9to5 Staff

This news will come as no surprise to those using iPhones in US big cities.  PCWorld did a test of the big three wireless carriers in the nation’s 13 largest metro areas.  They found that while AT&T holds their own in terms of speed, they trail far behind Sprint and Verizon in terms of reliability, the most important aspect of mobile communications.  In fact, only about 2/3rds of AT&T’s connections went through at acceptable levels.  As New Yorkers, we can independently verify that figure, and add it might even be a little high.

AT&T has made mention of upcoming improvements to their service in metro areas, but at the moment, they are the worst.

We saw  the Airstrip medical app at WWDC. CNBC follows up with a real doctor-patient case study:

http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1170760210/code/cnbcplayershare

From CNBC:

"It gives us the opportunity to access crucial patient data and the stuff we need to manage the patient any place we are," Dr. Alan Fishman tells us. "It gives us a very accurate picture of what is going on from a moment to moment basis." The Airstrip software is now used by 2,000 doctors in 100 hospitals nationwide, each paying hundreds of dollars a month in subscription fees. The software took years to develop, with Airstrip now celebrating its sixth year in business.

"With Airstrip, we provide physicians with real time, remote access to critical patient data, any time, anywhere, on their mobile device, with just a cell phone connection," Dr. Cameron Powell, the company’s president tells us. "It allows the physicians to utilize that internet connection, which is the cell phone signal, to obtain these data…so from the patient safety standpoint, it is critical to be able to deliver these kinds of data to a doctor anywhere they have a cell phone connection."

Console gaming: The Future’s Apple?
Digital Spy chimes in with a close look at the low-hanging fruit which is console gaming and the Apple platforms. It states the success of gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch now present Apple with a chance to enter the console gaming market, but warns such a move may not be immediate.
Chris Ulm, co-founder of iPhone games developer Appy Entertainment reckons the Apple TV is the change agent for Apple in the console space, observing: "People often have eight or nine boxes under their TVs to control home entertainment – gaming machines, DVD players, cable boxes – it’s a big mess..Apple might look at this and say that people only need one box that does all those things.”

Read more

Hot iPhone? Blame the heatwave
There’s been a flurry of reports in recent days as heatwave-suffering iPhone 3GS owners complain their devices are running hot, too hot. Apple now says the heat isn’t a technical fault – instead it’s simply a by product of leaving your iPhone in your car. “Don’t leave your iPhone in a car where temperatures can exceed the -20C to 45C range”, the company warns. And if your iPhone does get too hot, just switch it off and let it cool down…
Read more

Social apps for iPhone $100 million VC prize
Oh we love a good statistic, so take a look at Chubby Brain’s latest data which indicates social networks are gathering more VC cash than games developers – 31 per cent of $100 million in tracked investments is going into social apps, with 22 per cent spurring the games market. And one more fact, fact fans, the amount of investment directly correlates to the number of iPhones sold, though we can’t pretend to be overly surprised at that particular factoid.
Read more

iBig in Japan
Lookee-lookee: New data shows the 8GB iPhone 3GS has emerged as Japan’s biggest-selling smartphone, with the 16GB model as the second biggest-selling device. Smartphone sales in the tech-savvy nation have shot up 80 per cent in a year, with a million iPhones sold in Japan since launch in July 08.
Read more

Signing off, more tomorrow.

You know how this works.  Case manufacturers "sometimes" get information on upcoming iPod Touch information before the rest of the universe so they can have their products ready at launch.  In the past, they’ve leaked important information and Steve Jobs even cited them as a leak issue during a keynote.  They have also been wildly inaccurate in the past as well (iPhone nano anyone?).

With that in mind, UXSight has the following image for us to enjoy:

Notice the space for a camera in a different area as the iPhone’s?  HardMac speculated in May that the new line of iPod and iPod touches would have cameras  iLounge then posted mockups of iPod’s with cameras, saying their source had described the somewhat unorthodox location in the iPod Nano and iPhone-like iPod touch.  While the camera is pretty much a gimme at this point for me, I’m interested in the "3G" name.  Does that mean the new iPod will have a 3G radios in them or does it simply imply that this is the third generation device?  I can only hope for the former.

Other case manufacturers have joined in.  See Below:

From iPhonegraphy

From Deal Extreme:

And the iPod Nano from Deal Extreme as well:

via MacRumors

Available for download now.  If you want to jailbreak the iPhone 3GS and have a Mac, you can now do so.  Interestingly, we are hearing that Ultrasn0w, the SIM unlocker for iPhone 3G from the iPhone dev team also works for iPhone 3GS (in many cases). 

Once you have Cydia from PurpleRa1n, you can install UltraSn0w from there.  The whole process takes about 15 minutes.

It took 2 weeks to hack the iPhone 3GS.  Strange.

For those who have their iPod Touch or iPhones connected to their TVs through a third party video cable, the 3.0 update was a bad one.  It appears to have disabled the ability of non-Apple cables to transmit video.  Forum members at iPod Touch Fans and MacForums are both reporting the issue.

