MacRumors.com

Vodafone announced that it would be releasing Apple's iPhone in Australia later this year, as well as in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, South Africa and Turkey.

A spokesperson for Vodafone Australia confirmed that the carrier will release the iPhone locally in 2008, but could not provide any further information on the model, the price, the release date, or if Vodafone would be the exclusive carrier.

When asked for further details, the spokesperson was unable to "go into it at the moment." Rogers Communications similarly announced that they would be delivering the iPhone in Canada later this year but was also able to provide few details.

There have been a growing number of rumors indicating that Apple is looking to expand the iPhone's reach internationally. An earlier Australian rumor suggested that the iPhone would arrive as an unlocked phone to be used on multiple carriers, though Vodafone did not comment on this possibility.

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After news that the latest iPhone 2.0 beta firmware (due in June) had incorporated Chinese handwriting recognition, there were many readers who were interested to see the input options for Japanese language. Handwriting recognition is not available for the Japanese language in the latest beta.

Instead there is the standard keyboard:



As well as a Kana international keyboard:



These images are from the latest beta (5A258f) iPhone 2.0 that is available to developers. The final version will be released to consumers in June.

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More photos claiming to be the unreleased 3G iPhone have emerged on Chinese forum WeiPhone.com (via WinandMac) and were posted to a discussion thread. The images bear a close resemblance to details revealed by iLounge about the upcoming iPhone.









The images show the unusual speaker/microphone holes (image 1) and the additional sensors (image 2). According to the original forum post, the background of the image was removed with Photoshop in image 3, resulting in the edge artifacts seen.

The 3rd photo also seems to indicate that this is simply the outer shell rather than the entire iPhone since the Power button is not present. Also possible is that this simple represents another shell or case replacement for the current iPhone much like the previous Black case.

Typically, these leaked images tend to be fake.

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Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing you to draw characters on the screen with your finger. As you write the character, four possibilities appear on the right side of the screen.

Wretch.cc (Chinese) details many screenshots of the new feature, and MacRumors has been able to independently verify that this does exist in the latest iPhone firmware beta available to registered iPhone developers. There is no support for English at this time.



Apple was one of the pioneers in handwriting recognition technology with their Newton Personal Digital Assistant. While the original Newton contained a 3rd party handwriting engine that generated some early bad press, Apple later deployed their own much improved handwriting technology known as "Rosetta". Rosetta technology later found its way into Mac OS X under the name "Inkwell".

Apple recently started hiring for a new Handwriting Recognition Engineer, so it appears Apple is reinvesting in this technology.

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The Associated Press launched a web-portal for iPhone and iPod Touch users to deliver breaking news.

The new "Mobile News Network" is accessible from your iPhone or iPod Touch via apnews.com and provides an optimized site that delivers news from more than 100 newspapers.

The site is very well designed for an iPhone web-application and offers both photo and Quicktime video that plays directly on the iPhone.

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According to Austrian newspaper Der Standard, T-Mobile Austria has confirmed the 3G iPhone. According to the article, T-Mobile announced at press conference in Vienna that the 3G (UMTS) version of the iPhone will soon be available and that Austria will be the test market for the new phone. Austria will reportedly be one of the first countries worldwide to receive the new phone. The new phone is also said to be available with more "flexible" pricing.

Few other details are provided and there appear to be no other reports of this press conference online. Meanwhile, Fscklog.com contacted T-Mobile Austria and their reply was (translated) "Yes, we plan to bring the iPhone with UMTS-support to market, but can't and are not allowed to say when yet."

Apple launched the original iPhone in Austria less than two months ago. There have been other recent reports that several European countries will be launching the 3G iPhone in the coming weeks to months.

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An anonymous source for CNet.com.au claims that Apple will launch the iPhone in Australia in late June with Optus as one of several carriers to support the phone. The source reportedly also hinted that the launch would be for the upcoming 3G version of the phone rather than the current version that uses EDGE for data.

The rumor coincides with rumors earlier in April from MacTalk.com.au suggesting a late-June launch of an multi-carrier iPhone in Australia where existing Apple resellers would all get to sell the phone.

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The first international developers have started receiving their acceptances into the iPhone Developer Program ($99). We've heard confirmation from readers of the same.

