The rumors can finally be weeded out and now we know to be true:
CEO Steve Jobs did not make mention if the 3G will be an unlocked phone, but with no AT&T presence on the stage and the push for 70 countries to have the 3G iPhone, it is most likely the next generation iPhone will indeed be unlocked.
As for subsidies, note that Steve Jobs stated the phone would be a maximum of $199. This definitely indicates you can expect stores, such as AT&T, to take a bigger bite out of the price and offer new customers another 50% discount to entice more users to the once named Cingular network.
Other highlights included (Firmware 2.0):
The 3G iPhone, which even Steve Jobs tripped over trying to say once, will be available July 11th, for $199 for the 8GB and $299 for the 16GB version which will be white (no photos shown.) While nearing Wi-Fi speeds for download, the 3G iPhone will also suffer in battery life when compared to the current version. Talk time is halved to 5 hours with standby at 300 hours. Web browsing comes in at about 6 hours with video an hour more and audio enjoyment clocking in at a full day. With browsing now 3.6 faster than EDGE and even 36% faster than Nokia’s N95 or the Treo 750, users of the new iPhone should be impressed with the speed gains until they have to plug into a power jack to recharge the internal battery.
What limited applications Apple did show off, they were far from limiting in what the iPhone SDK can do. Some really amazing applications where previewed such as God of War which rivaled that of the DS and even comes close to the PSP. Medical students and professionals will be happy with the two med-apps shown to the developer crowd available soon after the July App Store launch. Don’t worry sports fans, the MLB has you covered with its application that’ll keep you up to date pitch-by-pitch with any game in progress. The blues simulator from the Band application brought resounding applause to the Moscone West building when demonstrated as did the eBay application.
MobileMe, the replacement for .mac, nearly replicates the iPhone on Apple’s servers. Nearly looking identical to the Mac desktop versions of iPhoto, Mail.app, and iCal, MobileMe will bring Exchange-like features to the rest of the crowd. Pushing mail, contacts, and calendar events upon creation, iPhone users will always be up-to-date with MobileMe and firmware 2.0. The Gallery, pushing photos to the web, will allow users to share pictures on the go - finally! - anywhere one might have an EDGE, 3G, or Wi-Fi connection. The price remains $99 a year. No details were given pertaining to current .mac users.
Warner Bros. Records’ R.E.M. and leading social music discovery service iLike announced today that Accelerate, the best-selling rock band’s 14th studio album, will stream in its entirety exclusively on iLike and its syndicates beginning March 24th. A first for the company, the iLike Worldwide Listening Party will continue through March 26th, six days before the album’s North American release on April 1st, 2008. Additionally, R.E.M. will record an exclusive video message introducing and discussing the album that will be available via iLike for distribution across the Web.
“Collaborating with iLike, and debuting Accelerate across the Web is in keeping with the spirit and immediacy of the album.” says the band’s frontman Michael Stipe. “We wanted to do something superfast and super real. Music, art, and pop culture are about right now, and nothing else matters. Accelerate is our turbo-charged response to the times we live in.”
In addition to being available on iLike’s website (www.ilike.com), the iLike Worldwide Accelerate Listening Party and exclusive R.E.M. video message will debut through the iLike Sidebar desktop plugin for iTunes and Windows Media Player (www.iLike.com/download), as well as across the Web via iLike’s leading applications on Facebook, Bebo, hi5, and for the iPhone. R.E.M. have already been using the iLike Universal Artist Dashboard to post content, reaching their fans across multiple syndication channels via iLike’s “Post Once, Publish Everywhere” platform. The album will also be available for pre-order via iLike’s retail links to iTunes and Amazon.com.
“With 11 songs clocking in at just 34 minutes, Accelerate is intense and relevant, with songs inspired by the WTO riots in Seattle, the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and other topical themes,” said Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike. “We are honored to play a role in helping R.E.M. introduce this album to their fans across the Web. This is our first-ever Worldwide Listening Party and R.E.M. has set a very high bar.”
In many ways, Accelerate marks a break from R.E.M.’s recent albums, 1998’s Up, 2001’s Reveal, and 2004’s Around The Sun — all finely crafted works exploring the textures and possibilities of the recording studio. Accelerate ties together the band’s entire canon as part of the vision for the new album turning old dreams into a new reality.
To listen to R.E.M’s Accelerate and watch the band’s exclusive video message, please visit: www.iLike.com/R.E.M. To learn more about iLike’s multimedia blogging tools and other free services for artists, please visit: www.iLike.com/forartists.
