3G should have been launched by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) way back in Oct 2007. And things were all set for this big launch, but the Defense Ministry objected and raised the question of security - “The Department of Telecom has written a note to the Group of Ministers (GoM) asking the latter to get the defense ministry to vacate spectrum for 3G services within 2007.” And things just dint happen - read more.
And now things seems to be getting back to track. Om Malik of GigoOm has this awesome post on how India might get lucky and get 3G soon. If this comes true, iPhone 3G would be the biggest mobile phone launch of 2008 in India.
My guess is that 3G should come true by this year end itself. Keeping my fingers crossed. Let me now pickup few excerpts from Om Malik’s post:
Indian Department of Telecommunications (DOT) is getting all set to introduce about a dozen 3G licenses in some of the more densely populated regions including the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Karnataka, and Kerala. The information comes to us from our friends at Packetology, a Telecom research firm focused on the Indian market.
According to initial DOT 3G policy, each carrier was going to get 5 MHz of spectrum and only 25 MHz of total spectrum was available.
O2 has announced 3G iPhone pay to go prices. Its more than almost 3 times the subsidized prices in the US. Here is what iLounge has to say
The 8GB iPhone 3G will be available without a monthly contract for £299.99 (around $590), while the 16GB model will run £359.99 (around $708). Both models will include 6 months of unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi, benefits that will cost pay-as-you-go customers £10 per month afterwards.
Yes, its going to be 8:00 AM and not 6:00 PM. iPhone is going to be formally launched on the 11th July at 8:00 AM. Engadget says this might be true. Here is what engadget has to say:
Don’t take a vacation day just yet or anything, but early word has it that Apple’s iPhone 3G will actually go on sale at 8:00AM (local time, most likely) on July 11th.
Engadget has this amazing coverage of iPhone 3G features, questions, clarifications, queries, issues, etc. that people had all this while. Its clear and very simply put together. A must read for all iPhone enthusiasts. Here is the excerpts:
So, what’s with the new iPhone 3G?
Well, it’s pretty much the same iPhone as before — except now it’s down to $200, and has way faster 3G data, A-GPS (which is even better than regular GPS), as well as a flush headphone jack (which is great for anyone who doesn’t want to use Apple’s bundled headphones).
How’d they get the price so low? The iPhone used to be crazy expensive.
Actually, depending on how you do the math it’s not actually cheaper. Now, in some countries the iPhone is free when you sign up for service, and in the US you’ll pay $200 for the 8GB model
I heard you can’t activate the iPhone at home anymore, is that true?
This is still a little fuzzy. Here’s the deal: with the first iPhone, Apple used to let you buy it in the store and take it home to activate. This process is unlike almost every other phone on the market, but since it’s Apple, and because you were paying full price for the device, if you never activated it with AT&T or just unlocked it and sent it to your friend in China or whatever, it wasn’t a big deal.
This is just too cool. To read the complete coverage, click here or go to Engadget now. Thanks Engadget, you guys are just amazing.
This news is making rounds from last fews days. After Steve Jobs displayed the 3G capabilities over the big screen during WWDC 2008, it was apparent that one of the flash video was showing in the image capture. iPhoneAtlas made a note of this and has this to say:
Apple’s Web site depicts an iPhone 3G rendering the Lonely Planet Web site. The page renders beautifully, as all HTML does on the iPhone, and looks similar to the way it would in a full-fledged desktop browser — too similar, in fact: the Lonely Planet home page includes a world map on the left-hand side that makes use of Adobe Flash, but reverts to a non-Flash version of scaled-down browsers. With Flash, the map is multi-toned and can be hovered over with a cursor, triggering animation. Without flash, a monotone map is displayed without animation or interaction.
This is going to be a cool addon. The only thing missing in my 3G iPhone is going to be copy-paste feature. Steve Jobs, are you listining???
Yes, we are now talking about how does 3G iPhone look and how much different it is from the previous iPhone. 3 of the top websites - Gizmodo, Macworld and Engadget got a change to touch and work on 3G iPhones for a short while and here is what they have to say:
In my hand, the 3G iPhone is lighter, fits better, and noticeably thinner feeling as it doesn’t have the same squarish shape. (You won’t notice that it is thicker at all.)
The reception increase is partly to do with the new plastic back.
3G data on the maps and browser were only slightly slower than Wi-Fi.
The black is very very nice. The white? It’s ok, but very feminine, so maybe it’s good for Jason or Jesús.
Audio? It was definitely clearer than the single mono speaker in the first iPhone. (Even if this one is not stereo either.)
Fundamentally, this new iPhone feels very much like the old iPhone. It’s apparently lighter than the old one by a minuscule amount, but in my hand it didn’t feel any different from the current iPhone.
The biggest cosmetic changes are on the back panel, which is now shiny plastic instead of metal.
The back panel is curvier than the one on the current iPhone, and the recessed headphone jack has been replaced with one which lies flush with the iPhone’s body, meaning the days of iPhone headphone adapters are gone forever.
When I asked about the new GPS features of the iPhone 3G, Borchers explained that iPhone’s Core Location function—which uses Wi-Fi and cellular tower locations to compute a location on current iPhone models
The enable/disable 3G setting is real, and buried a few menus deep. There is no automatic switching, Apple just assumes you’ll leave 3G on, and that the iPhone has the juice to support that usage.
It’s tri-band 3G, as we reported the other day. This same phone will ship worldwide.
WiFi is still 802.11b/g, no support for n yet.
Yes, that GPS is A-GPS, just as we mentioned.
Geotagging photos is a thumbs-up. We were deep indoors though, so native GPS wasn’t working and we couldn’t get a clear idea of satellite acquisition time.
The plastic back didn’t feel too cheap. In fact, it felt pretty solid. It’s very glossy, so it’ll pick up fingerprints just as well as the glass up front (yay).
iPhone 3G & 2.0 firmware has been successfully unlockedUpdate 1: Just to clear up some confusion over what this actually does: yes, it jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches. We only support the 2.0 firmwares. Update 2: It looks like there aren’t enough TCP ports on that server, so _BigBoss_ has generously offered to mirror it. Update 3: If you get Error 1600 from iTunes (or if you see in your log a failure to prepare x12220000_4_Recovery.ipsw), try: mkdir “~/Library/iTunes/Device Support” ; if that directory already exists, remove any files in it. Then re-run PwnageTool. . [know more about iPhoneDevTeam... click here]
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3G should have been launched by the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) way back in Oct 2007. And things were all set for this big launch, but the Defense Ministry objected and raised the question of security - “The Department of Telecom has written a note to the Group of Ministers (GoM) asking the latter to get the defense ministry to vacate spectrum for 3G services within 2007.” And things just dint happen - read more.
Let me now pickup few excerpts from Om Malik’s post:
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