The $99/year iPhone Developer program provides you with a developer certificate which allows you to install your applications onto the physical iPhone for testing. It also allows you to submit your applications to the iTunes App Store for inclusion.

Apple has been slowly ramping up their iPhone Developer program, now extending the program to international developers.

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On Wednesday, we reported that AT&T had begun offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users at many of their national Wi-Fi hotspots, including Starbucks and Barnes & Noble locations.

No official announcement had been made, however, and AT&T representatives reportedly declined to comment. Today, many users are reporting that the free iPhone access has been removed and users are unable to log-in with just their phone number. This appears to be true at locations that were verified to offer the free Wi-Fi access just days before.

Based on the screenshot and wording of the login page ("Free AT&T Wi-Fi for iPhone"), there can be no doubt that the service was intentional, but it appears it may have been launched prematurely. Regardless, we still expect the service to be officially announced in the future.

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The Wall Street Journal claims that Apple is actually losing money with each new-release movie sold on iTunes. Apple announced yesterday that they would now be offering many movies for sale on iTunes on the same day as their DVD release.

These new movies cost $14.99, but according to "a person familiar with the matter", Apple is actually paying the studios close to $16 per sale for these new releases. While this price may be less than what the studio might charge for traditional retail sales, the actual profit margin on the digital distribution is much larger.

This approach is consistent with Apple's insistence that the iTunes Store has always intended to run at just above break-even in order to drive hardware sales.

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iLounge publishes a report based on information obtained from 3rd party accessory/case manufacturers for the iPhone who claim to have received dimensions for the upcoming 3G capable iPhone.

Companies overseas have already started working on products for this one, which is basically the same size as the current iPhone, but has slightly different curves, coloration, and materials. Specs for either or both of these models could be nothing more than disinformation put out to burn developers, but they could also be correct.

Rumors of the new iPhone, however, are being published almost daily now, with several conflicting claims. This latest report claims that the new iPhone will carry a tapered design along the edges, replacing the aluminum backing with a glossy plastic back that approximates the look of metal. The iPhone's front silver metallic bezel will remain, though it is expected to be much thinner. Meanwhile, the overall form factor and screen size is expected to be comparable to the current iPhone, though the possibility of black, white and even red backings is being considered.

The most interesting information in the report is the addition of a 3rd sensor near the earpiece of the iPhone. The existing iPhone houses two sensors (ambient light and proximity sensor) adjacent to the phone's earpiece speaker. The upcoming design is said to have a 3rd sensor in the same location. iLounge speculates that it could represent a small camera, which would fulfill circulating iPhone video-chat rumors, but they also concede that it may be something far less glamorous.

No other details are available, but if this information did come from case manufacturers, you would only expect them to have the raw physical dimensions to allow them to design accessories that could be ready on launch day. Apple has been known to seed certain manufacturers with such information. One case manufacturer even posted images of their cases for the then-unreleased iPod nano a few days in advance of its official launch.

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Applicando published an interesting speed comparison video comparing the iPhone's EDGE download speeds and a mimicked 3G iPhone.

In the comparison video two iPhones load the same web page side-by-side. The 3G iPhone is demonstrated using a Wifi connection sharing the internet connection of an iMac which was connected to the internet via HSDPA (Huawei E172 HSPDA modem).



In the end the "3G iPhone" downloads the page almost twice as fast.

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A couple of readers have reported that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and presumably AT&T's 71,000 other Wi-fi hotspot locations are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free.

MacRumors has been able to confirm this finding at a local Barnes and Noble. Blurry photo provided:


AT&T recently partnered with Starbucks (displacing T-Mobile) to provide Wi-Fi access to Starbucks' 7000 stores nationwide. This partnership allowed existing AT&T broadband customers free access and AT&T promised that it would "soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers", but no official announcement has yet been made.

A list of AT&T's 71,000 hotspots can be found on AT&T's site, including Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Airports, and McDonald's locations.

Update: MacRumors reader ntrigue confirms that AT&T's system is based on the iPhone's User Agent, which can easily be faked on laptops. He successfully accessed the free iPhone Wifi through his laptop (and a valid iPhone phone number)"

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Blackberry maker RIM is recruiting internally to form an iPhone software development team according to AppleInsider.

