TomTom car kit for iPhone to be extremely expensive
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TomTom says the new car kit for the iPhone will cost £99.99 for the hardware, while the app will be sold separately. That's right, the $99 app will not be part of the roughly $160 purchase, making the whole investment a nearly $260 experience, plus the investment for an iPhone.
Call us crazy, but we're thinking someone like Navigon is going to come along and actually give people what they want, at a price they wouldn't mind paying, instead of creating a product intended to avoid cannibalizing a current business.
Update: Apple has started carrying the TomTom cradle kit for $119.95.
Apple partners with China Unicom
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Update from Gregory Schultz: The Wall Street Journal reports that China Unicom will sell the iPhone 3G (sans Wi-Fi) on September 28, 2009. No word on the price.
We're hearing via 163.com, a Chinese portal, that Apple has partnered with China Unicom to bring the iPhone to the mainland. The phone will hit China with an 8GB version for about $365, though the WiFi will be disabled till it complies with the Chinese-developed WAPI security standard.
Smartphones are on the rise, but dumbphones dominate
We've seen some great choices for cell phones this year... on virtually all carriers. And whether you're into the Palm Pre, the iPhone 3GS, or any flavor BlackBerry, the era of smartphones that actually do what users want is finally upon us... but in our case "us" is a relatively small minority. 72% of phones sold are still dumb featurephones, according to NPD, and while that's not a huge shocker... what's preventing everyone from getting a truly smart phone? We ask Harry McCracken from Technologizer, and Jeremy Kaplan from PC Mag.
Guests:
Has the death of the GPS unit been greatly exaggerated?
Coming into this show, I was sure I'd hear phone aficianado Chris Ziegler from EngadgetMobile and HowStuffWorks.com guru Jonathan Strickland expound to me about how the iPhone will do everything, and how stand-alone GPS devices were the next gadget to fall to the iPhone's mighty app-store induced dominance.
But, much like sports, we do the shows for a reason.
Turns out, phone aficinados aren't necessarily sold on the idea of smartphone-integrated GPS-centric wonderment. For one, the new turn-by-turn Tom Tom application, which is the impetus of this whole conversation, costs $99– extremely close to the price of many bargain basement GPS units. And secondly, car drivers value the ability to be able to talk on the phone and use a GPS device at the same time without being interrupted. Two extremely right-on-the-money ideas, among the many that we talk about on the show, which you can watch right now.
Are you in love with the all-in-one device, or would you rather have two distinct devices for calling and navigating? Sound off in the comments.
Guests:
Apple makes 32% of all phone profits
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By maintaining higher profit margins than its competitors, Apple, despite being the fifth-largest handset manufacturer, actually makes nearly a third of the wireless industry's profits, according to Bernstein Research Analysts, as reported by AllThingsD. The analysts maintain if industry losses from Sony-Ericsson and Motorola are removed, Apple still makes up 25% of the industry's overall profits.
“Walk the Line” iPhone app tells you when you’ve had enough
Grolsch, a Dutch brewer, has developed an iPhone app that helps determine how badly the user's equilibrium has been affected by their products. Described as an entertainment-only app, "players" are encouraged to walk a straight line while holding their iPhones as level as possible, trying to keep a dot in the middle of an on-screen target. No plans yet for a U.S. release of the app.
iPhone 3GS will come to China sans WiFi
John Paczkowski reports that Apple has formally requested a network access license to sell the iPhone in China - with the WiFi feature disabled. While reasons for doing so have not been reported on, this an unsurprising move for a country treading its new democratic waters carefully. If indeed true, we can "expect it to come before the Spring Festival in 2010".
Apple updates online support for keeping iPhone “within acceptable operating temperatures”
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In a move that may or may not be in response to recent reports of iPhone 3GS overheating (and discoloration in the white models), a knowledge base article for iPhone 3G and 3GS was updated on June 25, 2009 and provides a screenshot of the iPhone screen that reads, "iPhone needs to cool down before you can use it". Apple recommends operating temperatures of 32º to 95º F.
iPhone carrier unlock “Ultrasn0w” released
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The DevTeam released its heavily anticipated carrier unlock for the iPhone 3.0 firmware early this morning. "Ultrasn0w" allows 3G and original iPhone users to make phone calls with any GSM SIM card rather than remaining "locked" to an official carrier. The software-based unlock comes less than six days after Apple's release of iPhone OS 3.0 but does not work with the recently launched 3GS handset.