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iPhone Will Receive A SlingPlayer Feature

Apple’s World Wide Developers’ Conference, also known as the WWDC, brings its first set of news, as Sling Media which produced the Slingbox, is currently developing a SlingPlayer Mobile version which will be used by the iPhone for streaming media.

The Slingbox is a TV streaming device controller that uses the Internet to offer its users complete access to their TV sets from any location. The device can display through the Internet any live or prerecorded TV program. Users control the channels with the help of an on-screen remote found at the bottom of the screen.

The announcement didn’t come as a big surprise as several versions of the SlingPlayer Mobile have been already introduced for Macs, PCs, WinMob, Palm and Symbian.

During the WWDC, visitors will get a glimpse of the new service in development with some live demonstrations made by the SlingPlayer Mobile on the iPhone and on the iPod Touch. Apple’s products will be connected to several Slingboxes through a Wi–Fi network and play back videos.

According to Sling’s executives, the iPhone offers a large screen of very good quality and it also, for now, features the best graphics and processor specs on the smart phone market, turning it into one of the best platform options for their development process.

The new software will be developed and distributed through the iTunes App Store. An official release date has not yet been announced, but more information is expected to follow over the next few months.

AT&T is Selling 3G iPhone Only in $199

No doubt about it. The iPhone's been a major success for Apple, in spite of its steep price tag. If recent reports are correct, however, the upcoming next-generation 3G iPhone may cost AT&T customers less than half of the original.

Today, you must pay full price for an iPhone, as AT&T does not subsidize the purchase of the device, as it does with many of its other smartphones. That's $400 for the 8GB model and $500 for an iPhone with 16GB of storage.

The 3G iPhone, with much faster cellular-wireless data networking, is due to ship this summer for the same prices and storage capacities as today's models. However, according to Fortune, the carrier plans to subsidize the cost of buying the new and improved iPhone considerably

Sign on the dotted line for two years of service and you'll be able to get an 8GB 3G iPhone for only $200 and a 16GB edition for $300.

At those prices, the iPhone should do even better than it has already, as those who've held off from getting one because of the steep price tag may finally take the plunge and buy one.

Fortune also reports that the new iPhone should integrate GPS to better support location-based services than today's iPhone's cell-phone-tower triangulation method. And, in spite of the addition of 3G and GPS, the new iPhone models will be a little thinner than the original, dropping to only 9.2mm thick from 11.7mm.

Not bad.

Apple sold over 4 million iPhones in 2007, shipped 1.7 million the first quarter of 2008, and is on track to reach its goal of selling 10 million units this year. The company extended the iPhone's reach to Austria and Ireland during that time period as well.

In June, Apple will release iPhone software update 2.0, which, in all likelihood will be included in the next-gen iPhone. This upgrade will feature the iPhone App Store, where users will finally be able to wirelessly download official native software directly to their iPhone, over a Wi-Fi or cellular connection. You'll also be able to side-load programs through iTunes.

The new iPhone firmware, which will cost iPod touch users a nominal fee, will also introduce a host of additional new features, including a number to make the iPhone more enterprise friendly; such as the integration of Microsoft ActiveSync technology to support push e-mail calendaring, and contacts, as well as global address lists and remote wipe in an enterprise environment.

The iPhone continues to be a boon for AT&T. Apple's U.S. partner netted 1.3 million new subscribers to reach a total of 71.4 billion wireless customers and grew profits by 22 percent to $3.46 billion last quarter.

iPod survey is open

The iPod survey is back up and running, please take a minute or two to share your thoughts on the iPod if you haven't already.

Due to an overwhelming response yesterday in just a few hours, we had to close our iPod survey before we could upgrade to a larger account that permits more responses. We got nearly 1,000 responses in 3 hours, which was far more than I anticipated when I signed up for the basic account. Thanks to PollDaddy.com for helping us get back up and running this morning.

The idea is to gather some information on how News.com readers are currently using their iPods, or any MP3 players, in preparation for a story next week about the future of the iPod. We've spent a lot of time over the past six months talking about the iPhone and the Mac, so it's high time we take a look at the device that is perhaps most responsible for Apple's success this decade.

Apple Riding a 51% Jump in Mac Sales

Signs of a consumer slowdown abound in the United States, but Apple customers appear not to have noticed.

Buoyed by unusually strong Macintosh sales, the company grew notably faster than the rest of the computer market worldwide in the first three months of the year. Revenue increased 43 percent from the same period a year ago, the company reported. Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, characterized the quarter as the strongest in Apple’s history.

He attributed the growth to higher traffic in the company’s 181 stores in the United States. The company reported that it had 33.7 million visitors to its stores in the United States, up 57 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Mr. Jobs said that belied the gloom that was being expressed about the American economy.

“We’re not economists, so we don’t have any more insight than everyone else, but there were sure a lot of people in our stores last quarter,” Mr. Jobs said in an interview.

Despite new products like the iPhone, variations of the iPod and the Apple TV set-top box, this was a Macintosh quarter. Apple shipped 2.3 million Mac computers in the quarter, 51 percent more than in the quarter a year ago. Revenue on those computers increased 54 percent.

But it also said it sold 10.6 million iPods during the quarter, flat with the year-ago quarter. Analysts said iPod sales were within their expectations and that it was a sign that the product category was maturing,

“The big question was, would Apple really feel the pinch from a weakening U.S. consumer? And the somewhat unequivocal answer was, no, not yet,” said A. M. Saggonaghi Jr., a senior analyst at Bernstein Research

Apple said that net income in its second quarter rose 36 percent from the year-ago quarter, to $1.05 billion or $1.16 a share, on revenue of $7.51 billion.

