MacRumors

Apple has sent out emails to MobileMe subscribers tonight revealing that they are extending all MobileMe subscriber accounts by 60 additional days:

We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make. To recognize our users' patience, we are giving every MobileMe subscriber as of today a free 60 day extension. This is in addition to the one month extension most subscribers have already received. We are working very hard to make MobileMe a great service we can all be proud of. We know that MobileMe's launch has not been our finest hour, and we truly appreciate your patience as we turn this around. Read this article for more details.

The MobileMe Team

Eligible individuals are those with an active MobileMe account as of August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time. As well, customers with an active free trial as of August 19, 2008 at 0:00 Pacific Daylight Time will also see a 60 day extension to their free trial.

This 60-day extension is in addition to all previously offered extensions. All MobileMe customers were given a free 30 day extension that was announced on July 16th. Some free trial customers affected by billing mistakes were later offered another free 30 day extension.

As predicted in a last minute rumor, Apple has released the 2.0.2 firmware for the iPhone.

Apple helpfully describes the contents of the update as "Bug Fixes". It's not yet known if this software updates fixes rumored 3G connectivity issues. Steve Jobs was said to have promised a software patch "soon" to address that issue.

Early reports:

- Subjective reports of things being faster (though these reports are common with any update)
- No consensus on improved 3G connectivity
- iPod Touch firmware 2.0.2 also released
- Netshare still works

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.