World of Apple

In a recently aired broadcast on CNBC, Jim Goldman reported that a source close to Apple’s manufacturing facilities has confirmed that the company will release a sub-notebook at Macworld in January and will also have a 3G iPhone on sale by June.

Goldman also reported that the iPod touch is selling better than expected, with one of Apple’s manufacturers set to release 5.1 million units over the holiday season.

On the ultra-portable Mac Goldman noted that it would be 50-percent thinner that the current MacBook Pro, will employ NAND flash memory over a traditional hard drive and will most certainly arrive at Macworld 2008 in January. The ultra-portable is expected to come in at $1500.

Finally Goldman said that contrary to some reports that the 3G iPhone will arrive in late-2008, his sources suggest that the device will be on shelves in late-May or early-June at the latest.

A capture of the broadcast is available for viewing here.

CNet France (translated by Electronista) is reporting that iPhone firmware update 1.1.3 is due very soon, possibly as early as the coming weekend.

The firmware update which comes around 1 month after the previous update is said to build in voice memo recording and disk mode.

The disk feature will reportedly behave like the equivalent for iPods but will still block users from simply dragging and dropping media content onto their phones, CNET stated in the report.

The previous revision of iPhone firmware arrived on November 8th a day before the release of the UK iPhone.

Bloomberg reports that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson confirmed Wednesday that Apple will introduce a 3G version of the iPhone next year.

“You’ll have it next year,” he said, explaining that he was unaware of how much more the new version will cost than the existing $399 model because Apple chief executive Steve Jobs “will dictate what the price of the phone is.”

The new model which is widely expected since Jobs himself has mentioned that Apple is working on it should please those who have discounted the current model due to its EDGE connection which uses existing 2.5G GSM technologies. 3G coverage across America and many parts of Europe is still as patchy as EDGE coverage.

Electronista is claiming that Apple has already begun seeding an early version of the iPhone SDK to select developers.

The kit is described as a “rough version” of the tools aimed at developers, to allow them to create native applications for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Electronista is unable to supply many details on the SDK but notes that it “somewhat resembles Google’s OpenSocial in that it mediates between the programmer and the iPhone operating system.”

The SDK is expected to be widely available in February 2008.

A report from the Spanish national newspaper El Pais claims that Apple will launch a 3G capable iPhone in May 2008. Citing a software developer called SevenClick, the mobile software developer claims that huge Spanish network Telefonica is expecting the 3G iPhone to make an appearance in May 2008.

The report continues to explain that Telefonica will make the iPhone available throughout Spain in Spring.

The large Spanish network provider, Telefonica is O2’s parent company.

1.1.2 iPhone Firmware Arriving Friday

Pocket-lint.co.uk has reportedly received confirmation from Apple that firmware version 1.1.2 will be available to all iPhone owners on Friday 9th.

Although the time could not be confirmed, iPhone owners who sync their device with iTunes tomorrow in the States will be presented with the option to upgrade to the new firmware. wrote the publication.

According to reports from a few days ago the firmware version will reportedly come pre-loaded on iPhone devices in the UK and Germany which go on sale at 6.02PM local time.

[Update] - According to a T-Mobile press release in Germany some T-Mobile stores will be opening at 0.01 hours, just half an hour from the current time of writing. This could potentially mean that the iPhone update will hit the internet a little bit before Friday November 9th.

iMac Freezing a Hardware Issue?

One reader has noted to AppleInsider that his iMac freezing issues have vanished since Apple replaced the Radeon HD video chipset in the system.

“So far that [repair] has fixed it completely,” he says, observing that the iMac has been stable for two weeks since its return. “We’ll see if the same issue starts back up again.”

Many users across the internet are coming to the conclusion that the iMac freezing issues are caused by a faulty graphics card or overheating within the iMac chassis. Most users state that graphics artefacts plague the systems prior to freezing.

“My lockups were normal looking at first, but eventually started to spew out graphical artifacts, the same type of [problem] I used to see when overclocking graphics cards,” the iMac owner said.

T3.co.uk has managed to get its hands on a review model of the iPhone in the UK, luckily the model was already loaded with Apple’s latest firmware, 1.1.2.

T3 notes the following about the update:

First off, there’s support for dozens of languages, so if you happen to be a fluent Cantonese speaker, the phone has all the relevant character sets so you can display your language properly.

There’s full support for French and German, with special keyboard lay-outs on the ready to tackle accented characters - perfectly understandable, of course, what with the phone heading for launch across the channel this month too.

Mac Rumors also claims to have heard that firmware update 1.1.2 is destined to arrive in the coming week, just in time for the UK and Germany launch of the iPhone on Friday. According to their sources the update will contain mainly security updates and bug fixes as well as the mentioned language localisations. The rumour site also notes that iTunes 7.5 will be required to sync.

Both T3 and Mac Rumors note that the update will break third party unlocking software and any third party applications.

MacNotes.de has published a list of rate plans which have reportedly been sourced from multiple T-Mobile sources in Germany.

iPhone M
49 EUR/month
Free data over EDGE
Free T-Mobile WiFi Hotspots
Free Voicemail
100 Minutes included (further minutes: 0.39 euros per minute)
40 SMS included (further SMS: 0.19 euros)

iPhone L
69 EUR/month
Free EDGE
Free T-Mobile WiFi Hotspots
Free Voicemail
200 Minutes included (further minutes: 0.39 euros per minute)
150 SMS included (further SMS: 0.19 euros each)

iPhone XL
89 EUR/month
Free data over EDGE
Free T-Mobile WiFi Hotspots
Free Voicemail
1000 Minutes included (further minutes: 0.39 euros per minute)
300 SMS included (further SMS: 0.19 euros each)

iPhone in Canada Soon?

Digital Journal claims to have information that the retailer Holt Renfrew will carry the iPhone by mid-October throughout Canada.

The Holt Renfrew source says the 8GB phone will be a GSM phone, retailing across the country for $799. Anyone familiar with the GSM market in Canada knows that Rogers is the leading GSM provider in the country.

HD Content on iTS?

According to CrunchGear, Apple is planning a “substantial” update to iTunes later this month. The site claims that Apple has placed a huge order for Apple TV units ahead of the release of HD content on iTunes.

iTunes HD as its been dubbed will reportedly allow the downloading of High Definition TV and Movies.

Ars Technica writes that a source at Apple has told them that Apple is developing solutions to expand the power and capabilities of the current web-based SDK “but there are currently no plans to offer a “true” iPhone SDK that would allow developers to create native apps.”

Apple is going to offer several enhancements to the current SDK instead, for example allowing web pages to be accessed while offline, effectively making the iPhone capable of serving up applications while not connected to the internet.

Also Apple is planning to implement the ability to add home buttons as well as more local phone functionalities from applications via JavaScript.

Apple is currently aiming for an unspecified “January” deadline on these updates, with a most likely announcement date of Macworld 2008.