Just to follow up on the wildCardd's find in the article:
Joseph Hanlon from CNET.com.au got back to me in an email (so it's not on the record and don't quote me on this):
His understanding is that Apple is still very much in control of this deal,
and while Optus will announce its intention to sell the iPhone mid-May
they may not know at that time exactly what they will be selling in
terms of hardware specs.
Considering they won't be alone in selling the iPhone the first
announcement he believes is Optus' way of gaining a bit of market traction, and he seriously expects the other carriers with the iPhone to make
announcements in the same week.
I think we all agree that Apple will let anyone pinch the limelight on the
next big announcement.
UK has a bonus
Good old
Ofcom. It's like a lumbering sloth. it's been stirred into action, and so O2 have finally met minimum targets for 3G rollout (80% of the UK's population ) meaning it misses out on a £30 odd million fine come July if had missed it (they would have had 4 months lopped off their 3G licence). A bit late to the party, in comparison to the other 4 authorised carriers for 3G in the UK. But then they're exclusive with Apple, so that's why we care...
Note - 9to5mac - this doesn't = "O2 prepares for 3G iPhone" really.
The annoying thing? They can't be bothered to give consumers a UK wide map of 3G coverage. Maybe an email higher up the chain will do the trick.
Canada kinda has a bonus
Rogers will carry the Nokia N95 8GB. The first provider in North America to officially stock it and take advantage of the its 3G support
(Rogers has "VISION" two-way video calling service, a music store and video streaming services).
It gets Rogers' $7 monthly unlimited data browsing plan from May 6th. Selling at $400 with a 3-year contract. When did Europe have the N95? - 2007?
Movies
Those same-day movies -a loss leader (like iTunes). Interesting.
(Apple has a new deal with movie studios to offer downloadable movies via iTunes the same day as the movies are released on DVD. Analysis by WSJ - Currently Apple is buying movies wholesale at ~$16, charging $14.99 for them.
The movie industries are realising what Jobs and his band at the end said - you make it easier and better to do something legally than illegally, and you get sales.
3G - Battery life issues
How is Apple going to get 3G in a phone, and still have battery life? Wifi...
Wild weekend rumour
Rogers is showing what Apple has up its sleeve - they're coming out with iPhone that GAN- it will be able to do calling from Wi-Fi access points and seamlessly bridge to the cellular phone network and back to avoid interrupting calls.
"The Generic Access Network (GAN) was formerly known as Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), until it was adopted by the 3GPP in April 2005. It describes a telecommunication system allowing seamless roaming and handover between local area networks and wide area networks using the same dual-mode mobile phone."
"It lets mobile operators deliver voice, data and IMS/SIP (IP Multimedia Subsystem/Session Initiation Protocol) applications to mobile phones on local networks. Its ultimate goal is the convergence of mobile, fixed and Internet telephony (Fixed Mobile Convergence).
"On the cellular network, the mobile handset is communicating over the air with a base station, through a base station controller, to servers in the core network of the carrier. Under the GAN system, when the handset detects a LAN, it establishes a secure IP connection through a gateway to a server called a GAN Controller (GANC) on the carrier’s network. The GANC translates the signals coming from the handset to make it appear to be coming from another base station. Thus, when a mobile moves from a GSM to a Wifi network, it appears to the core network as if it is simply on a different base station.
GAN was developed as UMA by the Unlicensed Mobile Access Consortium (UMAC) and is now part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specification TS 43.318 (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlicensed_Mobile_Access)."
17-year old develops multi-touch interface for Mac
iFon anyone?
Google apps for iPhone. Cool
