flop ya mac out

An employee at Optus has confirmed to flop ya mac out that not only does he enjoy a good book, but more importantly the iPhone 3G when purchased ‘pre-paid’ style with the Optus network will be able to be unlocked for a fee of $80. The ‘post-paid’ plan iPhone will be able to be unlocked for free. Free! Free.

Of course once you are signed up on a two year contract, typically the only way to cancel your contract is to pay out the full term of your contract, which is likely to be more than a grand.

But given most of the Australian carriers will end up offering iPhone it seems, having an unlocked Phone may not be all that important? I guess it depends if we can sell them to China for a decent price!

Our delicious source also mentioned that Optus is designing special iPhone plans, which is to be expected, given the data requirements for using iPhone and the mostly shite data plans currently available. They are also apparently upgrading their Optus Zoo service.

Optus Zoo is the awesome name for their Intranet that allows you to do cool things that are too cool for me to use, so much so I have never bothered to see what the service really offers with my current Optus plan.

The new Optus Zoo service is reportedly going to have an ‘i’ tacked onto its name so that people will know the service is Apple-like and therefore a service you can show off in front of your grandma and friends and still get ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’.

‘iZoo’ sounds more like the noise you make when you sneeze and hopefully will remain invisible to Optus iPhone users that don’t wish to engage in their carrier specific offerings, how ever ‘Apple delicious’ they may be. Oh, stop it!

More information about plans is bound to be released leading up the release of iPhone 3G around the world in 22 countries on the 11th of July, so let us all pray the plans available to Australian users won’t be as painfully pricey as our broadband plans are!

UPDATE: Further details to hand…

• iZoo will be accessed via an icon on the home screen, that will give access to further services, such as a petrol pump finder that locates the cheapest petrol available near you, then guides you to it using GPS.
• Unlimited data with plans, with the option of an unlimited calls plan at the high end.

UPDATE 2: Optus iPhone 3G pricing now available here.

So what’s with the iPhone case on the demo iPhone’s at WWDC 2008?

My best guess is they are there because the iPhone can be a little slippery to hold. (So I’ve found. Though do I love the silver matte finish…) Perhaps the rubbery-looking case is simply there to prevent demo slippage?

Imagine the guy is showing off Sega’s Monkey Ball and whoops!! There goes the iPhone.

Has anyone seen this sorta case for sale?

We discuss the iPhone 3G, WWDC 2008 keynote and more, in flop ya mac out 38: post-wwdc banana milkshake.

After much deliberating, my manager and I who work as resellers in Melbourne (Australia) decided to be the first to break photos of 2.0. But can you really blame us??!

We can’t be penalised - we didn’t sign NDA’s anyway! Ha!

Enjoy!

Needless to say, the anticipation was killing us!

Oh, wow. Steve’s really done it this time…

iPhone 2.0 really does scroll like butter. Quick, somebody call me on it!

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Ha! A phone with a touch screen interface reported to contain a “2 megapixel camera, GPS, FM radio, EVDO Rev. A, 3-inch touchscreen (pressure-based), and microSD card slot… …measuring a 2.17 x 4.57 x 0.49 inches.”

Sounds like the new 3G iPhone. Perhaps. Sorta. Hopefully!

Well… It’s not. It’s Sumsung’s new “iPhone killer”. Stated in the video below, this thing is set to come out ib June. But will June be too late?

If this new version of the iPhone can deliver on most of the features above (as it really should have in it’s original incarnation - I mean no video recording - really!) then I think it’s pretty much still gonna shit all over the Instinct.

There’s no going past the iPhones sexy interface, and soon to be hundreds of applications and games to make the Apple touch platform the yummiest thing since a really yummy sandwich. That was surprisingly yummy in a rather non-sandwich way.

Sandwich goodness plus “seem-less” interoperability with the iTunes world of content is just part of what makes the iPhone a force to be reckoned with.

Fingers crossed for the WWDC keynote! Check out the promotional ad for the Instinct below. 

Within a number of hours, this ad could become extinct, irrelevant and just downright incorrect. And good laugh.

