Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The truth? No higher resolutions, or at least, not yet.
Rumour: possibly OLED screen (as sported by the Zune HD)
Truth: No OLED screens for Apple this year – maybe come the iPhone 4.0 in 2010
Rumour: a cheaper $99 model (still on a 2 year plan)
Truth: This one came true – the existing iPhone 3G 8GB will now be sold at US $99 on a two year plan, but the iPhone 3G S 16GB goes to $199, while the iPhone 3G S 32GB will sell for US $299.
Rumour: a faster 3G data speed.
Truth: Yes, the iPhone 3G can now connect to “7.2Mbps 3.5G networks”, making it much faster on the AT&T and Telstra 850MHz 3.5G networks, but Apple has left out 900MHz 3.5G network compatibility, which won’t help any carriers who are now rolling out 900MHz 3.5G towers in rural and regional areas to deliver much better signal strength than traditional 2100MHz networks can.
850MHz support as with the iPhone 3G is great for carriers with 850MHz networks, but bad for those without – I guess it’ll come in the iPhone 4.0 in 2010.
There’s also a landscape keyboard, in-program emailing and browsing, a cool new “voice control” feature that matches and potentially betters the voice control found on WinMo, Symbian, BlackBerry and other systems, a new remote wipe capability, easier remote “find my iPhone” capabilities, the ability to wirelessly download video as well as audio to the iPhone’s iTunes application, support for “turn-by-turn” third party GPS apps and plenty more.
So, the new iPhone is here, and it brings much needed speed improvements, all the many software improvements of iPhone OS 3.0 (like cut, copy and paste and plenty more), and even manages to bring lower iPhone pricing, albeit with the iPhone 3G, not the iPhone 3G S.
There’s still no front facing video camera, so no video calls or iChatting, no removable battery, no removable memory, no true multi-tasking, no tethering in the US with AT&T, and no Steve Jobs to tell us all about it.
But we’re still left with the world’s most advanced smartphone, the world’s easiest to use smartphone, one that’s “twice as fast” as its predecessor, one with double the memory, one with 50,000+ apps - and plenty more.
Given that Apple has committed itself to a yearly update cycle, it can’t include everything in 2009, or fewer will be tempted to buy any 2010 model.
There’s also still no “multi-touch” screens on the new MacBooks, despite Apple’s leadership in multi-touch glidepads.
Hopefully this too will be fixed in 2010 models, but at least Apple has really thrown down the gauntlet with OS X 10.6 upgrades for 10.5 users – at only US $29, this makes Microsoft’s “Best Buy” upgrades to Windows 7 look ridiculously expensive.
Thank you Apple for shaking things up yet again, but as always, the best is still yet to come!
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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