First the
InGear section on
Sunday, (a waffle rfom Mark Harris, of a quality worse than MR rumours) and now the Business section today
here:
New iPhone could be for sale at £100 by July, Lilly Peel
Claiming the 3G iPhone
could be available in Britain for ~£100 in July
"A source close to the deal said that the new model was expected to be on shops’ shelves by July"
"UBS analysts believe that the new iPhone could be available across Europe for as little as €99, but think that this price is unlikely to be that low in the UK, where O2, the mobile operator, has a multi-year exclusive deal for the iPhone, suggesting that a British price could be close to £100." [GBP £100 = 127 Euros]
Ben Wood, a CCS Insight analyst: “They are also looking for more flexibility on how the operators can price the iPhone, although I am not convinced that they will let them have open season on the price, as they have a lucrative iPod market to protect.”
"Cutting the price and ending exclusivity will help Apple to meet its target of selling ten million iPhones by the end of the year. It is a long way short of that. At the end of December the exclusive carriers for Britain, Germany and France — O2, T-Mobile and Orange — had sold 330,000 phones between them, but industry sources say that European iPhone sales were forecast at 500,000 to 600,000 units.
Apple’s former strategy — in which operators pay upfront for the iPhone, sell it to customers with a small mark-up plus VAT, and pay an estimated 15%of average revenue per user to Apple — has begun to crumble in Europe. In April Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said that carriers were free to price the iPhone as low as they wished and followed it with a U-turn on operator exclusivity."
Problems with the article:
- It's another "source close to the deal"
- They're misreading Tim Cook - he gave operators free reign on pricing - he gave them a price cap, and said that carriers were free to price the iPhone as low as they wished.
- How is a
u-turn if it was the strategy in the first place?
- It's going to make looking at the contract as hard as always. Will it be competitive with data? Potential over-priced data plans are a possible problem. Using the phone on another carrier, that has better data rates is also a possibility (though the Cloud is v. useful).
- Reading other articles, there seems to be a *lot* of reliance on CCS analysis.
Nvidia
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9956304-37.html
At Computex, Nvidia plans to show off Tegra (with an ARM11 processor in it)- and also it's processor for smartphones, the APX 2500.
It's reported the Tegra 600 series processors won't consume more than 1W running at either 600MHz/800MHz. Nvidia's products are designed to work exclusively with Microsoft's WM software.
Expected devices with Tegra by 4Q holiday season (aka Christmas?)
(Video) iChat
Back in the day Picture attached. From
here
We've got to bear in mind that Apple isn't going to necessarily be updating the iPhone every 6 months like other manufacturers, and so we could be looking at a 9 month timeframe (we'll know more abot how long the upcoming iPhone will be the newest version when we see Apple reaction to sales figures, and how it maps to the 25 million for the life of the upcoming phone version i.e. when the successor to the 3G iPhone is likely to be put into production).
iChat
Offering"Video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, photo slideshows, Keynote presentations, even movies on your Mac — you can share it all using iChat."
Is it possible on iPhone?
Most of it, yes.
Voice Chat - yes
Video Chat - yes (Front facing cam is norm in Europe -3G is Apple's Hello World moment)
Photo slideshows - yes
Keynote presentations - at least share the files, if not show them
Movies - yes
File sharing* - yes
* in terms of file sharing, we're very likely to have a decently thought out system by Apple coming shortly, which needed more time than they had to get the iPhone out. Think flicking files across akin to the demonstration from the multiplayer Pong game. That game demonstrated that you can wirelessly link iPhones, and have "objects" be flung at a certain speed and direction, and that to be retained, to be passed on to another device. Why not a iMac, or laptop? I haven't seen any demos yet, but I imagine that the iPhone games could port to laptops, so 1 person could use a laptop, 1 could use the iPhone. Or the laptop could be used for file transfer, using multi-touch to throw them over. etc. Apple is facing a lot more choices, settings as they add complexity - it'll be interesting to see how they simp this (see the youtube neckcricker above).
We've already seen demos/articles that the iPhone can do VPN/Screen sharing - collaboration work. iChat as it stands works with AIM. I'm sure that AOL would like to get AIM integration into iChat - after all, they knocked up a chat system in
iChat record is also a possibility - The ability to use the iPhone as a decent recording device would add another string to it's convergence bow, and then also allow potentially to be able to save audio/video chats. (After all, it's just video recording, and that's doable on a Flip!). It might only do it via other iChat users, creating an impetus for others to get Apple Mac/iPhone too hehe.
I'd imagine it comes down to the technical limitations of what the new 3G iPhones can do and what they can code. They've had enough time though
All in all? I'd add iChat as one of those potential things that will be a WWDC "unannounced" Session previously mentioned.
From the
wiki - video iChat links AIM, .Mac, ICQ and XMPP client by Apple for the Mac OS X.
