This week, Google released a new version of Maps including a new beta feature — My Location. My Location uses the same technology as Navizon’s GPS free positioning system. Using cell phone towers to locate your position provides your general location within 1000m. The application pinpoints your location, and puts a blue transparent circle around the location to show that you could be anywhere within that circle.
After speculation that France Telecom would offer an iPhone unlocking service for around €100, the official word from the carrier has confirmed that customers choosing to buy the handset after its launch this evening will have the option of either an iPhone-specific plan, a generic Orange plan or of buying the phone completely unlocked. As in other countries with the iPhone, the carrier has put together a number of special iPhone contracts each with a 2-year service agreement and unlimited data access; these are priced from €49 to €119 a month, with the iPhone itself costing €399 ($589). Alternatively, for €649 and a €100 unlocking fee, Orange will sell you a carrier-independent iPhone; that puts it comfortably into the predicted price range quoted by network CEO Didier Lombard.
A London-based analyst is predicting tension between the Apple and Nokia camps come 2008, as the Finnish company develops the latest, touchscreen-focused upgrade to its S60 cellphone OS. Already seen in promotional films, the Nokia Touch appears to use a capacitative touch-sensitive panel called Haptikos that adds haptic feedback to an OS that appears - in pre-release videos at least - to borrow heavily from the iPhone’s interface. Richard Windsor, an analyst at Nomura, believes that “Apple will likely view Nokia as infringing on its user interface patents” and seek to delay development and production of the next-gen Nokia handsets.
Carphone Warehouse, the sole retail partner in the UK selling the iPhone on the O2 network, has been found mis-selling cellphone insurance in an undercover investigation for the BBC’s consumer-rights programme Watchdog. Prompted by shoppers frustrated by Carphone Warehouse staff’s hard-sell tactics, researchers for the programme went undercover into stores; in three out of five they were told that, should they lose or have stolen their iPhone without taking out insurance, they would not only have to buy a replacement handset but sign up to a second contract. In fact, the new iPhone would continue on the old contract.
With 2 more days left, Sean Heber from iApp-a-Day continues his objective to make an iPhone application everyday for the month of November. Today we have a cool application that allows you to view random wallpapers that other people are using, save them on your phone, and use them as your wallpaper. You can also share your wallpaper amongst the world.
iRadio is basically the “JesusApp” of the iPhone. It is an app we had all been looking forward to and when it was finally released, our jaws dropped in amazement. Well, iRadio still isn’t the application it could be. Though there is a small team of developers, they seem to be hitting the right spot for the users, and continue to do so in every update.
Be sure to hit the cut for my opinions of what could be included in future updates to make iRadio the ultimate application for the iPhone.
One week after T-Mobile Germany unveiled their plans to sell an unlocked version of the iPhone for €999, in doing so satisfying an anti-competition ruling engineered by Vodafone and prompting a flurry of interest in what could prove to be an alternative unlock method, comes news regarding France Telecom’s intention to offer more flexibility as to which SIM can be used in the Orange iPhone. CEO Didier Lombard is quoted as claiming the device will be priced at “over 500 euros, but well below 1,000 euros” which would put it in the $740 to $1,500 range; meanwhile, there are suggestions that Orange will, for a price, unlock a French iPhone soon after purchase.
MacScoop reports that for around €100 France Telecom will remove the SIM lock from the iPhone, allowing those who do large amounts of travel to use local SIM cards in their handset and thus avoid high roaming charges. However that fee does not break the two-year contract, meaning that although you could use another carrier’s service you’d still be paying Orange a monthly fee.
Apple and O2 have been taking hits recently for poor sales performance of the iPhone in the UK, with would-be users complaining that the price is too high and those who have taken the plunge having problems with coverage. Nevertheless, O2 have been calling it the “fastest selling device [we’ve] ever seen” and the company estimated 100,000 handsets would be activated in the first fortnight of availability. Sources close to AppleInsider, however, cast a different light, claiming that the flagship Regent Street Apple store was still working from stock delivered prior to the 9th November launch.
Decidedly silly, but we love a bit of crazy domino fun here at MY iTablet, and it’s even better when the dominoes themselves are actually tiny totems of Apple heritage. It seems that on an unstressed day back in 1996 part of the Apple Newton team decided to put around 4,000 “surplus” modems for the prematurely-PDA into action, only rather than set up a huge, impractical dial-up connection they stood them all on end and then knocked them down.
At Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, iMac offers the best of both worlds, allowing students and faculty to “run their Mac-based programs of choice, while still enabling access to the Windows applications they need.” Says Dimitris Hilaris, Iona’s associate vice provost for IT, “Now that we have the versatility of being able to put both operating systems on one computer and the pricing is competitive, it doesn’t make sense not to go with Apple.”