AT&T to Sell IPhones Without Contracts for $599, $699

                      

 AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. carrier for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, will begin selling the device without a contract for the first time.

The 8-gigabyte model will sell for $599 and the 16-gigabyte model will go for $699, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said today in an interview. The offer, available March 26, will let customers sign up for month-to-month plans with Dallas-based AT&T.

Until now, AT&T has required a two-year contract for iPhone buyers, charging $199 to $299 for the device. The strategy change may be an effort to attract month-to-month customers and clear space on store shelves for new products. Analysts at Piper Jaffray & Co. and Broadpoint AmTech Inc. expect new iPhone models to arrive in the next few months.

Apple may introduce a cheaper version of the iPhone this summer for $99, along with a higher-end version with twice the storage currently available, Broadpoint analyst Brian Marshall said this week in a note to clients.

IPhone customers are required to spend $30 a month on a data plan, giving them access to Web features. That’s on top of a voice plan, which starts at $39.99 a month. IPhone customers who sign up without a monthly contact will be required to pay the same amount, Siegel said.

Worth It?

The new iPhone prices might not make sense for buyers, said Hakim Kriout, a portfolio manager at Grigsby & Associates, a New York-based securities-trading firm. Customers would be better off paying the regular contract price and getting the discounted phone, he said. Then they could cancel their contracts if they wanted to go month to month. Termination fees start at $175.

The original iPhone customers will finish out their contracts on June 30, two years after the device’s debut. About 270,000 bought the phone in the first two days it was on sale, with 1.12 million getting it in the first quarter it was available. AT&T said in July that it planned to sell the device with no contract eventually.

AT&T fell 10 cents to $25.60 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4 p.m. The stock has declined 10 percent this year. Apple rose 10 cents to $101.62 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

By Amy Thomson

Related post AT&T bringin’ sexy back, offering iPhone 3G at no-commitment price, no activation

AT&T bringin’ sexy back, offering iPhone 3G at no-commitment price, no activation

Time to clear out some inventory, boys! AT&T, starting March 26th, is going to start offering the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3Gs at a no-commitment price. These prices are $599 and $699 respectively. The good news is that you do not need to perform an activation/unbrick at the point of purchase, so you can buy the devices for your grandma, your best friend, or for half of China before you head back home. There’s a limit of “one per line” which makes us think you’ll need an active AT&T line to purchase an iPhone (AT&T stores typically don’t sell you no-contract phones unless you provide them with an active line of yours), but the presentation also says that they basically have no way of tracking this. Still, at $599 and $699, are these going to move? Time will tell. Hit the jump for some more shots of the presentation we got a hold of!

 

Via[BGR]

iPhone 3.0: Push Notifications, Copy and Paste, MMS, and More

Apple today previewed a new version of its iPhone firmware, as well as a new version of its SDK for the iPhone. Among the highlights of the announcement were the availability of a new homescreen, MMS, copy and paste, and the long expected arrival of push notifications. Developers will now also be able to sell in game accessories and subscriptions through Apple’s App Store.

iPhone developers will be able to download the new firmware today, while the rest of us will have to wait until it is released to the public later this summer.

From what we have seen, owners of the original iPhone will also be able to update their phones, though according to Engadget, some features like the advanced Bluetooth functionality and MMS will not work on the original iPhone because the hardware simply doesn’t support it.

Overall, Apple will give developers access to over 1000 new APIs. Apple also announced that it sold 13.7 million iPhones in 2008, which is far more than the 10 million Apple itself had predicted.

New Homescreen

The new homescreen will be tightly integrated with the new universal search feature on the iPhone, which will allow you to search through your email, calendar, notes, and iPod library from one single interface. The new homescreen is basically Apple’s iPhone version of Spotlight, as it allows you to find and start apps by searching for them.

