3G iPhone rumored to be Infineon-powered, hitting "mid-year"
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 28th 2008 12:06PM
posted Feb 28th 2008 12:06PM
[Thanks, Tim G.]
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"We've got a good feeling about this one, guy"
Better than the LAST "good feeling"? SIGN ME UP!!!
Give me 3G and 32 gig storage, and I'm in.
Although i don't even want an iphone... I imagine the old models are gonna get super cheap when the new ones are gonna come out. Maybe I'll buy one and leave it lying around the house. It seems wrong to not buy it if it's really cheap.
Give me 3G and 32 gig storage and a space shuttle, and I'm in. Won't buy before the space shuttle deal, that's for sure.
Ryan TV: I just dont get why people feel the need to carry there whole library with them all at one time and spend hundreds of dollars for it. There are services that allow you to access your itunes library via streaming, you know, maybe even for free.
mrmimis06,
Because sometimes you want to listen to your music in the elevator, on the subway, or in the mountains. You know, places that don't get cellular signals.
@mrmimis06
Because the iphone also plays more than just music? Just a guess.
mrmimis06,
1. I rip to Apple Lossless so 16 gigs is nothing to me.
2. Yeah sometimes I want to listen to Ole Dirty Bastard right after I'm done with the 1812 Overture. I roll like that.
3. My iTunes folder is like 263 gigs right now. So, uh, see 1 & 2.
4. Different people want to carry different stuff. My son only listens to one album at a time over and over and over but I bet the kid would fill up an iPhone with video in a heartbeat. Options are always better. To quote my roommate buying a hard drive a few years back, "Two gigs? Why the hell would I ever need two gigs?"
3G, GPS, 8GB (or more, so long as they keep the same price), no new contract, $299, and I will buy one to replace my old iPhone.
ODB R.I.P...
Wake me up when there's a CDMA / EVDO Rev.A version.
please wake up & step into the real WORLD.
wake up & go with the world.
You'll be sleeping a long, long, long time!
Probably forever since AT&T have a 5 year exclusivity contract and they use global standards and none of that weird CDMA stuff :)
To Tamogno:
Yeah, I really miss my GSM phones sending screaching noises through all of my radios/speakers. Ever since the switch I made to Sprint/CDMA, it has been pure bliss.
And why would I need to join "the rest of the world" when it comes to my phone?
If you would sleep that long, people may misinterpret you to be dead. So, wake up Now!
Now thats what iam tlaking about. Iam not changing services and my GREAT SERO plan for no phone. CDMA/REV.A or bust.
yet another reason the iphone has no place in my house.... real world? weird gsm stuff?
bs.
gsm gets no signal in my house.. but "weird CDMA" does.. so what's weird about it? better signal? yeah. eat that foot.
Prokanda,
You must have a "weird" house than.
My house is in Europe, and I don't get "weird CDMA" in my.... continent.
YA RLY!
truth.
It's about damn time...
Now all we need is a 3G BlackBerry!
Yay! Maybe now I will get this bloated blog I like to read to load up called Engadget before my arms get tired of holding the iPhone.
Arms the size of twigs.
Oh, give me a break. I read Engadget on my iPhone via Edge all the time, and it's not that bad. Would I like better? Sure. But it's not unbearably or unusably slow.
You should try using Google Reader and just subbing the RSS feed of Engadget. Works great.
Or read m.engadget.com
So what they're saying is the current iPhone ISN'T 3G?! I've been duped and gloriously missold!
Well then that is your own fault. Nobody ever said current iPhones had 3G.
You plum, it was a joke.
Does it have an open SDK yet?
Does it have a slide-out qwerty keyboard yet?
Can I get it on T-Mobile USA?
Will it work with their 3G?
Didn't think so. Not interested.
"a slide-out qwerty keyboard"
you're kidding right?
I wont buy a phone without a keypad. I learned on my first iphone. I wont buy another.
The iPhone also makes a fantastic throwing star-like object!
THUNK!
Danny: Not kidding. I hate the iPhone's on screen keyboard. And, having used other devices which had physical keyboard or virtual-keyboard options, I found myself MUCH happier with the physical keyboard.
For one, you can see the entire screen while typing. For two (with the iPhone), you could do SMS in landscape orientation, which I would greatly prefer over its "obscure half the screen, and only usable in portrait orientation" implementation.
