iPhone Yabber! :: ZiPhone, Apple iPhone News, Rumours & Downloads

Most of the high end products are pirated in one form or the other and the same is true where the new Apple 3G is concerned. There are quite a few ‘unofficial’ Apple phones currently available in most of the Asian countries and these phones have already been hacked into and unlocked, so as to allow the purchaser full access to all the high end features. This is what you would normally term as the ‘gray market’, with the Apple launch soon to take place, the gray market and the respective buyers are in a tizzy wondering if their illegal phones are going to the frizzled for good.

Vodaphone has already made a public announcement that it is gearing up to introduce the Apple 3G phone to customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey, who will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network. The other GSM mobile operator who will be marketing the Apple iPhone in India as well as some parts of Asia will be none other than Bharati Airtel servicing some 62 million mobile subscribers at present. So between Bharati and Vodafone, the Apple product should be available to most of the Mobile phone users in India as well as other parts of the world.

The rumors that have started anew is that the launch is set to take place somewhere around the Diwali season since it is the time when most Indian families indulge in shopping sprees. But rumors aside, as the date for the official launch comes near, the owners of the pirated iPhones are becoming increasingly worried. One, the cost is less, so it may be that the original versions would cost a lot less than the pirated ones. Two, with both Bharati Airtel and Vodafone supporting the iPhone, they may not take kindly to any illegal use of iPhone and may jam their phones. Three, the Apple corp may not find it amusing that illegal versions of its product is being sold over the counter and would want to take action against all the buyers and sellers. So considering everything, the gray market has due cause to be worried.

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Bharati Airtel has announced that it will be launching the new Apple 3G phones out in India and that these sets will be available for purchase in any Airtel customer center. Well, now the cat is almost out of the bag, not just for India but for the rest of Asia as well. The Apple 3G phones are eagerly awaited in Asia as it offers a cheaper take on blackberry without all the huge expense associated with blackberry phones.

The Indian middle class, the versatile consumer playground, has welcomed all the earlier Apple products with open arms and going by reactions posted to this particular announcement, the trend is set to continue for this product as well. What makes this product outstanding is that in addition to offering a cheaper alternative to Blackberry, Apple 3G offers additional advantages, like the option to talk while surfing. That is, with the Apple 3G, you can chat while chatting – sounds a bit confusing does it not? Basically, you can use the phone to hold a verbal conversation while surfing the net at the same time.

These days, if you walk into a net café anywhere in India or the rest of Asia, you are bound to come across a person or two talking on the mobile while surfing the net. Apple has taken note of this and has managed to incorporate this feature into the latest 3G products. The launch date is still being kept very hush-hush, but going by the speed with which Airtel is moving, one can expect the 3G to come around knocking any time soon. The price tag is still a bit of a mystery but since the lesser price tag is one of the major attractions to this product, you can expect it to be a lot less when compared with the blackberry, at the very least.

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Asia gets ready to welcome the Iphone as Hutchinson announced that it had signed a deal with Apple to bring the ‘much hyped’ phone to both Hongkong and Macau. The fact that Apple is thinking of extending its market base speaks volumes as to their confidence with relation to the Apple Iphone.

The announcement is along all the expected lines as the rumors of the Apple revolution in the works has already hit the Island shores of Hongkong quite a while back. Now with this announcement, with no dates being announced, many are left hanging as to when the ‘launch’ will take place. And one is left in the dark as to whether it is the new generation that is going to be marketed here in Asia or the old model. With rumors flying fast and thick, all that one can do is to literally twiddle one’s thumbs and wait for the launch to take place.

With Apple already planning to notch up the sales upwards of 10 million units by the year end, most of these sales should come from the Asian continent, seeing that nearly half of the world’s populace resides here. The new avatars of the Iphone is already available in most of the developed parts of the world with the United states leading the pack in maximum usage. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up, not just in usage terms but also in the availability of the latest version of the Apple iPhone.

Hutchinson is the perfect company for Apple to partner with in order to launch its series of Phones in Asia, seeing that Hutchinson has already  quite a base all across this part of the world. Hutchinson provides a multitude of services from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and all the way to India.

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Hey there, this is Jason’s twin brother Jake.

Jason asked me to pen a quick column on Apple rumors, so here goes… Released products are fine, but what about what’s coming out next week, next month or next quarter? Here’s a fun Friday peek into Apple’s labs, skunkworks and dumpsters.

Unlimited music. This rumor has been around since I was walking my pet dinosaur. This go around is courtesy of the Financial Time (via Mac Rumors). Word is that Apple is considering an unlimited music option for iPod and iPhones in which the cost of music is embedded into the cost of the device itself. The all-you-can eat model allegedly being mulled by Apple is different than the music subscription services offered by AOL, Napster, Rhapsody, Virgin and Yahoo where you pay a monthly fee for unlimited downloads and the music expires if you stop paying courtesy of Microsoft’s PlayForSure DRM

3-D display hardware. Imagine Leopard. In 3D. Apple’s patent filing on autostereoscopy display technology could put three-dimensional images visible by multiple users without the need for special headgear or glasses on a Cinema Display near you. Alioscopy is nothing new, NEC already makes a 3D panel. Perhaps this is what’s holding up the new Apple monitors? Shhh, don’t tell my brother, he just bought a Dell 22-inch panel.

Double-sided panels. I’m not much of a flip phone guy, I prefer the candy bar format but according to more Apple patent filings, Apple could be heading in that direction. This latest filing discusses several uses for a “capacitive array element [that] may be a dual-sided panel that is capable of sensing touch from either side.” Suitably vague as usual but either way, a two-sided touch panel sounds pretty sweet to me.

More

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Apple Inc. was sued Wednesday regarding the iTunes music store, and iPod music players which are apparently using patented method for distributing media around the internet.

Zap Media (The company suing) wants royalties on Apple’s saled of iPods, and iTunes music, which reached a massive 11 billion dollars last year.

The patents in question cover a way of sending music/digital content from servers to multi-media players (iPods).

Zap Media applied for the patents back in 1999, the first one was granted in March 2006, and the second one on Tuesday.

Robert Frohwein, ZapMedia’s general counsel, had this to say in a statement,
“When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us.”

An Apple spokesman has said the company does not wish to discuss pending lawsuits.

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Watch the Apple March 6th event

On March 6th, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone software roadmap, released the iPhone SDK, and introduced the iPhone Enterprise BETA Program. You can now watch the presentation directly on the Apple.com site.

Watch Now!

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Along side the MacBook and MacBook Pro releases, Apple have recently announced that iTunes is the 2nd best music retailer in the US, Wal-Mart is number 1. Apple also said they would like to thank there 50 million+ users for sticking with them and using the service often.

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