First look at iPhone 3G S Which Starts Selling Friday June 19

The iPhone 3GS will be coming out Friday June 19 tomorrow. From the looks of it, it looks just like the iPhone 3G, but it does sport some serious differences, and some serious addons you should know about. And while nothing is perfect, we think it’s a step in the right direction for Apple.



Let’s start it off with the best stuff. The iPhone 3GS is fast. They say it's what "S" stands for, "Speed". And while it might sport similar feature set to the 3G, the 3GS’ speed boost makes it worth it. The screen has an oleophobic coating, that’s meant to repel grease and fingerprints. And while it might not look much different in the grease department than the 3G, it really does work better, even if totally coated.

Everything really loads much faster now. That includes turning on the phone and loading up apps. This also means there are more opportunities for apps and games now, with a 600MHz processor and 256 RAM.

Other new features that are pros in our opinion includes the updated 3-megapixel camera, which sports auto focus and video recording capability. But still, the lack of flash is still disheartening, but the video quality is pretty impressive. It’s capable of 30fps and really smooth in motion. There’s even limited clip cropping abilities on the phone.

The Compass is cool, simple and easy to use. It detects North easily, no matter how you hold the phone and syncs up nicely with Google Maps, showing you precisely where you are at any given time. More good news is that Voice Control works pretty well. It recognizes what you’re saying fairly well, though background sound tends to cause issues.

Battery life has improved. The only real negative we’ve noticed so far on the iPhone 3GS which I believe everyone will agree is the price it’ll cost you to upgrade if you’re still on an AT&T plan and the AT&T network in general. With numerous problems with the network, it’s kind of a shame such a high-featured phone is limited to a feature-lacking network. Also, if you already have the iPhone 3G, this model might not feel like a worthy upgrade to you to justify buying a whole new phone.

Apple's retail stores open their doors on Friday, June 19, at 8 a.m. local time. AT&T's retail stores will open an hour earlier, at 7 a.m. local time, but only for people who pre-ordered via the Web or at a store. (According to The Boy Genius Report, AT&T had sold out its pre-order allotment by Saturday, June 13, and any subsequent pre-orders won't be shipped to a local store for pick-up until seven to 14 days after the order date.)

AT&T will let customers who didn't pre-order into its stores starting at 8 a.m. local time.

Best Buy and Wal-Mart, the other two outlets selling iPhones, will open at their usual business hours on Friday.

What countries get the iPhone 3G S on Friday? Apple said that customers in the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. get first crack at the new iPhone. Other countries will begin to sell their shipments of the upgrade starting July 9.

Anything for someone has an iPhone but doesn't want to shell out $200 (or more) for a new one? You get iPhone 3.0, the newest upgrade to the iPhone's software, which Apple launched on Wednesday, June 17. Among the new features: copy-paste, MMS, Spotlight search and landscape-mode keyboard.

iPhone 3.0 is free to iPhone owners, but costs iPod Touch users $9.95.

Apple and AT&T also reduced the price of the existing iPhone 3G 8GB to $99, so if you have $100 and an aging first-generation iPhone, you can go that route. Have a little more cash? For $149, you can pick up the 16GB iPhone 3G from AT&T and Best Buy.

Candy Coated iPod Shuffle 3G at $129

The smallest and sweetest music players are now available at Computer Choppers for $129. These flashy shuffles are color anodized to brigthen up your iPod Shuffle listening experience. And the aluminum-shelled iPod Shuffle 3G fits in just perfectly. As was the case with their colorful anodized Mac Mini, these colors are much more durable than paint, and electrochemically bound to the metal so they won’t flake over time.

All color models in the picture are going for $129, but premium options such as copper, rose gold and platinum can climb up the price to $200.

Go on, grab your favorite flavored shuffle at Computer Choppers site.

New iPod Shuffle Requires Licensed Authentication Chip for Third-party Headphones

Apple's at it again squeezing accessory manufacturers license fees with the latest report from iLounge that the new iPod shuffle can only be controlled by headphones with a special hardware authentication chip. That means that third parties will have to pay Apple for the privilege of making shuffle-compatible accessories, and you can bet they'll just pass that cost right on to consumers -- don't expect any cheap headphone adapters or inexpensive replacement headphones for this thing. iLounge calls this a "nightmare scenario" for iPod fans, and we're inclined to agree -- it's one thing for Apple to require the Made For iPod certification for accessories that interface with the dock connector, but trying to lock down headphones is a sad new low, and it makes the lack of physical controls on the shuffle seem even more ridiculous. I'm sticking with my old Shuffle.

Source: Engadget and iLounge

New iPod Shuffle Dissected: First Look at Its Tiny Innards

When I first saw how tiny the new iPod Shuffle was, I couldn't imagine how on earth could parts fit inside. The folks at iFixit have opened up the new Apple iPod Shuffle and spread out its tiny guts like a quail on a butterfly board. What is a surprise is that there is just one screw holding the whole thing together. Other interesting points are that the shiny, mirror-finish clip weighs as much as the rest of the iPod put together and that the battery is tiny. Really tiny, giving less than half the juice of the battery in the older shuffle (now just 73 mAh). That Apple managed to only drop 17% of battery life (12 hours down to 10 hours) shows that this new shuffle has some serious power management going on.



The final surprise is the weight, proving that simile is indeed a great way to make us understand things. With case removed, the battery and electronics inside weigh only 4 grams, or less than a sheet of paper. Even more fascinating — the headphone cord is the exact same length as a piece of string. Amazing!

Apple Unveils a New Talking iPod Shuffle

The new iPod Shuffle is outrageously small. The third-generation Shuffle, a slim aluminum rectangle less than 2 inches long, exactly 1.8" (45mm) x .7" (17mm) x .3" (7.62mm) in size, takes up about half as much space as the previous version even as it doubles music storage space to 4 gigabytes. To achieve such a tiny form, Apple had to remove most of the buttons from the body of the $79 device and build them into the headphone cord instead.

VoiceOver gives the Shuffle the ability for it to speak song titles, artist names, and playlist categories in any of 14 languages. If a song is in Spanish, Chinese or any one of the 14 languages, the software figures this out and speaks in the appropriate language.

The new iTunes VoiceOver Kit generates the voice, which will also differ by the operating system on which iTunes is installed. When the feature is selected, the computerized voice says the name of the track and the artist. It also warns when the Shuffle's battery is low, or can be used to rifle off all of the playlists on the device.

Here how it works. When you tap a button on the headphones, the voice speaks the title and artist as the music plays. When you hold down the headphone button, the device reads a list of your playlists, and you can pick one by tapping again.


It's not possible to scroll through all of the songs on the device to jump right to one favorite, unless you know it's at the start of a certain playlist.

The new Shuffle, which comes in silver or black aluminum with a shiny stainless steel clip, is set to go on sale today. Joswiak said Apple's own earphones will be the only option for early buyers, but that other companies plan to make compatible headphones as well as adapters for regular headphones.

Still, the trade-off for a sub-$100 Shuffle always has been the lack of a screen to visually navigate the music stored on the device. The first-generation Shuffle, which launched in 2005, could hold about 240 songs, arguably not enough to warrant a screen.