iOS Devices

BGR has a report this weekend that the next version of iTunes, conveniently released in September with the new iPod lineup, will include BluRay support, perhaps coinciding with some new Mac hardware with BluRay drives.  They also report that the new iTunes will allow you to visually arrange the way iPhone and iPod touch apps appear on the screen of the devices.  Lastly, there will be some sort of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm integration.

BluRay has been rumored on iMacs for over a year and even has made brief appearances in iTunes credits. Steve Jobs previously called BluRay licensing a "bag of hurt" in response to questions on why Apple wasn’t employing BluRay players in their hardware, however licensing for the technology has become simpler and cheaper recently.  It is also interesting that iTunes would support BluRay rather than the current DVD Player app which has got a pretty significant upgrade coming with Snow Leopard.  Up until now it seemed like Apple was avoiding the BluRay scene altogether, opting for its customers to get their HD content from iTunes downloads.

It will also be interesting to see, if this rumor is true, if Apple supports any of the many 3rd party BluRay options available on the Mac. 

While this is in no way indicative of the App Store in general, one app developer is seeing his application pirated an astounding 95% of the time.  Bram Stolk‘s ‘the little tank that could’(iTunes) has been downloaded only 45 times but over 1000 users have shown up on his leaderboard.

My game has an online leader board. The players with the best times show up on a ranking. The leader board is consulted when you play the game, so that it can be displayed on the phone. When I took a look at my server logs, I was absolutely astonished. There were 1114 different people in the logs!

So how can a game that sold 45 copies, have 1114 players? That does not make any sense? I have no reason to believe that Apple’s sales reports are faulty, so the answer is piracy. Very quickly after the release of ‘the little tank that could’ the game got cracked, and distributed via torrents. Those crackers are a weird bunch, even taking pride in their work. Proudly tagging my game with ‘cracked by Hexhammer’.

Might want to turn the sound down if you are at work

This information comes as more and more iPhone users and developers are heading into the Jailbroken Cydia Store for seemingly benign apps like Cycorder for video recording on pre 3GS models and Google Voice Apps like GVMobile.  

Cydia’s developer claims that about 4 million, or 10 percent of the 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners to date, have installed Cydia. On a recent day, he said 470,000 people were connecting to the Cydia store, up from 350,000 per day just a few months ago. Among many free apps, there are also 15 paid apps in Cydia, and the store has earned $220,000 in overall sales in just five months.

Apple believes Jailbreaking is illegal under the DMCA.

Tucked away in the iProd product UBDeviceConfiguration.plist file, we see information that seems to imply that this product is going to have an USB-Ethernet interface from the following string:

<string>standardMuxPTPEthernet</string>

The iPod Touch doesn’t have the same Ethernet string in their USB configuration file.  They have this (and so did the original prototype iProd):

<string>standardMuxPTP</string>

Does this Ethernet reference mean iPhones and the new iProd are going to have the ability to plug into an Ethernet wall jack?  Technically…sort of.  It is a USB to Ethernet interface similar to the MacBook Air’s 10/100 USB-Ethernet adapter. 

However, the purpose of this Ethernet interface for Apple in the iPhone is the wired USB tether (that AT&T still doesn’t support but you can enable here).  The iPod touch doesn’t have this Ethernet interface because it doesn’t need to tether.  It, like the iPhone, has a separate interface for its Wifi connection.

So I think it is logically safe to conclude that this "iProd" is also going to have the ability to do the same wired USB tether, making 3G Internet access a necessity.  The only other reasonable alternative is that you’ll be able to use the iPhone to tether to this device.  (Unless Apple’s plan is to have a wired tablet experience?)

We are hopeful that Apple allows its users to have a choice between carriers perhaps using something like Qualcomm’s Gobi 3G Chipset.

Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster issued another guestimate report today on Apple’s forthcoming Tablet, somewhat hedging his earlier 2010 forecasts to late 2009/early 2010.  

He even went out and had a computer-generated rendering of what he envisions the tablet looking like.  (Above right).  This isn’t unlike many other Apple Tablet renderings we’ve seen.

