Just the other day, AT&T announced that it was able to work with Sling Media in order to optimize Sling player for AT&T’s 3G network. That’s good news for consumers and all, but it appears as though AT&T might have been doing a little posturing to make itself look like the good guy. After all, Sling users were disappointed about the lack of a Sling player on the iPhone when the application had been avaiable on BlackBerry for some time – and on AT&T’s network, no less.

AT&T CEO Ralph De La Vega said:

Sling Media was willing to work with us to revise the app to make it more bandwidth sensitive. They made important changes to more efficiently use 3G network bandwidth and conserve wireless spectrum so that we were able to support the app on our 3G mobile broadband network.

Sounds like a happy ending for all, right? Everyone working together to make things happen for you and me. Unfortunately, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows because Sling replied Media’s John Santoro replied: “We didn’t change anything. AT&T never discussed any specific requirements with us.” Uh oh. Either there was some miscommunication or AT&T decided to accept Sling player for the iPhone and had to come up with a reason why it didn’t allow the application sooner.

Apparently, Sling player was always able to adjust to network conditions so that it delivered the same streaming experience regardless of signal strength. After being lambasted for its shoddy 3G network, AT&T may have been reluctant to allow Sling for the iPhone due to the heavy strain it would cause. AT&T did mention recently that it is taking steps toward beefing up its network after admitting that some cities were experiencing sub-par service. Now we just have to wait for Apple to approve the Sling application.

[Via Ars Technica]

Yes, Apple views the smartphone market as still being behind the first phone they released over two years ago. “We’ve moved beyond that,” Cook noted.

Certainly, compared to some smartphones out there, the first iPhone still compares very well. The iPhone 3G compares even better — as we’ve written before, it’s kind of like James Bond, while a lot of others at the same price are Joe Schmoe. But to say the original iPhone is ahead of phones like the Palm Pre and the myTouch 3G seems a bit disingenuous.

That said, the iPhone 3GS is, in my view, still absolutely ahead of the competiton, including the aforementioned phones. By many accounts, the upcoming Verizon Droid phone could be first real challenger to the current leading iPhone. Verizon obviously feels the same way, given its advertising campaign.

Apple’s chief complaint against the Google Voice application was “The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls…”

And that’s ok, because we all know that the real reason Apple won’t let Google Voice through is that they are scared out of their mind that Android and Google Voice will eat their iPhone lunch over the long term. Apple can’t win the fight over the long term, but they sure are willing to say and do anything in the short term to stop the advance of Google.

But you’d think they’d at least be consistent and apply the same arguments to other third party apps. At least until this whole FCC thing blows over.

But Skype’s calling app, which uses Wifi, is totally fine. And yesterday, the Vonage iPhone app, which seems to be just as much of an issue as Google Voice based on that quote at the top, got the green light, too.

Users can use Wifi or cellular minutes, and have to open the Vonage application to make calls. They’ll save a bundle on international calling.

Of course, it’s hard to argue that Vonage doesn’t “alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls.”

But really, I’m not even sure anyone is paying attention at this point. If you care, the truth is this – Apple isn’t threatened by Vonage. The smart thing would have been to reject their app anyway, to stay consistent. But unless someone actually forces Apple to play by the rules, why should they?

Yeah, I know. Apple Fanboys can unleash hell on us now in the comments.

After months of speculation (and frustration) MMS for the iPhone 3G and 3G S is officially arriving on September 25, AT&T has confirmed. This is a full 3 days after summer officially ends (AT&T’s original deadline was “late summer”) as our own MG pointed out earlier today, but like a lot of things with Apple/AT&T, better late than never.

AT&T posted the following comments on its Facebook page:

An Update on iPhone MMS for our Mobility Customers

We know many of our iPhone customers are eager for an update on our rollout schedule for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). We’ve been working for the past several months to prepare our systems and network to ensure the best possible experience with MMS when it launches – and that launch date is: September 25 for iPhone 3G and 3GS customers. MMS will be enabled through a software update on that day.

We know that iPhone users will embrace MMS. The unique capabilities and high usage of the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One. We appreciate your patience as we work toward that end.

We’re riding the leading edge of smartphone growth that’s resulted in an explosion of traffic over the AT&T network. Wireless use on our network has grown an average of 350 percent year-over-year for the past two years, and is projected to continue at a rapid pace in 2009 and beyond. The volume of smartphone data traffic the AT&T network is handling is unmatched in the wireless industry. We want you to know that we’re working relentlessly to innovate and invest in our network to anticipate this growth in usage and to stay ahead of the anticipated growth in data demand, new devices and applications for years to come.

