone overheating rumors, heck some claims even point to the consumer friendly devices acting less than consumer friendly when they burst into flames. Now there appears to be a picture of one such occurrence posted by a Dutch blog.

If the pictures are real it looks like the iPhone 3G took a pretty good toll on the vehicle in question.

Albeit there is really no way to tell if this exploding iPhone scenario is in fact the real deal or another elaborately placed practical joke. Either way the idea of a Steve Jobs created device attempting to destroy an entire vehicle will always brings a smile to my face. It almost makes me wanna take my Macbook off my lap as I type this story. [via Gizmodo]

iPhone 3.0 beta firmware reveals more features on upcoming iPhone

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:27:35 +0000

Five days ago Apple released the latest beta version of the iPhone 3.0 firmware. Those with an Apple Developer account (or with a P2P-client) can download and test the lastest release – iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3. As testers get to play with it more details about the new iPhone are revealed.

According to many rumors we can expect a new iPhone in June or July. Let’s say the Apple Developer Conference in San Francisco from June 8-12 could be a great place to announce the new iPhone.

I won’t bore you with the technical details in the iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3, but instead tell you what you can expect from the new iPhone.

Close all open Safari windows. In iPhone OS 2.x you can’t close all Safari browser windows. You have to open a blank window to close the “last” window. With 3.0 you can close even a single window.
Numeric update on the battery indicator. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, then you probably already have this, but with 3.0 you can toggle battery percentage on/off.
Push notifications. Do you want your notifications from 3rd party apps as sounds, alerts and/or badges?
Data detection in more apps. The iPhone recognizes phone numbers and emails now, but the detection will be enhanced in 3.0. You can now add the info to your address book (yes, that’s very advanced.)
Video recording and auto-focus. It might take more than just an upgrade to OS 3.0 to record video. According to rumours the new iPhone will support video recording, but no video on iPhone 3G. (Again if your iPhone is jailbroken you are probably already recording videos.)
Voice control. No many details on this yet, it sounds fancy, but most cell phones (Nokia) already support this.
Playback and scrubbing. You can now listen to your podcasts at variable speeds and better navigate tracks.
Copy and Paste.

Some of these features might seem pretty standard, but they are dearly missed.

App Store about to celebrate 1 billion downloaded apps

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:28:39 +0000

The App Store is nearing a significant milestone. As I’m writing this post they are 36, 097,834 downloads from reaching 1 billion downloaded applications via App Store.

To celebrate, Apple is hosting a contest worth over $10,000 (yes, that’s not a typo, Apple is giving away prizes worth $13,746!!!) The prizes are: 17-inch MacBook Pro, 32 Gb iPod Touch, $10,000 iTunes gift certificate and an Apple Time Capsule.

To enter the contest all you have to do is visit the Apple 1 billion app countdown contest page and sign up or download an app from the App Store. You can make 25 entries per day.

At the same time Apple has revealed the 20 most popular paid and free apps. I’ll just give you a few seconds to guess the top 3 ones.

Crash Bandikoot, allRadio and Texas Hold’em are the top 3 paid apps, while Facebook, Labyrinth Lite Edition and Touch Hockey are the top 3 free apps at the time of writing.

For a service that has existed less than a year, this is a spectacular milestone. I guess I’ll write a similar post around February next year.

(While I’ve written this post there are “only” 36,055,610 downloads left, so you better hurry.)

What’s the Deal with Apple and Misleading Ads?

JR — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:35:12 +0000

Apple has just had yet another iPhone ad banned from the airwaves, begging the question: What’s the deal with Apple and misleading ads?

Banned In The U.K.

The most recent case involves an iPhone 3G commercial that shows users surfing the Net at superfast speeds. The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the spot exaggerated the phone’s speed, showing Internet activity far faster than any regular user would experience. A disclaimer at the end stating “network performance will vary by location” was not sufficient, it said.

Apple responded to the initial complaints by claiming the ad showed “relative” speed and was meant to demonstrate how much faster the 3G iPhone was than past devices. The ASA, however, didn’t buy it.