One forum member reports:

I have an AV Cable for my iPod Touch 1g which up until now worked fine. Then I updated to 3.0, jail-broke it fine and everything else seems ok, but the AV cable brings up the message about it not being a valid accessory.

It isn’t clear if Apple will restore this functionality in a future update. 

As a side note, those with Apple chipped cables also notice a significant difference in the way video out works on their iPods. The video no longer plays on the device while it is playing on the TV. The device only displays the album art of the video.

In the case of the iPod touch, some users are downgrading to the 2.2 firmware.  However, in the iPhone, this isn’t as easy to do due to the baseband update with the 3.0.

Suspect still on the loose…Surveilance video captured the entrance and exit below.

http://cfc.wjla.com/mediaplayer.swf

http://www.myfoxdc.com/video/videoplayer.swf

As predicted, the iPhone 3GS is now jailbroken.   George "Geohot" Hotz is the first to publish a full jailbreak for Apple’s new phone, only a few weeks after its release.  Called Purplera1n, the jailbreak is only Windows for now but there will be a Mac version soon.  The Dev team is also working on an update to their ultrasn0w tool that will unlock the SIM as well. 

Update: Video posted a below.

 We are one Windows machine away from testing this ourselves but look forward to the extra speed in the PSP emulation and Qik Video broadcasts.

Video from TechCrunch

Facebook for iPhone 3.0 is coming very soon. I can’t predict an exact date when I will submit to Apple, but I can say that I am about 98% done. So what’s new in this update?

1. The "new" News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums



11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

– Joe

Multiple sources have provided MacDailyNews with an internal AT&T memo that highlights the company‘s recent milestones and successes:

On this year’s launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008’s iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008 — all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008’s launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

9to5mac’s Take: Awesome

Full story

Greenpeace continues to be at odds with Apple’s message that they are as green as green can be. Today’s report (page 22-23) puts Apple in the lower half of the technology rung with Japanese whale killers like Nintendo and Fujitsu.  Do Samsung, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have batteries that last for 5 years? 

It wasn’t all gore (Al Gore?) for Apple.  As Macworld.co.uk points out, Greenpeace did give Apple some points for its new line of products being "virtually" free of PVC and BFRs, including PCs like MacBooks. It also lauded Apple for its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recycling efforts.

Steve Jobs famously addressed the Greenpeace issue a few years ago at a Stockholder meeting:

Jobs said Greenpeace needed to develop rankings that reflected what companies actually do, not just what they promise to do at some point in the future.

The hate:

Macrumors has been digging through Apple patents and found some very tantalizing nuggets of perhaps possible future iPhone features. 

Fingerprint identification using fingerprints to identify each finger and associate actions based on each finger.  This would allow the iPhone to interperet each finger action seperately, allowing for easier and more acurate control over input by the user.

Haptic feedback.  Not just "touch the screen and get feedback when you hit a key".  That’s too easy.  Apple’s plan is to have a "grid of piezoelectronic actuators that can be activated on command. By fluctuating the frequency of these actuators, the user will "feel" different surfaces as their finger moves across it. As an example, a display could include a virtual click wheel which vibrates at a different frequency as the center. Users could easily sense the difference and use the click wheel without having to look at it."  Dayum, that would be cool.

RFID reader built into the screen?  We’re not quite sure why they’d need to do this (as opposed to putting the reader somewhere else in the device) but Apple has put a patent application on this.

Here’s just a random thought.  What if the Apple bailing on NVIDIA rumors mean that Apple is building their own GPUs?  Yes, it is a stretch but let’s have a look at a bunch of convenient truths:

New Hires. Apple has been hiring AMD/ATI CTO-level execs over the past year. Bob Drebin and Raja Koduri are the most notable. 

Bob Drebin was the chief technology officer of the Graphics Products Group within AMD. In this role, he oversaw the technical strategy and direction for AMD’s graphics related businesses.

Mr. Drebin joined AMD with the ATI acquisition in 2006. At ATI, Mr. Drebin led the architecture and design of many of ATI award-winning graphics processors. Before ATI, Mr. Drebin managed the architecture and design unit of ArtX, where he was instrumental in development of the graphics component for the Nintendo Game Cube. Prior to joining ArtX, Mr. Drebin was a chief engineer in Silicon Graphics’ Advanced Graphics Division, where he spent nine years developing high performance graphics systems.

Their new boss?  Mark Papermaster, a guy with chip knowledge so important to IBM that they sued Apple to prevent him from joining.

PA Semi.  The official word on this group acquired by Apple is that they are building next gen iPhone processors…and they probably are.  But their expertise could also be used in building graphics processors. 

There is always the PowerVR angle to think about as well.  Apple owns about 10% of the mobile GPU designer (and Intel owns 15%) so it will be interesting to see where all of these puzzle pieces fit.

OpenCL.  Apple is spearheading the move to this GPU-as-processor architecture.  As a founding member of the Khronos group, Apple will be in a position to run with this technology when Snow Leopard hits the streets in September.

While initially developing OpenCL, it became clear to Apple that the technology offered an opportunity for the industry to work together to define a standard for parallel programming. With the support of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, Apple proposed OpenCL to the Khronos Group consortium as the basis for a new standard. Demonstrating the strength of the proposal, OpenCL was expanded to include digital signal processors (DSPs) and other specialized processor architectures. It was ratified as an open, royalty-free open standard in December 2008.

Stranger things have happened.

Stranger things have happened.  Have a gander at this somewhat hilarious patent illustration filed by Apple:

Abstract: Systems and methods for providing real-time feedback to karaoke users are provided. The systems and methods for providing users with real-time feedback while they are singing karaoke generally relate to receiving the user’s vocals, determining whether the user is singing on key/pitch and providing real-time feedback to the user while the karaoke song is being sung. The feedback will be positive feedback if user is on key/pitch and it will be negative feedback if user is off key/pitch. For example, the feedback signal if the user is singing too low can be an exaggerated low signal of the user’s own voice. This will encourage the user to sing at a higher pitch.

We actually really like this idea, even if it has little chance of making it to a final product.  It might be better on the AppleTV platform if Apple is still interested in that hobby.

Holy Star Trek!…this Arabic<–>English translator app seems to work eerily well. Will it soon be the universal language translator we’ve all only seen being wielded by the Captain Kirks of the world?  We’re not sure, but this type of technology certainly could help us out on out our next trip to France.  When can we have?

There is plenty of upside to Apple’s choice not to change the design of the iPhone3GS from the iPhone 3G.  All docks and accessories work between models, you know exactly where all of the buttons are on the device and "it ain’t broke", right? 

Well, there is also a downside.  Those knockoff-makers have lots of time to perfect your look and feel.  Cult of Mac looked at popular Chinese iClones like the A88 or SciPhone i68 and found them amazingly similar…on the outside.

Skype 1.1 for iPhone was released (iTunes link) today.  New features include: 

– Send text (SMS) messages using Skype credit.
– Voicemail support.
– Support for the following languages:
English, German, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, Spanish, Norwegian, Russian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, French, Polish and Japanese.
– Improved dialing help when calling phones.

Skype has taken the iPhone platform by storm.  Skype had passed the million mark within a few days of its launch on March 31st.  Then on April 8th, it passed 2 million.  In May it passed 4 million and is believed to be on at least one out of every 10 iPhones and iPod touches.

This is the first feature update since launch, though push notifications is what we were really hoping for. 

No word yet on what build 7C97D fixes (or breaks). We’re hoping not to lose our tether.

Update: Baseband update to 05.08.01 (so if you want to do a SIM unlock in the future, you might want to wait).  Also tether and MMS working (mms enabled by default but still issues with AT&T).  Startup/Shutdown times dramatically improved, though some people are reporting issues with iTunes playback.  Some screenshots also posted to the comments below.

iPhone SDK 3.1 beta

This is a pre-release version of iPhone SDK 3.1 beta to support development of applications for iPhone OS 3.1 beta. Please review the Read Me before installing this beta software release.

Following up on their report from last week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was seen returning to work at Apple, CNBC is reporting that this week Steve Jobs is returning to work at Apple.  Bloomberg was the original source of the officiality.

http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1167464255/code/cnbcplayershare

This would certainly be big news for Canadians if someone isn’t getting their lines crossed. The Toronto Star Business Section is reporting that Bell and Telus, the "other two" national carriers are building out HSDPA networks so that they can carry GSM-class devices like the iPhone.  Rogers, the sole Canadian iPhone carrier and GSM provider currently enjoys a monopoly on the device in Canada.

Sources say the two former phone monopolies are set to roll out a joint $1 billion upgrade of their wireless networks as early as this fall, months ahead of schedule, that will allow them to support a range of GSM-based devices including Apple Inc.’s iconic iPhone, which so far is only available in Canada through rival Rogers Communications Inc.

Details are scarce, but the buzz among industry insiders is that both Bell and Telus have negotiated deals with Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, although one source suggested the price being paid "is going to hurt".

The networks have already planned a GSM push for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 and had originally expected to have rollouts going by then.  Moving the rollout dates up by a year would be a significant achievement.

In the US, Verizon has no announced plans to do any kind of HSPA rollout, instead opting to wait until LTE equipment is available in 2011.  Sprint is currently rolling out 4G WiMAX networks in various US cities, but nothing compatible with current iPhone equipment.

Reuters (via MacRumors) re-ignites the old PSPhone rumors today with a report that indeed Sony is looking into building an iPhone competitor.

Sony Corp is considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid in a bid to better compete with Apple Inc’s highly popular iPod and iPhone, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday.  Sony plans to set up a project team as early as July to develop a new product that combines functions of its portable game player and Sony Ericsson’s mobile phones, the Nikkei said.

Sony has been rumored to be developing an iPhone competitor for years and frankly, if they don’t have something already in development, they’ve really really missed the boat. 

They already have Skype running on the PSP.  All they really need is a 3G radio built into the PSP and they are done.  Are they smart enough to know this?