(via TUAW)

UPDATE: Well well well… Post-WWDC, it looks like Samsung, for now, will have the last laugh! That is unless Apple just wants to surprise us all with video recording capabilities closer to the release date of the new iPhone 3G!… 

“Tut tut tut, Apple” is all I can say…

iThink, therefore I am? I’m sure that’s been done to death, but let me demonstrate my current being in verse… 

If Jobs were not born

Apple products I could not yearn

I have me no lady

But I have a picture of you above my bed.

Steve Jobs, only because of you

Do I have something to look forward to

Come next Tuesday morn

I’ll wake not with a yawn

As I’ll wake at dawn

Not to surf porn

But I’ll open up Engadget and Macrumors too

To view the live reporting of the WWDC Keynote - Ooo!

Loins firm, eyes peeled for what I shall next consume

Sleepless night…

Sleepless night’o'joy.   

Like many owners of the current iPhone, I’m going “fuck it off” once I get my hands on some juicy 3G iPhone goodness! There-in lies a first world kind of dilema… What do I do with my “old” iPhone?

Do I simply place it back in its box, so that in years to come I can look up to that dusty mantle and comment to my grandson, gesturing with my smokey pipe,

“Fucking look at that son! No, up there on the mantle piece! Underneath the dust! See that box? Best box ever - ‘cept for your Grandma’s! Ha ha.. But seriously - listening to me now, eyes this way son - that young man, that, is an original Apple iPhone. Best piece of technology you could buy back in the day. It may look a little bulky nowadays, but believe me, that piece of beautiful art did more than just look pretty - it was a Phone, an iPod, an Internet communications device!…”

Perhaps I could give my old iPhone a new lease of life - a change of career if you will - and use it to shave with and drink beer from… Though no doubt people would stop hanging around with me at the bar, as I bragged about how this was to the my 15th beer I’d chugged from my iPhone, and could still whoop everyones arse at pool…

Perhaps I should just keep my old iPhone next to my bed, in case I have had too many real beers, and I can’t quite seem to pleasure that special someone I picked up tonight; that’s when I have the phone fully charged, with finger poised over the iBrate app…

Having a jailbroken iPhone could never be more important, could it Steve. 

Well, seems like I sorted out this problem with a little “diary entry” work. Thanks for listening guys. 

So let me just start by saying shit! I just discovered that NVidia (leader in the industry for graphics processors) is about to enter the world of mobile technology.

You may be thinking, well laptops have been around for ages, but no, they’re putting their world class graphics processors into a mobile phone… This phone doesn’t have a name as yet, but that will all come later.

The phone has been described as “iPhone busting” and yeah, we’ve all heard that before, only this time I’m a little scared. Here’s some specs courtesy of mobilementalism.com:

• ARM11 MPCore
• HD AVP (High Definition Audio Video Processor) 720p H.264, MPEG-4, and VC-1/WMV9 Decoder
• 720p H.264 and MPEG-4 Encoder
• Supports multi-standard audio formats including AAC, AMR, WMA, and MP3
• JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• ULP (Ultra Low Power) GeForce GPU
• OpenGL ES 2.0
• D3D Mobile
• Programmable pixel shader
• Programmable vertex and lighting
• CSAA support
• Advanced 2D graphics
• Up to 12Mpixel camera sensor support
• Advanced imaging features
• True dual display support
• 720p (1280×720) HDMI 1.2 support
• SXGA (1280×1024) LCD and CRT support
• Composite and S-Video TV output

That’s just the hardware. The bit that really made me shudder was when I saw a few videos of it’s User Interface. This one from YouTube shows the phones user interface and some of the Apps the phone may have. Runs as smooth as the iPhone would but it just incorporates a bit more 3D animation and rendering in it as well.

The other one that caught my eye was the one where the phone is being outputted to a high definition LCD TV. Check it out, the ability to morph videos and move them around while they play simultaneously, is pretty impressive.

So if there was ever anything that could rival the iPhone’s ‘yet to be seriously challenged’ form, this could be it. It has the specs, but what else can it offer us? And what does Apple have in store for us on June 9th?

All we can do is wait and see… I’m sure that fellow iPhone lovers are really hoping that Apple can pull out a can of whoop ass and do something incredible as some of this hardware is rivalling an entry level laptop… And that’s why we can’t breath until June 9th.