Common Trend

This is becoming a surprisingly common trend for Apple. The company saw another iPhone ad banned in the U.K. back in August. In that instance, the ASA said the ad’s claims that “all the parts of the Internet are on the iPhone” were misleading, as the iPhone didn’t support Flash or Java. (Apple said it only meant to imply that you could get to any Web site with on the phone, not that any Internet technology would necessarily work on it.)

Just a couple of months before that, a lawsuit was filed against Apple for its ads suggesting the iPhone 3G is “twice as fast” as past models.

And, looking even further back into the calendar, the cases keep coming. This past March, Apple settled a suit over ads for its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks complaining that the computers didn’t support “millions of colors” as their ads had claimed. And back in ‘04, the ASA banned a spot for the Power Mac G5 that stated it was the “world’s fastest personal computer.” Independent testing found a couple of Dell systems were in fact faster.

Putting It All Together

So is Apple a little lax when it comes to making bold and superlative-filled claims? Or are people just too fast to nitpick and jump at any opportunity to stick it to a big name corporation?

In this instance, I have to lean toward the former. While they may be nitpicky, the complaints — particularly those recognized by the ASA — do seem to have validity. You don’t see other major tech corporations being banned from the airwaves this frequently, and the public is certainly just as eager to stick it to Microsoft or any number of other big name entities.

Ultimately, you’d think Apple would take some extra caution in its claims and its commercial presentations at this point. You’d think it would do that anyway as part of a moral obligation to its customers. But particularly with its ever-expanding history of issues, it’s hard to believe that the folks signing off on the ads haven’t figured out that exaggerations — even in the slightest ways — are going to get called out.

iPhone Inspired Carrier-Switching — Can G1 Do The Same?

JR — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:51:55 +0000

Nearly a third of all iPhone 3G users switched carriers to get the new device this summer, some new research has found. A study by the NPD Group discovered 30 percent of all U.S. iPhone users made a move to AT&T because of the 3G phone.

So where’d they come from? A full 47 percent deflected from Verizon. T-Mobile accounted for 24 percent of the users, and Sprint took up 19.

The study also says the 3G phone has grown iPhone’s smartphone market share from 11 percent, before the new phone came out, to 17 percent now. While the iPhone dominated sales over the summer (followed by the RIM Blackberry Curve and RIM Blackberry Pearl during the period of June to August), it’s the second-best selling overall phone in America. Motorola’s RAZR V3 holds the top spot, according to NPD.

Think the Android G1 can inspire any measurable amount of carrier-switching when it comes out later this month? T-Mobile’s certainly hoping so. The company is shooting for sales of 400,000 to 500,000 devices in the remainder of 2008 alone. The G1 is set to become available October 22, with pricing starting at $179 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. (Data plans will run $25-$35 a month, and a separate T-Mobile voice plan is also required.)

T-Mobile, by the way, recently set up a G1 emulator where you could check out a simulation of the mobile software. Oddly, the URL now returns a “403 Forbidden” error. That can’t be a good sign.

Finally, Apple might have fixed the iPhone 3G

Duncan Riley — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:13:34 +0000

iPhone firmware 2.1 was released earlier this week, promising to fix the core issues plaguing many iPhone 3G users, including reception, call drop outs, and crashes.

I’ve only just now upgraded as I had to wait for the Pwnage team to release their latest version that supported the update (I like having streaming video at hand, even if my data cap restricts my use).

The result is best expressed in pictures before and after, showing 3G bars from the exact same location: my home office, sitting at my desk

Full bars vs nearly none at all before. Now being the weekend I don’t get a lot of calls on my mobile, so I can’t vouch for the drop out issue being fixed, but presuming that the issue is strongly linked to signal strength, I’ll tentatively add that issue to the fixed list as well.

It’s good news for Apple and iPhone users after speculation that the issues were related to dodgy 3G chips and that Apple may have had to recall the phone to fix it.

