MacRumors

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.

On February 1st, Microsoft made headlines after publicly offering to purchase Yahoo for $44.6 Billion ($31/share). Microsoft's interest in Yahoo was primarily focused around their advertising business in an attempt to gain talent and technology in that sector to further compete with Google. On February 9th, Yahoo officially declined the offer due to claims the bid "massively" undervalued Yahoo.

Negotiations continued, opening the possibility for a hostile takeover from Microsoft. In the end, however, it appears Microsoft is walking away from the negotiations and will not pursue a hostile takeover.

In a letter from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to Yahoo's Jerry Yang, Ballmer detailed his reasons. In the end, Yahoo was insisting on a $53 billion price ($37/share), while Microsoft's offer topped out at $47.5 billion ($33/share).

"Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said Ballmer.

Another key factor included Yahoo's recent outsourcing of advertising services to Google, which could introduce regulatory hurdles in pursuing an acquisition.

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.

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.

Apple yesterday filed its quarterly 10Q statement with the SEC. While the company had highlighted its fiscal performance in its conference call on April 23rd, the SEC filing provides a more granular view into the performance of various Apple products and initiatives.

Apple's retail performance was particularly impressive, gaining the company 74% more sales than the year ago quarter.

Strong Mac sales were shown to be based on both portable and desktop sales. 856,000 desktops and 1,433,000 laptops were sold representing 37% and 61% unit growth, respectively.

The increases in Mac net sales and unit sales were driven primarily by sales of the new MacBook Air, introduced in January 2008, and higher sales of the iMac and other Mac portable systems. The Mac unit growth rate of 51% and 48% in the second quarter of 2008 and the first six months of 2008, respectively, exceeded the estimated growth rate of the overall personal computer industry during those timeframes reflecting strong customer demand for the Companys Mac products.

Raw Data: Apple 10Q for Q2 2008 (pdf)

Following Apple's announcement that they would be offering iTunes Movies for sale on the same day as the DVD release, they quietly added the ability to buy movies directly on the Apple TV.

Prior to this, the Apple TV could only be used to rent movies, not buy them. Instead, the customer would have to buy the movie on their computer and stream/sync it to their Apple TV. With the quiet addition of the "Buy" button, customers can instead buy movies directly from the Apple TV, which will later sync it back to your iTunes library. This had been a curious omission given that television shows and music could be purchased directly on the Apple TV.

It appears there was a glitch last month that caused the "Buy" option to appear briefly before Apple removed it.

Primatelabs.ca published Geekbench scores for the iMacs that were released just this week.

These overall scores can be compared to this comprehensive table of results from a wide variety of Mac configurations.

The new iMacs with a faster bus may have a slight edge over the previous generation iMac. When comparing the 2.80GHz (1066MHz front-side) iMac to the 2.80GHz (800MHz front-side) iMac, the overall scores are 3728 and 3674, respectively, with the bulk of the difference in the Memory scores (2877 vs 2530).

Unfortunately, however, as with most benchmarking software, there can be a wide variation in scores even on the same computer that can erase these differences. So any speed increase from the faster buses appear modest.

Apple announced today that new movie releases from major film studios and premier independent studios are now available for purchase on iTunes on the same day as their DVD release. The studios involved include 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

"We're thrilled to bring iTunes Store customers new films for purchase day-and-date with the DVD release," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We think movie fans will love being able to buy their favorites from major and independent studios."

This is distinct from the Warner Brothers plan to release video-on-demand on the same day as DVD releases. In that case, "on demand" refers to iTunes rentals, while today's announcement encompasses actual purchased downloads ($9.99-$14.99).

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.

A NYTimes blog reports that Jeff Bewkes, Time Warners chief executive, revealed that Warner Brothers will now release "on demand" videos (including iTunes rentals) on the same day as the DVD release. Historically, on-demand releases have tended to lag behind DVD releases by 30-45 days to avoid sales cannibalization.

When Steve Jobs announced the iTunes Rental store at Macworld this year, he acknowledged that the rentals would appear about 30 days after the DVD release. We later noticed, however, that some iTunes movie rentals had started appearing much earlier than the expected 30-day delay. As it turns out, Warner Brothers was experimenting with this approach for the last few months, and found that DVD rentals only fell by 3-5 percent while DVD sales actually increased when on-demand videos were offered earlier.

Mr. Bewkes boasted to investors that the shift from DVDs to digital distribution, on the "day and date" of DVD release, will be better for Warner Brothers because it will eliminate some of the costs of manufacturing and distributing discs.

This shift, of course, is good for customers who are given more flexibility in purchasing video content.