Remember iPhone has Bonjour - this feature as mentioned is going to be kick-ass in terms of apps. The density and popularity of iPhones will soon lead to passing the threshold needed to be able to have apps that share files, music, play games ad hoc - find a user on the tube, play a game, whatever (bearing in mind security). It could be used just like Bluetooth - cloaking unless you want to show your presence, but able to connect to known friends.
iChat also allows integration of MSN, Yahoo! and Google Talk contacts. It would make sense for Apple to force everyone into 1 app, as it'd be a pain in the derriere for a user to have to have 5 different IM services, and to not be able to have them running at once. Like Fring - you can easily merge different system's contacts, and have them run through 1 app. Hopefully they're all playing ball, and allowing this. I can imagine Google's Android will do something similar, with it's Talk offering cross -IM platform support.
There is enough buzz and momentum behind the iPhone that if developers/companies don't adapt to suit, or don't even try, then they will potentially lose marketshare (or at the very least, lose some of the more market leading /power users).
iChat capabilities are apparently "based on the industry-standard" Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for video chat and audio chat. It'd be nice to get another standard out and championed. The key to stopping fragmentation is basically getting enough people to use it - so it's self-perpetuating, and self-reinforcing in terms of user numbers. A chain reactino of conversion to the software.
Will Adium and the like rival it? Perhaps, but Apple owns the software, the hardware, the app store, the keys to let anyone on the app store, and also has had a long lead time ahead of other developers, giving them a big head start.
It was 4 years ago that Jobs revealed iChat 3 on Tiger could support up to 4 people in a video conference (using H.264/AVC)and 10 in an audio conference. By also supporting the Jabber protocol, it allows Google Talk support and others.
With the .mac name change, and potential for reworking the concept, there is as always the potential for big changes afoot. It'll be an evolution, and there will be development of the software no doubt - we aren't going to get everything at once - that's not Apple's style. But the potential is for a bumper WWDC, and IM through iChat could be part of it.
Patent from 2005:
AppleInsider
Predictions. I'll smarten these up in a bit, but:
If they update iPhone in Summer 2009, i'd say the new model could be ~ 32GB, 3G, OLED, similar screen size, better resolution, GPS included in 1 model, dongle GPS available, iChat, Front facing camera, StreetView, internal compass, video chat (1way or 2 way possible).
If replaced or as the lower model in 6 months time, then 3G is still as likely (i.e. mandatory for the top model), GPS still available as a dongle, likely as an option for the top model, front facing cam an option on the top model.
What else beyond iPhone at WWDC?
SDK, 2.0 Software
ACD update (with iSight, IR and more)`
Apple TV Take3 - (it might well merge with the AppleTV).
iTablet or similar
App Store
U.S. Cloud
Big .Mac changes*
10.6 demoed.*
Quicktime updated
iTunes updated (Cocoa if we're lucky!)
Multitouch USB/FW/BT pads to bring Multi=touch to the Mac (or the allowing of a 3d party to make one).
It's the WWDC, but all these devices need developers for applications. This is the kit that developers will be writing code *for*. 3G iPhone will *not* be the 1 more thing. No freaking way.
Touchscreen iPods come just after the back to school promo's end.
*Integration ala mesh - Microsoft is coming out with an interesting concept, and Apple will have been working on something similar in concept (if not similar in method). Blowing the hell away from W(M)7. Touch coming to the main Mac OS. Like Core animations, I'd imagine that the opportunity to integrate it into any app for Mac will come as standard - an OS wide rollout.
...I think the majority of people will be disappointed because they cant announce everything, and everyone is expecting that the thing they want is the thing that will be announced.
Disagree - It'll mean some initial frustration, but be a BIG indication that there's more coming from Apple than fits inside 1 keynote. Which is A GOOD THING. I don't think that it's disappointing if Apple can't fit all it's goodies into 1 keynote! I think that's all the better for us, as it indicates there's lots to come!
I doubt 10.6 will fully integrate MT into the UI. There will still be a need for the keyboard and mouse, and basic LCD/LED displays.
Disagree. Why can't integration mean alongside - you're just thinking either or, rather than complimentary. Did the mouse replace the keyboard? Did the trackpad replace the mouse? Did the clit-mouse replace the mouse?
There will be vocal disappointment *whatever*. I'm thinking however, that Apple has a solid year on both HW and SW for the iPhone, Touch, and this could easily feed into new products, Touch in the OS, GP in the iPhone.The thing about suprises, is that you have to keep them a secret, to be a surprise...
For MWSF, the "Something in the Air" posters came out on the Friday 11th Jan, for the conference starting on the 14th. ( I think they hit the website ~14th). Remember that Moscone West is in demand - heck they had teh I/O for Google there not long ago..
Video?
+1 from the rumour mill for video conferencing, front cam, and other video goodies.
"MacRumors has heard some unconfirmed whispers about the 3G capable iPhone due at next week's WWDC. Besides 3G support, the following features/specs were also passed along, mostly consistent with circulating rumors: - Focus on Multimedia with Video recording - Video Conferencing - GPS" "As with all pre-release specs, confirmation can be difficult and intentional misinformation may be common, so we provide it for interest alone."
Is the £100 iPhone from O2 link with the recent Kevin Rose's
comment about a low end iPhone one and the same? ...
Ads
Seeing as the iPhone will be announced 9th, but maybe not get worlwide release then, they can easily make ads for it after the announcement, like this
potentially 