I haven’t had any crashes yet relating to apps, but given they came at odd times previously, it’s too early to tell. There were other issues, such as iTunes 8 deciding to uninstall all my apps and removing all my sync settings, but this is a minor inconvenience on the path to having a decent phone to talk on again.

i.TV offers a movie and TV guide for the iPhone

Duncan Riley — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:55:41 +0000

i.TV has launched a new movie and TV guide service for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Features

i.TV delivers users relevant and up-to-date TV and movie listings based on their current location and other customizable settings. The service includes rich background information for most programs, including celebrity photos, biographies, show synopses, ratings, and reviews. Users can sort options that make it easy to organize television listings according to categories such as channel, show, and genre.

On the social side, i.TV includes a number of community features, including the ability to recommend shows to friends via email, star ratings and user reviews. The app also delivers trailers and other rich media so users can interact around that, or just sit back and taste test.

The app should be available on iTunes shortly if you’re in the US or Canada, and the price is a winner: completely free.

Louis Gray has some screenshots.

Another iPhone Fix on the Way?

JR — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:42:42 +0000

With the sort-of-maybe-kind-of-partial-fix for 3G now deployed around the world, Apple may be moving on to another software patch for its seemingly problem-plagued iPhone.

An e-mail said to be from Steve Jobs indicates a new update slated for September. The update will fix a bug that causes the phones not to load some third-party apps at startup, AppleInsider reports. The site says a user had e-mailed Jobs and then received a one-line personal response:

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September.”

The app issue is the latest in a line of widespread problems for the iPhone, which started right off the bat with the activation day meltdown. MobileMe problems followed, and then, most recently, we’ve seen the well-reported coverage and dropped call woes.

Still, Apple is doing all right on the whole: A consumer satisfaction study made public this week shows the company scoring a record-high number, with 85 percent of its users saying they’re happy. The next highest-rated company, Dell, came in 10 percentage points lower.

Of course, that survey was probably taken before the iPhone came out. Are people still satisfied?

iPhone 2.0.2 the magical 3G Fix? Whoops, I can’t upgrade yet

Duncan Riley — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:49:32 +0000

Apple has released a firmware update for the iPhone, 2.0.2, and there’s some suggestion that it may include a fix to the 3G coverage issues.

MG Seigler at VentureBeat reports that post update he’s getting better 3G coverage in San Francisco, but there appears to be no official word yet as to whether the upgrade included a patch for the problem.

Obviously if they can fix it via software update, everyone wins, however I sort of can’t upgrade it yet. I couldn’t resist running Pwnage on my 3G iPhone so I could install Flixwagon for live video streaming. A test video below on the subject. I’ll add Qik to the mix as well later in the week to see if there’s any noticeable difference.

Could iPhone Salvation be a Software Fix Away?

Duncan Riley — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:45:56 +0000

Further to our report August 12 on faulty 3G iPhones, news has emerged that Apple is preparing a software fix.

iPhone 3G users worldwide have reported ongoing issues with 3G call quality, including signal issues and call drop outs, and I’m among them. BusinessWeek reports two sources saying that Apple hopes that the software remedy will fix the problem and negate the need for an iPhone recall. Notably any question of the problem being real or imagined has been put to rest, so if you’re experiencing issues as well, they are real.

As per our earlier report, the problem does seem to lie with the Infineon 3G chip in the phone, although it will be interesting to see if a software fix can do the job alone. Either way, please hurry up Apple!

Apple Inc

iFail: Will Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G?

Duncan Riley — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:54:50 +0000

Not long after acquiring an Apple iPhone 3G on launch day I started noticing reception issues. Some times I’d have a full signal, but at other times I’d have little or no 3G coverage at all. In the United States, others have had similar issues, but the AT&T 3G network is still fairly new and doesn’t have strong coverage, compared to the Optus Network in Australia that has been in place for years (my last Nokia was 3G nearly 3 years ago and worked). According to the Optus website, 3G coverage everywhere around where I live is universal and without break, and yet as per the top shot, my reception in this area is one bar. Calls drop out on a fairly regular basis, and the phone often ends up reverting to 2G. Notably when it does switch to 2G, the bars shown are always full, and there is never an issue with calls, although data is another matter, with Optus not supporting EDGE so it’s GPRS at 36k.

