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Tag: iphone-3gs

  • Apple Launches iOS 6.1: Short List of Improvements

    Apple has released an update package for the 6.1 version of its iOS software platform, bringing few improvements. iOS 6.1 is a minor update designed to improve the LTE compatibility and to repair a series of vulnerabilities.

    iOS 6.1 expands the LTE support for 36 operators in 17 countries, this feature being offered to the iPhone 5, iPad 4th generation tablets and iPad Mini. Those who are using the 3rd generation of iPad will be limited by the LTE support of the modem used by Apple.

    The list of software innovations includes the integration within Siri of the possibility of purchasing movie tickets through Fandalgo, feature limited to the United States, and the possibility of individual downloading and deleting music tracks downloaded from iTunes Match, option that existed in iOS 5, but which disappeared from iOS 6 until this new version.

    iOS 6.1 brings improvements and strengthens the security in the operating system kernel and the modules WebKit, StoreKit and Identity Services, as well as eliminating a security vulnerability discovered in the Broadcom wireless drivers that affected the models iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4th generation and iPad 2.

    The list of minor innovations also includes the possibility of removing identification codes used by advertisers, option available in the General/About/Advertising menu, and small changes in the interface, such as redesign of audio playback control buttons in Lock Screen.

    According to Apple, of the 600 million Apple products running the iOS, half of them are using the latest major release of the operating system.

  • Visa Brings Mobile Payments to iPhone

    Visa and DeviceFidelity are working to allow iPhone users to make payments by simply waving their iPhone in front of a contactless payment terminal. The new technology, developed by DeviceFidelity and certified by Apple, combines a protective iPhone case with a secure memory card that hosts Visa’s contactless payment application, called Visa payWave. The technology will work for both iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G devices.

    iPhone users will be able to make Visa mobile payments in retail stores, at fast food restaurants, in taxis, during sporting events, and also make purchases at vending machines that have contactless payment terminals.

    Visa claims that “thousands of merchants throughout the U.S.” have already upgraded their payment terminals to allow consumers to make Visa mobile payments.

    The technology will also work with a majority of smart phones that have a slot for a memory card. “By simply inserting the card into the memory slot on their phone, mobile users can transform their existing mobile phones into a Visa payment device,” according to the company.

    Visa has already rolled out a similar technology in Malaysia and Japan, where consumers can make mobile payments in stores and restaurants.

    The mobile payment application can be password protected and utilizes advanced security technology to uniquely identify each contactless transaction. In addition, all Visa mobile payments are backed by Visa’s global processing network and analyzed for potential fraud in real-time. If a mobile device is lost or stolen, account holders should contact their issuer, as they would if their card was lost or stolen. The issuer can immediately deactivate the account.

    Market trials of the payment-enabled iPhone are scheduled to start this summer.

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  • 02 Secures Exclusive UK Rights to Palm Pre


    O2 has beaten rival operator Orange to secure the exclusive rights to the Palm Pre when it is released in the UK.

    Palm and O2 are expected to make the announcement next week almost a month after the launch of the handset in the US.

    The deal strengthens O2’s position in the smartphone market since it is already the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the UK.

    There are no details yet on Pre costings and tariffs for the UK.

    News of O2’s deal with Palm was reported in The Guardian, which described the competition between O2 and Orange as "fierce".

    Apple recently announced that the iPhone 3GS sold over one million units in its first weekend of its availability.

    Sprint, the only wireless carrier to offer the Pre in the US, has not revealed sales numbers – although it appears to be doing reasonably well.

    Estimates of its sales range from 150,000 to 300,000 units.

  • Vuzix First With Wrap-Around Specs for iPhone 3GS


    Vuzix has announced the first wearable display glasses compatible with the new iPhone 3GS.

    The iWear AV310 gives users the virtual equivalent of a 52”, 16:9 widescreen display as if viewed from a distance of nine feet.

    Vuzix says the specs are compatible with both 2D and stereoscopic 3D video.

    David Lock, director of Vuzix’s European operations, recently told smartphone.biz-news that the company’s new Wrap glasses would transform the whole video eyewear from "geek to chic".

    Certainly the AV310 wouldn’t be a problem to wear in most situations.

    Weighing just 4 oz, the specs are worn like regular glasses.

    As well as being compatible with the new Apple handset, Vuzix says they also support all audio/video devices with composite video-out.

    A single removable AA battery gives up to 11 hours of viewing.

    The AV310 retails for USD $249.95.

  • Palm Targeting Smartphone Growth – Not Apple


    Palm’s new CEO Jon Rubinstein believes there is sufficient growth in the smartphone market to profitably sustain "three to five players".

    He was speaking after announcing "strong and growing" sales of the company’s new Pre handset – with download applications now numbering more than 1 million three weeks after it launched.

    What Rubinstein didn’t reveal in unveiling Palm’s fourth quarter results – its last full quarter before releasing the phone – is how many Pre smartphones have actually been sold.

    Analysts estimate Palm has shipped about 150,000 units so far.

    Palm posted a narrower-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter net loss applicable to common shareholders of USD $105 million, compared with a loss of USD $43.4 million in the year-ago period.

    Palm said it could turn cash-flow positive in the second half of fiscal 2010 and reassured analysts that its capital position was sufficient.

    Revenue fell 71 per cent to USD $86.8 million.

    However, despite increased losses and falling revenues, Rubenstein said he was happy with the way the Pre launch had gone.

    While there have been problems with meeting demand at Sprint stores in the US, he said this is being addressed.

    "We’re successfully ramping supply to meet demand that is strong and growing," he said.

    The Pre, featuring Palm’s new WebOS, is entering a smartphone market full of competitors, from Nokia and RIM to HTC.

    A new iPhone 3GS launched last Friday and sold more than a million units in the first three days.

