After much thought and many complaints from AT&T customers, AT&T has gone ahead and changed the eligibility for their best upgrade pricing to the iPhone 3G S. When the iPhone 3G S eligibility rules were released, current iPhone 3G customers were taken back and began complaining against the upgrade prices of $399 and $499. Customers who previously would not have become upgrade eligible until July, August, or September of this year, will now qualify for AT&T’s lowest upgrade pricing starting tomorrow, making them eligible to purchase the iPhone 3G S at $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB).
We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.
The updated eligibilty tools will reflect this change on June 18th. If you’ve already pre-ordered an iPhone 3G S, the price of the device will be adjusted when picked up, or credit will be given for the difference in price. If you still aren’t eligible for our best upgrade pricing and you still want iPhone 3G S now, you do have options:
You may qualify for the iPhone 3G S early upgrade price of $399 (16GB) or $499 (32GB).
You can pay full retail—and not have to sign a 2-year contract—at $599 (16GB) or $699 (32GB).
Users can check their upgrade eligibility status by visiting AT&T’s iPhone page, calling *NEW# on their AT&T handset, or visiting any AT&T store. Remember, the new pricing will not appear in the eligibility tools listed until Thursday, June 18th.
So will these changes encourage you to go buy an iPhone 3G S. Do you plan on waiting in the lines this Friday or will you wait for the crowds to die down?
After months of beta testing, and a preview and release date set during WWDC last week, the anticipation over 3.0 has continuously been growing. It’s been a long week (Besides the developers who got the GM June 8th) waiting for the 3.0 firmware to drop. June 17th has finally come and the 3.0 firmware is now available for download via iTunes or a direct download.
Some major features included is this release include: Cut, Copy & Paste, Landscape Keyboard, MMS, Spotlight Search, Voice Memos, Improved Calendars, Internet Tethering, and much more!
So plug in your phone, hit that update button, and enjoy the wonderful features of 3.0!
iFun.de has posted the above video of what is said to be some of the first iPhone 3G S to direct YouTube upload from the handset. We’ll be seeing many more iPhone 3G S videos pouring in for the next few weeks as customers get their hands on a unit.
Dev-team member, Musclenerd, sent out a tweet earlier today about an upcoming live demo of the Yellowsn0w unlock for iPhone 3.0. The live demonstration will showcase their iPhone 3g carrier unlock this Tuesday, and should answer many questions.
The dev-team also state that a final iPhone 3.0 jailbreak that will work with iTunes 8.2 is in the final stages of testing and should be available very soon. Stay tuned on iPIB for a link to the live video stream tomorrow, or follow @MuscleNerd on Twitter for updates.
Marco.org wrote up an excellent article regarding the absence of a Q&A session during WWDC 2009:
The last session of WWDC ‘09 yesterday was about publishing on the App Store. The content of sessions is under NDA, so I can’t tell you what it was about. So I’ll tell you what wasn’t in it: the audience Q&A session that succeeded nearly every other WWDC session and usually provided invaluable access to Apple employees and useful additional knowledge to attendees. The session itself blew through its lightweight examples quickly, ending 45 minutes early. The majority of the audience was clearly there for the Q&A. As people lined up at the microphones around the room, the presenter abruptly showed a simple slide with only “WWDC” in plain lettering, thanked us for coming, and bolted off the stage. The Apple engineers, usually staying around the stage for one-on-one questions, were gone. The lights came up instantly, and it was the only session that didn’t end in music. The audience was stunned.
In the previous WWDC events, the only time a keynote has not seen a Q&A session is when they run out of time. In this specific case, they chose this direction because the App Store team realize what questions and scrutiny would be brought upon them and were unwilling to face these facts.
After AT&T announced that MMS would be available later this summer the main question arose – Will there be an extra charge for the MMS service? The answer is no:
Later this summer, as part of the 3.0 software, AT&T will make multimedia messaging (MMS) available at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle.
Now that AT&T has confirmed that MMS will be coming to the iPhone free of charge, the second question is – When exactly is “Later this summer”? There’s no definite answer at this moment, but it could be June 19th, or even week before we enter the Fall season. We have a feeling it’s coming sooner than you think.
Many customers who previously pre-ordered the iPhone 3G S are reporting that Apple has began dispatching emails stating that the orders have began shipment. By the UPS tracking numbers provided, it appears the handsets are coming from Shenzen China and will arrive at households no later than Friday, June 19th.
Orders made through AT&T are appearing as “In Progress” on customers’ order status pages and have been assigned tracking numbers via UPS, however they have not been shipped out yet. They are most likely coming from the same location and will arrive by this Friday. If you ordered on or after the following Saturday of the Monday release, orders may not be shipped out until after the 19th. Because AT&T sold out of iPhone 3G S pre-orders over this weekend, those that wish to purchase an iPhone will have to do so in-person at local Apple and AT&T locations.
Also, make sure you are present to sign for the delivery or contact Apple or UPS to sign in advance in allowing them to leave the device at your door. If not you’ll be waiting until Monday or have to drive to your local shipping bay to pickup your package. Not exactly something you’d like to do when anticipating this major release.
Swedish site Dreamfeld.se posted an awesome video featuring the iPhone OS running on a 24″ display powered by a Mac Pro. We’re not positive if this truly is the real deal, but it’s a very interesting experience.
All I could think about while watching this demonstration was the idea of a Mac Tablet. We can only dream, right?
If you’re an iPhone developer, this quite possibly could be the best thing that came to hand drawn UI concepts since sliced bread. A stainless steel stencil kit with popular UI elements cutout from the center, all in the shape of an iPhone. It even comes with a Zebra mechanical pencil.
If you’re interested in this product and are one of the thousands of iPhone developers, you better get on this quick as they have only made 100 of these for $16.95. [Design Commission]
Engadget China has gotten their hands on a 32GB iPhone 3G S and released unboxing pictures into the wild. The new design looks just like the iPhone 3G (nothing new here) but includes new software like the Compass App (complete with re-calibration instructions), voice control, and many more. Unboxing pictures of new products is always exciting!
Recent Comments