Multiple questions were asked of Apple COO Tim Cook about how the $99 iPhone, specifically, was selling. His response? The vague note that the entire iPhone line has seen a “big acceleration in total unit sales.” Cook said Apple will not offer a breakdown of how the different versions are selling because it’s competitive data.

But wait, they’ve broken them up in the past. Just three days after the iPhone 3GS launch, Apple announced that iPhone 3GS-specific sales had hit a million. Obviously, there’s a reason to do that; it’s an impressive number. But along those lines, you can’t help but wonder if Apple is being coy simply because the $99 sales aren’t very good? Certainly, it seems like a great deal, but in reality, the monthly bills of the iPhone 3G and 3GS are the same, so it’s basically the difference between $100 to $200 in upfront costs.

As the call went on today, more questions came in trying to penetrate the $99 iPhone sales topic. Someone asked if the lower price-point iPhone was helping to get people into store and accelerating sales of the new iPhone 3GS? Again, Cook would only say that they’re focused on total iPhone numbers. “It’s too early to tell what the ultimate mix of what the products will be,” he noted. He went on to say that the breakdowns are a big foggy since the 3GS supply is currently constrained, and it’s only in 18 of the nearly 80 countries the iPhone is in.

That would seem to suggest that the $99 iPhone should be selling really well — if customers can’t get an iPhone 3GS. But Cook, nor anyone else would say that. Odd.

If you have the new iPhone 3.0 software and go to Google’s homepage in Safari, you’ll notice a new message below the search box that reads, “New! Try My Location to find restaurants, shops and bars near you!” If you click on the My Location link, the iPhone will pop open a dialogue asking if it’s okay for Safari to use the device’s location services to locate you. If you opt-in, you’ll see a new blue dot below the search box with your location next to it. Do a search, and it will return local results.

The fact that mobile Safari can access location is a huge feature. It’s what’s going to allow Google Latitude, Google’s location-based social network, to work on the device without a native app, as we described a few months ago. Something else that is potentially interesting about this is that Safari, like some of the other native iPhone apps, can apparently run in the background. Now, I’m not sure if it can still access location services while it’s running in the background, but that could be very interesting for something like Latitude.

And accessing functionality like location in the browser seems to tie in well with Google’s ultimate goal of having the web be the platform of choice.

For many people, such a feature will bring up privacy concerns. Here’s what Google has to say about that:

As always, your privacy is one of our top concerns. Google won’t use your location in search unless you explicitly opt in. And you can always disable the feature from Preferences at the bottom of the homepage.

Ryan wanted to add a flash to his iPhone so he cut open a Mophie JuicePack and connected a bright white LED and tiny switch. Boom: instant flash.

He has it set up to trigger when you hold down a button on the case but you can obviously use your own little head to come up with better solutions. Thankfully he walks through the entire process, ensuring even fools like me could replicate his solution.

That’s what we did. And originally we set out to compare the various specs. But looking them over, it’s really a joke. And you can basically see all you need to see simply by looking at the devices being offering by the major carriers in the U.S. at this price point.

Of course, there are legitimate iPhone competitors out there, namely the Palm Pre and the soon-to-be-released T-Mobile myTouch 3G. But the Pre sells for $199 (or $299 before rebate) and the myTouch will also cost you $199. That’s iPhone 3GS territory now. This $99 range is a whole different ball game.

When I looked at the $99 phones, I started to think of a high school reunion. Some show up as successful business people, some as boring cookie-cutter suburbanites, some as fat, overweight slobs. And that’s fine. But then there’s that one person who shows up and makes everyone else look worse. Everyone there has something in common (in this case, the high school), but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at this one James Bond-type in the full tuxedo while everyone else is wearing rags. In my opinion, that’s kind of like the $99 iPhone 3G compared to the other $99 phones out there.

Let’s take a look.

AT&T’s $99 Offerings:

James Bond.

The successful business guy. Kind of pudgy, pretty boring.

The less successful but skinnier business guy. A pencilneck.

The guy who thinks he’s James Bond, but bought his tux at the thrift store — and it’s blue.

The guy wearing his clothes from when you were still in high school.

That odd foreign exchange student that no one still wants to talk to even though he’s popular in Europe.

Some crazy-looking dude.

A total square.

That guy who just got out of rehab.

T-Mobile’s $99 Offerings:

The girl was popular in high school but now is just kind of ugly, and oddly shaped.

Another business guy. Bland. Has his family on his “Fave 5″ though.

