We covered this subject more than a year ago - wondering when/if AT&T and Apple would work on accessibility issues with the iPhone. Turns out AT&T has responded with the TAP Plan.
It is intended for deaf people and other customers with a hearing disability, as a substitute for the phone’s normal voice bundles. Plans start at $40 per month and to get the service, customers must submit an application to AT&T’s National Center for Customers With Disabilities (NCCD).
Several of you have contacted me to point out that Fortune Magazine ran a piece saying AT&T would subsidize the next iPhone. This is a rumor. While Fortune has better sources than I do, nothing changes for me. A rumor is a rumor. So we’re checking with our sources. But I think there are some big holes in this story so, I wouldn’t count on a $200 3G iPhone just yet.
I’ve said it was Rogers all along - some of you argued - it’s Rogers and they’ve confirmed via a news release their intent to distribute the iPhone in Canada.
Here’s a link to the iPhone news release.
But let me save you a jump to their page because this is probably the shortest news release we’ve ever received at the Apple Phone Show…
“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the
iPhone to Canada later this year. We can’t tell you any more about it right
now, but stay tuned.”
That’s it. But it is a confirmation. There’s no mention of the Trademark problem that Apple has with Canadian-owned Comwave. I suppose Rogers is leaving that up to Apple since Rogers isn’t party to the suit.
We all have our sources. And I don’t know any blogger, podcaster or reporter covering the iPhone who will divulge their sources. I won’t either.
Sometimes sources are good; sometimes bad.
You can chalk what I’m about to say up to rumor or fact - it’s up to you. But 90% of it comes from trusted sources who have given me good information before.
Now maybe they believe what they are saying is true. And still they could be wrong. In the past, they’ve been right more often than not.
So here’s my iPhone 2.0 prediction…
The phone will be announced at WWDC in June. It won’t ship until later in the quarter. It will of course be 3G. It will be thicker than the previous version (All of you who said that a 3G chip set wouldn’t make the phone bigger were clearly off the mark on this.) and it will NOT be black. Most pundits are predicting a black iPhone, i.e., a black back on the phone rather than silver.
The phone will NOT have a GPS inside, but rather, will be configured to work with third party GPS devices attached to the phone through the docking port. There will be no 8-gig model. I have no other information, but I assume that means a 16-gig model only or perhaps we finally get the 32-gig phone.
The US price will be the same as the original iPhone.
You will not be able to replace the battery. Battery life will be about the same as the previous version. Given the addition of the 3G chipset, that is an accomplishment.
That’s it. That’s the end of my predictions because it’s the end of the information I have. How accurate will it be? We’ll find out soon enough.
Thanks to “Bodyguardz” (makers of protective skins for the iPhone) for supporting the Apple Phone Show, to get a 10% discount, use the coupon code “phoneshow”.
Episode 51 is available in the feed
Andy Ihnatko - From The Celestial Waste of Bandwidth and ≈The Chicago Sun Times
Chris Breen – Senior editor at Macworld
Show Notes - John Nutzman
Andy starts the show off by talking about taking pictures with the iPhone. The iPhone is the camera that Andy always has with him. Andy shares a few tips for taking better pictures with the iPhone.
1# Be aware of where the light is. The iPhone does not have a flash. Position the subject under the table lamp at a restaurant. Take pictures outside if possible, or near a window. A break through moment for any photographer is the day he or she masters the phrase, “Lets move over by the window and take the picture.”
2# Steady the iPhone on top of something. Turn a chair backwards and rest the iPhone on the backrest of the chair. Hold the iPhone against a wall.
3# Take a series of pictures. One picture in a series will be considerably better then some of the others, usually the second or third picture in a series. Control your breathing and concentrate on not moving the camera at all.
4# Ask your subject to be in front of something that has a background, say a wall or a tree, something that can reflect light. That will keep the subject of the photo from being lost in the black void of a non-descript background.
The above 4 tips are not iPhone specific tips, but the 5th is:
5# To help take self portraits with the iPhone, mark on the back where the shutter release button is on the screen side of the iPhone. This will eliminate the random poking of the screen while you try to find the shutter release button, which you can’t see because it is facing away from you. Andy suggests taking two rubber bands. Wrap one rubber band around the iPhone on the vertical axis of the phone so that it crosses the middle of the shutter release button on the screen. The other rubber band should go along the horizontal axis of the phone and also cross the middle of the shutter release button. The intersection point of these two rubber bands should be right in the middle of the button. This is true for both the front and back of the iPhone. Now, mark the intersection point with a dot, a sticker, or some other marking of your choice on the metal side of the phone. Now, you’ll have a handy reference point for where the shutter release button is when taking a self portrait.