He also laid out these points:

• It will  be similar to an iPod touch, only larger, capable of running most of the 70,000 applications on the iPhone App Store plus a new category of apps designed for the bigger screen.
• Will be used primarily for Web surfing, e-mail, and digital media, competing with netbooks without being a netbook.
• Will be priced between an iPhone and a MacBook — between $500 and $700.
• Is likely to include a 3G cellular modem and could be subsidized by a carrier — either AT&T (T) or Verizon (VZ).
• Will sell better than Apple TV did its first year (1.2 million units).
• Could in fact sell 2 million units at $600 each to generate $1.2 billion and add about 3% to Apple’s revenue stream in calendar 2010.

“Last week we spoke with an Asian component supplier that has received orders from Apple for a touch-screen device to be fulfilled by late [calendar year] 09,” he writes. “This data point underscores our thesis that a tablet will likely launch in early [2010].”

Apple’s iPhone is “substantially expanding” digital music markets on a global scale, Warner Music boss, Edgar Bronfman confirmed yesterday during the major label’s financial results call.

Bronfman said strong sales of the iPhone (and conceivably, the iPod touch) are acting to “raise the profile of music in the mobile world,” delivering on a mobile music promise the majors have been praying for for a very long time.

“For example, iTunes was launched in Mexico earlier this week – the first new territory addition to the iTunes footprint in nearly three years,” Bronfman said, adding, “This launch is indicative of the opportunity Apple and its content partners have to follow the expansion of the iPhone into additional mobile-oriented countries.”

The effect of Apple’s device success has helped the label raise digital revenues by 11 per cent, despite the impact of the credit crunch.

The Warner Music chief exec also said the initial impact of tiered pricing in iTunes has been “very positive” so far. He pointed out that sales haven’t been much impacted, and indeed they are beginning to raise more revenue, a manifestation he described as a “net positive impact” on his company’s digital revenues.

“The download business remains the primary driver of our global digital business today and we remain very positive on Apple’s April introduction of variable pricing for single track downloads on iTunes. It’s early days but the variable pricing strategy is beginning to show a net positive impact on our top line digital revenue results. More importantly, this model gives us the flexibility to offer consumers more choice and provides us an opportunity to differentiate our offering,” he said.

Otherwise, things remain bleak, with an 11 per cent fall in CD sales, tough currency markets and more, leading the company to file net losses of $37 million (up from $9 million in the same period last year) on total revenues of $769 million.

Bronfman also hinted that merger negotiations between Warner and EMI may be back on the agenda, suggesting regulators may be open to such consolidation among recorded music businesses, but not likely among music publishers.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt sees future industry growth in the mobile phone sector, and concedes the “iPhone showed what you can do with a very powerful browser.”

Speaking to BusinessWeek, he focuses strongly on the opportunity his company sees in the mobile sector, promising a new generation of ‘Android’ OS phones will debut in the autumn. And while the iPhone leads the pack now, the former Apple board member appears confident Android will take a slice of smartphone action.

“A next generation of [Android-based] phones will be coming out in the fall,” he said. “They won’t necessarily displace other [phones] because they’re also doing well. But we will have a significant bet in mobile phones. So from our perspective it looks like Android is going to be a success.”

These Android answers emerge alongside new information on Schmidt’s and time with the Apple board.

Apple’s own regulatory filings reveal that Schmidt took no pay for his time on Apple’s board, but he did accept $8,700 of Apple gear and a $7,500 commemorative gift.

Apple’s directors are allowed to receive one of each new product the company introduces, free, plus the right to buy more at a discount.

Like Steve Jobs at Apple, at Google Schmidt takes just one dollar in salary each year and hasn’t taken any stock options offered to him.

Customarily, Apple pays directors an annual $50,000 fee, as well as offering board members the opportunity to invest in Apple stock. Schmidt took neither, buying his Apple shares himself on the open market.

Daring Fireball got an email beatdown today from Phil Schiller about the controversy surrounding Apple’s decision to "censor" Ninjawords, a dictionary app for the iPhone.  It turns out that most of Daring Fireball’s argument yesterday was just wrong.  