A quick search of Google finds that I’m not alone. Here are a few samples of similar issues with iPhone users on the Optus network. There was an outage a couple of weeks back, but not reports since. Thing is, I can’t find people complaining that their Nokia’s are having similar issues, simply because they’re not. The natural assumption I made is that the issue is with the Optus network, but could it be the iPhone itself?

GigaOm reports that the issue may be with the Infineon 3G chip used by the iPhone:

Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities in a research note today said: “We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain Infineon is the 3G supplier.”

Windsor writes that the problem isn’t likely to be solved with firmware updates, which means Apple could have to replace the chips so users get the performance they were promised. If the chip is the problem, this would be the second large chip failure this summer, with Nvidia’s faulty graphics chips placed in thousands of laptops grabbing most of the headlines so far.

Could Apple be forced to recall the iPhone 3G to repair the faulty chips? Telco’s never like unhappy customers, and there is growing noise around this issue. They are not going to take the blame if the issue is hardware related, and that puts immediate pressure on Apple to act. If it is further proven that hardware is to blame, there is also the risk of Government intervention, at least in Australia and other nanny-state nations where Governments can and do intervene to force product recalls of faulty products.

I still love my 3G iPhone, but I’d also like it to work. Apple, please fix this issue.

The new iPhone IS a gaming platform

Duncan Riley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:44:27 +0000

As I drove my 5 year old son to school this morning in a wet, cold Melbourne winter morning, he sat in the car next to me playing Crash Bandicoot Nitro Card 3D on my less than 2 week old iPhone 3G. I only purchased the game yesterday on iTunes, before that his favorite game was Super Monkey Ball. I don’t play a lot of games (although I am on Pokerstars 3 or 4 times a week) but I found myself waiting in a chemist the other day playing games as well. Playing games on a mobile phone isn’t new, and I can remember way off into my commuting past, playing Snake and some memory matching game on a Nokia, but I never saw my mobile then as a gaming device. Today I do.

The new iPhone IS a gaming platform.

Om Malik over on GigaOM asked the same question this morning, and noted figures from Cellufun that iPhone users are playing games at a rate four times that of other mobile phone users. And why wouldn’t they? the phone is built for gaming. Full color, decent sized screen, easy to navigate a game by touch or moving the phone, as opposed to the cumbersome keying required by other phones.

Figures from Apple also prove the premise. 8 of the top 10 paid applications on iTunes are games. Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D sits on top from Texas Hold’em and Super Monkey Ball. The ridiculously stupid iPint sits on top of the free applications list.

My own challenge at home is to balance my sons use out so it doesn’t kill my phone. As per my walkthrough the other day, I upgraded my old cracked iPhone to 2.0, and one of the driving reasons for that was to offer it to my son on occasion. I’m even considering the need for an iPod Touch just for him to play games, and considering the cost of games on competing devices such as the Nintendo DS, the Touch would be a bargain. Sure, iTunes doesn’t have the range of games available quite yet, but with such a strong uptake, expect a variety of additional choice as the year goes on.

Upgrading a hacked 2G iPhone to iPhone 2.0

Duncan Riley — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:11:51 +0000

The following instructions may well apply to those looking to jailbreak a 3G iPhone, but I’ve only tested it on my old iPhone, not my new one. These instructions apply to a Mac running Leopard . The iPhone Dev team is still working on a Windows version.

Step 1: Update your iPhone to the iPhone 2.0 software using iTunes.

On a Mac, plug in you iPhone, enter iTunes, click on the iPhone via devices in the sidebar. You’ll see Version and some buttons, if it isn’t telling you your iPhone is up-to-date, click Check for Update. If it has detected the need for an update, update the phone to 2.0.

Step 2: download and run Pwnage 2.0

Download available here or visit the iPhone Dev team site here for mirrors if this link isn’t working. Safe rule is to download from a mirror on the site, not others, as you don’t always know what you get.

You’ll also need to download the Bootloaders here.

Run Pwnage Tool (look for a pinnaple icon in your downloads folder).

