iPhone

Let's face it, the iPhone can do a whole bunch of things, some necessary (like talking, texting and emailing) and others not-so-necessary (like the rolling-a-make-believe-ball-into-a-peg-fame) pretty well. But, you would hope that one of the more basic features like the weather function would work better than it does. Sure, the icons are pretty and easy to understand. One of my favorites is the ambiguous sun-with-raindrops icon, so you know that it's supposed to rain and be sunny, right.... The forecasts are not detailed, and have questionable accuracy at best. I've been noticing this trend for months now, … Read more

AT&T plans to sell the 3G iPhone for $199 when it arrives in AT&T's stores in June, according to a report, in a sign that Apple may have given up on locked iPhones.

Fortune is reporting that you'll be able to buy a $199 iPhone in AT&T's stores, and only in AT&T's stores, when the new model arrives around the one-year anniversary of the iPhone launch. The report says Apple will sell 8GB and 16GB versions of the new iPhone for $399 and $499 in its own retail … Read more

Apple might have decided to make a few cosmetic changes to the next-generation iPhone.

As Lawrence Peter might say, it's deja vu all over again as we await the arrival of the 3G iPhone. Engadget has the latest, claiming they've been in touch with a tester who says Apple plans to ditch the aluminum exterior in favor of a "glossy black" plastic-like material and, more significantly, add a GPS chip.

I'm not sure what to make of the decision to drop the metal look until I can see the actual product, mock-up images notwithstanding. But … Read more

There are six things that developers need to keep in mind when developing for mobile computers, six things that don't necessarily come into play when thinking about PCs.

That's how Ben Bederson and John SanGiovanni, co-founders of Zumobi, described their philosophies of mobile computing: immediacy, adaptability, one-handed use, visual elegance, put the user in control, and thinking differently. The two engineers hosted a session during the waning days of the Web 2.0 Expo for Web developers interested in making products for smartphones, mobile Internet devices, or whatever convention we settle on to describe the next generation of … Read more

Price apparently was an object for U.K. iPhone shoppers.

The decision by U.K. carrier O2 to cut the price of the 8GB iPhone prompted shoppers to exhaust stocks of that model at O2's Web site and at Carphone Warehouse, an authorized iPhone reseller. Pocket-Lint confirmed with Carphone Warehouse that the 8GB models are kaput, and O2 told the site that while online stocks of the 8GB model are gone, retail stocks are dwindling fast.

It was only a week ago that O2 cut the price of the 8GB model from 269 British pounds ($533) to 169 British … Read more

Updated 4/25, see explanation at bottom.

A technical glitch in an upcoming BlackBerry release will prevent an iPhone-Blackberry showdown in June, according to Fortune. AT&T will delay the launch of the BlackBerry 8900 from June to August after concerns about call quality, the magazine reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources. The 8900 will be Research in Motion's first 3G BlackBerry for AT&T, and it had been expected to make its debut right around the same time as Apple is expected to launch a 3G version of the iPhone. UPDATED 6:10pm PT - The device … Read more

Maybe Apple really is recession-proof.

When Shaw Wu of American Technology Research made that claim earlier in the year, I concurred with my colleague Charlie Cooper, who wondered what expensive strain of finely cultivated California parsley was in Mr. Wu's pipe when he wrote that report.

Even Wu recanted just before Apple's earnings report Wednesday, cutting his expectations for the company amid concerns about the economy and the fact that Apple isn't expected to release any significantly new products until the 3G iPhone.

It seems, however, that people like Apple's current products just fine. Apple's … Read more

At about 2 p.m. Pacific Time, Apple executives began to recap the company's second quarter. This is a record of the call with updates as they came. You can also check out the numbers here. The Mac had a stellar quarter, and the iPhone and iPod divisions made solid contributions.

2:01 p.m. PDT: We're waiting for Apple executives to come online to discuss their second-quarter earnings, which they'll probably enjoy. If you haven't seen the numbers yet, Apple's revenue increased by 43 percent compared to last year, while profits were up 36 … Read more

Is Apple really that much of a chip hopper?

If Apple follows through and uses a chip designed by its latest acquisition, PA Semi, in a future product, the company will have made major bets on Power, x86, ARM, and Power again in just this decade. What, no love for SPARC or MIPS?

A PA Semi representative on Wednesday confirmed last night's news that Apple has paid $278 million for the low-power chip designer. Led by prominent chip designer Don Dobberpuhl, the two-and-a-half-year-old company makes chips for embedded devices based on IBM's Power instruction set.

So what might … Read more