Highlights

We detailed some of the most interesting additions to the new iPhone firmware below, but here is a summary of the highlights:

• copy and paste (just like Kevin Rose (and others) predicted)
• push notification
• P2P over Bluetooth
• MMS
• embeddable maps
• landscape mode for all Apple apps
• ability to send multiple photos
• tethering is supported by the phone, but carriers get to choose if they enable it
• no tablet

Copy and Paste

As usual, Apple kept some of the best things for last, but, as rumored, the iPhone will now get copy and paste functionality. Users simply have to double click a word, after which a dialog appears that allows you to cut, copy, or paste. A longer press will automatically mark a complete paragraph. If you paste in the wrong thing, you can simply shake the phone to undo your action.

MMS

Apple will also finally support MMS.

No Background Processes – But Push Notifcation is Finally Coming

In Apple’s tests, background apps turned out to be a major battery drain, so Apple clearly decided against this. Using background processes, Apple argues that even just a standard IM client reduced the battery life by 80%, while the standby time of the phone only dropped by 23% with push notifications. There will be three types of notifications: badge, audio alerts, text alerts.

Apps that are already open will communicate directly with the third-party server, while closed apps will go through Apple’s servers.

New and Better Apps: Calendar, Voice Memos, Stocks

The built-in Apple calendar app will now finally support the CalDAV standard. The stock tracker can now display relevant news stories right in the app, as well as new details like the highs and lows for the day.

Apple also introduced a new app which will record voice memos.

Subscriptions/In-App Purchasing

Besides the new APIs, the most exciting announcement for developers is surely that Apple will now give them the ability to sell subscriptions, extra game levels, and other add-ons from within their applications. Thanks to this, users will, for example, be able to buy a new Kindle book right from within the app, or new outfits for their Sims characters from within the game.

To us, this seems like a smart move, as it will create additional revenue streams for both Apple and the large contingent of iPhone developers.

Bluetooth P2P

Apple will also introduce peer to peer connectivity over Bluetooth, which will, for example, allow game developers to easily create multiplayer games.

At the same time, however, Apple will also allow other third party accessories to communicate directly with the phone. Lifescan, for example, one of the apps that Apple demoed during the announcement, is an app for diabetes patients that can get glucose readings from a medical device and then calculate the necessary insulin doses.

Maps and Directions

Another highlight of the new iPhone firmware is the new Public Maps API, which makes it easy for developers to embed maps into their apps. Maybe even more interesting, Apple will also now allow developers to create GPS-enabled apps that can do turn-by-turn navigation. For licensing reasons, however, Apple’s own map application will not feature this function.

APIs

Apple will introduce a large number of APIs in this new release. Among these are APIs for accessing the iPod library from other applications, streaming audio and video, as well as voice chat and a battery API. One interesting feature of the streaming video feature (and presumably also of the streaming audio API), is that it will adjust the video quality according to the connection speed.

One of the first applications to make use of all of this is Meebo‘s new native iPhone application, which was demoed during the announcement.

Send Multiple Photos

One feature that was always missing from the iPhone oddly was the ability to email more than one photo at a time. In the new version of the firmware, this has finally been rectified.

We would like to thank our friends at VentureBeat and Engadget for their great live coverage of the announcement!

 

新增100多种功能 苹果发布iPhone OS 3.0

美国当地时间3月17日上午10点（北京时间3月18日凌晨1点），苹果在美国公司总部举行发布会，发布并演示了iPhone OS 3.0，增添新功能达到100多种。

美国当地时间3月17日上午10点（北京时间3月18日凌晨1点），苹果在美国公司总部举行发布会，发布并演示了iPhone OS 3.0，增添新功能达到100多种，而常常受到用户诟病的剪切/复制/粘贴功能、蓝牙P2P连接功能、MMS彩信功能等，都全面装备在iPhone OS 3.0身上了，应该能让用户们感到满意，而新的软件开发包（SDK）也为程序开发者提供了方便，提供了1000多种新的应用程序接口（APIs）。