Yup, a slide out QWERTY keyboard - like the Samsung F-700, that is the very opposite of the iPhone. The F-700 has a tactile keyboard but not so well conceived software / GUI. It is well known that long term operation of a touch screen will cause pain - there is no relief that regular keyboards offer by absorbing some of the impact. Apple have proven with the original (and ground breaking) iPod Nano (and 1st gen iPhone) that they can miniaturise when they try hard - so no reason why by mid 2008 they cannot offer a next gen iPhone in the same form factor with these specs:
a) Built in GPS, real GPS!, not fake as per Nokia N95 and most other phones.
b) 3 MP or greater camera with auto focus and xenon flash - protected and hidden behind a...
c) ...slideout QWERTY keyboard that can be detached to make it easy to swap if phone is imported or re-sold to an owner of different nationality.
d) Haptic feedback on the touch screen
e) Proper 3.5mm audio jack
f) Stereo bluetooth to work with my lovely Sony stereo BT headset
g) Intelligent formatting of web pages, not just clever zooming. (My Sony Ericsson K800i browser displays web pages at a size I can read right away, I do not need to zoom in and out first. The iPhone browser is sexy, but actually a pain - IMHO!)
h) Stereo FM radio with INTERNAL antenna like the new Sony Ericsson W980
That should do it! And I'll buy or upgrade to a next gen iPhone if it happens. Apple?
Slide-out qwerty keyboards are great if you like phones as thick as a 1996 Nokia.
I think a thin slide-out keyboard should be doable, if Samsung can get a slider to be so thin and the new Sony Xperia isn't all that thick either. Real GPS would be nice as well along with nav software.
I cant wait for the 3G Iphone - main reason I switched to ATT
Does it mean old ones will be sell for cheap?
Not from Apple.
This was my first time submitting a story to engadget and you guys actually posted it! I'm so excited. The 3G iPhone is also pretty exciting. If they bump it up to 32 gigs I will pay no matter how much it is.
i hope they move the camera to the screen side, making possible some cool new apps. The only challenge would be finding the "shutter" icon when aiming the camera away from you. There's room for the camera above or below the mic slot, without putting it on a corner where sleeves and cases would obscure it.
yeah, cos the slight extra cost having only one camera on the front is totally worth the hassle of NOT BEING ABLE TO AIM THE CAMERA.
Just put a second camera on for christ's sake
i think i overlooked the obvious. I yield to Phoenix!
LOL. Thank goodness you are not an Apple product designer.
True that.
Can't come soon enough. I'm ready for a new phone, but I think it would be silly to pay $400 or $500 for an iPhone at this time. Hopefully by the time the 2nd Gen iPhone comes out (3G, GPS, voice recorder, voice dialing would be sweet), it will have compeition from the SE Experia and maybe an early Android device. Should be a good year for mobile phone buyers!
I used to think i was waiting for 3G and 802.11n.
But the more I look at my actual data use, the more I think all they really need is a functional SDK. The 3G coverage in my area is crap anyway, and the iPhone can't do anything so useful over wifi that I need more bandwidth. (doesn't stream video/audio. doesn't share. etc)
About the only hardware bump I'd really care about, is a better camera. Maybe GPS.
The rest? I'll take it. But 3G and n are not going to make the sale without an SDK.
Is there an iPhone version of this site available? I really like how iLounge has one set up; makes it a lot easier to read.
got to say, i'm a little concerned about these iphone friendly sites. keep sites as they are, forcing the iphone dev team - and external developers once the sdk is released - to release flash support, windows media support, real player (urgh) support, etc, stop safari from crashing under heavy ajax calls, increase data speeds (starting with 3G), bully the networks to make them increase coverage, widen their edge coverage, etc, or....
rebuild your site, so its lightweight and basic and so the current iphone is happy.
hhmmmmm....
@danny
good points and your logic is spot on. but i gotta say websites are wayyyy too top-heavy and most flash is crap ads. i _love_ having flash and JS disabled by default on firefox.
plus the real issue is form-factor. 3.5" is just too damn small and constant pinching is starting to get old. bottom-line: there needs to be mobile and/or iphone friendly websites for the forseeable future.
so my point is: usually less is more. craigslist FTW
Definitely can't wait for this. As someone said earlier, 32 gigs of storage and 3G and I'm in on this shindig.
My iPhone 2 (or any phone) wishlist:
Get me 3G, live video share, WVGA, GPS, instant voicemail (ability to send voicemail instantly without ringing the phone).
wish for iPhone 3 (or any phone):
Nintendo DS Lite form factor (expect much thinner) and with wide WVGA displays on the outside and on the inside (top inside display .. maybe not the bottom touchscreen cause it needs the buttons on both sides).
If this had a flexible OLED and could flip close, it would be my top candidate for iPhone 3G. http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/6038_large_IMG_0172.JPG Hey, I can have dreams too. Sad thing is this tech can happen now, similar to the same way the old phone guards Moto, Nokia, SE etc. insinuated (in 2006 BA - Before Apple) that a true touch screen interface was “years away”. Yea sure until a n00b showed up and prove them wrong!
