MacRumors

After a brief delay, Apple has activated the "Genius" feature for movies and TV shows in iTunes 8.1. It is not entirely clear when Apple flicked the switch, but it appears that reports of the activation date back to late last week.

Similar to the existing feature for music launched in iTunes 8.0, a user can select a movie or TV episode from their library and activate the Genius feature, which then displays recommendations for iTunes Store purchases based on their selection.

The expansion of the feature to movies and TV shows was revealed on Apple's site prior to the release of iTunes 8.1 and was also mentioned in the included release notes for the download, but readers quickly noticed that the feature was nowhere to be found. Following the release of iTunes 8.1, Apple quickly removed mentions of the feature from its iTunes pages, and they have yet to restore them despite activation of the feature.

Macworld reports that a regional branch of China Unicom has posted information [Google translation] related to the iPhone on their web site.

The information, which listed smartphones supported by the 3G network China Unicom is building, appeared only on the Web site of the company's Shanghai branch and did not say whether the products would be offered in China.

The site's changes follow media reports that a China Unicom delegation visiting Apple last week made a breakthrough in talks over offering the iPhone 3G on its network.

Apple has been trying to bring the iPhone to China, the world's largest mobile phone market, but has struggled to come to agreements with the country's largest carriers. Talks with China Mobile, the country's largest provider, have broken down numerous times, although the company still claims to be in negotiations with Apple.

Apple's efforts with China Unicom, the world's third largest mobile provider with over 125 million GSM subscribers, have apparently proven more fruitful, with previous rumors pointing to a May launch of the iPhone on their network.

Update: TMCnews details a report from Xinhua News saying that China Unicom has confirmed a May 17th launch for the iPhone.

Boy Genius Report details a source "pretty high up in AT&T's food chain" who reportedly shared several tidbits of information about the next-generation iPhone. While short on details beyond the addition of an iPhone application to control AT&T's U-verse suite of Internet-based products and services and more hints that the iPhone may see increased Wi-Fi browsing speeds up to 7.2 Mbps, the source's comments provide additional perspective on what may lie ahead.

- New iPhone announcement around mid-June
- New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience unmatched by any device
- U-Verse iPhone application; will allow control of your home DVR (play, pause, rewind, etc.)
- The annual iPhone launch is "becoming a tradition."
- Nothing official is being confirmed, but they said that people should prep for an exciting time this summer.
- AT&T is said to be working with Apple to create a unified product with an unparalleled experience across all their products and services.
- Apple's 3.0 software should tell us where the iPhone platform is going.
- They said customers shouldnt need to choose from AT&T's high-end devices because of features, they should choose based on preferences. The gap in capability should be filled with the new iPhone.
- Seems like the higher speed HSDPA (7.2Mbps) is being hinted at too which should confirm the earlier rumors of the new Infineon chipset.

The final comment from the source proves to be the most interesting and relates to the possibility of a $99 3G netbook arriving this summer, with the implication being that it may be an Apple product:

- The $99 3G netbook will start selling this summer, and the first one won't be a Windows OS.

Last week some more details about the next iPhone revision continued leaking out.

First, there were spottings of new Apple device IDs found embedded within the iPhone 3.0 firmware. Silicon Alley Insider then claimed that the next iPhone would come with "much faster internet". Finally, AppleInsider said that the new iPhone would indeed have a video camera, supporting evidence of video publishing screenshots also found in iPhone 3.0.

It's not surprising that the number of leaks is increasing as Apple does have to keep their carrier partners at least somewhat informed heading into a new release. We've also continued to hear unconfirmed whispers and have specifically heard that the new iPhone with support a 7.2Mbit chipset.

Another interesting possibility is that Apple may have settled on the Marvell PXA168 ARM chip as the heart of a future device. Some unconfirmed claims point to Apple buying up supplies of this chip which is reportedly also due in the July timeframe. The Marvell PXA168 CPU was announced in January of this year and aims to provide "entry-level laptop" capabilities to consumer electronic devices.

Silicon Alley Insider reports on rumors from a mobile industry source saying that the next-generation iPhone will have "a significantly faster Internet connection." While no further information is given as to whether this is referring to cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity, Silicon Alley Insider lays out some possibilities based on what is known about the state of the technology.

- This can't be referring to AT&T's 4G (LTE) network, because that won't be ready for a year or more.
- This might be referring to faster wifi, and not faster 3G access? (802.11n vs. its current 802.11g/b.)
- AT&T has repeatedly vowed to speed up its 3G network via updates to the network. Is it possible that the current iPhone can't support those increased speeds?
- We don't expect Apple to comment, but we've asked.

Electronista provides more detail on AT&T's plans for faster 3G running at 7.2 Mbps, up from the 3.6 Mbps speed of the current network.

However, the most likely change is the addition of support for speed-doubled 7.2Mbps 3G given both hardware manufacturer and carrier plans. Infineon should have a new 3G chipset starting from mid-year that would support the faster speeds while also improving battery life. At the same time, AT&T has been trialing 7.2Mbps 3G since late 2008 and should roll out the speedier service this year. The provider has stressed that many of its cell towers can be upgraded solely through software rather than new equipment.

Current iPhones are limited in hardware to 3.6Mbps 3G and couldn't themselves be upgraded.

Electronista also points to the possibility of a new Broadcom 802.11n chipset being used in the next-generation iPhone to bring increased Wi-Fi speeds.

Apple today announced that they are now offering high-definition movie sales and rentals through the iTunes Store.

Starting today, movie fans can purchase box office blockbusters for download in HD for $19.99 from iTunes, and films will be available as iTunes Movie Rentals in HD for $4.99 within 30 days after release. Customers can enjoy these films in HD on their Mac or PC and on their widescreen TV with Apple TV, as well as in standard definition on their iPhone or iPod with video.