Astraware is pleased to announce an update to Astraware Solitaire which more easily allows the addition of new graphical features like extra card backs and backgrounds.
Whilst players will see no difference in the way the game plays, Astraware Solitaire version 1.20 now includes a different way of handling resources so instead of having multiple special versions of Astraware Solitaire on their devices, players can keep one copy of the game on their device and install seasonal card back sets as they want. Spooky Halloween and seasonal Winter card back sets which were included in special versions of Astraware Solitaire are now available separately, and a brand new Valentine-themed card set is released just in time for the most romantic day of the year.
Version 1.20 of Astraware Solitaire is a FREE upgrade for everyone who already owns any version of the game! Users wishing to upgrade from the standard version of Astraware Solitaire can simply install the new version over the top. Users of Astraware Solitaire Winter or Halloween editions should install the new version and add the card back packs they want.
Astraware Solitaire is available from the Astraware website - http://www.astraware.com/solitaire. New users can purchase a registration code for $19.95.
The Chocolate by LG is back and sweeter than ever. Decked out in traditional Black, the Chocolate will also sport two new colors, Black Cherry and Blue Mint, when it hits Verizon Wireless stores July 9. The leading wireless company with the most reliable wireless voice and data network and LG, the global leader and technology innovator in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications, today announced a new feature-rich successor to its popular music-centric best seller.
Slimmer and sleeker, the new Chocolate has a rich assortment of features, including a vibrating touch keypad and a new Navigation Wheel with Trace Motion light. The wheel allows for easy navigation through phone functions, as well as quick and simple functionality while browsing music and videos.
Perfect for V CAST Music customers who crave a fully-functional mobile music device, Chocolate by LG offers advanced multimedia features such as a microSD™ memory slot that supports up to a 4GB card, a music player, a powerful speaker for music and dedicated keys for easy access to stored music. Chocolate by LG is also V CAST-capable and perfect for use with Get It Now® applications, such as VZ NavigatorSM, the location-based service from Verizon Wireless that provides turn-by-turn directions to more than 14 million destinations and points of interest throughout the U.S.
The Chocolate by LG from Verizon Wireless offers the following features and capabilities: Read the rest of this entry »
A new version of Greenlight Wireless' Skweezer service, which optimizes desktop Web content for mobile devices, is currently wrapping up beta testing and is slated for release on June 18th, 2007.
This latest version of Skweezer has been redesigned from top to bottom with one goal in mind: to get users to the content they're looking for as quickly as possible. To that end, the user interface has been completely redesigned to reduce keystrokes and take advantage of "hot key" navigation that utilizes a phone's keypad. Skweezer will now also use a robust, new search system to produce highly relevant Web, local, and image search results across multiple device platforms. Skweezer's code-base and hosting infrastructure have also been completely updated to provide the fastest Skweezer ever.
Several new features will be included in Skweezer 4.0, including dynamic image optimization, a completely updated directory, improved device-recognition technology, and a feature that will detect mobile-friendly Web sites so they won't be reformatted.
Skweezer is a free service that optimizes Web pages and searches for use on PDAs and cell phones. Skweezer compresses and reformats content being downloaded, so that it loads faster, looks better, and is easier to navigate. Skweezer has introduced many mobile browsing innovations, including the first pagination system that splits large Web pages up into smaller sub-pages for viewing on cell phones with limited "deck sizes", the first mobile Web page translation feature, and the first portal-based mobile RSS reader. Skweezer is completely platform-independent and can be accessed from Pocket PC, Palm, MS Smartphone, Blackberry, Symbian, PSP2, and WAP 2.0 compliant devices. Skweezer is also available as a "private label" solution for wireless carriers and content providers.
Looks like those new LED screens that many speculated wouldn’t appear until Christmas has arrived early from Santa’s bag. With a speed bump from the new Intel Santa Rosa chips and an improved video card, the new MacBook Pros just keep getting better and better making my Rev A MBP look more and more dated. But that’s alright, when the new Cinema screens are released at WWDC next week with built-in iSight, I’ll be happy with it and the new Mac Pro (with Blu-Ray?) I’ll order. 
Here’s the details:
Intel Corporation executives today detailed more than 20 new products, technology innovations and industry initiatives — many of them industry firsts — aimed at making the World Wide Web, computers and consumer electronics devices much more responsive, friendlier and secure.