Let me start with the most important points – Apple did not censor the content in this developer’s application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for including references to common swear words. You accused Apple of both in your story and the fact is that we did neither.  Ninjawords is an application which uses content from the Wiktionary.org online wiki-based dictionary to provide a nice fast dictionary application on the web and on the iPhone. Contrary to what you reported, the Ninjawords application was not rejected in the App Store review process for including common “swear” words. In fact anyone can easily see that Apple has previously approved other dictionary applications in the App Store that include all of the “swear” words that you gave as examples in your story.

Wiktionary, the source of of Ninja Words definitions, contains huge amounts of profanity, even if it isn’t the seven words you can’t say on TV.  While Ninjawords may have did a search and destroy on those 7 words in the database, many "Urban Dictionary-type" definitions still exist.

 The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive “urban slang” terms that you won’t find in popular dictionaries such as one that you referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X. Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone.

The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+.

You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers’ actions, not Apple’s. I believe that the Apple app review team’s original recommendation to the developer to submit the Ninjawords application, without censoring it, to the App Store once parental controls was implemented would have been the best course of action for all; Wiktionary.org is an open, ever-changing resource and filtering the content does not seem reasonable or necessary.

Apple was right to reject it or ask for a 17+ rating on the app.  The author could clean it up or get put into a 17+ section.

The problem is they got both due to poor timing.  They were submitting at the time when the 17+ App Store was just being populated.  The developer wanted to get the app in the store so they voluntarily censored their app.  Although the app uses a static version of the Wictionary which may have removed some profanity, there is a lot of other implicit profanity in Wictionary that may not contain any "bad words" but still isn’t something a 10-year old should be reading.  They, like many other dictionaries, got a 17+ rating.

Gruber, pictured above at a WWDC, decided, for whatever reason to back up the developers of this particular app without researching exactly what the real issue was.

Although the App Store has made and continues to make baffling decisions on accepting and rejecting apps, we should exercise caution when scrutinizing them. 

Schiller ended with this:

Apple’s goals remain aligned with customers and developers — to create an innovative applications platform on the iPhone and iPod touch and to assist many developers in making as much great software as possible for the iPhone App Store. While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve.

A UK retailer has revealed the local price for the long-awaited TomTom for iPhone navigation system – £99 ($168) excluding UK sales tax.

TomTom hasn’t yet revealed pricing for the system, promising only to ship the iPhone satnav “this summer” – and there’s scant weeks until summer’s end.

UK retailer Handtec prematurely listed the system on its site a month ago and has yet to remove it – for whatever that’s worth. The system includes a windscreen mount, iPhone charger, amplified speakers, a hands-free kit and a GPS dongle.

The TomTom solution combines two new TomTom products: The TomTom navigation application for iPhone; an Apple version of TomTom’s award-winning turn-by-turn navigation software, including IQ Routes and latest maps from Tele Atlas; The TomTom car kit for iPhone; a specially developed car kit for secure docking, enhanced GPS performance, clear voice instructions, hands-free calling and in-car charging.

TechCrunch posts Microsoft’s favorite Bing Jingle.  What do you think?

BGR has the deets on what appears to be an 8GB iPhone3GS entering the Rogers inventory system.  If this is real, it will most likely mean the end of the iPhone 3G as we know it as there isn’t much room ($149?) in the middle of the current lineup for the sole non "S" 8GB model.  As Tim Cook mentioned at the last earnings conference call, Apple is having trouble keeping up with demand on current iPhone3GS models around the world.

More evidence below.

Big news for iPhone cravers in the UK, as a report this morning claims O2’s exclusive claim to offer the device will time out on October 9, freeing other networks up to offer the must-have device for sale here.

Mobile Entertainment is claiming to have seen documentation, “that states it (exclusivity) will end officially on October 9.” This comes after weeks of chatter claiming other networks are vying to add the iPhone to their roster of available mobiles.

