On Tuesday it was revealed that Apple had banned Google Voice from the iPhone app store. The new service has the potential to be a game changer, allowing users, among other things, to send free SMS messages and make international calls at reduced rates. The obvious conclusion was that AT&T played a role in the ban, given that SMS revenues are a massive cash cow with a limited life span the carrier wants to protect at any cost. When we asked AT&T if it was their call, they told us to ask Apple, who is too cool to comment publicly. Neither should get a free pass, yet both probably will. AT&T has shown they have the authority to cripple or ban applications that erode AT&T's bottom line. The Skype application for iPhone was released back in March with crippled 3G functionality to limit its impact on AT&T voice revenues. 3G functionality was also crippled on the Slingbox app, and while AT&T blamed network congestion, the telco has been cooking up their own place-shifting solution exclusive to iPhone and U-Verse users for some time.  story continues..151 comments
It's not clear yet whether AT&T's recent missteps have Apple reconsidering their iPhone exclusivity arrangement, but judging from AT&T's earnings, there's no doubt AT&T would like to extend the deal, which expires next year. That said, CEO Randall Stephenson was realistic today that the deal may be nearing its end, telling conference attendees at Fortune's Brainstorm: Tech conference in Pasadena that he at least acknowledges the deal won't last forever. "On balance, I think it works really, really well--maybe as well as any strategic partnership we have," Stephenson said. story continues..81 comments
Over at the Apple blog, Dave Greenbaum laments the rise in frequently unreasonable caps and meters in an age of increasing bandwidth use, and hopes Apple gets involved in the debate in order to protect its "brand." Greenbaum's particularly annoyed with his ISP in Lawrence, Kansas, Sunflower broadband, who imposes monthly caps as low as 3GB a month with overages as high as $2.00 per gigabyte. At their website, Sunflower defends the practice by saying that 49.46% of their customers use less than 1 GBs of bandwidth a month, and 86.98% use less than 10GB. Or at least that was the case in 2007, the year Sunflower is pulling their statistics from. 45 comments
Apple has been taking heat over global advertisements that show the iPhone 3G performing at speeds vastly faster than real world 3G (or 2G) networks operate. Two such ads were recently banned in the UK, to which Apple responded that the ads were "relative rather than absolute in nature." Here in the States, one 70-year-old San Diego resident filed suit against Apple for misleading advertising. Techdirt directs our attention to the fact that Apple this week responded to the suit, denying that the ads lie, but then adding this comment: "Plaintiff's claims, and those of the purported class, are barred by the fact that the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact," Apple said in its answer. In other words, we're not lying, but you're an idiot if you believed what we were saying. Of course there's a fairly obvious chasm (see video comparison) between the ads and real-world performance. Apple faces five lawsuits related to the performance (or lack thereof) of the iPhone when connected to networks in the real world, but the attorney for this false advertising case thinks their case "has the most teeth and the most legs to it." 63 comments
Wednesday Evening Links( old news - 07:11PM Wednesday Oct 08 2008) 14 comments
Friday Evening Links( old news - 06:55PM Friday Aug 15 2008) 2 comments
As recently discussed, many 3G iPhone users are experiencing dropped connections as they wander between the EDGE and HSDPA portions of AT&T's network. According to Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities, the problem is most likely a flaw in Infineon’s 3G chip. "We believe that these issues are typical of an immature chipset and radio protocol stack where we are almost certain Infineon is the 3G supplier," said Windsor this week in a research note to investors. According to Windsor, the problem likely isn't firmware upgradeable, meaning that Apple would need to physically replace the chips on phones exhibiting the behavior. 48 comments
Despite the activation headaches last Friday, Apple this morning issued a press release saying they sold a million 3G iPhones last weekend. "iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," says his Jobs-ness. "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world." Apple also stated that customers had purchased more than 10 million applications from the App Store since it launched last week. 111 comments
