New iPhone to land in US on 7 June
As Wal-Mart slashes 3GS price
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June 7 is now a near-certainty to be the launch date for the latest iPhone, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicking off the firm's Worldwide Developers' Conference on that day (and with US retailer Wal-Mart halving the prices of the current iPhone 3GS in readiness). That would suggest that the new handset would hit the shelves in early July.
The pattern is a familiar one, since the original iPhone launch in June 2007, but the big difference is that Google is now Apple's avowed enemy, not close ally. Google executives used the firm's own developer conference last week to attack Apple at every turn, and Jobs is likely to respond during his own keynote. In a weekend open email, he said there was "not a chance" that Android could surpass Apple on the technology front, says Gizmodo.
Amid speculation over whether Verizon would get an iPhone this time around (and even some rumors that Sprint would gain a CDMA version instead), research by Morgan Stanley found that an Apple handset would benefit Verizon, with 17 per cent of its subscribers "very likely" to purchase the device if offered. That compares with 14.6 per cent of AT&T customers who express interest in the product.
Wal-Mart is to cut the price on the entry level iPhone 3GS, with 16Gb of memory, by $100 to $97 with a two-year AT&T contract. When Apple introduced the iPhone 3GS last June, it cut the price of the older iPhone 3G to $99.
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COMMENTS
Has Steve finally
succumbed to his own reality distortion field? With version 2.2, Android leaves iPhone's OS in the dust, and even with 2.1 Android was still ahead in terms of usability and functionality. I like to able to listen to a podcast while thumbing through an ebook and downloading crap in the background. I like to be able to flick over to Aura to see how my Eve Online character is progressing without having to stop my ebook, my download or my podcast. I like being able to do this with my choice of web browser, ebook reader and podcast software rather than being limited to what the manufacturer included because that's the only software that will multitask. In short, I use my phone as a highly-portable computer that also happens to be able to make phone calls. I simply cannot use an iPhone in that way.
The iPhone is still not a bad bit of hardware (except for the non-removable battery and the ugly plasticky casing), it's just badly let down by a half-rate operating system. It's like buying a modern PC only to run Windows 3.11 on it. Or more to the point, it's like buying an HTC HD2 - nice hardware, locked-down crappy operating system.
Some of the self-admitted Apple fanbois in my office have had a good look over my Nexus One and have decided that their next phone will be an Android phone.
As for pinch-to-zoom, well, I have it on my phone but it's really not that useful. I prefer the double-tap to zoom since that nicely reflows the text I'm looking at so it fits into the screen properly without having to scroll left & right. Have Apple implemented that yet? I certainly haven't found it in the 3GS.
I wouldn't say the iPhone is crap, far from it, but it has a lot of catching up to do.
Apples and android oranges
Why does the world insist on comparing hardware and software, and declaring one to be better than the other?
Android = software, wrapped in different handsets (and numerous at that)
iPhone = hardware running an OS to make the hardware useful
The release cycles of these are very different especially when there is one Apple handset, so the argument, "better than" vs. "catching up", to be quite honest is pointless.
Re: Stay ahead?
@Jerome 0:
Please elaborate, for I don't recall what it was that Google introduced in its Android OS that was not attempting to "catch up" with the iPhone already.
Is it that "multi-tasking" thing, the one that has been acknowledged even by Google to suck the batteries dry? Or is it the single-touch screen that somehow is more technologically advanced than the multi-touch aware iPhone one? Perhaps its the online phone market, which recently was quietly put down to rest for lack of interest?
-dZ.
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