One limitation of the time out may be that O2 will continue to offer the iPhone 3GS exclusively in the UK, leaving the cheaper and less well-featured iPhone 3G for sale by competing operators.

O2 signed its original deal with Apple in late 2007, and is believed to have the rights to sell iPhone to 2012.

As reported last week, The Guardian revealed comments from Vodafone CFO, Andy Halford, who said, “It’s a good product and we would love to have it in the portfolio in more countries.” His comments came after weeks of speculation Orange and T-Mobile are also in the frame to get in on the iPhone deal.

T-Mobile has even begun offering a very limited quantity of iPhones (sourced outside of the UK) to high-spending customers who threaten to quit its network.

Adding further grist to the mill, the Apple/AT&T relationship continues to attract criticism. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson set tongues wagging recently when he revealed that “there will be a day when you are not exclusive with the iPhone.”

While Russia may have problems shifting its iPhones, it’s no way the same Down Under in Australia, where reports this week state the iPhone 3GS is selling out.

See, seems none of the iPhone-selling carriers in Australia have any iPhones left to sell, and even Apple’s own online shop can only promise to get your iPhone 3GS to you after a week’s wait.

In Australia, Telstra’s online store says: “Please Note: There is currently a global shortage of iPhone models, and we are out of stock of some models. Register here to receive email notification once we have new stock.”

3Mobile, Optus, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile all report the same problems, promising that fresh supplies of Apple’s must-have handheld will reach them in mid-August. This news shows that, at least this soon after launch, demand for the iPhone 3GS in Oz continues to outstrip supply.

No surprise then that a pair of analyst reports released yesterday show Apple’s grabbing an armful of customers with its new device. Bernstein Research has published a report claiming that iPhone now accounts for 8% of all mobile revenue, and 32% of the mobile industry”s handset profits.

And a second report from IDC claims the iPhone 3GS to be the second most popular handset sold in this year’s second quarter, eclipsed only by the BlackBerry Curve.

Here’s America’s top ten iPhones for your visual delectation and delight (according to IDC’s estimates). Note the number four position also belongs to Cupertino.

1. BlackBerry Curve
2. iPhone 3GS
3. BlackBerry Pearl
4. iPhone 3G
5. BlackBerry Bold
6. BlackBerry Storm
7. HTC T-Mobile G1
8. Palm Pre
9. HTC Touch Pro
10. HTC Touch Diamond

(One remark though – with the iPhone 3GS not making its debut until June, we confess to some bafflement as to how it could top the Q2 sales chart, when June is the last month of the second quarter – presumably this means the Curve’s days at the top of the tree could be numbered?)

Ars points to a USBDeviceConfiguration file which lives in the iPhone SDK 3.1 that has a surprising new addition.  Included in all of the recent iPhone SDK updates until now has been the iProd 0,1 device file.  0,1 device files typically stand for prototypes in Apple hardware lingo. 

As of iPhone SDK 3.1, there is now a new device profile for an iProd 1,1.   Theoretically, this means that production "iProd" devices are already being trialled on iPhone OS 3.1.  Ars speculates that this could be the tablet or perhaps even an iPod nano with a camera that would run the iPhoneOS (and would therefore have a lot of other goodies). 

Frankly, its hard to decide which of these scenarios is more exciting.

In one of the more laughable tablet predictions to date, notoriously unreliable Shaw Wu from Kaufman Bros. announces that Apple has been ordering large amounts of 4, 7, 9, 10 and 12-inch screens over the past two years and "based on that information, the analysis [sic] predicts that Apple will launch at least one — but possibly multiple — new devices in the near future".

"We are under the impression that these screens could be used in new form factors including a sub-notebook and/or tablet, and would more likely launch in 2010 as opposed to 2009," the note reads. "As usual, exact timing is always tough to pinpoint as Apple works on its own schedule."

In other news, it is going to rain tomorrow, unless of course, it doesn’t.

Wu goes on to say that China Unicom will be the iPhone carrier in China.  A good guess since they’ve been advertising that fact since March.

He also isn’t sure if the device will be a "tablet or netbook".