Step 3: follow instructions

The Pwnage Tool may ask you for your iPhone file and Bootloaders, or it might find them no problems. Point them in the right direction. You have downloaded the bootloaders, and iTunes will have a copy of the 2.0 firmware

Step 4: Don’t panic

The Pwnage tool will compile a new loadable version of the firmware for your phone. When asked “are you legit iPhone,” hit no if you’re upgrading from a jailbroken iPhone. This is very important in activating the phone later, I was thrown by it the first time and hit yes. If in doubt, hit no anyway.

The Pwnage tool may ask for a system password, this is to write the new file, give it to them.

The last stage here will ask whether your iPhone has been pwned before. This is for users who have unlocked the iPhone previously with earlier versions of the Pwnage tool. I previously used ZiPhone so I hit no, if in doubt, hit no.

Step 5: DFU fun

The Pwnage tool will now try to put your phone into DFU mode presuming you hit no to the last step. This is where it got hard for me.

Firstly I couldn’t get it to go into DFU mode at all, and continually got a failure message. The trick to get past this stage is to enter terminal, and enter the following:

mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support”

Simple as that. If you are caught here just start the process again, follow the steps, and you’ll get to the same screen. At this stage the PwnageTool walks you through how to put your phone into DFU mode. I tried this over and over again with absolutely no luck. It turns out that at this stage you have the file anyway, so you don’t have to use Pwnge to put the phone into DFU.

Step 6 (if required) put your phone into DFU manually

Attach the phone to your Mac
Turn the phone off
Hold power and home together for 10 seconds exactly
Release power but keep holding the home button until iTunes pops up and recognizes the phone.

and that’s it. Note in DFU mode you should see nothing on your screen, if you see anything, try the steps again.

Step 7: restore using iTunes

iTunes will deliver a message along the lines of “phone in restore mode.” At this stage you need to restore the phone using the file Pwnage has created. To do this, click on the Restore button in iTunes while pressing the Option key, doing it this way allows you to pick the restore file for your phone. Pick the file from your desktop of where ever Pwnage created it, then let iTunes do its thing.

Step 8: patience

At this stage you just have to sit back and let the software install. You’ll hit some screens on your iPhone about flashing memory, loading bootloader etc, the only tip here: just don’t touch or unplug your iPhone during this process.

If you’re more comfortable with pictures, Sleepers.net has a walk through here.

How to take iPhone screenshots

Duncan Riley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:07:29 +0000

Courtesy of one of the nice guys of the startup world Pat Phelan, the above video demonstrates how you can take iPhone screenshots.

The shorter version:
- Open the page you want the shot of
- Hold the home + power buttons for around 3 seconds
- let go, you’ll see a flash, which is the confirmation that the screenshot has been taken
- connect your iPhone to your computer to extract the shot(s). If you’re using a Mac, the screenshots will appear in iPhoto.

iPhone Facebook App, enough to bring first adopters back?

Duncan Riley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:19:55 +0000

Somewhere along the line this year I fell out of love with Facebook. FB Apps appeared like spam, Poker was still better on Pokerstars, zombies became so yesterday, and I stopped using it. It was only when I completely missed an event (sorry MODM ppl) that I jumped back on briefly to update things, blindly accepting friend requests without knowing who half the people were.

Today I got my hands on the new iPhone 3G and the Facebook app was there to be downloaded for free, so I did.

It’s good. Really, really good, and superior to the old iPhone web version of Facebook in many ways.

The big things that Facebook are pushing is Facebook Chat and Facebook email. I keep forgetting Facebook has email, and I wish other people would as well, as I have 235 unread messages at a rate of 2-3 per day. Chat on the other hand is different. I hate it on the site, annoyingly popping up when I get on. But on the iPhone, chat is appealing, in a separate tab, really easy to use, but easy enough to ignore as well.

Chat itself is only as good as the people using it, but with a lack of other chat applications available (AIM excepted…and I don’t have an AIM id), Facebook becomes a handy mobile chat platform.

Friends contact details are also offered via the app, so looking up email addresses and phone numbers becomes very nice indeed.

