AT&T Won’t Charge Extra For MMS If You Have An SMS Bundle Posted by Jeff Morgan (06/23/2009 @ 1:09 pm) The only way I can think of AT&T making the wait for MMS worse would be charging customers extra for the service when it finally goes live. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be doing that…to everyone.
In the AT&T iPhone 3GS FAQ PDF the company states in plain language that MMS is coming soon “at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle.” That plain language leaves some room for interpretation, though. AT&T says they won’t charge you extra for the service, as in no extra fee for sending the messages. But how will they count against your SMS bundle count? If, say, you have the 200 messages plan, which costs $5 under AT&T, will each MMS count as one message, or will they dock your total more for sending videos of your son barfing on the dog? For now I’ll hope they don’t turn their MMS policy into a “credit” system, whereby they can alter how many credits you get charged per message. We already know that texting plans are a racket. Going to credits could send furious texters into a frenzy. Posted in: Apple, iPhone, Mobile Tags: at&t mms, att, att charge for mms, att sms, iPhone, iphone 3G, iphone 3gs, iphone mms plan, iphone sms, iphone sms plan, mms, mms on iphone
iPhone 3GS Blows Through 1M Units Over Debut Weekend Posted by Jeff Morgan (06/22/2009 @ 12:36 pm) It’s getting hard to quantify success of Apple’s iPhone. The iPhone 3GS was the quietest launch of the product line so far, yet they managed to go through a million phones in the first weekend alone, and without too many hangups.
There were some, though, and affected users are likely less than happy. Several new customers saw delayed activation, which may still take some time. Apple hopes to assuage their pain with $30 iTunes gift cards. Apple’s sales statement included words from Steve Jobs, who’s made headlines recently for his struggle with pancreatic cancer and a recent liver transplant. “Customers are voting, and the iPhone is winning,” Jobs said. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.” Jobs couldn’t be more right, though that could mean trouble for AT&T. Complaints about poor service due to network overload come in the thousands for the iPhone’s sole US carrier. The FCC also recently launched investigations into exclusivity contracts in the wireless market. There’s been no word from the Senate committee. Posted in: Apple, iPhone, News Tags: 3gs launch, 3gs release, 3gs weekend, Apple, apple iphone, iPhone, iphone 3G, iphone 3gs, steve jobs return
App Review: iShot Machine – Plenty Of Shots, Just a Few Bugs Posted by Jeff Morgan (06/21/2009 @ 2:49 pm) Oasys Mobile, the developers behind the Uno-styled card game app “Oh No!” and Hooters Crazy Eights, just released a new application for the drinker in you: iShot Machine.
Like many other shot/cocktail applications, iShot Machine aims to bring as many recipes as possible to your iPhone, making it easy to find that recipe you’ve drunkenly forgotten, all from within a sleek, slot-machine-like interface. Unfortunately, several of the iShot Machine’s features are plagued by bugs or hampered by an awkward search function. Despite its bugs, iShot Machine delivers a decent recipe count in a clean interface that allows you to store your favorites for quick access. The Good: First, iShot Machine has more than 3,000 recipes in the paid version, giving you access to a whole load of shots should you need them. That recipe count is just shots, mind you, so if you’re looking for a full cocktail app, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Granted, some of the shots are repeats, like the ‘Vulcan Mind Meld’ and the ‘Vulcan Mind-Probe,’ but with 3,000 options you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding something new. I’m also a fan of the ‘Favorites’ feature within the app. This makes it easy to find the shots you like best when you’re a bit intoxicated. It’s easy to remember the recipe for a grape bomb, but some of the more complicated drinks may elude you at the bar. Use the favorites feature to keep them close. Probably the best feature of iShot Machine is simply the quality of the recipes. I frequently spend my weekends bartending, and since the iPhone came out, I have at least one group of people a weekend using applications like this to find their next drink. Most of them are terrible – proportions are off, mixtures curdle like a Cement Mixer, or the product tastes like piss (when it wasn’t meant to). From the couple hundred shots I’ve looked through so far, most of them look legit, and I’m interested to try a few myself. Lastly, the controls are clean, with options to view shots in full screen or the smaller slot-machine screen below. It’s easy to favorite and rate shots, and wouldn’t be too much trouble to press the right item, even if you were a little drunk. The Bad: Read the rest of this entry » Posted in: Apple, Apps, iPhone Tags: app review, cocktail apps, iPhone, iphone 3G, iphone 3gs, ishot, ishot machine, ishot machine app, oasys apps, oasys mobile, top iphone apps
iPhone 3GS Teardown Posted by Jeff Morgan (06/20/2009 @ 10:24 am) As we learned at the Palm Pre launch, it takes almost no time for fanatical repair geeks/technoporn freaks to strip a gadget down to its bare bones for exhibition. The guys (and probably gals) at Rapid Repair have done just that with the 3GS, showing off her pretty insides to the rest of the world (that felt creepy to write – is this how you felt, Anthony Hopkins?).
Of particular interest are the processor stats and a closer look at the camera. For the processor, the 3GS is running on an underclocked 833MHz CPU. Yes, underclocked. My guess is they’ve done that for heat’s sake, and likely also because there may not yet be a need for that sort of power. Granted, some people will want to pull as much as they can get from the phone, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few performance hacks in the near future. Rapid Repair also reports the camera as capable of 720p recording. Could this be a possible feature in a future OS? Though the new video recording is nice, a quality upgrade would take the phone to a new level as a media device. Like many new devices, it will probably be a bit before we see the full potential of the 3GS hardware. Rapid Repair calls the CPU running the new iPhone truly cutting-edge, giving unprecedented processing power. I can’t wait to see what that means. Posted in: Apple, iPhone, Mobile Tags: 3gs cpu, 3gs hardware, 3gs internals, 3gs processor, 3gs specs, 3gs taken apart, 3gs teardown, iPhone, iphone 3G, iphone 3gs, iphone 3gs teardown, new iphone, rapid repair
iPhone OS 3.0 Has Tethering, Now it’s easy to install Posted by Gary Fairchild (06/18/2009 @ 10:54 am) We already posted a how-to for enabling tethering on your shiny new OS 3.0. While awesome, it is clunky, slow, requires a mac… yada, yada, yada.
Leave it to iClarified to give us a handy and simple way to enable tethering right from the phone. All you have to do is use Safari from the phone and navigate to a specific website. Click a link here, say yes there, and next thing you know, tethering is enabled on your iPhone. I know someone, who knows someone, who did it (wink, wink) and it was as easy as pie. Click through and try it for yourself. Let’s just say I know it works. Posted in: Apple, iPhone, Mobile Tags: 3.0 hacks, 3.0 jailbreak, 3.0 tethering, 3.0 tethering hack, 3gs, bluetooth tethering, iPhone, iphone 3.0, iphone 3G, iphone 3g tether, iphone 3gs, iphone OS 3.0, iphone tether, iphone tethering, OS 3.0
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