iOS4: New iPhone 4 Features Coming Sooner to Other iDevice?

With just the iPhones, Apple should easily sell anywhere between 15 to 18 million iPhones through the the rest of 210. However, his tone at WWDC seems to indicate that he means more than the iPhones.

Listen go a podcast today, they said Steve Jobs specifically said iOS4 devices when he referred to the number of devices people can use FaceTime to chat with using video, not iPhones. If we aren't getting ahead of ourselves, which iDevices is up next for this upgrade?

The natural pick is the iPod Touch. Apple is in the midst of their back-to-school deal where you can get a free iPod with a Mac purchase. Historically, this is followed by an iPod refresh in the fall. That is likely when we might possibly see iPod Touch equipped with a frontal comera for FaceTime use.

As for the iPad, we may have to wait another year since the iPad was just released. Apple typically has annual refresh cycles for their iDevices. This may apply to the iPad as well.

What will be interesting is whether there might be another iDevice like an iPad (bigger iPod Touch) with a smaller screen in the neighborhood of 5-7 inches or a previously unimagined device.

Apple is going to have a very busy schedule for the rest of 2010. I love to see FaceTime permeate through the rest of the Apple line-up including the Macs and Apple TV.

Note: We will eventually see a FaceTime implementation for the Mac at some time in the f uture but I think that will be a long way off. Apple will be pushing FaceTime as a selling point for the iOS4 devices and keeping it off the Macs will mean anyone who want to do mobile video chat will need to buy an iPhone 4.

-- Post From My iPad

3G - Is A Monthly Allotment of 2GB Enough?

Is 2GB of monthly allotment enough for myself? That's what I endeavored to find out tonight. And why 2GB a month? Well, that's what whacky ATT decided on recently by killing off their previous unlimited data plan.

With my G1 acting as a Wi-Fi access point, I linked up my iPad and put both devices through a series of apps just to see how the G1 handled the load and how much data was downloanded and what the real world speed is.

Skype, Slingplayer, ABC video app, and Netflix.

I came away with some interesting conclusions.

More at Onxo.

Tens Of Millions of iPHone 4 To be Sold - What Does It Really Mean? More than 10 Million? 20 or 30 Million?

On Monday's WWDC keynote given by Steve Jobs, he promised iPhone 4 users will have a lot of folks to talk to using FaceTime because he promised Apple will sell tens of millions of iPhone 4.

Based on past quarter experiences, it's not a lofty goal but it's the manner in which he said it.  So how many iPhone 4 can Apple sell?

I am calling this now.  No FaceTime for the new iPod Touch that will come out this fall.  We might see a camera but that's about it.  We aren't likely to even see a 5MP camera like iPhone 4 but just the currently one on the iPhone 3GS.  That will be about it.  

2010 Will be about Apple selling iPhone 4 and trying to dominate the mobile market.  For Apple to sell 20 million iPhones for the rest of second half of 2010 would be a walk in the park  How about 25 million?  30 Million?

We'll have to see just how popular features like FaceTime is and whether it will take off given the artificial limitation placed on it by carriers.  FaceTime can only be used WiFi.  And this will be entirely an iPhone-to-iPhone affair.  Previously, I had hoped the feature can be extended to other iOS devices (since they don't have a frontal camera yet, they can at least participate in viewing the video).

If FaceTime really takes off, families will be looking into buying more than one iPhone 4.  Plus, I can see aunts, uncles, and, especially, grandparents who want to use FaceTime to keep in touch with their grandchildren.  You can bet that I'm going to make sure my brother's next phone be an iPhone.

I'm not here to talk about marketshares but more about the experience of using Apple's mobile gear, iPhone 4.  Be ready for Apple to flood the airwaves with FaceTime.  Plus, Apple is rolling out the iPhone 4 rather quickly this time.  By September, Apple will be selling the iPhone in 88 countries.  

I think twenty-five million iPhones is doable.  Thirty million iPhones might be a stretch.  However, from Steve Jobs' tone of voice at the WWDC, it sounds like Apple plan on blowing away any kind of estimates Wall Street can throw at it.

By the end of 2010, we can be in the midst of another social change in mobile computing and communication.  And once again, it is Apple leading the charge.

Note: Qik, Fring, And Skype are three apps that quickly comes to mind that offers (or plans to) video chat.  Ease of use will be the key differentiator for FaceTime.  With FaceTime, there are no cumbersome steps of setting up accounts.  Yeah, Apple made it that easy to use.

Safari 5: Reader Feature Changing How We Read

I can enough about Safari. Version 4 was pretty good when it came out but with Google doing a great job innovating with Chrome and, let's be honest, really out paced every veteran browser on the market.

But with Safari 5, Apple has signaled to the world that it intends to compete in the browser market. Forget about extension support. Been here, done that as far as the browsing experience goes.

It's the Reader feature that has changed to game now. And it has the markets backpedaling. And I do mean markets. Reader basically strips away the nonessentials like ads and visual distractions on a webpage and intelligently displays the main article or content in a pop-up screen.

