BindApple

When talking about mobile news, it's funny to see that, basically, we have "iPhone news," and "the others." Ok, I may be exaggerating here, but don't you think there's simply too much noise about the iPhone and the upcoming iPhone 3G? After all, this is only a phone! Yes, a phone, but not just another phone - an iPhone, so here's what we have on it, and a few related things, today...

One interesting thing is that, if your friends want to send you get some iPhones for them, too, that won't be possible. According to AT&T, only one iPhone 3G per person in line. What a pity!

When it comes to synchronizing your information, iTunes can take care of moving stuff from your old iPhone to the new one. Just be sure to sync the one you have now with iTunes, then sync the new one with iTunes, to get things moving.

Existing voicemails will probably be lost, so be careful to record those you want to keep for eternity before switching. According to AT&T, "Any existing voicemail messages will be lost once your new phone is activated."

Rumors regarding the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 3G are also leading us into thinking that the iPod line will get a refresh these days, because iPod stocks seem to be running low, and since the products are not discontinued, probably new models are waiting to jump in, as soon as the iPhone 3G frenzy calms down a bit. Lehman Brothers analyst Ben Reizes claims no less than 3.6 million iPhone 3Gs will be sold this summer, and no less than 23 million for the entire 2009.

To close this article and get to a different story while doing it, I will say that a small patent holding firm, Saxon Innovations LLC, just filed a lawsuit accusing Apple, Acer, Dell, