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?

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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.

How does the video look to you?

Austin General Discussion iphone 3g s, video, youtube

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Check after the break for a full gallery

Read more…

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A user on the iTalkiPhone forums has posted a method which allows you to bypass Apple’s online contract sign-up while purchasing a new iPhone. Apparently over a dozen users have already purchased contract-less iPhone by using this method.

It doesn’t give you the subsidized price of $199/$299, or anything different than a regular iPhone, but it does get you a phone with no contract agreement. For users looking to buy a new iPhone to use on a another service provider without the hassle of signing up and canceling an AT&T plan, this would be a good option.

We’re still not sure if orders placed using this method will actually ship or if Apple will be able to tell which orders were placed through this method and hit the cancel button. We’re also not condoning this, and have only placed the link for recreational and entertainment purposes.

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As usual, Apple is being very secretive about releasing the iPhone 3G S processor specification, but T-Mobile Netherlands seems to feel the exact opposite. They posted up a specs page revealing the new iPhone 3G S to have 256MB of RAM and a 600MHz CPU.

These new increases are up from 128MB and 412MHz that were in the first-generation and 3G iPhone. The 3G S also has the new PowerVR SGX graphics chip that supports OpenGL ES 2.0, so the total speed increase will most likely be more than that of the clock speed. This new speed boost coupled with Open GL ES 2.0 should provide a vast realm for developers and their future applications. Once we get our hands on one, we’ll be able to find it’s true potential.

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The months before the WWDC Keynote 2009 produced many third-generation iPhone rumors, including a largely known one: A Matte back casing. Quite a few leaked images of this alleged matte backing were leaked onto the internet and looked nearly identical to the iPhone 3G back. Apple released the iPhone 3G S on Monday with a case that is physically identical to that of the iPhone 3G, so were the leaked images fake?

Apparently not.

The leaked matte casing was clearly marked with a new model number A1303 and FCC ID BCGA1303A. Based on the official records released yesterday, the FCC ID is exactly the same as the newly released iPhone 3G S:

It looks as though a faker got lucky in guessing the new model number and FCC ID’s or Apple’s original plan was to produce a matte case, which may have fell through last minute. We’re not sure exactly, but we seem to believe that it was the latter, and the leaked case images were clearly produced by Apple.

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MacDailynews has discovered that Apple gave the new iPhone 3G S a small bump in screen specs. We’re not talking OLED or screen resolution, but a new solution to combat finger smudges on the iPhone display. According to the iPhone Cleaning How To:

If your iPhone has an oleophobic coating on the screen (iPhone 3G S only), simply wipe your iPhone’s screen with a soft, lint-free cloth to remove oil left by your hands and face.

It looks as though Apple received enough complaints on the smudges during iPhone use. You can now tap away in a smudge-free environment!

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