Now that you have these pictures, what do you do with them? As with any camera phone, it is ideal to publish the picture to the internet directly from the phone. Andy recommends Flickr as the premier site for sharing pictures. Flickr allows you to post photos by email. Once signed up with an account, Flickr will provide a private email address that you can email pictures to. The subject line of the email becomes the title of the photo.
An alternative to Flickr is Tumblr. Tumblr is not specifically a photo site, but more of a micro blogging site. Tumblr allows posts via email as well. Tumblr allows more than just photos, so it might be a good choice if you want to share more than photos while you’re on the go.
A limitation of the iPhone is that whenever it emails a photo, it down samples the photo to 640 x 480 resolution, standard email attachment size. Flickr allows the photo to fill the full size screen. That is why it is important to be sure to connect the phone to your computer, dump the photos into your photo library and then share the photo from there in full resolution. However, it is a good idea to post the pictures by email directly from the phone for safe keeping, just in case the phone is lost or damaged before you have a chance to connect the iPhone to your computer.
Andy is hoping that better camera photo taking applications will be available from third party developers when the iPhone app store is released in June. In fact, Andy already has money set aside specifically for the first camera application that meets his needs. Andy has tried some of the applications that have been developed for jail broken iPhones, of which he has one. The unauthorized applications gives Andy all of the options he would like. The number 1 option is to manually adjust the exposure. You can fix poor exposure once the photo is on your computer, but you can’t fix blurry. Being able to adjust the exposure up or down provides a lot of options for taking better photos or photos that can be worked with once they are on the computer.
Another option the unauthorized application gives andy is a self-timer. A silly thing for a cell phone camera? Of course not. This would be another solution to taking a self-portrate. It will also help combat blurry images. When you touch the screen to take the picture, that does move the camera. After starting the self-timer, you could lock the camera down on the back of your chair, hold it against a wall, or secure the movement of the camera in some other way. Having the camera’s movement locked down will definitely help reduce blurriness.
There could be other features such as face recognition which would wait to take the picture until the subject is facing the camera. Another feature that would be nice is being able to directly upload to Flickr without having to email the picture. Andy has a long list of feature that he would like to see.
Reader email:
Steve Ludwick responded to last week’s show regarding keeping information secure on the iPhone. Right now, it is an all or nothing approach by enabling a password just to turn the unlock the phone. Steve reminded Andy about a software package called 1Password. 1Password has a clever solution for putting encrypted storage on the iPhone. 1Password is a desktop program for keeping passwords & other private information secure on the desktop. The developers of 1Password have come up with a cleaver way of using java bookmarklets to encrypt, decyrypt, and display private and secure information on the iPhone. The bookmarks contain java script for building a good looking, iPhone-like web application. In order to display the information on the iPhone, you select the bookmark from the list of bookmarks on the iPhone. Then, you must first type in a password to display the list of items that you can access, such as the username/password combination for a login to a website you are visiting. The information is stored directly on the iPhone and is not uploaded to a server somewhere on the inernet. 1password is not a free program, it costs $34.95 (Andy said about $40).
Chris takes over now to share the iPhone news:
Beta 4 of the iPhone SDK has hit the streets. The simulator application now supports OpenGL graphics which is important for gaming developers.
Code signing is now enforced on the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you don’t have a valid Apple assigned certificate you won’t be able to run software made by a developer on your iPhone. You will only be able to run the software in the iPhone simulator.
Italy is supposed to be getting a non-exclusive iPhone. Rome newspaper la Republica states that Telecom Italia has singed a non-exclusive iPhone deal to sell 3G iPhones in Italy. The phones will be more expensive in Italy due to the lack of revenue sharing that is part of the deal.
Apple sold more then 1.7 million iPhones in the most second quarter. This brings the total number of iPhones sold since it was released last June to around 5.7 million units. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Cheif Operating Officer Tim Cook said that they believe Apple is on track to sell the 10 million iPhone that Steve Jobs said they would before the end of 2008. This number includes the number of iPhones sold and is not limited to just those that have been activated. The number of phones sold but not activated are quite large, but Oppenheimer & Cook refused to comment as they could not share the exact number of phones sold that have not been activated.
That wraps up this week’s iPhone news.
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