Monthly Archives: February 2010
Next Generation iPhone 4G to Cost Less than its Predecessors
The biggest barrier to iPhone adoption has always been the cost of the hardware, along with the service charges that comes from the carrier’s plan. According to Katy Huberty from Morgan Stanley – an industrial analyst, the hardware cost stops about 85% of people from buying the iPhone while the service plan stops about 66%. But all this is said to change come this June, when Apple is expected to unveil the next-gen iPhone.
“We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology,” she wrote.
Line2 adds a second line to your iPhone for $15 a month
Would you like to add a second line to your iPhone? Perhaps you’d like to add a business number to the phone, but your existing phone is currently tied to your personal mobile number. You could always carry a second phone, but that’s an expensive proposition, particularly if you’re an iPhone addict.
AT&T rolling out MicroCell to five more markets
We’ve previously written about AT&T’s MicroCell device and service here at TUAW. It’s a tiny cell tower that you plug into your home cable or DSL connection to boost your phone reception. This is particularly handy for those with home offices who may currently be plagued with poor reception on their iPhones.
WMExperts is reporting that AT&T is adding five more markets to the short list of trial areas. If you live in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Las Vegas, or San Diego, you can have the opportunity to spend an additional US$19.99 per month on top of your existing iPhone service plan to get 5 bar service in an area up to 5,000 square feet around your MicroCell.
Clearing the air on iPhone terminology: 4th generation vs. “4G”
Plenty of discussions about the next revision of the iPhone have referred to the as-yet hypothetical device as the “iPhone 4G.” As many of our readers have correctly pointed out, not only is this nickname completely unofficial, it’s also highly unlikely to be the name of the next iPhone.
It made sense to call the second-generation iPhone the iPhone 3G, as the addition of a faster 3G wireless chipset and antenna was in many ways the defining feature of the device. The next iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, once again has its distinctive feature spelled out right in the name: “S” for speed, since the 3GS is a faster version of its predecessor.
iPhone OS Coming to More Devices?
According to a recent job posting, the Cupertino based company is looking for a engineer to lead a group of software engineers in order to bring iPhone OS to new devices and platforms. The job description is as follows.
The Core Platform team within Apple’s Core OS organization is looking for a talented and inspired manager to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone OS on new platforms. The team is responsible for low level platform architecture, firmware, core drivers and bring-up of new hardware platforms. The team consists of talented engineers with experience in hardware, firmware, IOKit drivers, security and platform architecture.
This position requires a very technical and hands-on leader, experience in working closely with hardware team and a deep understanding of bare metal software. You must be a highly self-motivated individual who seeks to create a dynamic and creative team environment in which old problems are solved in new and innovative ways.