MacRumors

Last year, AT&T limited employee vacation requests between June 15-July 15 in anticipation of the original iPhone launch which took place on June 29th, 2007.

Today, Boy Genius Report publishes another AT&T memo that is again restricting vacation requests, this time between June 15th and July 12th 2008. The reason for the restriction is "to ensure adequate store staffing and to give everyone an equal opportunity to benefit from an exciting product launch." AT&T expects "heavier than normal customer traffic" in their stores due to an "exciting Summer Promotional Launch".

Of course, speculation points to Apple launching their new 3G iPhone during that time. The timeframe is consistent with a previous report that claimed that Apple was targeting "on or around June 27th" to approximately coincide with the one year anniversary of the iPhone launch. Meanwhile, the NYTimes believes that the European launch for the 3G iPhone will be "by the August summer holidays" according to a person close to the situation.

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference takes place between June 9-13th in San Francisco, and could serve as the launching ground for the next generation iPhone.

Today, HTC announced the Touch Diamond, the latest in a number of phones that are taking aim directly at the iPhone. As a Windows Mobile 6.1 device, the phone will draw only a passing interest amongst Mac users, but shows off the efforts that Apple's competitors have put into their newest devices.

The 3G capable phone carries slightly smaller dimensions (102 x 51 x 11.33mm and 110g) than the iPhone (115 x 61 x 11.6mm and 135g) and also houses a smaller 2.8" touch screen. While the screen is physically smaller, it carriers a higher resolution (640x480) compared to the iPhone (320x480). It does include a front-mounted camera for video conferencing, which has been a rumored feature of the next generation iPhone.

The screen itself appears to be capable of recognizing only single touch vs the iPhone's multitouch. A lot of effort and focus appear to have gone into the user interface, which is described as a TouchFLO 3D interface and provides Coverflow-like views for browsing contacts and music. In an interesting move, HTC has replaced the default Mobile Internet Explorer with Opera, an effort to provide a "desktop class" browsing experience on their mobile device. Other features include an accelerometer, GPS, Youtube App, Google Maps, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. One early hands-on experience described the interface as a bit "sluggish", though it was said to be "not the final version" of the software.

A series of Youtube videos demonstrates various features: Photos, Weather, Contacts, Music, in actual use. Other video: accelerometer game. Photos and hands-on at Crave.cnet.co.uk. The phone will launch initially in Europe and Asia in June, with a U.S. launch later.

Both Telecom Italia and Vodafone independently announced that they have signed agreements with Apple to provide the iPhone in Italy. This, of course, clearly indicates that Apple has abandoned the exclusive single-carrier model that they have established in other markets.

Absent from these announcements are any details, but earlier rumors had indicated that this represents the 3G iPhone and that there will be no permanent exclusive distribution by a single operator. Instead, it was said that Telecom Italia may have the right to sell the iPhone for some months in advance of their competitors.

Apple has been widely rumored to release their 3G capable iPhone in the coming months with many expecting an announcement at Apple's Wordwide Developer Conference in June.

Vodafone announced that it would be releasing Apple's iPhone in Australia later this year, as well as in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, South Africa and Turkey.

A spokesperson for Vodafone Australia confirmed that the carrier will release the iPhone locally in 2008, but could not provide any further information on the model, the price, the release date, or if Vodafone would be the exclusive carrier.

When asked for further details, the spokesperson was unable to "go into it at the moment." Rogers Communications similarly announced that they would be delivering the iPhone in Canada later this year but was also able to provide few details.

There have been a growing number of rumors indicating that Apple is looking to expand the iPhone's reach internationally. An earlier Australian rumor suggested that the iPhone would arrive as an unlocked phone to be used on multiple carriers, though Vodafone did not comment on this possibility.

Apple issued a new seed of Mac OS X 10.5.3 (build 9D27) to ADC developers tonight, detailing a number of new bug fixes and listing no known issues. The newest version of Mac OS X provides a number of bug fixes and stability improvements over the current public version (10.5.2) but remains in limited testing amongst developers as Apple finalizes its code base. Apple first started testing Mac OS X 10.5.3 on March 28th.

Apple appears to have begun seeding these test versions more frequently than in the past. Historically, Apple has waited until development was wrapping up before accelerating their seeds.

Regardless, we've heard anecdotal reports that even the latest version has stability issues which means Apple still has some work to do. Once released, the 10.5.3 update will be available for free through Mac OS X 10.5's Software Update.

TVBEurope quotes Richard Townhill, Apple's director of marketing for professional video applications, regarding some recent rumors that Apple might be trying to sell off its "Pro Apps" (Final Cut Pro and associated applications) to another company.

Townhill strongly denied the rumors and said "I can categorically state, on the record, that is not the case".

Whispers of rumors that Apple was shopping around its Pro Apps, such as Final Cut Pro, had circulated over the past few months. The speculation may have been further fueled by Apple's decision to not exhibit at NAB this year. This uncharacteristic comment by Apple, however, should put these rumors to rest.

Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing you to draw characters on the screen with your finger. As you write the character, four possibilities appear on the right side of the screen.

Wretch.cc (Chinese) details many screenshots of the new feature, and MacRumors has been able to independently verify that this does exist in the latest iPhone firmware beta available to registered iPhone developers. There is no support for English at this time.

Apple was one of the pioneers in handwriting recognition technology with their Newton Personal Digital Assistant. While the original Newton contained a 3rd party handwriting engine that generated some early bad press, Apple later deployed their own much improved handwriting technology known as "Rosetta". Rosetta technology later found its way into Mac OS X under the name "Inkwell".

Apple recently started hiring for a new Handwriting Recognition Engineer, so it appears Apple is reinvesting in this technology.

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.