"As part of a newly-created team, you’ll influence the development and design of BlackBerry software," the listing reads. "This is a very confidential brand new team and a senior position within RIM so I can't provide too many details. I guess you can figure out what it might be about though."

AppleInsider reports that many of the details of the position are not available even to people with knowledge of the position, however experience with several Mac-related technologies such as Cocoa, Objective C, and Sync Services is desired.

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Fortune.com writer Scott Mortiz claims that AT&T is planning to offer a subsidy of as much as $200 on Apple's upcoming next-generation iPhone.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

The subsidy would only be available to customers signing up for service with AT&T, and meant to increase demand for the already popular phone. The use of subsidies has already begun with overseas carriers in the UK and Germany, though these discounts have been applied to move existing iPhone stock, rather than on brand new products.

The source for the article also reveals that the new iPhone will be approximately 9.2 mm thick, 2.5 mm thinner than the current form factor. This contrasts with recent rumors from Engadget claiming that the 3G iPhone will be slightly thicker than the current model. Additionally, Fortune's source concurs with Engadget and others on the inclusion of GPS in the updated iPhone.

Finally, the source claims that the updated iPhone will be released on or about June 27th, to approximately coincide with the one-year anniversary of the original iPhone launch on June 29th, 2007.

Mortiz, who previously wrote for TheStreet, has not had a particularly good track record with Apple rumors, however. Previous inaccurate claims included delivery of a 1st Quarter 2008 3G iPhone and an erroneous report on a drop in iPhone production.

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Rogers Communications Inc. announced that they have come to a deal with Apple to finally offer the iPhone in Canada later this year. Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers, issued the following brief statement:

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.

No other details are provided, but the announcement should provide some assurance to Canadians that the iPhone will finally be available to them. Apple is rumored to introduce their next generation 3G-capable iPhone around June.

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A new Commercial Times report reveals that Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) has won orders for the assembly of the long rumored 3G-capable second generation iPhone.

Foxconn is expected to deliver up to 3 million of the next generation iPhone in June 2008, with a total production run expected to be 24-25 millions throughout the life-cycle of the device.

Readers might remember that rumors of the original iPhone really took off after Commercial Times accurately reported that Foxconn had won the contract for the original iPhone back in November 2006.

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TUAW posts another rumor from the latest iPhone firmware 2.0 build released last week that indicates Apple is planning Jabber/XMPP support.

Our anonymous iControl tipster has returned and tells us that a new XMPP framework has been spotten in the latest iPhone firmware. XMPP refers to the open source standard developed by the Jabber community for instant messaging. Remember back in March when Apple announced it would support native instant messaging? In a nutshell, it looks like Apple's new iPhone-based chat will be built on Jabber/XMPP.

The support remains private to Apple's built-in applications, so 3rd party developers utilizing Apple's API are not able to access the functionality.

Speculatively, it is possible that Apple may be building this functionality for enterprises running Mac OS X Server or other Jabber-based instant message servers.

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TUAW claims that they've heard that Apple is working on a new iPhone application called "iControl" which will allow the iPhone to control and stream media from local iTunes libraries:

TUAW is told that a media navigator will allow you to view videos, play podcasts, listen to music and even support shuffle playback.

Evidence of the player can reportedly be found in the latest iPhone Beta Firmware in the form of localization strings.

Apple already has existing products, such as the Apple TV and Airport Express, which allows iTunes to stream to external devices, so providing similar functionality to the iPhone seems a natural step. In fact, Apple previously applied for a patent on many of the concepts surrounding remotely controlling iTunes from a portable device.

A portable multimedia player (such as the iPod. manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.) is used to wirelessly access and control a media server (such as a personal computer running iTunes software) that is streaming digital media by way of a wireless interface to a media unit (such as a stereo/speakers in the case of streaming digital audio).

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One report claims that Apple is looking to license haptic technology from Immersion Corporation for future iPhones.

A source (Apple Inc employee), who chose to remain anonymous, told us that senior executives of the two companies have already met once on Tuesday and the next meeting has been scheduled for Friday morning. The source confirmed that the executives will continue discussions over licencing and implementation issues of iPhone haptics.