Under the backdrop of Intel’s leadership in 45nm Hi-k metal gate silicon technology and how it will ignite new innovation and growth opportunities, Intel executives at the Intel Developer Forum disclosed new performance details for its next-generation “Penryn” processor family. The company also unveiled two product roadmaps for Intel architecture (IA)-based System on Chip (SOC) consumer electronic (CE) devices and business uses.
“Welcome to the era of multicore, an era in which all of our computing capabilities will multiply our own personal capabilities,” said Justin R. Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer. “This Beijing developer forum will show how our multiple innovations go hand in hand with evolutions in social networking, PC and TV entertainment, online commerce and other growing demands on the Internet. Today, Intel is delivering a breadth of multicore processors worldwide and a product roadmap providing the incredible performance boost and energy efficiency needed to put the consumer more in control of the information age.”
The IDF is being held for the first time in Beijing. Last month, Intel announced plans to invest $2.5 billion to build China’s first 300mm wafer fabrication facility in the city of Dalian. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve got a device like a Motorola RAZR with it’s funny looking USB connector, then you have a USB On-the-Go (OTG) device. Those little connectors have made things handy for sure (well, except Motorola’s use of it since it won’t charge the RAZR with any OTG cable since it’s an “unauthorized” charger) and now the USB Implementers Forum has decided, like SD cards, to make things smaller. Today it has announced at the Intel Developer Forum Spring 2007 that the micro-cable is coming!
“The USB-IF continues to optimize its suite of specifications to meet the evolving requirements of the industry,” said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF President. “Our move from the Mini-series cable connectors to the Micro-series reflects our support of the industry’s need for smaller form factor devices.”
So prepare for getting even more cables and connectors to keep your newest electronics connected and charged. Mmm, more stuff for the junk drawer!
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at this years Macworld Expo, the first thing that came to mind after digesting the incredible device was how this would filter to the iPod line. Known for creating various models in the iPod line, this would fit just perfect for Apple to introduce a new top of the line player. With the Internet showing a full-screen iPod model for nearly a year now, the postings and maybe even pictures of this fabled model may indeed simply be a working model of the next-generation iPod video with many software aspects of the iPhone built into it. Apple would easily be able to bring a full-screen iPod to market with all the features of the iPhone minus the communication aspects. We know Apple loves spreading the love with its software (remember when Jobs dropped the Intel bomb and told the stunned crowd at WWDC that Apple had been running OS X on Intel boxes since 10.0) and it just isn’t a stretch to think that that iPhone and the 6G iPod would be designed in unison.
If Apple has an iPod full-screen version in the labs running iPhone software with the fancy touch screen and all, it’s surely scheduled for a fall release. Not desiring to stifle sales of the already outrageously priced iPhone, Apple will hold off on the 6G iPod release until the phones fully saturated the markets conscious state. With a scheduled June release (tag a month or two on for reality), three to four months of a window would be expected before the next iPod were to grace Apple Store and others shelves…just in time for Christmas, of course.
The name is surely to see a change for this incredible and most advanced iPod ever. It wouldn’t be with any surprise to see the current 5.5G sticking around while the high-priced 6G makes a foot hold in the market. With the shuffle at the bottom, the nano as the mid-line, the “regular” iPod in the upper-line, it would only make sense to name the next top of the line iPod more in line with other top of the line Apple products. For the laptop line, you have the MacBook Pro and for the desktop line, the Mac Pro. So, doesn’t it just make pure marketing sense to name the full-screen iPod the iPod Pro? Would seem to me. Before you start with the counter argument that the Pro insignia for the two computer models signifies performance for professionals and sticking Pro onto an iPod wouldn’t really jive, remember what the iPhone runs on: OS X. What stops Apple from allowing the iPod Pro from running some robust applications along side its Address Book and Calendar that already grace the iPod? Further, with a 120 GB drive to be included and possibly Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it just seems to be the perfect professional iPod!
Well, another year has passed and SvenOnTech celebrates its first birthday. Blossoming out of Sven’s personal blog which went from random babbling to a more precise techno-babbling, it was felt that the site needed a new name and a single focus. So, here we are, one year later and what a year it has been!
We hope to bring you even more news and reviews that fill in the gaps left by the other more flashy and eye candy sites on the web when concerning technology. We’re not the only one doing this, but we hope to be the best one doing it. We’re sure ‘07 is going to be a great year for proving that, even if other veterans like Shawn King want to be critical of our articles for hitting a nerve. It’s part of the game and we’re up to it. We graduated high school. 