iPhone Dev Kit at WWDC?

The New York Times reported at the beginning of the week on the upcoming iPhone. The article focuses on the development of 3rd party applications for the device. The article cites Steve Jobs speaking last week at D: All Things Digital Conference as well as sources within Apple. The source purportedly disclosed information regarding a 3rd party development kit for the iPhone that will be made available at WWDC next week.

A person briefed on Apple’s plans said that at its software developer conference this month, Apple intends to announce that it will make it possible for developers of small programs written for the Macintosh to easily convert them to run on the iPhone.

AT&T Improving EDGE Network?

Gizmodo reports that AT&T has begun making improvements to its EDGE network ahead of the iPhone release. The article states that AT&T is attempting to improve specific areas. The main aim of the mission is to improve EDGE speeds from 40Kbps to a new minimum of 80Kbps.

EDGE is slow, but at least at AT&T, the implementation isn’t limited by the protocol itself. Rather, the limiting factor is, according to our source, the data backend and the way the towers are configured to allocate bandwidth to data and calls. And according to an internal doc, they’re dropping in more T-1s in their poorest performing towers, hoping to get that paltry 40kbps performance to a new minimum of 80kpbs. (EDGE’s real world max is about 200kbps.)