A report in a Swiss publication claims that the long-awaited, much-speculated 3G iPhone will rock GPS, mobile TV and videoconferencing. Le Matin claims that mobile phone provider Swisscom will get the privilege of flogging Apple’s cellphone in the land of the cuckoo clock, and that it will be available some time this summer.
A company called Lextech has created an application that lets you control surveillance devices via your iPhone. As well as watching the action on the phone, the app also lets you control the cameras via its touchscreen. See the system in action in a couple of videos after the jump.
Just in time for the new iPhone’s imminent release, AT&T said today that it will upgrade its 3G network to run at speeds over 20 megabits per second in 2009. That’s more than five times the current limit of 3.6Mbps, which is already fast, at least compared to EDGE. The company is currently testing its HSDPA 3G network for the upgrade, and says it now runs at 7.2Mbps in the lab. The speed boost will be achieved through a software upgrade and won’t require major hardware changes across the network, so we may actually see this happen on time. The question is, when everyone and their mom has the 3G iPhone, will the speed peaks still be that good? If you want to know more about 3G and HSPA.
Orange, which already has the iPhone in France, has issued a press release announcing it’ll also be on sale in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and its African markets, sometime “later this year.” Swisscom has also announced they’ll be selling the iPhone in Switzerland.
The 3G iPhone will be announced June 9, the likely date of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, analysts said in research notes on Thursday.
The 3G iPhone will be the “first of an impressive wave of new products” fromApple, wrote Citi analysts Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee. They also expect an updated Mac laptop and iPod lines. The Apple conference is scheduled for June 9-13 in San Francisco.
In addition to a 3G iPhone release in early June, the 2.5G model could have a “minor casing change” and a price drop to between US$299 and $349, compared to the current $399, wrote Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, in a research report.
Those predictions are consistent with a February prediction Gardner made that 3G iPhones will be announced by midyear. The 3G iPhone release will help Apple meet its target of shipping 10 million iPhones in 2008, Gardner wrote at the time.
Apple is confident it will sell 10 million iPhones this year, officials said during a conference call on Wednesday to discuss the company’s second-quarter earnings.
When asked about the possible release of a 3G iPhone, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer declined comment. Apple has new products in the pipeline that the company is excited about, Oppenheimer said.
Apple sold more iPhones than expected during the quarter and iPhone inventories were not enough to meet the strong demand, company officials said. Apple acknowledged that aggregate iPhone inventories were low in the U.S. and Europe, which in the past has led to speculation that Apple is reducing current iPhone supplies to prepare for the release of the 3G iPhone.
The iPhone shortage is consistent with Apple’s “tendency to wind down inventory ahead of an update,” Wu wrote in his note. Predicting unit shipment of around 11 million iPhones in 2008, Wu said that iPhone adoption could be driven by the acceleration of iPhone 2.0 software, which was released in March as a beta and will be delivered to iPhone users by the end of June.
The iPhone 2.0 software provides enterprise applications to iPhones, including push e-mail support through the Microsoft Exchange mail server. It also includes an SDK (software developer kit) for developers to write iPhone applications.
Native Exchange support on the iPhone could boost its adoption, Wu said. The iPhone SDK should deliver many third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch by the end of this year, the Citi analysts wrote. The SDK has already been downloaded 200,000 times and is being used in one-third of Fortune 500 companies to develop applications for the iPhone, according to Apple.
In the end, the 3G iPhone will be as good as the network it operates on, and AT&T needs to broaden the rollout of its 3G network in the U.S. to handle data traffic, Wu wrote. The current iPhones are putting a strain on AT&T’s 2.5G EDGE (Enhanced Data GSM Environment) network, Wu wrote.
AT&T’s 3G broadband network is available in many U.S. metropolitan areas, and the carrier intends to expand it. The network uses HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology.
“Timing of a broad 3G roll-out at AT&T is unclear to us and in our experience, these types of significant network roll-outs tend to take longer than consensus thinking,” Wu wrote.
| With MegaPhone on your Mac, you can: | ||
 Use your iPhone as a Disk! |
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 Access, Edit and Create Notes! |
 Access Music and Movies! |
 View and Export Call History! |
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 View and Export SMS! |
 View Synced Photos! |
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Just a few more things your iPhone does. Use your iPhone or iPod Touch for file storage, ensuring that you always have your important data backed up.
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New: Send text files, PDFs, or Word files to the iPhone Notes application for reading and editing on the go. |
MegaPhone also provides easy access to your iTunes media, photos, notes, SMS messages and call history. Drag and drop music, videos, notes and phone data from the iPhone to your desktop or just double-click to copy.
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File Storage Made Easy
MegaPhone’s familiar Mac OS X interface makes it simple to transfer files between your Mac and your iPhone. Use your iPhone’s unused storage space as a disk drive to backup data or transfer between Macs. Note: Files stored on the iPhone using MegaPhone cannot be viewed on the iPhone screen. |
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Play Your iPhone’s Music on any Mac
Simply double-click music stored on the iPhone or iPod Touch to play it on your Mac! To add the song to iTunes with the click of one button. |
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Powerful Notesi Access
MegaPhone is the easiest and quickest way to add, view and edit your iPhone’s Notes on your Mac desktop. Simply connect any iPhone and view your existing notes, or drag new notes right onto your iPhone or iPod Touch. |
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Export SMS Messages and Recent Calls
Need access to the call history or your SMS messages stored on your iPhone? Simply drag it from MegaPhone to your desktop. The information can be viewed in your favorite text editor or spreadsheet program. |
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Recover From Disaster
In the event of a Mac disk crash, if your music and photos are safely stored on your phone, MegaPhone is the easiest path to recovery. |
Features:
Simple interface.
Store any type of files.
Access music, videos, podcasts and photos.
Instant access to Notes.
Easily create new Notes.
Export iPhone SMS and recent calls.
Use your iPhone for backup.
Bring your data between home and office.
Try before you buy. Download the demo.