苹果在会议上说，iPhone OS 3.0将于今年夏季发布，具体时间未定。iPhone用户可以免费升级，iPod touch用户则要付费升级，价格为9.95美元。此外，演示活动上苹果还公布了 App Store 的最新业绩：应用数量超过25000个，下载次数超过 8 亿次。

iPhone OS 3.0主要新增功能：

1、剪切/复制/粘帖

操作方法：用手指双击文字就会自动选中，左右两端会显示指针，用手指即可拖动到所需位置，顶部提供剪切、复制和粘帖三个标签，按下即可完成相应的操作。更重要的是，你可以在不同的应用程序中使用该功能，例如在短信中复制文字，然后在日程表当中粘贴插入。万一操作失误，只需摇动手机即可取消上一步操作。

苹果在会议上说，iPhone OS 3.0将于今年夏季发布，具体时间未定。iPhone用户可以免费升级，iPod touch用户则要付费升级，价格为9.95美元。此外，演示活动上苹果还公布了 App Store 的最新业绩：应用数量超过25000个，下载次数超过 8 亿次。

苹果在会议上说，iPhone OS 3.0将于今年夏季发布，具体时间未定。iPhone用户可以免费升级，iPod touch用户则要付费升级，价格为9.95美元。此外，演示活动上苹果还公布了 App Store 的最新业绩：应用数量超过25000个，下载次数超过 8 亿次。

同时，iPhone OS 3.0也支持图片的剪切、复制和粘帖功能，比如你可以在相册中选中复制一张或多张照片，然后到彩信或电子邮件中粘帖。

 

 

2、MMS 彩信功能

iPhone OS 3.0不仅支持短信转发和单条删除，还增加了彩信功能，用户可以在彩信中添加照片、音频、联系人和地理位置信息。不过，iPhone一代并未获得支持，即使升级了也不会增加彩信功能。

 

 

iPhone OS 3.0 还新增了语音备忘录（Voice Memos）应用，可以进行语音备忘、演讲和采访费等录音，并支持对录音进行剪裁和编辑。语音可以通过电子邮件或彩信发送。

 

 

3、蓝牙立体声

iPhone OS 3.0可以让iPhone 3G和iPod Touch支持A2DP蓝牙立体声，也就是可以连接立体声耳机或音箱了，不过这个功能不支持iPhone一代。

4、P2P 连接

虽然iPhone OS 3.0还不能让iPhone自由地通过蓝牙传输文件，不过P2P连接能够让iPhone的应用程序通过蓝牙找到其他iPhone或iPod touch，简单地说，就是可以与朋友的iPhone或iPod touch游戏对战，或者通过相同的程序互相传输资料。不过，现在还不兼容其他品牌的手机哦。

5、手机横向键盘

即使把iPhone横置，也能通过虚拟的QWERTY键盘进行输入了，该功能支持短信、电子邮件、记事本等重要功能。

 

 

6、增强搜索功能

iPhone OS 3.0的搜索功能扩大到大部分的软件，可以搜索电子邮件（包括标题、发件人和收件人），如果邮件不在本地可继续在服务器上进行搜索；也可以搜索日历和备忘录；还可以根据歌曲、专辑和艺术家名称搜索 iPod 曲库；此外，还可以搜索第三方软件的内容。

 

 

7、其他新增功能

iPhone OS 3.0的其他新增功能还有对CalDAV协议日历的支持，订阅.ics格式的iCalendar日历，新的股市功能，记事本同步，YouTube在线视频帐户，Wi-Fi自动登录，网页信息自动填充，反钓鱼等功能，可谓对苹果iPhone/iPhone 3G/iPod Touch一代和二代的革命性升级。

其他新功能特性：记事本同步，音频、视频标签，流媒体视频直播，晃动机身随机播放，WiFi自动登录，蓝牙立体声，新建iTunes帐号，YouTube评分，防钓鱼网站，家长控制等等。

 

 

 

新版SDK即日起开始测试。

 

 

 

App Store开通国家和地区新增15个，达到77个。

 

 

 

iPhone 3.0软件今年夏天问世，iPhone 3G可免费升级。第一代iPhone也可免费升级，但不支持A2DP蓝牙立体声、彩信等功能。iPod touch升级价格9.95美元。 (本文来源：网易手机 )