World of Apple

According to Macworld Sweden Apple has given the go ahead for Telia the regional carrier for the iPhone to develop its own MMS application in the country.

The iPhone ships with the ability to send and receive SMS only which has caused some people to become aggravated that even very basic phones on the market can send and receive MMS messages but the iPhone can’t.

MMS messages allow for the transfer of images, audio, video and rich text.

In the report it is said that Telia will be pushing the MMS application to users in Sweden in the next couple of months, there is no word whether other carriers will also be creating similar applications.

[Update] It has been revealed that Mobispine is the provider of the MMS solution for Telia in Sweden. The company has released a press release about its MMS application for the iPhone (PDF).

Mobispine AB (MOBS) the market leader in delivering
mobile solutions to operators announced the availability of the world’s first true Multimedia
Messaging (MMS) for iPhone. Mobispine is now offering a “white label” MMS service for iPhone
to global operators. This new and innovative service will increase revenue per user (ARPU) and
generate profits for operators.

Yesterday a job listing appeared on Apple’s recruitment pages which makes no effort to hide the end result of the hiring. The listing is for an “iPhone Quality Assurance Engineer in Beijing”, in the description the listing read that Apple is looking “to focus on international releases of our iPhone and iPod touch products for Beijing”.

Steve Jobs had said in the past that he wished the iPhone to be in China and Russia by the end of 2008, the latter he has already achieved.

[Update] As of writing the job listing has been removed.

AppleInsider and MacBidouille.com are both reporting that Orange France could be set to dramatically lower the pricing of the iPhone.

In a flyer sent to AppleInsider the price of the 8GB iPhone is shown as €99 down from €149. While MacBidouille notes that the 16GB model will see a price cut from €199 to €129.

The promotion will reportedly run from December 14 2008 through to January 14 2009.

According to AppleInsider, Apple is preparing to roll-out the iPhone 3G to an extra 29 countries for its third and final phase of international iPhone expansion in 2008.

According to the rumour site the iPhone 3G could go on sale in Brazil and South Africa as early as this Friday, September 26th.

Currently the iPhone is available in 44 countries but is expected to be available in 73 by the years end, these new countries are said to be Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Madagascar, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Niger, Panama, Russia, Qatar, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Wild speculation is always fun, but it’s refreshing to see some cold hard experimentation results. These fine Swedes tested the iPhone 3G against the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson P1 in their fancy reception test chamber and found that the iPhone had comparable reception to its competitors. The iPhone even gave the same reception results with wifi, gps and bluetooth turned on as it did with them turned off (the experimenters were concerned that there may be interference between the different signals). Now you can rest at ease that your phone’s signal is just as weak as everyone else’s.

Although fake fans were hired to stand in line in Poland, real fans showed up for the midnight iPhone 3G launch in India. However, Houston, there appears to be a problem.

From IBN Live:

The Apple iPhone 3G (third generation) was launched across India by telecom majors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.. . .

Aditya Malik whooped with excitement after he bought his iPhone. “I’m excited because I have got an Apple iPhone. I am not bothered about the price. Good things come at a price,” Malik said. “I have been waiting for a year to buy one. Last year I missed buying the iPhone 2G, which was launched June 5, as I left for the US on June 3. Now I am very happy to have got the latest one,” he said.. . .

Twenty-two-year-old Nishant Arya, a businessman, was equally happy though he has the earlier versions of the iPhone. “I already have five iPhones. This is the sixth. I bought it because my family wanted it. The earlier phones were 2G, this is 3G.“. . .

“More than 30,000 iPhones (2G) are running on the Airtel network alone,” Sanjay Kapoor. president of the mobility division of Airtel said.

[emphases added]

2G? Well gee, this is confusing. You see the 1G wasn’t any G, but the 3G is really the 2G, and the 4G (which is really the 3G) may not be 3G. Or perhaps the G1 isn’t the 1G, but the G2 is the 3G. Whew! For the few who don’t know what I am on about (such as apparently the entire country of India and the editorial staff of IBN Live), many Apple products are affectionately called by their generation number. For example there are first generation iPod nanos and second generation iPod nanos. Older iMacs are often distinguished as a G4 or G5 (meaning fourth generation and fifth generation respectively). However, worlds have collided now that cellular technology and Apple have been fused, and like the ottoman, no one knows what to do with the G.

Psst Aditya, I whooped too. Seriously. I did the Apple store employee happy dance.

UPDATE: A helpful reader noted that I was imprecise in my terminology, caving in to the popular use. The “generation” of the machines refer to the processors inside the machines rather than the actual machine line itself. I was trying to keep things as simple as possible in a subject that is already confusing the heck out of India.

Email to customers from SingTel

In the email to customers SingTel vice president of consumer marketing Wong Soon Nam wrote “Thanks for your patience; we will bring in both the 8GB and 16GB versions with your choice of black or white”, adding “At this stage we have not announced pricing. I will share it with you very shortly”.

During last months financial conference call Apple announced that the iPhone 3G would debut in additional countries on August 22nd but gave no further details.

Today a slew of carriers began announcing that they’d be offering the iPhone 3G.

So far the following twenty countries have had official announcements:

• Argentina (America Movil)
• Chile (Claro/America Movil, Movistar/Telefonica)
• Colombia (America Movil)
• Czech Republic (Telefonica O2)
• Ecuador (America Movil)
• El Salvador (America Movil)
• Estonia (TeliaSonera, EMT)
• Guatemala (America Movil)
• Honduras (America Movil)
• Hungary (T-Mobile)
• India (Bharti Airtel, Vodafone)
• Latvia (TeliaSonera)
• Lithuania (TeliaSonera)
• Paraguay (America Movil)
• Peru (America Movil)
• Philippines (Globe Telecom)
• Poland (Orange, Era)
• Romania (Orange)
• Slovakia (T-Mobile, Orange)
• Uruguay (America Movil)

Sources: setteB.it and VentureBeat.

O2 announced during their Q2 financial results last week that the company has gained over 137,000 new subscribers who are on a monthly contract. The new subscribers were reportedly gained solely from the iPhone.

The figure represents a 80.8% increase in subscribers for the same quarter the year before.

Additionally O2 stated that they have a “multi-year” contract with Apple to sell the iPhone exclusively in the UK after rumours pointed towards Orange picking up the exclusivity before the years end. Adding that the iPhone had not been on sale for a full year in the UK.

The official carrier of the iPhone 3G in Canada, Rogers has today announced a special promotion ahead of the iPhones launch this Friday.

Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.

Rogers stores in Canada will open at 8AM on July 11th for the iPhone 3G launch.