MacRumors

Apple and T-Mobile are now selling the iPhone in Austria. The iPhone is being sold for 399 euro (8GB) and 499 euro (16GB) with the following plans:

- 39 euro/mo "Classic" - 3GB data / 1000 Minutes / free T-Mobile Wifi
- 55 euro/mo "Supreme" - 3GB data / 4000 Minutes* / 1000 SMS / free T-Mobile Wifi

* 4000 Minutes split across different types of calls (in network, out of network etc...)

The launch also coincides with the launch of the iPhone in Ireland, which was announced in late February. Apple has said they were planning on launching the iPhone in Asia as well as other European countries in 2008. There have also been hints that an Australian launch is not far behind.

Apple has announced the dates for the Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) 2008. The event will take place on June 9-13, 2008 in San Francisco, CA at Moscone West.

A landmark event. In more ways than one.
The groundbreaking innovations of Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone OS offer two revolutionary development platforms for developers and IT professionals. Immerse yourself with information-rich sessions where Apple engineers go in-depth on the innovative technologies that power the features of these sophisticated platforms. Bring your code to the Labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices you gain from sessions to enhance your application

Apple is offering 3 tracks for developers: iPhone, Mac, and IT. The iPhone focus will certainly be a big part of the WWDC keynote with the recent announcement of the iPhone SDK. The first of the 3rd party iPhone applications will officially launch at the end of June.

The developer invitation (pictured above) depicts two bridges representing Leopard and the iPhone OS.

As noted by Arstechnica, a Businessweek article reports on an interesting presentation at the SXSW conference by Apple senior engineering manager Michael Lopp. He describes Apple's design approach in coming up with their products:

Pixel Perfect Mockups - While it adds time upfront, it "removes all ambiguity" and the need to correct mistakes later down the line.

10 to 3 to 1 - Designers mock up 10 different unrestricted designs for a given feature. From these, 3 are chosen for further development until a final one is chosen.

Paired Design Meetings - Two meetings. One is for free thinking ("go crazy") without worries about any technical constraints, while the other meeting addresses implementation and practical considerations. Both of these meetings continue throughout product development.

A new patent application published by Apple today reveals that they have done considerable research into the possibility of an Apple-branded Digital Video Recorder (DVR). The Tivo-like device would offer the ability to tune into television channels, record and playback shows. The currently shipping AppleTV does not support any sort of recording or tuning functionality.

Of most interest is that Apple appears to be looking into ways to integrate their iPod or iPhone into this experience. They describe and picture an iPod-like device that would dock to the DVR. Customers could then sync their recorded television content with their iPod and also select future shows to also be recorded from the portable device. Once syncing takes place the future shows are added to the DVR's recording queue and new shows are transfered to the iPod.

The patent application was filed originally in October of 2006, so Apple appears to have had this technology in the labs for some time now.

Appleinsider provides additional pictures from the patent application.

Hackintosh has posted some screenshots and a Youtube Video from the upcoming iPhone 2.0 firmware. Visible changes include:

- Exchange Support
- Appstore
- Parental Controls
- SDK Support
- Calculator is more advanced
- CISCO VPN support
- Mail mass deletion
- No Spotlight Search icon in contacts

Apple has seeded the beta iPhone firmware to select enterprise customers and developers. The new firmware will be released to the public in June of 2008 and will introduce Exchange support as well as the iTunes App Store.

Note: the beta is listed as version 1.2

The Inquirer posts what it claims is more evidence that Apple is planning to adopt Intel's Moorestown architecture for a future iPhone model.

DigiTimes was first to make such a claim in October 2007 citing the usual "OEM sources." The Inquirer now posts a slide from Intel's CeBIT presentation which depicts the iPhone as a Moorestown smartphone.

Of course, the use of the iPhone to represent smartphones may not mean anything, as the iPhone is currently one of the hottest-selling smartphones on the market. However the image does corroborate DigiTimes' previous claims.

The Moorestown platform is the successor to the Menlow platform due later this year. Both are based around the Intel Atom processor, which Intel expects to launch a new class of mobile internet devices. Moorestown is not expected until 2009, so its use would likely be for the third or later iteration of the iPhone, but could also find its way into the rumored Apple mini-tablet.

Update: Recent analysis by Anandtech suggests that Intel's Atom's processors (and therefore Moorestown) may not be headed to the iPhone until at least 2010.

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Disney CEO Robert Iger announced today at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit that the company has sold 4 million movies on iTunes since the movie store launched in 2006, along with 40-50 million videos.

The site extrapolates that the total revenue from these sales is just under $123 million USD. Disney recently announced a $1 billion digital sales goal for 2008, which includes revenue from advertising online (i.e. ad revenue from online video viewing or from any of its sites), subscriptions to online games, downloads of movies and music, and e-commerce that is not related to its theme parks.