It's difficult to place much credibility into this rumor which was posted on a on a blog that has been in existence for less than two months.

We previously discussed Haptic technology surrounding Samsung's latest phones.

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Despite early claims that Sun was planning on introducing Java to the iPhone with the SDK, it appears Sun is still in discussions with Apple regarding this plan.

But Sun still wants to put a JVM on iPhone through the iPhone SDK. "[Apple is] well aware of what we're doing, and we're in discussions," Klein said.

In the meanwhile, Sun is working with a company called Innaworks who is offering an system that will port Java games into standalone iPhone SDK-based applications. This way, individual Java apps can be compiled into true iPhone applications, which will allow them to be considered individually for Apple's iTunes App Store.

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Engadget reports that Apple's forthcoming 3G capable iPhone will incorporate a GPS module but be only slightly thicker than the current generation model.

Engadet's visual description of the device largely mirrors that given by iPod Observer earlier this month that depict a more rounded phone with a glossy black back, but adds that the much-despised recessed headphone jack will be replaced by a jack flush with the device body.


Image courtesy iPod Observer
The 3G iPhone is largely expected to be introduced at this year's WWDC conference, with probable shipping in July. Engadget is not typically a source of original Apple rumors, but claims this information comes from a "trusted source" who has had first hand experience with one.

Analysts have suggested that June 9th will be the launch date for the 3G iPhone at Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference.

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RegHardware and Engadget are reporting that the 8GB iPhone has gone "End-of-Life" (EOL) in the UK:

Both suppliers' websites are current flagging the handset as "out of stock" (CW) and - more ominously - "no longer available" (O2).

Engadget quotes a memo stating that the 8GB iPhone (and 8GB iPod Touch) has "gone to end of life." MacRumors was also forwarded an email that Carphone Warehouse sent out to their sales affiliates indicating that stock would not be replenished:

Thanks to the most phenomenal response to the promotion, The Carphone Warehouse is now out of stock on the Apple iPhone.

Please can you remove all reference to the iphone promotion in your copy.

We apologise for the short notice but would like to thank everyone who participated in the campaign. Carphone do not expect to receive any additional stock at this time.

Sales of the 8GB iPhone reportedly shot up in the UK after a £100 discount was offered two weeks ago. Apple is widely expected to release a new 3G iPhone in the coming weeks to months.

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Apple changed their home page today with a photo of an iPhone and MacBook Air with the title "Calling all developers", reminding visitors that early registration for the World Wide Developer's Conference ends on April 25th, 2008.

Meanwhile, Apple also quietly released the 4th beta of the iPhone SDK. Beta 4 adds at least one much requested feature: OpenGL ES support within the iPhone simulator. Previously, developers had to install directly to their iPhone to run OpenGL applications.

"The fourth beta version of the iPhone SDK includes Xcode IDE, iPhone simulator with Open GL ES support, Interface Builder, Instruments, frameworks and samples, compilers, and Shark analysis tool."

Developers are continuing to work on iPhone/Touch apps and games to ready for the June launch of the iTunes App Store.

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In February, Apple's COO, Timothy Cook said that Apple was "not married to any business model" with regard to the iPhone. Specifically, Apple's has received some criticism about their exclusivity contracts with specific mobile carriers, preventing customers from easily using other networks.

It appears this model appears to be eroding, at least in some countries. A recent report claimed that the 3G iPhone would launch in Italy as an unlocked phone, available for use with any carrier. The side effect of this move, however, could be higher retail prices for the iPhones. With the exclusivity deals Apple has in place, Apple earns a portion of monthly subscription fees from their network partners, such as AT&T.

Another report from Belgium makes identical claims that a 3G iPhone will be arriving by the end of June. Again, the iPhone is expected to be compatible with all Belgian operators, though is expected to launch on Mobistar first as early as May. The decision may have been forced upon Apple, however, as Belgium specifically prohibits the sale of "locked" mobile phones.

Still, other reports have hinted at similar distribution models in India and Australia later this year.

Despite technical measures in place to prevent the use of the iPhone on unauthorized networks, the practice of "unlocking" iPhones has become a big business with reports that as many as 400,000 unlocked iPhones running on China Mobile's network.

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