Our feelers are telling us that AT&T will charge $30 a month for 3G network use for the new thinner second-generation iPhone. There is no details if this is on addition to the $20 it currently charges for unlimited Internet or if it is just a $10 increase in the current fee. Either way, this would increase users fees from $120 a year minimum making the cost of use more expensive killing any savings from the Apple markdown in price within a two year contract.

If you have to have your data quicker and you don’t live in a Wi-Fi available neighborhood, then you’ll be paying more for your data. Additionally, those that find themselves traveling may not be happy with the current AT&T coverage map, though the cellular company claims nearly all metro areas will be covered by years end.

UPDATE: According to the AT&T’s iPhone 3G Conference Call held today, this will be in leu of the current $20 charge. So, the unlimited Internet will be increased from $20 to $30 a month on AT&T for 3G access from the next-generation iPhone due July 11th. Further, the phones will be either activated IN STORE at either AT&T or the Apple Store differing from the current iTunes activation scheme used today.

With the rumors running rampant on the Internet of 3G iPhones to be subsidized by AT&T for a final cost of $199 with a two-year contract, it seems that time is running out for supposed exclusive carrier for US iPhones. Signs seem to indicate that this rumor has substance. Apple’s reported recent deal with Italy’s Telecom Italia Mobile to sell the iPhone unlocked and with a lack of firmware updates from Apple here in the states to re-secure an easily hacked 1.1.4 release in February, one would presume Apple desires more sales than headaches.

Seeing the huge demand in China alone for hacked iPhones, Apple can no longer ignore the demand for the Super Phone it released nearly a year ago last June. If the Cupertino iCompany does indeed decide to sell an unlocked iPhone, then AT&T needs to find another way to lock in its customer base. It will have to do it the old fashion way by eating a loss on the phone hardware in exchange for two years of your life. At a 50% discount of the initial cost of the phone, this will surely spawn new sales to the phone as well as retain current iPhone users desiring the faster mobile data access and possibly other hardware upgrade goodies such as rumored GPS (which I say is most unlikely.)

With a lack of a large GSM pool in the States, there may be not a huge splurge in unlocked iPhone sales locally, but where GSM is king, such as Europe and China, Apple could make a killing on the next generation iPhone if it truly will be sold as an unlocked device. Apple stands to make a greater profit with this business plan than skimming a few dollars a month per AT&T customer as it is suggested it is doing currently. While Apple is nearly half way to Steve Jobs self-commissioned 10 million phones sold by the end of 2008, sales have sagged in the last few months. International sales are even lower. An unlocked phone will change all that and meet, if not exceed, that 10 million mark for sure.

Looks like Apple may have a surprise for us all on March 6th, a week later than Apple’s originally announced February release of its iPhone SDK. In its invite, Apple specifies that, “Some exciting new enterprise features,” will on the agenda at the Town Hall in Building 4 on Apple’s Cupertino campus on March 6th. Could this be the Exchange Direct-Push SvenOnTech first reported on last January that Apple is working on?

With e-mail push for corporate customers the number one request of the iPhone, such an “enterprise feature” would put another boast into iPhone sales for sure and finally giving Blackberry some mean competition. It’s clear Apple is aware of business men and women’s needs based just on this statement contained within the invite. It’s even possible that Apple may announce support for Blackberry BAS (push) server as well which would then cover the two most popular methods of receiving e-mail for business professionals.

Time will tell and it is our hope that Apple will impress with such an announcement next week.

Netflix has wisely been adapting to the future fairly well with adding Blu-ray and HD-DVD (yanking the last from the queue just recently, however) to the mix. Netflix has also playing around with movie downloads. Many have been excited by the latter and with only a Windows version currently available, Macintosh fans are sitting at the table with fork and knife, ready to dive in. But you may want to put down the silverware as it’s most likely you’ll never see Netflix downloads on your Mac.

According to a source at Netflix, Apple is making things very difficult for it, and every other company with digital content, to bring this new exciting technology to OS X machines. The difficulty? FairPlay. Apple has a long history of not playing fair with it’s DRM (digital Rights Management) from shunning RealNetworks’ Rhapsody to work with the iPod to ignoring Sonos‘ constant requests for access to FairPlay to allow the music player to play content from the iTunes Store. Apple simply does not want to license out its DRM scheme as Microsoft has freely done with its Windows Media format.

Hollywood is very stringent with its content and has signed onto Window Media and FairPlay after much work by Microsoft and Apple. To add another DRM to the fold may not go down very well with Tinsel Town. Further, the cost of coming up with a new protection scheme may be too extreme for many companies. Lastly, the “bullet proof” aspect of the DRM would be questioned by all the studios and that would become the deal breaker. In the end, it has to be FairPlay on the Mac.

As long as Apple plays deaf to all the outside requests for licensing of FairPlay, one will never see Netflix movie downloads on their Mac. With Apple having its own movie rental scheme now, it’s highly unlikely Netflix movie downloads will come to the Mac. Like RealNetworks, Apple doesn’t want competition on its platform. In the end, if you really have to have those movies from Netflix on your Mac, get Parallel’s Desktop.

Macworld was a great time last week even if nothing ground breaking happened other than a very thin and a very expensive laptop was released. In my book, Apple TVs update and HD movie rentals was the big news. But what bugged me more than anything was the lack of something and that something was the missing feature of Cut-n-Paste in the iPhone. Without a doubt, this has got to be the most annoying omitted ingredient of the iPhone and yet still, Apple continues to ignore this chasm. Yes, chasm! I can’t understand why there isn’t more of an uproar about this must-have option in such a versatile device. I’m tired of typing in long web addresses from notes, address book notes, and iCal note fields that the iPhone seems to ignore and translate into hyperlinks. I’m tired of typing in redundant information into notes or iCal entries. I’m tired of hand copying text from web sites into other applications. Heck, try typing, from memory at best, long WEP keys for protected wireless networks! Tired, tired, tired! What gives?!