Don't confuse UBS analysts with Wirefire analysts. They hate that.
I just want real GPS and 3G. Do that and I'll switch providers/phones.
Any crack smoker knows if apple wants to sell 10M units this year, they need new hardware and now just more music capacity and cut&paste.
Just sell it for cheaper $100. Screw $400 + thats a PS3 or 360 (whichever way you swing) :)
I have an 32GB iPod and I dont want a phone thats a disposable device to hold my music - unless its $100 LOL.
and guess who has a verizon contract thats is up in may? yeah this guy right here.... awwwwww yeahhhhhhhh
I'd like to think that when a 3G iPhone is finally released all the bitching, whining and moaning about it will stop, but unfortunately Apple-haters are never satisfied, so even if it had every possible function in the universe and cured cancer people would still bitch, whine and moan about it. Even if the other phones that didn't cure cancer cost twice as much.
Of course the real problem is that a lot of people are going to be unpleasantly surprised by the lack of widespread 3G coverage in the US, and will of course blame Apple for that too.
You hit the nail on the head, buddy. I swear, even if Apple invented a tablet that cured cancer, a bunch of Apple haters would drop down and tell everybody that Apple wasn't the first company to cure cancer. They would find some obscure bankrupted company hidden in the depths of the Amazon basin and proclaim that Apple stole their technology. And then they would pounce on the cancer curing tablet for the lack of features.
"Why doesn't it cure AIDS? What about the common cold? This cancer curing tablet sucks. Apple users think they're so much BETTER than everyone, just because their glorious company cured cancer! What about MMS? Or copy and paste? What good is a tablet that cures cancer when you can't even play Crysis?"
No, the bitching and griping will continue. You'll listen to the Apple haters complaining it doesn't have a 5MP camera with a famous make lens. No built-in LED flash. It doesn't have a camera front AND rear. The battery still won't be replaceable. It's too overpriced. It's too heavy. It's too thin. The volume isn't high enough. The reception isn't powerful enough. No "real" GPS. What? No stereo Bluetooth. The virtual keyboard hasn't been replaced by a real keyboard. There's only about 500 apps. They'll say their five-year-old Treo has better features. The list will go on and on.
Yet Apple will sell 10 million plus of the overhyped, overpriced iPhone and the other smartphones won't even come close even though every motherloving handset company will still be trying to copy it. Let's hope by then the iPhone will have copy and paste.
And no. It won't cure cancer or make your hair grow. For those reasons alone it's bound to be considered a failure.
It'll continue but not for those reasons - it will be because it doesn't have WiMax (4G).
I can see that a 3G iPhone will work wonders in Europe - but the 3G coverage on AT&T's USA network is pretty much limited to major metropolitan areas.
Doesn't that imply the mid-year 3G iPhone will have to sport an EDGE chipset as well. I'm all for the faster speed (where available) - but not at the cost of data access away from a 3G or Wi-fi hotspot.
Don't know about Europe, but all AT&T 3G phones come with EDGE so it can fall back on it when UMTS/HSDPA isn't available.
3G and a few other features standard on basicaly every other phone out there that there was no excuse for it not shpping with them, MMS and stereo bluetooth (how what is basicaly THE music phone could not have that is beond me), and it will be my next phone, but without those my old RAZR V3xx is superior for what I use my phone for.
True, they were features out there. But AT&T's 3G network sucked in terms of penetration - which severely limited the applicable market. They needed to upgrade infrastructure [which they are still doing].
Plus if you calculated in the power drainage and size of the 3G chipsets - your phone would have been about 10% thicker [posted somewhere, can't remember where] and battery life would have been cut down by at least a third. Ouch! If you use your phone regularly you already need to charge it every 16 hours!
well, my tmobile contract is up in a month and a half, and this phone couldnt come sooner.
Needs a contest for who can bet closest to the actual date. Perhaps the winner gets the phone. Multiple people on one day get honorable mention and there is a random draw-off for the winner from people that bet on the same day. Could couple it with date it will be announced and date it will come available. Closest combination wins.
My money for release is on September 12, 2008. Kaching!
did you not think that apple would be releasing a new iphone this year. i'm predicting it's going to follow the path of the ipod; an update every september. unless the iphone gets at least a 30GB hard drive i might be going for the ipod touch this year... its been bout 2 years since i got an ipod.
Come on solid state!
By the way, am I the only one who feel that the hype of getting iPhone in Asia has diminished? It seems that having to jailbreak an iPhone is not beyond infinity, the demand of finding a single provider in Asian countries is no longer necessary. I still remember the plan for releasing iPhone in Asia when Jobs gave the keynote in MWSF 2007.