For perspective, Disney had sold 1.3 million movies by February 2007 after 3 months of the iTunes movie store being in operation.

Apple announced that the recently announced iPhone Software Developement Kit (SDK) has been downloaded over 100,000 times within the first four days of its launch.

"Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible with more than 100,000 downloads in the first four days," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Also, over one million people have watched the launch video on Apple.com, further demonstrating the incredible interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone."

Apple's press release also includes quotes from a number of other software developers announcing their support for iPhone software development. The list of companies include Intuit, Namco Networks, NetSuite, PopCap, Rocket Mobile, Six Apart, and THQ Wireless. Specific software titles listed include Pac-Man, Galaga, Bejeweled, Zuma, Peggle and SuitePhone.

Apple will be launching the first of the 3rd party applications for the iPhone in June alongside their iTunes App Store.

The iPhone Dev Team published a a screenshot of what is reported to be a jailbroken iPhone 2.0 installation. According to ModMyiFone's sources, the Dev team has already jailbroken the beta 2.0 iPhone firmware that Apple has only released to a limited number of testers. The jailbroken iPhone freely allows installation of iPhone applications, bypassing Apple's $99/year developer program which includes an official developer certificate.

"Jailbreaking" is the method by which iPhone owners have been able to install unofficial 3rd party applications on the iPhone. A thriving development community has emerged producing a number of free and useful applications.

While Apple's iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) announcement will likely diminish interest in the unofficial iPhone developer community, the process of jailbreaking will likely continue. By choosing to be the sole distributor of iPhone applications, Apple has set some editorial guidelines on what it deems appropriate iTunes Store applications. The jailbreaking process will allow users to install those applications which fall outside of Apple's guidelines. The list of unallowed applications currently include emulators, scripted languages, background applications, VOIP over cellular, and unlocking applications.

Apple will be releasing the final iPhone 2.0 firmware in June alongside the launch of the iTunes App Store. The iPhone SDK is currently available for free download.

Microsoft has released an update to their Office 2008 suite for the Mac. The update is listed as "critical":

This update fixes critical issues in Office 2008, including issues that might cause Office 2008 applications to stop responding or quit unexpectedly.

Microsoft Office 2008 was released at this year's Macworld San Franciso in January, and provided native support for Intel Macs for the first time.

A knowledgebase article provides a detailed list of fixes. Many of the fixes appear to address reliability and stability concerns.

With on-stage demos of EA's Spore and Sega's Super Monkey Ball (demo video) at their iPhone Software Development Kit event, Apple seems to be serious about mobile gaming on the iPhone. Earlier reports also hinted at this commitment with Apple previously extending their trademark to include handheld gaming devices.

Now, a look back at an Apple patent application entitled "Media management system for management of games acquired from a media server" reveals an interesting possibility for iPhone gaming.

While the bulk of the patent details the downloading and syncing of games between iTunes and iPhones/iPods, Apple proposes extending this functionality even further. Apple describes a method for transmitting iPhone/iPod high scores and other achievements to a central community game server:

"The media purchase system can also be utilized to facilitate a community of game players. These game players acquire games via a client device and media management application, and then play the games on portable electronic devices. The game play data, including game performance data for specific games, can be transfered from the portable electronic devices to the client devices. The client devices can then transfer such game play data over the data network to a game community server. For example, the game performance data can pertain to a high score that a user achieved while playing the game on the portable electronic device."

By compiling high score data, players can compete amongst each other for prizes. All data can be digitally signed so that scores are authenticated.

Besides EA and Sega, Gameloft has committed to 15 game titles for release on the iPhone in 2008. Meanwhile, iPodHacks reveals the iPhone's hardware compares favorably to the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS gaming devices.

CNet reports that Intel is entering the Solid State Drive (SSD) market later this year to compete against existing suppliers such as Samsung, Toshiba, and SanDisk. Up to this point Intel has only offered small-capacity products up to 16GB in size. In Q2, Intel will be introducing 80GB and 160GB 1.8 and 2.5-inch SSDs aimed at the laptop market. Intel also promises significant performance gains over existing SSD products:

"When Intel launches its...products, you'll see that not all SSDs are created equal," Winslow said. "The way the SSDs are architected, the way the controller and firmware operates makes a huge difference"

The drives are expected to come with an SATA interface, making them not directly compatible with the MacBook Air -- the only Apple laptop that offers an SSD option. As SSD drives drop in price, however, we can expect them to be offered with other Apple laptops. Intel believes prices will drop 40-50% per year.

Solid State Drives offer advantages of faster performance, lower power requirements and durability over traditional hard drives.