Well, I hunted someone down at Macworld to give me the answers and after a long search and pass off after pass off from Apple employee to Apple employee, I finally got an answer. The deal is, Apple is aware of the desire for this option and it is working on it in the labs as we speak. The trouble it is having is implementation. How to easily call up a copy or cut option and then the paste action. It’s probable that the zoom bubble (the one that brings up the edit cursor) is the issue as it has removed the obvious tap and hold position from Apple to use for a pop-up menu of some sort. Text selection is another difficulty to sort out. Certainly, the cursor could be added to the menu selection; however, Apple wants to keep this as simple as possible and that added step would not lend itself to simple.

My source would not give me any details other than to say that it has been working on the solution for some time and that there was no immediate release for it. So at best, we can hope that the interface hurdle will be leaped over very soon.

As to Exchange, a straight answer was more difficult to pull out of my Apple source. Yes, Apple knows that there are business professionals that want support for it (and Blackberry Enterprise Server) and Apple is not ignoring this demand. The source would not go as far as to say that it’s being worked on, but when I asked for clarification by questioning, “So is Apple not working on a solution?” he simply laughed and said, “Apple’s aware of the Exchange need.” So, take that at face value, business professionals.

While there is a slew of other unanswered features many have called for since day one, such as voice dialing, these two were my main concern and I was glad to at least get some kind of answer. My source suggested letting Apple know of my fire desires in encouragement that this would help push for a quicker resolve. So, folks, if you agree with my needs, head over to Apple and let them know now!

SvenOnTech has been told by a source at an Exchange ISV that Direct Push support will be on the iPhone in about “a month or two”. The feature set will include not only updating the Mail application upon arrival of new e-mail but will also support over-the-air syncing of contacts and calendar events exactly like it is done on current devices running Windows Mobile. New contacts added either from Entourage, Outlook, or from the iPhone itself will automatically be synchronized to the Exchange server and thus passing it off to all the clients attached to it. Calendar events will updated in the same fashion.

Support Microsoft Exchange will allow Apple’s iPhone to continue its success by allowing millions of enterprise workers to keep up-to-date with their corporate affairs through out the day.

The absence of Exchange support in the initial release of the iPhone is most likely due to the fact that the software was still in its testing phase and not ready for release.

SvenOnTech received an e-mail invitation to a Dell event to be held at Macy’s Herald Square in New York where top Dell executives will be announcing, “several new and exciting products that deliver a hi-def entertainment experience, true mobility with broadband connectivity anywhere, and style and self expression.” The “several” part seems to indicate we could be getting laptops with EV-DO filling in the “broadband connectivity anywhere” part while the hi-def mention is most likely just another TV. But it’s well known that Dell wants in on Apple’s game and while it’s MP3 player has really never even caught on, Dell does make some might nice HDTV screens and dropping the ability to play DiVX and other movies into a box on one of these screens may just be what Dell needs. Well see…

SvenOnTech has been told by a source within AT&T that the next generation iPhone will be shipping “by December”. With details sketchy just on the first batch of iPhones, the feature set list is not over flowing but we were told that you can definitely count on it being a true 3G phone. The iPhone Steve Jobs showed off in January at Macworld is running the already “so yesterday” EDGE protocol. The second generation iPhone will have WCDMA (UMTS) inside its beautiful casing speeding up its Safari-like web browser over the current slower GPRS-based EDGE data connection. This will certainly help squash early complaints of slow browsing in June when the first-generation iPhone releases.

No other details are known about the second-generation iPhone at this time but our source is certain about the December release which would make sense as Apple and AT&T could cash in on the Christmas spending spree of all those hungry 3G shoppers.

We’re tired of saying Apple needs to bring wireless to the iPod as we’ve been saying it for over a year, but in light of the Microsoft iPod-killer rumors, we’ve got to say it again.

It now looks like that Redmond-based Microsoft will be trying its best shot against the mega-popular Apple iPod with its very own digital audio player (DAP) ready for this Christmas. It’s said it’ll have a bigger screen than the current iPod (how much you want to bet it’s like .2″ bigger?) as well as built-in wireless. For what you ask? Um, downloads direct from some new Microsoft music store. “Wow, isn’t that what SvenOnTech has been recommending Apple do?” Yup. Guess Bill Gates reads our page and took our advice.

Supposedly, the new device will allow users to purchase and download music directly to their new Microsoft DAP anywhere a Wi-Fi connection is. To further entice iPod defectors, Microsoft is going to buy you every iTunes Music Store purchased song from the Microsoft music store. For free. On Redmond. It’ll be interesting to see how it handles customers like SvenOnTech who did really well in the Pepsi cap “game” two years in a row (over 300 songs just from that) and whom liked using all those hundreds of dollars in gift certificates. I’d say we here at SvenOnTech easily have over a grand in music in our iTunes library.

Anyway, Microsoft is doing the right thing, it’s taking music lovers to the next level. For what ever reason Apple sits on its fanny on this, who knows. It is most likely that Apple is working on this and it’s that full-screen LCD that is slowing down the announcement of the next great iPod. Heck, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this out by Christmas from Apple, either, but man, Apple has had so much time and with its past releases being so quick, one has to wonder if Apple has become too comfortable in its supremacy.

We welcome Microsoft’s new wireless DAP. It’ll be nice to have duplicated iTMS music in WMA format…on Microsoft. Now we’re curious if the packaging will be anything like this.