The Google Van, or a subcontractor for Google (similar as Skyhook in the U.S.) has been trawling the streets of Melbourne and beyond in preparation for a looming Australian iPhone launch.

Choosing ‘Locate Me’ in the iPhone Maps app now reads location settings from Wifi hotspots in and around the city, in addition to using Cell Tower Triangulation, giving yet another ominous sign that the iPhone is just that little bit closer to launch here.

Locate Me data is becoming increasingly more accurate right across the state, with readers reporting being located to their nearest street corner, as far out of Melbourne as Croydon.

Using Locate Me with Wifi turned off.

Using Locate Me with Wifi enabled.

Although iPhone firmware 1.1.4 unlocked does not automatically support the Map app’s Locate Me feature, it can be enabled by loading a 3rd party app Triangulation app first, which somehow tricks the iPhone into enabling the Triangulation service on the device.

How far out have you found Wifi Triangulation in Melbourne?

In this week’s podcast, Dan & Jase look at Apple crash reports, 3G iPhone rumours in Australia, and other businesses using Macs to promote their non-Mac products! Click here to listen with iTunes.

Just a quick thing that i found while i was cruising around the web recently. Samsung has just released a new phone which somewhat closely resembles that of our beloved iPhone - the Samsung F480.

Although the name is not as catchy, it does boast some features that Steve’s slaves are yet to plug into their shiny black box.

Some of the major points are that this handset is not only 3G capable but it also supports HSDPA. Now for those of you who don’t know, 3G can achieve speeds of around 2 Mbps - which is pretty fast. However HSDPA has a theoretical maximum speed of 14.4 Mbps! That’s a lot of porn.

Now one of the problems that Apple had with 3G chipboards was that they were power hungry (like their Government) hence one of the major reasons why they didn’t build them into the iPhone initially. But the F480 still manages to get around 300 hours of standby time, with all of its firepower going at its fullest! Where as the iPhone will only last around 250 hours.

Some other features include a 5 Megapixel camera with autofocus, flash and face detection, FM radio with RDS, expandable memory and also the ability to order a pizza when you’re hungry.

The thing that caught me the most was how closely it resembled the iPhone physically. The only difference being that there are three buttons at the bottom of the screen instead of just one.

Personally I have always taken a liking to Apple’s simplistic approach to design: if there’s more than one button, Steve will get John Mayer to play at Macworld again - OH SHIT! But i think that Apple has always excelled both in the design of the actual handset itself but also their user interfaces. Scroll down to the bottom of this GSM Arena review to view the video demonstrating the graphical interface of the phone and make up your own mind.

One figures that Apple do such a great job in their software design that they may not need lightspeed data transfer speeds (boom!) or a camera that can take pictures the size of a small truck. I personally think that all other mobile phone companies are trying to make up for lack of a good looking, easy to use UI in hardware specs. But when it comes down to it, i think that more people will be interested in how they can use their phone rather than what they can use it for. But hey, some of those features may be nice?

So will Apple do their usual thing and get a few leaps and bounds in front of everyone else by supporting things such as HSDPA and a bazillion megapixel cameras? Or will they do the smart thing and improve on what they are already great at?

Only time will tell…WWDC June 9-13. Be there… In front of your computer… watching the Keynote.

Channel Nine this evening ran a story on its 6:00 bulletin claiming that a “leading IT website” has announced that it is “Optus who won the battle to bring Apple’s iPhone to Australia.”

To add insult to injury, the image used by the Microsoft-affiliated Network Nine to compliment the story, depicted an iPhone running Windows XP. This was complete with Bliss background, windows taskbar, and Internet Explorer displaying the Ninemsn.com.au website. Apple’s Mail icon interestingly was been replaced by Parallels, a program used on the Mac to run Windows via a process called virtualisation. Nice.

Investigation shows that Cnet.com.au is the “leading IT website” that Nine is alluding to. Yet the article in question is no more conclusive than any of the other plentiful rumour websites. Cnet claims that “Optus is confirmed to be one of several Australian mobile service providers to be selling Apple’s iPhone.” This certainly isn’t what one might describe as ‘winning the battle’ for the iPhone.

The Sydney Morning Herald and later, SBS World News also jumped at the Optus story, providing little more details than Cnet, and just like Network Nine, failed to directly link to their source at Cnet.

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