A dedicated HD Movies page has been added to the iTunes Store [iTunes] to highlight the new content. Pre-orders for the James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace" and the thriller "Twilight" are currently being featured, with additional movies already available.

Previously, Apple had only offered high-definition movie rentals through the Apple TV in January 2008 and later added support for high-definition TV shows via iTunes in September 2008.

Ars Technica reports that a property list file in the iPhone OS 3.0 beta reveals the existence of four unknown products. The file references products known as "iPhone3,1", "iPod3,1", "iFPGA", and "iProd0,1".

These products are listed in addition to entries for the existing two iPhone models (known as "iPhone1,1" and "iPhone1,2") and two iPod touch models (known as "iPod1,1" and "iPod2,1"). An entry for another unknown model, "iPhone2,1" was discovered in January in the iPhone OS 2 software and revealed to have been spotted on ad delivery networks as early as October 2008. That model is also listed in the iPhone 3.0 property list file.

The file, /System/Library/AppleUSBDevice/USBDeviceConfiguration.plist, lists details about the USB configuration of the various iPhone and iPod touch models, as well as the device ID and product names. The same file in iPhone OS 2.2.1 lists the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first- and second-gen iPod touches, referred to as iPhone1,1; iPhone1,2; iPod1,1; and iPod2,1 respectively. It also lists an unknown iPhone model, labelled iPhone2,1, which starting turning up in web server logs as far back as October 2008.

In addition to these references, USBDeviceConfiguration.plist in iPhone OS 3.0 beta contains references to iPhone3,1; iPod3,1; iFPGA; and iProd0,1. All of the products are assigned unique productID numbers, though all are assigned a productString of iPhone. These details are reported to Mac OS X when the devices are plugged in via USB, and would show up in System Profiler, for instance.

Steven Troughton-Smith, who spotted the entries, is the same developer who activated tethering on the iPhone OS 3.0 beta yesterday. He speculates that "iFPGA" may be a device that utilizes a field-programmable gate array. The numbering designation of "0,1" for the "iProd" device may signify that it is a prototype device of an unknown type.

No other details on the products have been discovered, and there is no word on when or if they may be ready for release.

Update: Boy Genius Report is also reporting the existence of an "iPod2,2" entry, which we've confirmed.

Engadget Mobile discovered an interesting screenshot from the iPhone 3.0 beta operating system that is labeled "Upload Video". The screen reportedly appears when you try to upload photos to MobileMe. While Engadget is labeling it as an interesting "typo", we feel it likely suggests that video recording and upload capabilities will arrive in the next generation iPhone which could be released as early as this summer.

There have been intermittent reports about the next iPhone revision, but few solid leads. Still, whispers have suggested that June/July is the timeframe for the next iPhone which is said to be a major upgrade over today's model. Talk of multi-core CPUs and GPUs suggest the next iPhone could be significantly more powerful than the iPhone 3G. This could pave the way for rumored features such as background processes, and even video recording. While Apple has made no references to a new hardware revision, we feel the timing of the iPhone 3.0 operating system due out this summer provides Apple an easy way to introduce a major hardware revision at the same time.

As a result, it wouldn't surprise us that this "Video Upload" screen was misplaced rather than mistyped.

One developer was "hacking around" with some carrier bundle files and iPhone 3.0 and somehow managed to activate the tethering preferences. Not only that, he was also able to actually tether his iPhone 3G to his laptop over USB. Based on the preference panel, it appears that you will be able to tether via USB or Bluetooth.

Tethering is a feature that allows you to share your iPhone's internet connection with your laptop, but has not been an allowed feature up until iPhone 3.0. Even with iPhone 3.0, mobile carriers generally charge an extra fee in the U.S. to allow tethering access.

Apple admitted that they had built in tethering support into the 3.0 release but had not yet coordinated with mobile carriers.

Boy Genius Report claims to have received slides from an internal AT&T training presentation revealing that AT&T will be offering contract-free iPhone 3Gs to existing customers beginning on March 26th. iPhone 3Gs will be priced at $599 for the 8 GB model and $699 for the 16 GB model, and no service agreement or device activation is required.

By limiting the "No-Commit" pricing option to existing customers and one per active mobile number, AT&T is apparently aiming to limit the number of phones being purchased for unlocking and use on other networks.

AT&T is restricting the No-Commit price to existing customers who wish to add a line, purchase as a gift, or perform and [sic] upgrade and are not eligible for the Qualified or Early upgrade price.

While AT&T is planning to limit sales to one per active mobile number, the training materials apparently reveal that AT&T has only limited means of enforcing this restriction. Only sales made at company-owned retail (COR) stores will show up in OPUS, AT&T's point-of-sale system. Otherwise, there is no indicator in the billing system denoting such sales.

Imagination Technologies announced further details of their first multi-core embedded graphics chip called POWERVR SGX543MP this week. The Register explains that the multi-core support in the new chips is essentially transparent to application developers:

In other words, the SGX543 can have any number of cores from two to sixteen with no change in the driver software or the application. All that complex data/pipeline/thread management is done in hardware. No muss, no fuss.

The Register then makes a questionable leap that this could power an Apple Tablet. Still, Apple's interest in the technology seems certain as they are a licensee and investor of Imagination Technologies and currently uses the company's PowerVR chip in the iPhone and iPod Touch.

According to the press release, the new chips are being delivered to customers in two-core and 16-core variants and appear to incorporate support for OpenGL and OpenCL. While Apple has not announced any new hardware revisions to the iPhone, many believe that the next generation iPhone will likely be released alongside the public release of the iPhone 3.0 firmware this summer.