The short, fat guy with the shiny large head.

Verizon’s $99 Offerings:

Spunky, ditzy, short girl. No one took her seriously then, no one takes her seriously now.

The dude who’s really into guns.

The guy who’s trying too hard.

Again, nice suit — in 1999.

Wanna-be hipster.

The short sidekick of the wanna-be hipster.

Oh God. Don’t talk to this one.

Sprint’s $99 Offerings:

The ugly duckling.

The homeless guy. Hasn’t bathed in months.

Had a bunch of kids at 19. Now divorced and wears bold colors to stand out — which doesn’t work.

Business guy with a big chin and a square head.

The girl with the Coke-bottle thick glasses.

The former high school star quarterback. Still loves sports, but is between crappy jobs.

[Thanks Cameron]

What does this do? It carrier unlocks the iPhone 3G. Sadly, it doesn’t yet work on the 3G S. It is also safe to update to the latest 3.0 version.

Quickpwn writes:

It’s safe to update to the current iPhone 3.0 baseband – ultrasn0w will work with it, but for future updates such as firmware 3.0.1 (or whichever # the next firmware is) you should hold off on updating and check here first to see if it’s safe to update. Apple may be able to make a baseband update that permanently locks your firmware just as they did with firmware 2.2.1 users.

Better read the fine print, friends. Apple said today that the iPhone 3G S costs $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB). But that’s the price only for new AT&T customers. The price if you’re already an AT&T customer and/or are upgrading from an iPhone 3G? Try $699 (32GB), $599 (16GB), and $499 (8GB). To quote Peter Ha: “HOLY SHIT.”

I think I speak for most of the Internet when I say that price is 100 percent ridiculous. How many iPhone 3G’s are floating around out there? And how many of those will be upgraded to the new iPhone 3G S?

I don’t know who’s to blame, Apple or AT&T, but I cannot wait to see them try to spin this news.

UPDATE So this is what AT&T tells us:

An iPhone 3G customer in most cases can early upgrade at $399 [16GB] or $499 [32GB].

You’ll note that that’s still several hundred dollars more than what Joe Smoe would have to pay, right off the street, if he doesn’t already have an AT&T account.

And what does “early upgrade” mean? Or “most cases”? The joys of dealing with AT&T!

My recommendation would be to call AT&T yourself to see what you’re looking at.

About a month ago, Michael got to test-drive (well, test-fly) SGN’s new jet dogfighter game before its official release in the App Store, and deemed the graphics to be ‘stunning’. I’m embedding the demo video he recorded here below, but we should get an updated video of the gameplay from the company soon which we’ll add here as well. Or, as from today, you can also just go to the iTunes App Store and buy the premium version of the game yourself (it’s priced $9.99).

Update: new video

The name of the game is F.A.S.T. and the main difference with other jet dogfighter games for the iPhone like Top Gun and Flying Aces is the multi-player aspect and the incredibly good-looking 3D graphics of the whole thing. You can play the game against other people over WiFi (both one-on-one and two-on-two) and the game neatly switches to “God view”, that is an elevated view of the rest of the fight, when you crash or get shot down. You really ought to play it to get a feel of what it’s like to fire missiles and a machine gun from the jet and follow the path of a fired missile as if you were sitting on one, because it’s really hard to explain how much this game rocks without you actually trying it. Let us know your thoughts if you decide to purchase the game.

On a sidenote: if you don’t want to see a picture of SGN CEO Shervin Pishevar playing the game wearing an F14 Fighter Helmet, don’t click here.

A new glass screen costs about $70 while the LCD costs $99. All of it is easy enough to fix with a little gumption.

I can’t deny the fact that Mophie knows how to make stylish accessories for the iPhone, but after a lackluster experience with the original Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G I’m wondering if the air will fair any better.

Quick Version: The Juice Pack air has an added bonus of being not only a reserve battery pack, but also a hard cover for your iPhone 3G. It doesn’t add too much extra girth to the svelte device and comes with an on/off switch (located at the base for the reserve battery.

Extended Version: If you’re looking for gobs of extra battery life then you needn’t look here. When my iPhone 3G’s battery dipped under 10 percent I placed it into the air and got enough juice to hit the 85 to 90 percent mark. As I recall, the original Juice Pack managed to give me close to two full charges when battery life was under 20 percent. But that had an 1800 mAh battery while the air only has a 1200 mAh battery.

On the flipside, the air is a pretty nice case that more or less doubles the thickness of the iP3G, which might not be acceptable to most, but with the added value of extra power, I’m inclined to accept its portliness.

