MacRumors

The iPhone Blog reports that iPhone firmware 2.0.2 will be released at 5:00 PM Eastern time, just a few minutes from now. According to their source, AT&T has said that "the results of this software release will improve the customers experience while operating on our network." While details of the update remain unknown, it may address the 3G connectivity issues being experienced by 2% of iPhone customers.

Apple continues to seed beta versions of the iPhone firmware 2.1, suggesting that the 2.0.2 update may consist of only minor "bug fixes" or be focused on only a small number of issues requiring immediate attention by Apple.

Update: Apple has released the update, described only as including "bug fixes," via iTunes.

BusinessWeek reports on an upcoming plan from Dell to try to topple Apple's dominance in digital downloads.

The threat is being spearheaded by a former Apple executive Tim Bucher who left Apple on bad terms:

According to a lawsuit later filed by Bucher, Jobs said: "People think you are sometimes manic-depressive.... I think I'm going to have to ask you to leave the company." Bucher was stunned: He'd been promoted only a few months earlier. Bucher left Apple but soon sued for wrongful termination. He says the charges of mental illness are "completely false."

Bucher has since taken a job with Dell and is leading a 120 person team to counter Apple's current dominance in online music and movie distribution.

Dell is reportedly working on standardizing a system across computers, mobile phones and online music sites to provide a universal system for digital distribution.

Central to Dell's plan is software acquired a year ago when it bought Zing, the company Bucher founded after leaving Apple. The software handles behind-the-scenes translations so that content can be "zinged" between computers and other compatible devices. Dell hopes to announce the Zing software as a feature on small, cheap laptops expected in September and to have the software installed on all of its consumer PCs by the end of the year.

Details remain sketchy but some analysts are understandably skeptical about Dell's chances. Dell is expected to unveil details of their plan in September.

One MacRumors reader claims to have received a response from Steve Jobs after emailing in a complaint about the current iPhone 3G connectivity issues that have been widely reported.

According to the email response which is addressed from Steve Jobs, the 3G connectivity issue affects 2% of iPhones shipped and is fixable through a software update. The email response was as follows:

We are working on some bugs which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon.

Steve

Steve Jobs (or someone acting on his behalf) has been known to provide brief responses to select emails addressed to him. These responses have also occasionally revealed information that had not previously been known.

The existence of a software update to address the issue had been previously reported by BusinessWeek sources. If the 2% figure is accurate, the issue could be affecting over 60,000 users based on analyst sales estimates for the iPhone 3G.

Apple has seeded iPhone Firmware 2.1 Beta 4 to developers. As usual, Apple describes the content of the update as "bug fixes."

Interestingly, Apple has pulled the push notification service in this release "for further development." The capability was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference Keynote in response to requests for background process support for third party iPhone applications. Applications that deal with messaging (such as AIM or Facebook) would likely stand to gain the most from the SDK enhancement. Apple has promised a September delivery of the functionality.

Apple began providing developmental support for the push notification service in iPhone Firmware 2.1 Beta 1. Not all registered iPhone developers have access to the seeds; the first seed was only available to iPhone developers who had been accepted into the program prior to July 11th (~4000 individuals).

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer an Android-based mobile phone, according to a report by the New York Times. The phone will be manufactured by HTC and will likely draw comparisons to Apple's iPhone.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apples iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions. The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the dream, will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard.

Since it was announced last November, Google's Android mobile phone platform and SDK has seen its share of criticism as development has continued.

According to the article, a recent low-quality YouTube video posted of the phone and its software is likely accurate.

It's recently been rumored that T-Mobile is preparing to launch an app-store for all of its devices.

MSNBC recently spoke (via MacDailyNews) with several GPS manufacturers about their plans to develop a turn-by-turn GPS solution for the iPhone. While the manufacturers were unable to provide many details about their plans, TomTom reasserted that they do have GPS navigation working on the iPhone and that it works well:

We have made our navigation system run on the iPhone; it looks good and works very well, said Dutch-based company TomTom, in a statement to msnbc.com. We will have to look more closely to Apples strategy before we can say more about what kind of opportunities this will bring us.