I’m unlikely to start spending copious amounts of time on Facebook again, but in offering a smart application such as this, Facebook may once again find favor in a first adopter crowd that has in many cases moved on to spending the bulk on their time on newer and shinier things.

Profy also has more here.

iPhone 3G Unboxing

Duncan Riley — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:17:18 +0000

iPhone 3G unboxing from Duncan Riley on Vimeo.

iPhone mania has swept Australia today, and will likely follow the sun as the new 3G version goes on sale across the world.

Stores locally to me opened at 7am to sell the phone, but given my aversion to queuing I left home just before 8. The local Optus retailer literally just down the street had a queue of somewhere between 100-200 metres so I drove past that, and instead headed to a smaller reseller that was suppose to open a 9am.

When I got there, they’d opened at 7am as well, but luckily not many people knew so I managed to buy their last 16GB iPhone. The plan: $79/ mth over 2 years, $2/ mth handset payment, $500 odd in calls a month and 700mb per data, although unlimited data for the first month.

Optus decided to chase the fail whale while I was getting the phone. An override code was required for me to sign up as I was an existing customer on a plan, and that took 15 minutes on hold with the call center. Then the Optus Dealer Network crashed completely, meaning that the poor reseller was left with a 500 error screen where he needed to enter a code. 45 minutes later…it was up again.

During this time more and more people entered the store, with lots of different stories. People were cruising stores trying to buy phones. Lots of reports about stores being allocated less than 10 phones each. Nearly everyone wanted the 16GB version, and many people came and went when they were told there were no more available. As I left the store there, the call centre had stopped taking calls, with the call made after me having been on hold for nearly one hour. Every phone in the shop was dialled in, waiting on hold as the new phone applications piled up.

My unboxing of the phone above, as I actually did it.

New iPhone Applications On The Way

JR — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:20:45 +0000

As Apple announced the new iPhone 3G and the accompanying iPhone 2.0 software release at its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, the company also released new details about its upcoming iPhone App Store.

The new iPhone App Store will feature a slew of new applications and opportunities for developers. The store will offer wireless download support and automatic updates. It will allow developers to keep 70 percent of the revenue earned from their sales. The store will be available in 62 countries and will offer cell network downloads for all apps 10 megs or less. Larger apps will require WiFi or iTunes for downloading. The store will also let corporations distribute company-specific apps just to their employees.

Several companies revealed new applications under development:

Sega’s updated Super Monkey Ball game will feature more than 100 levels and added tilt control. Representatives said it will sell for $9.99.
eBay’s new iPhone Auctions utility will let you monitor all your auctions from a single main screen. The tool has been in development for only about five weeks, reps said.
A location tracking social network called Loopt will let you use cell data to pinpoint your friends’ current locations on a graphical map. The software even goes as far as showing a history of where a contact has been, as well as any photos they’ve submitted. Loopt will have cross-platform support with other phones and will be made available free when the App Store opens.
The updated TypePad app — also free — will provide an interface for blogging or photo uploading.
The Associated Press will offer a Mobile News Network that will use the phone’s location API to gather content from nearby sources. It will also provide news video and photo viewing and will give you the option to submit your own photo- and text-based reports. This service will also be fee-free.
Pangea Software has two new game offerings, Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally. The latter is a 3D racing experience that turns the iPhone into a steering wheel. Each game will be $9.99.
Band aims to play off the popularity of music-based gaming with a virtual studio of sorts that will let you play a virtual piano, drums, guitar-style “blues instrument,” or bass. You can even record your tunes.
MLB.com has a new live score utility that will deliver real-time highlights immediately after each play.
Several medical tools are in the works, including a learning program that helps you remember body part names and a touchscreen-based app to view 3D medical images.
Digital Legends has a new 3D fantasy adventure game. The company says its program will use OpenGL and touch controls to take mobile gaming to a whole new level. The app is still under development but is expected to be ready by September.

Apple also announced the creation of a new push notification service for developers. When a user exits an application, Apple will “push” updates from its servers — sent by the developer — to the user’s phone. The updates could include custom messages or badges and sounds. The function will be ready in September but will be delivered to developers sooner.