    However, Rubenstein said the "significant growth" forecast for the smartphone industry meant there is room for up to five smartphone manufacturers.

    "We don’t have to beat each other to prosper," he added

  • iPhone 3GS Enters Smartphone Wars


    Apple launched has its new iPhone 3GS with demand expected to be strong for the handset in the US and seven other initial launch countries.

    However, with a smartphone market also offering new handsets from Palm, RIM and Nokia, to name but a few, the landscape has changed considerably since the original iPhone hit the market two years ago.

    For the third consecutive year, lines formed outside stores as people waited for the chance to buy the newest iPhone.

    Unveiled earlier this month at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the iPhone 3GS is described by Apple as "faster and more responsive" than the original iPhone, with more battery life and close to double the storage.

    If the length of the lines was less than previous iPhone launches then Apple’s decision to allow for advanced iPhone 3G S orders with home delivery could have played a part in that.

    So too could the current economic climate – or maybe it’s just that people are spoilt for choice when it comes to buying a new smartphone?

    Among the iPhone 3GS’ rivals are Palm’s Pre, RIM’s BlackBerry Storm, Nokia’s N97 and upcoming phones powered by Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating systems.

    But with the US smartphone market growing 68 per cent last year – and growth of 20 per cent projected for 2009 – consumer appetite for these high-end devices is still strong.

    A key differentiator is likely to be apps – and Apple already leads the field in that respect by a considerable distance.

    RIM captured a 55 per cent slice of the US smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, while Apple had around 20 per cent.

    However, Apple’s App Store has 50,000 applications available – far ahead of what’s on offer at BlackBerry’s App World, Palm’s App Catalog, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Catalog and Google’s Android Market.

  • Palm Pre App Count Builds – Now More Handsets?


    Palm must be hoping it can quickly build on estimated opening weekend sales of 60,000 Pre smartphones – not least because Apple has cranked up the pressure with the launch of a new iPhone.

    While Palm’s Saturday launch has largely been judged a success, it was hampered by supply constraints which saw most Sprint Nextel stores get less than 50 phones to sell.

    The limited supply of handsets meant that the Pre sold out in hours at most locations.

    Sprint’s flagship Manhattan store had 200 units at launch. Its store in Boston’s Back Bay area had only 55, while one in San Francisco’s Mission district had 60.

    Palm and Sprint strenuosly denied they were limiting supplies deliberately, instead the restrictions were put down to manufacturing constraints.

    As expected, between 80-90 per cent of the first buyers were already Sprint customers – while about 60 per cent were prior Palm owners.

    Meanwhile, while one of the major concerns for the Pre has been the lack of apps for the phone there has been a flow of new software being announced by developers since Saturday’s launch.

    Among them are the WHERE and Photobucket apps.

    WHERE is a location based application that allows users to find different content based on their geographic position.

    It also highlights local content including weather, news, movie times, restaurant recommendations. You can also perform selective searches through WHERE and find out things like where to find the cheapest gas. WHERE will also have the ability to integrate with the Pre contact and calendar data.

    Photobucket allows users to send and upload photos directly from the phone. You can send any photo taken on the phone to a Photobucket album and shared through the website. You can also open a new Photobucket account directly through your Pre.

    Other applications include Zumobi’s Today Show and Sporting News Baseball apps for on-the-go news and sports updates, and LikeMe, which offers personal recommendations for restaurants, attractions, etc, based on your location.

    Beeweeb and Agile Commerce have also announced their plans to offer services to help developers create apps for the Pre and Palm WebOS.

    These new apps join the dozen or so programs that were available in the Pre App Catalog at launch, including Pandora and Fandango.

    According to Palm, more than 150,000 apps were downloaded on the first day the smartphone was available.

    Currently, the Palm App Catalog is in beta and the Mojo SDK is only available to a limited number of developers.

  • WWDC: New iPhone 3Gs Twice as Fast, Video Camera


    Apple has unveiled a new version of the iPhone – the iPhone 3Gs – at WWDC 2009.

    Among the key improvements are a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and VGA video capture at 30fps, improved battery life, voice control, a faster processor and 7.2Mbps HSDPA-compatible radio.

    The new iPhone 3Gs comes with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, doubling the previous offerings of 8GB and 16GB.

    It will go on sale June 19 in the US. The 32GB model will be USD $299 and the 16GB model will be USD $199.

    iPhone 3Gs will also be available in more than 80 countries in the coming weeks.

    Apple is also dropping the price of the iPhone 3G to USD $99 and the iPhone 3G 16GB model to $149 starting immediately.

    The latter, USD $50 short of the new 8GB 3Gs model, may not be of great appeal.

    The iPhone 3Gs includes the new OS 3.0, which includes over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste (finally), MMS, Spotlight Search, and landscape keyboard.

    The new autofocus camera has a "tap to focus" feature, allowing users to touch the display to select an object or area of interest and the camera automatically re-adjusts focus and exposure.

    Although there’s still no flash, Apple has added auto-focus and geotagging support.

    Video clips can be edited on the handset by trimming the start and stop points – and then sent by email or MMS and posted to MobileMe or YouTube with just one tap.

    The voice control feature in iPhone 3G S offers hands free operation for both iPhone and iPod functions.

    These include a command that activates the Genius feature by saying "play more songs like this".

    iPhone 3Gs has the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard for high-quality 3D graphics, which should further enhance its gaming reputation.

    Battery life has been improved to give five hours of 3G talk time and up to 24 hours of music playback — according to Apple.

    Announcing the new handset, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing, said it was on average up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G.

    He said it opens web pages quicker and launches applications faster.

    "iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control," he said.

    Other new features include:

    • digital compass
    • the OS now supports tethering
    • integrated hardware encryption