This just in: iTunes heads south of the border. Artists include Paulina Rubio, Vicente Fernandez and Zoe and a wide range of international artists including Shakira, Lady Gaga and  Green Day.  Songs are priced at 12 pesos and most albums at 120 pesos and will go nicely with Telcel’s iPhone offerings.

Apple(R) today announced the launch of the iTunes(R) Store in Mexico (www.itunes.com/mexico) with an incredible selection of Mexican and international music from all the major labels and hundreds of independent labels. Launching with a catalog of millions of songs, the iTunes Store in Mexico features Mexican artists including Paulina Rubio, Vicente Fernandez and Zoe and a wide range of international artists including Shakira, Lady Gaga, Green Day and thousands more. With most songs priced at 12 pesos and most albums at 120 pesos, the iTunes Store in Mexico is the best way for Mac(R) and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music online.

 "The iTunes Store in Mexico is off to a great start with music from all of the majors and hundreds of indie labels," said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. "And the revolutionary App Store in Mexico gets bigger and better with great new apps using amazing new features, and we can’t wait to see what developers come up with next."

The iTunes Store in Mexico joins the revolutionary App Store, which has more than 65,000 applications available to consumers in 77 countries, reaching tens of millions of iPhone(TM) and iPod touch(R) users around the world. Customers have downloaded more than 1.5 billion apps and the recently released iPhone OS 3.0 software update includes over 100 new features like Cut, Copy and Paste; Spotlight(R) search; landscape keyboard and view; and expanded parental controls. Apps from the App Store work with both iPod touch and iPhone, including the new iPhone 3GS, the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet.

The iTunes Store offers music from all of the major labels and hundreds of independent labels including Warner Music, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Universal Music Group. All music on iTunes is available in iTunes Plus, Apple’s DRM-free format with high-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. iTunes customers can also choose to download their favorite songs from the world’s largest online music catalog directly onto their iPhone over their 3G network for the same price as downloading to their computer. A great selection of music videos is also available for purchase and download, with most priced at 24 pesos.

Apple has made it easy for music fans in Mexico to purchase and enjoy music with iTunes Gift Cards, which can be purchased at national retailers including Liverpool, Mixup, Office Depot, El Palacio de Hierro, Sanborns and also at iShop, iStore and MacStore locations. iTunes Gift Cards are available in denominations of 200, 300 and 600 pesos.

Apple has made it easy for music fans in Mexico to purchase and enjoy music with iTunes Gift Cards, which can be purchased at national retailers including Liverpool, Mixup, Office Depot, El Palacio de Hierro, Sanborns and also at iShop, iStore and MacStore locations. iTunes Gift Cards are available in denominations of 200, 300 and 600 pesos.

Available starting today, exclusively on iTunes, fans can Countdown to the release of highly-anticipated new albums from Nelly Furtado, Sean Kingston and Jesse & Joy by purchasing and downloading advance songs from the albums as they are released on iTunes. Fans can then buy the albums on their release date at a reduced price based on songs they’ve already purchased with Complete My Album. Also, exclusive iTunes Live Sessions are available from Mexican artists including Plastilina Mosh and Motel, and also from a wide selection of international artists. And the iTunes Podcast Directory features over 150,000 free podcasts, including featured Mexican podcasts from Televisa, MVS Television, El Universal and Grupo Reforma.

With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as the ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod(R) and iPhone, the iTunes Store is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.

He’s only been in post a month, but new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Julius Genachowski, ain’t no slouch – he’s a tech-savvy consumer champion and he wants to foster a culture of competition and innovation – and he’s an iPhone user.

Perhaps that’s why Genachowski’s been so quick to act over Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app, which most commentators still believe – despite AT&T’s rejection of the argument – was denied a place in the App Store because its users would be able to make calls with Google, circumventing AT&T’s network and impacting the telco’s revenue.

Whatever the reason, and with the FCC determined to press on with its investigation into the rejection of that app, Genachowski’s no enemy of Apple – in fact he’s warming to his iPhone, as revealed in an interview published today by GigaOM.