There has been some debate about whether or not the terms of the iPhone SDK would allow such an application, but once analyst claims that when he spoke to Apple "they didnt say such applications would be prohibited." Obviously, though, there are remaining issues surrounding the deployment of such an application which Apple's Greg Joswiak has described as "complicated".

While some are speculating that Apple may be working on their own GPS navigation solution, others believe that a 3rd party solution will become available before year's end.

SetteB.IT and BusinessWeek report on Nancy Heinen's settlement with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the backdating investigation.

The SEC said that company records pertaining to a grant of 4.8 million options to Apples senior executive team in February of 2001, and a grant of 7.5 million shares made to CEO Steve Jobs in December of 2001 had been altered to conceal what it called a fraud. The result was that Apple underreported its stock-related expenses by nearly $40 million.

The SEC had previously settled with Apple CFO Fred Anderson and had cleared Steve Jobs of any wrongdoing in the matter.

The settlement terms included a payment of $2.2 million in repayment, interest and penalties and she is barred from service as an officer in a public company for five years. She did not admit or deny any wrongdoing in the matter. This should draw the a close to investigations surrounding Apple's backdating controversy.

PhoneNews claims that Apple is preparing to release a new version of the MacBook Air imminently.

The external design is to remain the same, but the new MacBook Air is said to incorporate a new Penryn-class processor "from 2.0GHz and potentially beyond". To compensate, Apple will be including a higher capacity battery.

In fact, the new revision of the MacBook Air will draw it much more in-line with the current MacBook internals. Expect to see SSD prices in-line with the current revision, however the hard drive version of the MacBook Air will likely be upgraded to 120 GB, and optionally 160 GB, due to falling prices for 1.8-inch hard drives.

PhoneNews is not a typical source of Apple rumors, but appears to have a reasonably good reputation.

The timeframe for such an update is also reasonable with earlier reports indicating that Intel was planning on a Penryn update to the custom MacBook Air processor. Several readers, however, had hoped that Apple would simply choose to utilize the more power-efficient chips at the same processor speeds in order to extend battery life.

Apple appears to be sending out weekly seeds of the newest version of Mac OS X 10.5.5 to developers. The prior seed was released on August 7th.

This new version (Build 9F13) details 10 more bug fixes and unlike prior builds, Apple lists no known issues.

It's difficult to predict when the next version of Mac OS X will be released to the public, but it should be a free upgrade and include a number of bug fixes.

According to a new article from BusinessWeek.com, additional sources have corroborated an analyst's claim that recent iPhone 3G connection issues are the result of issues with the Infineon chipset used to provide 3G connectivity in the iPhone. The sources indicate that Apple plans to address the issue through a software update rather than a hardware recall.

Two sources say Apple will likely issue a software update by the end of Septemberif not by the end of this monthto resolve the issues. Apple and Infineon are currently testing the fix, which will be included in a broader update of the iPhone's software.

The exact problem with the Infineon chipset remains the subject of speculation, with one source claiming that the fault rests with the chipset struggling to keep up with the popularity and data consumption of the iPhone 3G. However, additional speculation suggests that Apple has been overly conservative with its software settings for determining whether the 3G signal and bandwidth is sufficient to support 3G functions at any given time.

Part of the role of the Infineon chip is to check whether there's enough 3G bandwidth available in a given area. If 3G isn't available or there isn't enough bandwidth, the iPhone will be shifted to a slower network. One source says Apple programmed the Infineon chip to demand a more powerful 3G signal than the iPhone really requires. So if too many people try to make a call or go on the Internet in a given area, some of the devices will decide there's insufficient power and switch to the slower networkeven if there is enough 3G bandwidth available.

The source claims that this issue primarily arises in areas of high iPhone density such as "the San Francisco Bay area, Boston, and certain overseas locales."

In contrast, however, an MSNBC.com article cites a report from Ny Teknik, a Swedish technical magazine, claiming that the issues are in fact hardware-related.

The report said the most likely cause of the 3G problems is defective adjustments between the antenna and an amplifier that captures very weak signals from the antenna. This could lead to poor 3G connectivity and slower data speeds.

Apple has not yet acknowledged the existence of 3G connection issues with the new iPhone and declined to comment for either article, leaving the details of the problem and Apple's plans for addressing it uncertain and subject to speculation for the time being.