iPhone Info Blog

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?

Austin News AT&T, eligibility, iphone 3g s, pricing, subsidized, upgrade

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.

Austin News AT&T, iphone 3g s, mms

During the keynote this morning, it was announced casually that AT&T would not be supporting MMS until later this summer and no public plans for tethering plans at this moment. AT&T responded to these complaints and released the following statement:

Regarding MMS:

We absolutely will offer MMS on iPhone 3G S in late summer once we complete some system upgrades that will ensure our customers have the best experience with MMS.  These upgrades are unrelated to our 3G network.  When MMS is ready, we will let customers know.

Regarding offering a tethering plan:

We plan to offer one but we don’t have an announcement to make at this time.

Joe Chandler Executive Director AT&T Corporate Communications

If AT&T is nice enough, they’ll hopefully release MMS capability for free including them as SMS messages. Beta users (for the most part) have been using MMS and tethering flawlessly without paying extra fees, only having the ability to send/receive these messages on their account.

Would you pay extra for MMS? Or how about a tethering plan? I have a feeling many users will be resorting to jailbreaking and altered carrier files for these features.

Austin News announcement, AT&T, mms, tethering

Tuaw received an anonymous tip stating that AT&T’s support website will update their web form by adding “iPhone Video” as one of the choices when choosing a handset model.

The site currently has the Original iPhone and iPhone 3G as available options, so we’re assuming this pictures was taken of a screenshot or unpublished web content set to go live after the next-generation iPhone release. Similar from the pictures we received yesterday of unpublished content on Apple’s web development server. Click the image to see the full size photo.

This morning we received another rumor that new model placeholders have begun appearing in an retailer who resells iPhones, Carphone Warehouse. In those images, the models were named “V3″, which could essentially stand for “Video” or “Video 3G”. Other retailers have also seen new inventory placeholders and end of life notices for the current 3G model.

Austin Rumors AT&T, iphone video, Next Generation, v3

We’ve discussed it before, but now it’s final – AT&T is upgrading their network to HSPA 7.2. AT&T has already claimed to being the fastest 3G network, and Computerworld has recently confirmed it, it’s time they take that even further.

The upgraded network platform could allow for theoretical peak speeds of 7.2Mbps.

The upgrade to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 is only the beginning for AT&T’s plan for delivering the best mobile broadband service. They plan to transition into a 4G LTE network in early 2011, which would provide even faster speeds. AT&T upgraded their EDGE platform just before the 2G was first released, and their 3G network was released just before the iPhone 3G came out, it’s no surprise that they’re beginning upgrades just before the next generation iphone is released.

Austin News 3g, 7.2, 7.2mpbs, AT&T, upgrades

Today we saw multiple leaks from a few mobile providers, further confirming the 32GB speculation rumors. First we had T-Mobile Austria, Vodafone Australia, and finally our very own AT&T.

After the original iPhone was prematuraly posted by T-Mobile Germany two years ago, it comes as now surprise that content was leaked. Whether this was made live before it was finished or authorized, or an honest accident, it seems that there is a definite 32GB on it’s way.

Shortly after T-Mobile Austria posts their iPhone 32GB SKU, Vodafone Australia presents an End of Life (EOL) on the iPhone 16GB. What’s interesting is there is now EOL on the 8GB, strictly it’s larger counterpart. Perhaps Apple will keep a 8GB model as well as a 32GB handset

Lastly we have our third carrier leak of the day from our very own AT&T. According the above leaked document AT&T is offering to take in your (yet non-existent) 32GB iPhone and give you $335.00 towards last year’s Blackberry Bold.

So what does this mean? Is a 32GB iPhone imminent for release during this year’s WWDC? There’s only a few more weeks to go til’ that wonderful Tuesday comes around, we’ll have to wait to see what they reveal.

Austin News 32GB, AT&T, iPhone, leak, vodafone

Need more evidence that Apple and AT&T are taking proper measures against the imminent Palm Pre release? Above is a leaked internal document that has been circulating AT&T for employees to learn-up on iPhone vs Pre points; obviously favoring the iPhone.

The table does include some facts that Pre fans may find disputable, but most are definite facts that no fan – iPhone or Pre – can deny. Below are some of the more notable points made:

• The iPhone features a “thinner, lighter, bigger screen; metal and glass design” whereas the Palm Pre sports  “plastic casing”.
• The iPhone App Store features over “25,000 Apps” while the Pre has an “Unproven App Catalog app store”.
• The iPhone has a “Patented Multi-Touch screen” and “Fast and responsive navigation” and the Palm Pre “Touchscreen control gestures not intuitive”.
• The iPhone sports “Global GPS; aGPS for maximum speed, accuracy and reliability even in built-up areas” leaving the Pre unable to “Receive map updates or location assist information in most of the world due to lack of GSM capability”.

So does AT&T see the Palm Pre as a threat? Why else would the circulate this graph around their internal network? Perhaps they were simply just stating the facts, but AT&T is definitely seeing competition and threat from the Palm Pre release, if that wasn’t obvious already.

Austin News apple, AT&T, palm, pre

AT&T’s Vice President, Scott McElroy confirms that the US provider is undergoing various upgrades resulting in an increase of data speeds up to two times it’s current capacity. The plan is to upgrade the HSPA network speeds and eventually venture in to HSPA+. The speed increase will upgrade the downlink capacity on it’s high-speed packet access (HSPA) from 3.6 megabits per second to 7.2 mb/s through software upgrades at each base station.  The next generation iPhone is rumored to feature hardware able to support these speeds, giving the handset full advantage of these network upgrades.

AT&T could technically upgrade their network to 14.4 mb/s, however will be skipping that option at the moment due to technical problems and a stronger focus on upgrading the network’s backbone. Simultaneous upgrades to the network’s backbone are being performed in order to handle the increased traffic resulting from its network upgrades. The next generation coupled with these upgrades is going to be blazing fast! Technology just keeps getting better and better.

Austin News AT&T, hardware, hspa, software, upgrade

With new iPhone models to be released in under a couple months, Apple has began pushing the current inventory out the door.  In February, AT&T stores began selling refurb 8GB for $99, as well as the 16GB version for $200. The 16GB refurbs were bumped down to $150 in certain regional stores during March, so it looks like Apple has buckled down and getting ready for the next release.

The refurb model is currently available in black and white for purchase on AT&T’s online store. As usual, a two-year agreement is required and purchases are limited to one per household. If you don’t mind buying a refreshed model and would like to save some money, this would probably be the deal for you.  That is of course, if you’re not waiting anxiously for the third-generation iPhone to be dropped this June.

AT&T online store

Austin News 16gb, 8gb, AT&T, iPhone, Refurb

The recently changed wireless terms of service banning video streaming and P2P activity caused an uproar among AT&T customers.  The company sent Engadget the following statement retracting the new TOS:

The language added on March 30 to AT&T’s wireless data service Terms and Conditions was done in error. It was brought to our attention and we have since removed it. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Chalk a win on that battle for the consumers!

Austin News AT&T, mistake, retract, terms of service, tos