“I do have an iPhone. I do use it,” he admits, adding, “Now I’ve been a BlackBerry user for a very long time. But now I have a BlackBerry and an iPhone and I’m using both, although I do need a pair of new pants with more pockets.”

Genachowski also admits he’s making increasing use of his iPhone. Perhaps to call some of the engineers, scientists and entrepreuners he wants to see taking some of the top jobs at the regulator, which has drawn heavily on lawyers in the past.

iPhone talk aside, it’s well worth taking a look at the extended interview, which talks a lot about how regulation and the needs for it are changing in the current century. And how he intends transforming the FCC from its previous fairly moribund status into a poster child for how US government agencies could work.

Read it here.

On a normal day, or iPhones hit ht charger at night with a hour or two of usage to spare.  However,  if we have  a heavy gaming day, the iPhone putters out around dinner.  That’s when it is good to have an extra iPhone battery.  Kensington raps it all up in a pretty

Apple has kicked its third most active developer from its App Store, citing intellectual property violations as cause.

Developer Khalid Shaikh has had his App Store license withdrawn and his over 900 applications removed from sale. Apple told the developer this was because of multiple complaints his apps infringed other people’s IP.

"The persistent nature of such complaints has led us to conclude that you are entering into the representations and warranties in the iDP Agreement in bad faith by misrepresenting that you have all the necessary rights for your submissions," the company told him, as revealed by TechCrunch.

Most of Shaikh’s apps cost $4.99. They tended to be aggregation applications, which gathered articles and images from websites concerning specific topics, such as stars, Top Sexy Ladies, or Soaper Stars Update (illustrated).

While these apps aren’t exactly the creme-de-la-creme, it’s understood the developer had a 26-person team and was pulling in thousands of dollars each day (TecCrunch). TechCrunch also points out that with the App Store authorising these 900 applications in the past, it wonders what oversight Apple’s approvals team has over instances of copyright abuse?

The whole sage emerges as Apple’s approval processes continue to attract criticism, with the recent denial of Google Voice generating an FCC investigation into the companies. We won’t repeat all the many instances of criticism of Apple’s App Store policies here, except to say that all of this criticism clearly underlines a need for the company to make its approval processes much more transparent.

This lack of transparency may also reflect just how quickly App Store became succesful, with the company’s processes perhaps not yet fully in place to deal with a business of this size.

Here’s an interesting tip from Silicon Valley Insider – a recent Goldman Sachs survey shows that while RIM continues to dominate that sector of the smartphone market, Apple’s iPhone is making strong headway, with approximately half of all iPhone users employing their device for both business and personal use.

Senior Apple staff will visit China to get into top level negotiations with China Unicom to discuss launch of the product in the country, local Chinese media reports this morning claim.

"Senior officials from Apple Inc are to visit China this week, and they haven’t arrived in Beijing yet," a source told Sina.com. "Apple’s branch company in China are ready for the reception, and informed China Unicom about this earlier.”

Executives from both firms are likely to discuss the launch strategy for the iPhone in China, with Apple officials also likely to meet with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

An International Business Times report informs a China Unicom team visited Apple HQ in March to negotiate terms for iPhone distribution. Apple’s away to China team is expected to be led by Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing.

China is a prize market, with over one billion mobile phone in use. However, at this point – while a Chinese model iPhone has been approved – China Unicom will not offer Apple a share of iPhone-generated revenue. This final point has been a sticking point against inking the deal until now. Negotiations have been proceeding for months.

Having achieved regulatory approval, iPhones for China are thought to be rolling of the production lines even now.

Meanwhile, in the UK, signs continue to emerge suggesting Apple’s exclusive deal with O2 is under threat. T-Mobile has begun flouting this deal by offering limited numbers of iPhone 3G’s to customers threatening to defect to O2 for the device.

T-Mobile has refused comment on this, but recent reports have claimed Apple may be preparing to allow sales of iPhone 3G’s through other networks, while leaving O2 as exclusive provider of the new iPhone 3GS model.

Two new Apple ads debuted today: ‘Share’

and ‘Travel’, below: