AT&T relents and drops prices for early iPhone 3GS upgraders

AT&T on Wednesday published an open letter to customers on its iPhone 3G S upgrade eligibility program in which it announced that, for a limited time, it will offer early iPhone 3G adopters the opportunity to purchase an iPhone 3G S at the same $199 and $299 price points as new customers. The exclusive U.S. iPhone [...]

Munster: Apple to sell 500,000 units of iPhone 3G S this weekend

Filed under: Hardware, Wireless, Apple Financial, Apple, iPhone

Everyone's favorite Apple analyst, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, is positively bullish on Apple and the iPhone.

In a forecast released today and reported in AppleInsider, Munster says he expects Apple to sell a half-million units of the iPhone 3G S this weekend. This is much more than the 270,000 first-generation iPhones sold in the first weekend in 2007, but pales in comparison to the 1 million mark set last year with the release of the iPhone 3G.

The difference this year? When the iPhone 3G was released in 2008, the new equipment was also accompanied by a drop in price and availability in 21 countries. For new users, the 3G S is the same price as the 3G, and the release of the 3G S tomorrow will only happen in 8 key market countries.

Munster's other prognostications include a total of 3 million iPhones sold in June for a quarterly total of 5 million, and an estimate of 7 million sold in the upcoming September quarter. He continues to rate AAPL as a buy, and has a $180 target share price for Apple.

Munster: Apple to sell 500,000 units of iPhone 3G S this weekend originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Munster: Apple to sell 500,000 units of iPhone 3G S this weekend originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Simple Hack to Enable Tethering on iPhone OS 3.0

Senators challenge AT&T’s exclusive iPhone deal

Senators discussed mobile-phone exclusivity deals with operators and experts during a hearing on Thursday.

Quick App: BeeJiveIM 3.0 for iPhone with Push Notification

BeeJive is my IM solution of choice. I don’t use a lot of the more advanced features, but the reason I keep going back to it is just this: speed. It gets me in, working, and back out fast. And BeeJive IM 3.0 with support for iPhone 3.0’s new Push Notification service is no exception. In fact, it rules.

One of the problems with Push Notification is that while the actual alerts are speedy, acting on them is not. Take IM for example. If you enable Text Alerts, an SMS-style popup window presents, tells you the IM app has a new message, and lets you Dismiss or View. If you View, the iPhone then has to 1) close the alert, 2) launch the app, 3) re-establish the app’s server connection (Push Notification uses a different, Apple-powered server), 4) download the IM to the app, and potentially 5) issue the app’s own internal alert if that’s enabled as well.

That can be some overhead. Sure, maybe iPhone 3G S (for speed, remember) will quicken the pace, but BeeJiveIM on an iPhone 3G was impressively responsive already.

Testing it over the last couple days, alerts presented, I tapped them, and everything listed about was handled smoothly and quickly. So, again, I was able to get in, work, and get back out fast. It’s everything that was great about BeeJiveIM 2.0, plus the convenience of Push.

BeeJiveIM 3.0 for iPhone and iPod should be hitting the iTunes App Store any time now. We’ll update with the link as soon as it’s live.

Screenshots after the break!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Quick App: BeeJiveIM 3.0 for iPhone with Push Notification

Postman iPhone app turns images into e-postcards

Postman is a new app for the iPhone that uses iPhone 3.0 technology to help you make and send electronic postcards.

First Look: TweetDeck organizes Twitter on the iPhone

TweetDeck made a name for itself as a desktop client that brings some organizational method to Twitter's madness. Now TweetDeck comes in a bite-sized iPhone OS version, and its best feature made the cut.

iPhone 3G S line begins in NY, weather be damned

It's pretty gross in NY right now -- sure, you've seen rain before, but you've never really experienced it until you've seen the grit and determination of these city folk wandering around in a light downpour with their $500 umbrellas. That's why it comes as zero surprise to see that despite the ongoing drizzle, a few brave souls have gathered in front of Apple's flagship store to be among the first in the States to get an iPhone 3G S tomorrow morning. Sure, they could've pre-ordered for delivery and stayed dry, but what's the fun in that? So far it's four friends from The iLife blog keeping each other company, with plans to upgrade one of the crew's original iPhones (for that attractive full subsidy price). These guys also braved the mayhem of the iPhone 3G launch, and who knows if they'll wise up before the next one. By 7AM tomorrow they'll have spent 24 hours in the elements -- quite a lot of commitment for a phone, but hey, that video recording bit is pretty neat, and male bonding is forever. Meet these guys and their cloud-sent adversary on video after the break, and check out the read link for their ongoing liveblog of the launch -- naturally courtesy of some iPhone 3.0 tethering.

Continue reading iPhone 3G S line begins in NY, weather be damned

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

iPhone 3G S line begins in NY, weather be damned originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone Tethering and MMS Hacks Surface

Many AT&T iPhone customers have been disappointed by the carrier's lack of support for both Internet tethering and MMS at launch for iPhone OS 3.0. A pair of new reports today highlight a couple of iPhone hacks for enabling tethering and/or MMS with...

Bomberman Touch 2: Volcano Party sports multiplayer support

Bomberman Touch 2 is a new game from Hudson Entertainment that features multiplayer support enabled through iPhone OS 3.0.

Having Problems with iPhone 3.0?

If you’re anything like us, the moment iPhone 3.0 hit iTunes, you hit the update button. For many, it was smooth sailing from that point on. For others…?

Not so much. We’re hearing about several issues, from disconnecting Wi-Fi in 2nd Gen iPod touches (hello BT radio!) to missing apps, to sync issues, to push problems, to seach nulls, to my own little bizarre issue:

All my media is fine on my iPhone, but when I plug it in to iTunes, it’s read as gigabytes of “other” data and I get a helpful message saying my iPhone is already full.

Of course, the nu-cu-lar option is always a clean restore, but if you want to troubleshoot first, check out TiPb’s iPhone Forums. Our users are among the smartest in iPhone — and iPod touch –space, and with our cracker-jack mod team in place, we can all help each other to… help each other.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Having Problems with iPhone 3.0?

Review: Sirius XM for iPhone/iPod touch sans Stern

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

As we reported last night, it's out, and the Howard Stern fans aren't happy that this app eliminates the two channels Stern appears on.

There are still 120 channels that do work, so I thought I'd give it a try. The app is called Sirius XM Premium Online [App Store] and it's free but requires a paid subscription if you don't already have one.

You log in (one time) with your user name and password. After a few seconds, you are authenticated and ready to explore the radio offerings.

The app allows you to browse by category, channels, or by favorites you provide. There is a shopping cart if you want to tag something for purchase at the iTunes store. (Ah, that's why Apple liked this app.)

I found the performance of the player pretty good. On a WiFi network I was able to acquire a signal or switch channels in 3 seconds. On the 3G network with moderate signal strength, it took about 7 seconds. You can get a display that tells you what is playing, or just see a list of stations.

I found the interface slow to respond at times. I often had to tap a few times to change stations. Audio quality was not ultra high fidelity, but about what you'd expect from streaming radio. I listened on Sennheiser headphones.

Howard Stern fans are very upset about not having their hero on this app. Sirius certainly could have told customers well in advance that he wouldn't be available and saved some of this pain. They handled the merger of XM with Sirius the same way. XM customers didn't know what was happening until the morning it happened. For a struggling company, it seems suicidal to constantly mislead and disappoint paying customers.

I asked Patrick Reilly, Senior VP of Communications for Sirius what happened to Stern. His response: "We aren't commenting beyond what was in the press release: Some select programming, including MLB Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-Play, SIRIUS NASCAR Radio, and Howard Stern, will not be available on the iPhone and iPod touch. Listeners will continue to be able to access that programming through the platforms they are currently offered on."

Not a very satisfying answer. There may be very good contractual reasons why Stern and the other channels aren't offered, and Sirius XM customers deserve a better explanation. It doesn't look like one is forthcoming.

At any rate, the app works, and works well for the channels that it does have. You'll have to decide if it is worth the money versus free music apps like Pandora, Last.fm, AOL Radio and others. By the way, Dave Thomas of the Cars.com blog alerts us to their comparison of alternatives to the Sirius XM app.

Review: Sirius XM for iPhone/iPod touch sans Stern originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Review: Sirius XM for iPhone/iPod touch sans Stern originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MMS for the iPhone 3G on AT&T works now!

AT&T promised that it'll offer MMS on the iPhone after getting some system upgrades done, but according to Engadget, "seems that it works right now -- if you've got a build of OS 3.0 that'll let it." The site's tipster sent screenshoots that indicate both MMS and tethering are in ...

JayBird offers new sports earbuds, upgrades Bluetooth model

JayBird has released two new earbuds for athletes and redesigned their Bluetooth offering with better audio quality.

Diorama will tilt your mind

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

See, now this is the kind of game I want from my iPhone -- the accelerometer isn't just a gimmick thrown in with the gameplay, it's the actual premise of the game. Diorama is a weird little Marble Madness-style maze game, but the catch here is that instead of just tilting the accelerometer to move the ball (which you do), the level of the game actually moves with you, so that you get a stereoscopic kind of effect, as if the stage is real inside your iPhone's screen. Tough to explain, but as soon as you see it above, you'll know what it's like. We've seen this kind of effect before in apps like MotionX's Dice roller, but in this case, it's actually part of the game -- you can only find the paths to take around the stages by actually tilting the device. And for extra 3D viewing, there's an actual 3D mode, so if you happen to have red and cyan glasses around, you can switch on the mode for anaglyphic 3D.

The app is the first iPhone release from a company called Drömsynt, and though the initial reports on iTunes say the game is pretty tough (it is a pain navigating the quickly-moving ball around those pathways), for just 99 cents, it's definitely worth downloading, if only to see how it works. So many apps just throw in a few iPhone-specific features as afterthoughts, but it's refreshing to see a game like this (or like Zen Bound, which really depends on the multitouch screen) rely on the originality of the hardware itself.

Diorama will tilt your mind originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Diorama will tilt your mind originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMG offers iPhone ringtone software

AMG is offering two new ringtone software packages for iPhone users -- one is a collection of custom ringtones, the other a tool for making your own.

Jailbreak iPhone OS 3.0 Status Report

Two different services offering plans to developers for push, microtransactions

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch

With iPhone OS 3.0 only having been released yesterday, two big companies are already angling to be developers' go-to for setting up push notifications and other online services for the new apps. OpenFeint was the first service we've heard about -- they have been offering social networking connections to developers for a while, but with the new firmware release, they tell us that they're also hosting options for both push notifications and microtransactions to their stable of app developers.

That stable includes apps like Pocket God and Aurora Feint (Danielle Cassley of both Aurora Feint and OpenFeint told us a while back that she was very excited at the prospect of microtransactions with 3.0), and both of those games, as well as others on the service, are planning to include push notifications with "social challenges" -- you'll challenge a friend to complete a certain goal in game, and then get notified when they meet that goal. Look for those new features in an OpenFeint app near you.

And OpenFeint isn't the only service jockeying for developers' attention -- Urban Airship is also making a bid to host push notifications for iPhone game developers. They've landed one of the first push-enabled games, Tap Tap Revenge, and are looking to offer push to more devs, along with in-app purchase support as well. They don't quite have the library together that OpenFeint already does, but their service integrates, they say, in just a matter of hours, and their aim is to make it "brain dead easy" for developers.

The floodgates are open, and we're sure to see more and more companies jump in on hosting plans like this in the future. Prepare to be pushed.

Two different services offering plans to developers for push, microtransactions originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Two different services offering plans to developers for push, microtransactions originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Flight Control for iPhone

Flight Control takes seconds to learn, and mere minutes to play. And yet, you'll find yourself clamoring to play this addictive, entertaining game again and again.

List of Hidden iPhone 3.0 Features, Launch Unlimited Apps with Spotlight

MacRumors forum user bndoarn has organized a massive list of hidden 3.0 features. The list is over 96 individual features so far. Some are more significant than others, of course. Here are a few interesting highlights:

- There is no...