In Apple's words, "Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. So you get the whole story and nothing but the story. It works like this: As you browse the web, Safari detects if you’re on a web page with an article. Click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field, and the article appears instantly in one continuous, clutter-free view. You see every page of the article — whether two or twenty. Onscreen controls let you email, print, and zoom. Change the size of the text, and Safari remembers it the next time you view an article in Safari Reader."

First, the advertising market. Web operators are still going to get the views but click-throughs might go down. How will this affect ad revenues? Safari 5 has only been out about 24 hours. I think users are still trying to get used to Reader and it is unclear how the online ad guys are reacting to this.

With Reader, Apple is able to provide users with a great non-distractive way to consume text while potentially hurt it's main competitors in the battle for the future of computing, Google and Microsoft.

For the publishing and content market, this is a potential game-changer if not a wake up call. Any Internet property that relies on ad revenue may be affected. At the very least, they need to figure out other sources of revenues.

For me, I found myself loving the Reader feature very very much as it makes it easier for me to concentrate and see how long the article or post really is without the trappings of modern Web payout like videos, ads, and other miscellaneous links that are not pertinent to the article.

Note: I can't wait to see if this makes it into iOS 4 or not.


-- Post From My iPad

iPhone 4 Possible on T-Mobile? Need Someone With Tech Understanding To Clear This Up

Is it possible for the iPhone 4 to get 3G speed on T-Mobile's network? We'll need someone with technical or expert engineering skillz on this one.

Towards the end of the WWDC 2010 keynote today, I kept hoping Steve Jobs would tell us about this "one more thing" in stored for us. That one more thing being that the iPhone 4 is coming to all the other networks in the US. At the very least, given that T-Mobile uses GSM as does ATT and my current network, I had hope that to be the case.

No go. The disappointment was not as acute as the Lakers loss last night but it weighed in me a bit into the afternoon. So this is what I tweeted:

iPhone: no iPhone for T-Mobile...sniff, sniff, sniff...AT&T, guess I'm gonna have to be your bitch...

T-Mobile tweeted me back about myTouch Slide. Right. iPhone 4 or myTouch. I am not that stupid.

So I trolled the Internet for more details and I came across an interesting comment about the iPhone 4 and T-Mobile's HSPA+ network. A couple of things happened.

On MacNN, the FCC page for iPhone 4 stated it is now a five-band phone. Penta-band? Anyway, none of the frequency is the 3G frequency used by T-Mobile's 3G network. 1700Mhz.  That's the end of the story, ain't it? Well, maybe not.

And this is where we need someone who knows what ins-and-outs of 3G technology and how everything works.

Over at TAUW, I read a post about the iPhone's new world-phone ability.  It's the exact same topic as the MacNN post except, now, read the 3rd commenter.  An astute observer no doubt who pointed out that the new HPSA+ network currently being deployed by T-Mobile in select markets but will be coming to more than 200 million users uses many of the frequency supported by iPhone 4.

The evidence is the Web Connect modem being sold by T-Mobile, which supports 850, 900, 1800, 1900, and 2100Mhz.  No mention of the current 1700Mhz that the current T-Mobile 3G network is running on.

And the iPhone 4?  It supports 850/1900Mhz in the US and 800/900/2100Mhz in the internaitonal realm.  Like the reader, MacNN pointed out the lack of support of the new iPhone 4 for 1700Mhz but not what the T-Mobile HPSA+ network and iPhone 4 both support.

Does this mean anything?  See why I am hoping someone with wireless engineering backgrounds can help us out.

Will the iPhone 4, officially or otherwise through unlocked means, support T-Mobile's fast 3G network?  Does this also mean that the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS will soon run on T-Mobile's 3G network?

If this is the case, there could be another positive possibility.  That being that the iPad will also run on T-Mobile's HPSA+ network as well.

FaceTime Versus iChat Video

By now, you're pretty familiar with FaceTime.

If not, FaceTime is a new video chat feature on the iPhone that uses the frontal VGA camera on the iPhone. Here's my question.

Does it work with iChat? If not, why not? Should Apple make it work with the iChat?

I can understand if Apple won't make it work with the iChat until the next OS X update but eventually Apple should.

It will really make the whole platform more compatible as well as signal Apple's support for the open source protocols used to make iPhone video chat possible.

I suppose it is possible Apple may update iChat before the next OS update. However, given Apple's past update behavior, it isn't likely. Plus, by bundling FaceTime compatible iChat with the next OS, people will be forced to upgrade en mass.

Right now, I also want to know if it's possible for non-iPHone 4 users to install the FaceTime app as well. I know the other iOS devices have no frontal camera but at least the might be able to participate on the receiving end of the video chat. Then again, given Apple's behavior in this respect, it's not likely going to happen.

Apple is like to force everyone else to upgrade their iOS devices if they want to be a part of any video calls.

But hey, one can hope.

More at Apple - FaceTime.

Apple Video Demo For Facetime, Video Chat App For the New iPhone

Facebook is the new video chat app for the iPhone 4. Here is a demo of what it can do.



Note that users can toggle between the frontal and back camera. Brilliant. A reporter's dream if you ask me.