The top piece can be removed if you don’t feel like encasing your iP3G altogether and the overall size of the air was drastically reduced thanks to the microUSB port and smaller battery. Yes, it still connects to iTunes just like the original. And it still comes fully charged out of the box.

But at $80 you have other options that offer more battery life and functionality. For example, the iV from Fastmac offers at least two full charges, an LED flash and the added bonus of USB slot to charge other gadgets. Sure, it’s ginormous and doesn’t fit in your pocket, but it’s perfect for your gear bag and offers more power.

If you don’t care about such things and just want something that looks pretty, fits in your pocket, adds a bit of protection and offers emergency power then the air is should do you just fine. It comes in black, white and purple and starts shipping tomorrow.

Product Page

[PSGallery=5h2tm8dq07]

Galaxy Impact, a classic brick-break game and the first iPhone app created by Team iBokan, went on sale in iTunes App Store on Oct 27, 2008, free of charge. It had about 220,000 downloads in its first two weeks and was ranked as No 10 in “Top Free Apps” in the Game category and No 20 in “Top Free Apps” overall, before we started charging a $.99 fee for purchases on Nov 9th 2008.

Here are the details:

Galaxy Impact downloads before start charging $.99

The downloads for Galaxy Impact in its first two weeks, broken down:

* 10/27: 1,377 (the first day on sale)
* 10/28: 10,839
* 10/29: 13,110
* 10/30: 18,875
* 10/31: 18,556
* 11/01: 25,898
* 11/02: 28,390
* 11/03: 26,156
* 11/04: 18,182
* 11/05: 16,633
* 11/06: 14,883
* 11/07: 13,024
* 11/08: 10,928
* 11/09: 1,153 (started charging: 27 downloads PAID)
* 11/10: 23
* 11/11: 20
* 11/12: 1,435 (free of charge again)

So the free downloads vs for-fee downloads is about 400:1. That means for 220,000 downloads, our revenue amounted to $550. It’s obvious that there was no way we could make money out of this with a $.99 list price.

Another lesson learned: before the price change (from free to $.99), average downloads per day was above 10,000 but after price changed back to free, the average rebounced to about 1,000 per day, which continued for a long time. If we had not experimented with charging for the app, the total number of downloads would have been much higher.

Next, we decided to try advertising and updated Galaxy Impact with ads from Admob along with other new features. There was a huge spike of update downloads with a 30,647 peak of November 22, two days after the update release.

Galaxy Impact Downloads after Update

As you can see, the huge traffic for the update does not increase the number of new downloads, even if the app remains free of charge. To this day (Mar 18th), there are about 500,000 downloads in total and about 160,000 updates (one third of new downloads). Note, only updates have ads.

So how was Galaxy Impact doing with advertising powered by Admob? Let’s take a peek at the first month of the year.

Ad revenue from Admob for Galaxy Impact (Jan 2009)

The highest daily ad revenue was $16.37 (on 17 January) and right now it’s about $2.50 per day.

Here’s our monthly ad revenue, broken down:

* Nov 2008: $70.81 (11/20 – 11/30)
* Dec 2008: $236
* Jan 2009: $175
* Feb 2009: $142
* Mar 2009: $67 (03/01 – 18)

With no update or marketing, the current rate of free downloads for Galaxy Impact is about 120 per day. If we apply for-fee ratio, this transfers to about 0.3 daily downloads at a $.99 price, which leads to revenue of $.21 for us, or about 8.4% of what we are making right now on a daily basis ($2.50).

Conclusion

In the case of Galaxy Impact, we have done absolutely no marketing and did 2 updates with new features.

1. Free downloads vs for fee downloads ($.99) is 400:1
2. New downloads vs updates is about 3:1
3. If you decide to go with ad support, do it from the very beginning.
4. Updating does not help much
5. Ad revenue in the long run is higher than sales revenue
6. It’s hardly a sustainable business for most common app developers (with average apps).

Again, I don’t know how so many of you guys put up with your iPhone “3G,” in quotes because of the constant complaining about the lack of speed. In fact, a lawsuit was just filed in New Jersey that accuses AT&T and Apple of, among other things, Negligent Misrepresentation and Breach of Contract.

The lawsuit, filed by one Damone Dickerson, claims that the 3G speeds delivered aren’t what was advertised—that’s provided 3G is even available. (How badly did AT&T screw the pooch at SXSWi this year, fellow attendees?) This isn’t the first lawsuit of its kind, with similar suits being filed in several other states, including New York and California.