Canadian broadband provider Rogers has confirmed that the company will be offering the iPhone "later this year." While Rogers is notorious for capping, throttling and otherwise mucking up their landline broadband network, they haven't been quite as bad about their wireless network -- despite bandwidth being at an even higher premium. Rogers Wireless, formerly known as Rogers AT&T Wireless, offers both EDGE and HSDPA connectivity. 17 comments
TG Daily claims they've spoken to insiders familiar with Apple's 3G (HSDPA) ready iPhone plans, and claim that the phone will ship in “two or possible three different configurations” at WWDC 2008 (June 9-13), with prices starting at $399. The site claims capacity should come in 8 ($399), 16 ($499) and 32GB ($599) flavors, and the newer versions should be slightly thinner, according to the website's source. 21 comments
Despite reports of numerous problems with the Macbook Air, sales were high when the new notebook was released this week; it sold out of stock within minutes of hitting San Francisco shelves. As was to be expected, reviews were mixed with some people loving the ultrathin computer and others irritated by the aforementioned problems. However, the general consensus seems to be that despite flaws, it does “ break new ground” for a forthcoming generation of smaller laptops. This seems to hold true with announcements that Intel will be marketing the chip designed for the Macbook Air to PC makers interested in creating their own smaller notebooks. Readers in our forums have pointed out that misconceptions about the true purpose of the Macbook Air could be what’s led to the disappointment of some people. 62 comments
Friday Evening Links( old news - 06:24PM Friday Feb 01 2008) 1 comment
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One of the biggest Mac news items circulating right now is the release of the MacBook Air, a super-thin ultra-light laptop that has many of the major features of a standard notebook. Apparently it’s not just Apple that has been able to make this type of machine. Information has leaked which suggests that Lenovo is soon to release ThinkPad notebooks similar to the MacBook Air. The notebook is said to provide “optional integrated broadband with the X300 series, such as WiMax, Cingular HSDPA 3.6, Row : Vodafone/KDDI, and Verizon EV-DO.” It’s advantage over the MacBook Air is reportedly the inclusion of an ultrathin DVD burner. Release dates and price are not yet available. 57 comments
Apple TV arrived in homes last spring to a series of mixed reviews. Although first impressions of the device were basically positive, there were several issues that people had. 45 comments
A user trying to get wireless working with her Qwest DSL connection and a Macbook recently called Qwest for configuration help, but was told by a CSR that Macs are a " practically obsolete" system. Qwest PR then subsequently had to douse the flames by ensuring everyone that they do in fact support Macintosh. 29 comments
This week AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson let it slip that consumers could expect a new iPhone next year that offered HSDPA wireless broadband support. That's not a particularly bright move for the CEO of a massive telecom empire, whose Christmas sales could be impacted by the flood of users that will wait for the new model. 102 comments
A user trying to get wireless working with her Qwest DSL connection and a Macbook called Qwest for configuration help, but was told by a CSR that Macs are a "practically obsolete" system, notes the Consumerist. Nine calls were apparently made to Qwest support, who consistently stated that the problem was with the Mac, and not Qwest's support representatives. During one call to Qwest, an employee told me that he could get it up and running in 30 seconds if my computer were a PC. When I asked him if any of his colleagues were trained for Macs, he told me that hardly anyone uses macs and Qwest should not have to train its employees in a practically obsolete system. He then transferred me, against my will, to the apple support line. Qwest subsequently contacted the Consumerist to assure them that Macs do in fact work on the Internet (see Qwest Mac support page). 117 comments
A major gripe with the first generation iPhone is that it doesn't support broadband connectivity (excluding Wi-Fi), instead leaving users stuck with AT&T's clunky EDGE network -- which pumps out 200kbps on a good day if the planets are aligned properly. The Street indicates that this could all change early in 2008: A faster third-generation, or 3G, iPhone will be available sometime in the first quarter, say people familiar with the production plans. story continues..59 comments
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