Apple Mac HQ

Were you holding out hope that T-Mobile would soon be able to offer the iPhone to its U.S. customers? I wouldn’t hold your breath for that wish. Nestled in a recent article by USA Today about AT&T was this little nugget of information:

“In exchange for its payout, AT&T got a year extension, into 2010, on its exclusive distribution deal with Apple, people familiar with the matter say.”

If you’re located in the United States, AT&T is your only choice for the iPhone until at least 2010. There is probably no contractual reason the exclusivity couldn’t be extended down the road either. If you’re AT&T and the revenue from iPhone customers is nearly double your average cell phone user, wouldn’t you want to protect those customers?

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you’re looking to upgrade your iPhone and are short on cash or don’t want to deal with the process of selling your 1st Gen iPhone, someone has come up with a solution. FreeiPhoneSwap.com will pay you via Paypal or check for your working iPhone. They are paying $150, $250, or $350 for your 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB iPhone respectively. Depending on your model, the iPhone 3G hardware would basically be free!

The NY Times recently published an article about FreeiPhoneSwap.com (FIS). FIS states on their website they “will re-cycle your old phone in a safe and environmentally friendly manner.” David Gallagher, the NY Times story author, rightly suspects they are not actually recycling your old iPhone. You can bet that “re-cycle your old phone” basically means they are selling them in China or another countries that do not have iPhone carriers. But if you get cash for your old iPhone and the phone doesn’t end up in a dump, it’s pretty much a win-win for everyone.

Disclaimer: I have not tried the FreeiPhoneSwap service so I cannot vouch for their credibility. The NY Times didn’t mention any scammy business practices however.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Ever since the App Store launched, I’ve been wondering how application updates would work. Today I found out.

As I opened iTunes when I got home, I noticed something new. There was a “1″ beside the Applications icon in my iTunes sidebar, much like the indications that you have new podcasts (see below).

Clicking the Applications icon takes you to a page showing the applications you have installed. In the lower right hand corner, you’ll see a link with a notification that you have X number of application updates available.

Click the link and you’ll be notified which applications have updates. Click the Get Update button, or the Download All Updates button, and the new version will be downloaded. The next time you sync your iPhone the updated application will be installed, or so I thought.

The process was going well until iTunes went to sync my applications. At that point I received the below error.

Even though the error seemed to indicate that the application wasn’t updated, a quick check of the application version on my iPhone indicates that it did update. It’s somewhat ambiguous to identify who is to blame for the error. Is it Apple or Evernote? Either way, I hope they work the kinks out of the process.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Apple issued a press release this morning stating they sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs in the first 3 days the phone was on sale.

Compare that to the 74 days it took to sell the first million of the first gen iPhone. The increased distribution certainly helped, but it’s still an amazing number.

Popularity: 9% [?]

What a day it has been for iPhone owners new and old across the United States. At 8AM in each time zone across the United States, the iPhone 3G was in the hands of Apple fans. And for some of them, the phone actually made calls. For countless others however, they left AT&T or Apple stores with an expensive paper weight.

Unless you’ve been underground for much of the day today, I’m sure you heard that Apple and AT&T had some “issues” with iPhone activations. In fact, that story is the headline story on CNN.com as I type this.

In addition to the activations by those buying the new iPhone 3G, anyone updating the 1st generation phone to iPhone 2.0 Software also had to reactivate their phone as part of the upgrade process. Can you guess the approximate time that the iPhone 2.0 Software was officially released? Yep, about 8AM EDT. But wouldn’t that make 6 million iPhone available for updating at the same time the entire East Coast was beginning their iPhone purchases? Why yes it would.

As you might have guessed, Apple ran into some problems. In fact, my iPhone experience went something like this:

9:15AM - “Oh, software 2.0 is out, I can update my 1st Gen iPhone now”.
9:45AM - “Sweet, iPhone 2.0 installed”
9:50AM - “This sure is taking a while”
9:55AM - we could not complete your iTunes Store request - error -9838; “That can’t be good”
9:56AM - “Crap, I can’t even use my phone!”
10:10AM - Ok, mass iPhone activation problems at home and at AT&T and Apple stores
1:15PM - “I should try again”
1:45PM - “OK, I’m giving up until I hear for sure that someone has actually gotten their phone activated”
4:15PM - “Zonks, my iPhone is activated and restoring from backup!”

So all total, about 7 hours of having an iBrick. I guess it could have been worse right? Not sure how but….ok, time for bed.

Popularity: 19% [?]

The wait is over, the iPhone 2.0 software has finally hit iTunes. iTunes 7.7 was released early Thursday morning, one of the precursors to iPhone 2.0. Earlier today, it was discovered that you could download the 2.0 software before it was available in iTunes. Then later, the App Store (iTunes link) went live in iTunes. Prior to upgrading, I already started downloading applications!  For those waiting (like me), you can now hit that Check For Update button and have your iPhone running the same software as the new iPhone 3G.

What are you waiting for? Update!

Popularity: 13% [?]

If you aren’t waiting in line for an iPhone but are curious about those who are, Engadget has got you covered. Witness their fantastic iPhone 3G international launch lineblog. The coverage started with New Zealand of course, the first iPhone toting country to reach 8AM.

Included in the blog are pictures and video from around the world. Engadget has notes/photos/video from New Zealand, Japan, Denmark, Belgium (where I was just a few weeks ago), US, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Spain, and The Netherlands. The pictures from the Netherlands are really good. It should also be noted that a reader reported that “absolutely no one is lined up anywhere in Vancouver, BC”. Apparently it’s not going so well in Canada, eh?

Popularity: 7% [?]