This isn’t a childish point-and-laugh at AT&T post, but for a phone that’s so beloved by so many of you guys, you’d think that AT&T would be working nonstop to keep you happy. I’m happy to admit that it’s a “cool” phone or whatever, but if it doesn’t work as advertised, why bother?

News broke yesterday that AT&T would begin offering the iPhone 3G for existing customers without a contract. Today, AT&T confirmed publicly that they would begin selling both models next Thursday, March 26. It comes at a premium though, and will go for $599 and $699 for the 8GB and 16GB models, respectively.

Spokesman Michael Coe said AT&T will sell the phones starting next Thursday for $599 or $699, depending on the storage capacity.

via AP

Attention existing AT&T customers who have been eyeing an iPhone 3G. Stop whatever you are doing, grab a red Sharpie, and circle March 26, 2009 on your calendar.

Why? Because according to BGR (who got their hands on some internal AT&T slides), that is the first day you will be able to purchase a “No-Commit” iPhone 3G for the economy-boosting price of $599 (8GB) / $699 (16GB).

What’s the catch? Well, for one thing, the price is for “existing” AT&T customers only. Also, there is a limit of “one per line” which, as BGR speculates, probably means you need to have at least one active AT&T line at the time of purchase.

On the flip side, apparently there is no way for AT&T’s system to determine whether you have already fulfilled your “one per mobile number” quota, making it theoretically possible for you to go buck wild on no-commit iPhone 3Gs.

The real question here is, what does all this mean in the grand scheme of things? Is AT&T trying to clear its 3G shelves? Will Apple unveil new hardware along with its iPhone OS 3.0 launch this summer? While there is no way to be sure, history does point in that direction.

The first thing that caught my eye is that they changed a couple of icons. Otherwise the home screen is the same as it was before. Accessing the search screen feels just right. You swipe the screen to the right and it’s there. You can search contacts, music and mail. Photos and text messages don’t seem to show up for me.

The email screen looks like the same as it was before but if you swipe down you’ll notice the new search bar. If your search has no results in your inbox you can expand your query to your original Gmail account.Browsing seems a bit faster too; it took about 10 seconds to load crunchgear.com. Maybe they put some of Safari 4′s performance tweaks into the iPhone browser.

The iPhone gets copy/paste! Everyone go crazy!

So this is where I double tap. Now I can choose to select a region specified by me or to select the whole text. The following is pretty self-explanatory.

The undo function works like a charm. Shake to undo and shake again to redo. This is not instant, though, so you don’t have to be afraid that you’ll accidentally undo or redo something if you put the phone down or something.

The Voice Memos app has a sweet built-in decibel meter. After you record your stuff you can share it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever use this application but it’s fun.

I tried to send an MMS to myself but it seems that I have to set it up with my carrier first (why would an iPhone plan support MMS right now after all). Bluetooth will also remain a mystery for now.

We’ll keep you informed of any new stuff we find, easter eggs, bugs, or what have you, so check back.

Update:

- If you press the home button at the home screen search comes up. Press again to go back to the home screen
- The free memory app seems to be able to free up to 35MB of RAM. This value was 20-23MB previously
- Copy/Paste in email works a little different: Touch until magnifier comes up and then release for the copy menu
- Copied text is available after switching the phone off and on again
- You can copy entire text messages by double tapping the message bubble at the SMS thread. It’s a little funny though because the bubbles turn blue but only the most recently selected bubble gets copied
- The little camera icon for MMS is just not there for me
- Can not connect to Youtube
- Push email works pretty well. I get emails instantly from Gmail when the phone is in standby

]]> http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/17/iphone-os-30-beta-hands-on/feed/ 0 Ivan Beres applepiece img_0118 img_0126 iphone_cut_and_paste undo memo http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/17/phone-apps-hit-800-million-downloads/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/17/phone-apps-hit-800-million-downloads/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:35:33 +0000 Erick Schonfeld http://www.techcrunch.com/?p=50070 press conference going on live right now. The new OS, iPhone 3.0, will support 1,000 APIs. Apple seems to be giving a lot of extra love to paid apps, which will gain the ability to sell additional levels, subscriptions, virtual goods, or extra content from right within the app. Some stats from the press conference:

• There are now more than 25,000 iPhone apps in the iTunes Store.
• iPhone apps have been downloaded 800 million times.
• 96 percent of all apps are approved
• The developer SDK has been downloaded 800,000 times
• 50,000 companies have joined the program
• 13.7 million iPhones were sold in 2008