Jesus phone. Second coming.
The fact that so many people seems to be waiting for the 3G iPhone cant be good for business. It seems imperative that Apple have to release it soon to be able to ride the wave and buzz of the first iPhone. Soon every manufacturer is going to have their own version of the iPhone but with more open architecture.
I bought an iPhone right after this year Macworld Expo thinking that it would be another year before 3G iPhone comes out. Had I known this, I would have waited.
Pfft...I'll be waiting for the Nokia N830, thanks. No keyboard, no Java, no full Google apps support, no thanks.
When these iPhone rumours break I always wonder: won't iPhone 2 have to go through the same 6 month FDA(?) approval process the original vesion went through? I have no idea how this kind of thing works, can someone put me right?
I think you mean FCC
lol FDA
..er... yeah.. FCC, that's it! Sorry, I did say I didn't have any idea. Any thoughts on my point?
Wait, didn't someone say this new iPhone will cure cancer in an earlier post? Maybe the FDA is the right federal agency :)
All hail the iPhone 2!
The first cell phone to cure cancer instead of cause it!
maybe this version can make us breathe fire like bud light???
OK! I'm in the UK! FCC, BBC, FBI it's all the same to me;-)
This infineon chipset will have "real" GPS. More specifically, A-GPS. Which is a whole lot better than standalone GPS (provided AT&T's network is ready to support it). I just wonder what location-based services Apple and AT&T have in mind. Remember those Amp'd Mobile commercials (in the U.S.) with the catchy phrase; "Where you at?" - we'll just text reply with your location.
In addition to HSDPA this chipset will do HSUPA for increased uplink speed. Makes me wonder too if Apple and AT&T are laying the groundwork for a Video iChat app.
Please Apple; improve your camera. 1) it's slow to start up 2) let me hold the phone like a real camera (landscape) and put a dedicated shutter button on the thing with a decent flash and 5MP CMOS sensor. Kodak is selling those suckers - c'mon it'll fit!
Granted, I'm sure Apple and Infineon spent most of their resources beefing up the security to delay any hacks to allow foreign USIMs to work.
Oh, and please don't drain the battery more than the current model with this new stuff.
Crap. Who wants to by a 2 week old iPhone?
JESUS > WIFI > CDMA > 3G
I could be 5 miles from a tower with AT&T and have 2 bars.
Yet be even farther from a tower with Verizon and have 3-4 bars.
CDMA is just a better technology. Just because the rest of the world
isn't CDMA doesn't mean it's not superior.
Remember when your MOM would say "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?"
If Apple releases the iPhone 2 with 3G with a longer lasting battery (to counter the 3G's battery sucking aspect) -- I'll be on board.
Anyone think Verizon will bail out Sprint/Nextel and buy them all up? Sprint uses CDMA
so it would only make sense. They don't look like they'll be around for the long haul.
i just popped out my new 16gig iphones sim card. on the sim card it says 3g. but the phones internet is sometimes fast, soemtimes crazy slow. and the phone recognizes it as edge..
anyone else discover a 3g sim card?
I heard from a little bird (ex-employee) within Telstra (Australia's biggest Telecommunications company) will be selling the iphone in Australia in august 2008.The storage will be 30Gb, also Telstra is pushing its G3 Phone network hard so its unlikely that they will go with the 1st gen iphone.
What do you get with a new iPhone with fast 3G and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and an Apple Macbook Air with Bluetooth2.1+EDR? Elegant wireless Internet everywhere. One of the reasons the Air wasn't designed with more ports.
As an ex-Infineon employee, we knew about this eons ago.
One thing no one seems to mention about a 3G iPhone is that it should be possible to surf and receive calls, something Edge can't do.
That will be worthwhile if it could still do that in an Edge only area.
Hopefully that damn Steve Jobs put M4/T4 compatibility this time for the 2nd generation of iPhone seriously. If you guys were deaf (with hearing aids) like me, you would want to find a phone like this that has a capability of M4/T4 to it. Seriously though if this 2nd generation of iPhone comes out, with no M4/T4 compatibility then shit hits the fan. I mean 1st generation maybe Steve might have learned something but 2nd generation I expect major changes like M4/T4 compatibility as the 1st generation doesn't support M4/T4.
And, since the new iPhone will undoubtedly cost $50, the world will watch early adopters writh, yet again, in agony, as they moan "aloi, aloi, lama sabach tani".
Hi Fellas! Hey, can someone tell me what is the difference between the gps stuff some like and the sprint cdma stuff? Wouldnt the world wide gps stuff be better? What are the pro's with the cdma?
I kinda like the Palm 755 phone that is out now and plan to purchase it.