The results far exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts. They had expected $1.07 cents a share and revenue of $6.96 billion, according to a survey of analysts by Bloomberg.

The company, based in Cupertino, Calif., also forecast strong sales in the coming months. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, said the company expected third-quarter revenue of about $7.2 billion and earnings of about $1 a share.

Apple’s stock has declined 17.9 percent since the beginning of January when it peaked near $200 a share. After drifting below $120 a share, the stock has begun to recover since March. Shares on Wednesday closed up, rising $2.69 to $162.89, but then declined 26 cents, to $162.63 in after-hours trading over concerns that Apple’s profit margins were weaker than analysts expected.

If there is a weak spot in the company’s battle plan, it may be the iPhone smartphone, which has had stellar sales in the United States, but has showed weakness in Europe. Apple said it sold 1.7 million iPhones for the quarter. “In my mind iPhone sales were soft,” said Charles Wolf, a financial analyst at Needham & Company. “It’s a question of the distribution model and of the price. The price clearly has to come down.”

Apple’s executives said the sales of iPhones exceeded internal company projections during the quarter.

Analysts and the industry are expecting Apple to introduce a higher performing version of the iPhone within the next two months, made for faster 3G data-oriented cellular networks. Mr. Jobs is under pressure to meet his 10 million iPhone sales forecast by the end of 2008. To meet that goal the company needs a second-generation iPhone, and it may also need to push the price of the existing $399 iPhone down significantly or introduce a stripped-down model.

Analysts have said that as the second quarter progressed, demand for Apple’s iPhone increased and that the computer maker was unable to keep up with demand. The supply issue could have been affected by the limited availability of 16-gigabyte flash memory chips, Mr. Wolf speculated.

He said that the more interesting story for the quarter may be the gains that Apple is making in PC market share, predominantly in the laptop computer segment.

International Data Corporation’s survey this month showed Apple with a 6 percent share of the American market in the first quarter, compared with 4.9 percent a year ago. Apple’s strong Macintosh growth comes as Microsoft struggles with its Windows Vista operating system, which was released last year to largely critical reviews. “I think people are really noticing the difference between Mac OS X and Windows to a greater degree than ever before,” Mr. Jobs said. “The more people understand that there is an alternative, the more people are choosing a Mac.”

On Wednesday, Apple confirmed that it had acquired PA Semi, a Silicon Valley chip company with expertise in low-power microprocessors, an essential technology for future iPhones. Forbes.com first reported the acquisition, which it said was for $278 million in cash. Neither company disclosed the amount of the deal.

The chip maker had originally hoped to supply Apple with chips intended for a microprocessor used in earlier Macintosh computers and by I.B.M. However, when Apple began using Intel microprocessors for the Macintosh, PA Semi was left without a major customer.

The decision to buy PA Semi is likely to be a blow to Intel, which recently introduced a new low-power chip called Atom.

Fring WiFi VoIP Enabled Iphone - Apple

Apple iPhone can now be used for VoIP by using Fring's Mobile WiFi application.
iPhone users can discover the VoIP freedom of being able to take their Fring contacts and buddies from other favorite communities on their mobile devices. They can also make free and low cost mobile cell phone calls over WiFi.

Fringland Ltd announced on Wednesday that it has launched the world's first mobile VoIP application to be made publicly available for the Apple iPhone.

The new application will allow users to talk, chat and interact with other Fring users, known as Fringsters, and participate in online social communities by using their Apple iPhone WiFi connection.

A pre-release is available, developed in conjunction with Holon Institute of Technology academic research labs in Israel. The pre-release version is designed to allow users to learn about the Fring experience and to offer initial feedback before the full release. The full version is scheduled to be launched later this year.

Apple iPhone users can discover the freedom of being able to take their Fring contacts and buddies from other favorite communities on their iPhones. They can also make free and low cost mobile cell phone calls over WiFi. Fring also provides a live instant message chat with user online contacts.

Since early 2008, Fring has been experiencing growth in excess of 100,000 new users per month across more than 180 countries worldwide. Fring aimes to spread its application to as many mobile cell phone users as possible.
Source: newsoxy.com








Fring was first launched in February 2007 and actively allows users to knowingly communicate with each other and with contacts from Skype, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo and AOL AIM.

Formal talks over iPhone launch in China mobile market

China, one of the world's fastest-growing cell phone market, was expected to have nearly 600 million people using mobile phones this year.

China Mobile has not started formal negotiations with Apple Inc. over the iPhone, despite the intention of both sides to cooperate.

Details about issues such as business models and commercialization have prevented the companies from entering formal talks. No time frame was available either at the moment, China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said on the sidelines of 2008 conference of the Boao Forum for Asia on Saturday in China's southern Hainan Province.

"Our door will remain open as long as there is customer demand," said the head the country's largest cell phone carrier during a panel discussion on the sustained growth and development of the telecom industry.

Apple launched its iPhone -- a hand-held device that combines a mobile phone, a wide-screen iPod and an Internet device into one -- in the United States in January 2007. It planned to launch it into the Asian market this year.

Wang said China Mobile subscribers currently totaled more than 380 million, nearly 30 percent of the country's total population. The number had been expanding six to seven million per month, mostly fueled by consumers in the rural areas, he added.

He foresaw a robust future for the telecom industry, both at home and globally, as mobile communications were a "consumption of low energy" and a stimulus for other products such as mobile music.

More than 200 million China Mobile users have used their phones to download music or songs, he said.

China, one of the world's fastest-growing cell phone market, was expected to have nearly 600 million people using mobile phones this year.
Source: mathaba.net