iPhone Info Blog

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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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.

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Unless you’ve completely separated yourself from the internet, today was a huge day for iPhone feature updates in the new version of the iPhone OS, version 3.0. If you thought the 2.0 update was big, think again. Over the past week, rumors have been thrown back and forth, from website to website. Speculations about the features to be included in the 3.0 software began to ramp up a few days before the event, many of which came true (Kevin Rose’s speculations we’re spot on).

Apple showed off over 100 new features within iPhone 3.0, which also includes over 1,000 new APIs – something that will surely excite developers. The new version is currently available to members of the developer program, but will be released this summer for everyone else.

To give an overview of what was released we got, push notifications, cut/copy/paste/undo, landscape keyboarding, MMS, peer-to-peer connectivity, voice memoes, CalDAV / /ICS subs, embeddable maps, in-app purchases, search and Spotlight!

Enough of the small talk, let’s get into the vast amount of features!

Read more…

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Kevin Rose is back, and spouting (In a good way) the infamous rumors that he is known for. He discussed the anticipated rumors and spoke his mind for what he believed was to be included in the iPhone 3.0 update, during his live Diggnation show at SXSW. Kevin rose apparantly has trusted sources (within Apple?) and has pretty much been spot on in his previous speculations for the iPhone, iTunes, and iPod. Below are the following for which he said would be be included:

• Copy & Paste (as previously rumored)
• “Palm Pre” features

Kevin states the the Copy & Paste method of action will be very similar to how the magnifying glass text selection is currently used. The user will double tap the location where the source text is, which will zoom in providing them with a magnifier bubble with set of quotation marks. You can then drag these quatation marks around the block of text you’d like to select and be provided with the options to copy, paste, or cut. It is also reported that the update will bring us up to speed with the Palm Pre; which could be increased social networking, messaging, notifications, and even background processing. Click here to view the video of Kevin and Alex discussing these rumors with the audience.

Some features which he is unsure off or will not include:

• MMS – Unsure
• Video Recording – No

Rose has no comment on whether or not MMS will be included in the update, but he is definite that video recording ability will not be present. This is because of technical issues, as writing to frequently to NAND flash memory would burn it out.

So it appears that copy & paste will be the big contender in this update, as well as some goodies that may upgrade us towards “Palm Pre” features. With Kevin Rose’s history, do you think he’ll be right or wrong this time?

Tuesday is less than two days away, so be sure to check back to what we have to say about the iPhone 3.0 releases.

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Yesterday, we discussed that the event on March 17th would be previewing the iPhone OS 3.0. A few sites confirmed that Apple would be showing the new operating system as well as posting the text from Apple’s Invites. However, as we move closer to the event new speculations are coming in.

BGR as we said in yesterdays post claims to have heard that MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and tethering via Bluetooth of USB should be incorporated in the 3.0 update. The absence of MMS turned many people away from the iPhone since it’s launch. MMS would finally offer a solution for users to send and receive photos through SMS, and tethering to share your iPhone’s data connection with the iPhone.

John Gruber also brings forth some interesting points in his “guesses” about iPhone OS 3.0 back in January at Macworld.

As for what might appear in iPhone OS 3.0, here’s my wish list. First, a new home screen app (a.k.a. SpringBoard), designed from the ground up for a system where users have a few dozen or more extra apps installed. Managing dozens of apps on the iPhone today is simply a pain in the ass. Second, maybe an answer to the question of where the background notification API is — you know, the one we were told at WWDC to expect a few months ago, but which we haven’t heard a word about since. And maybe — pretty please, Mr. Forstall, with sugar on top — copy and paste.

Most of these features are what iPhone users have been swooning for over the last few years – especially Copy Paste. Apple promised Push Notifications back in September, which we will likely see in this new operating system. With a completely redesigned home screen, it may introduce new and innovative ways to manage the applications along with categories (perhaps something similar to the iTunes organization concept we posted a few weeks back?).

Additionally, there are reports that apple added support for magnetometers in in Snow Leopard’s CoreLocation framework.  This poses the opportunity of a digital compass, similar to the G1 Android.

So we have copy & paste, MMS, tethering, push notifications, and hopefully a new way to manage applications. Took Apple long enough! Anything else you’d like to see come out of this event?

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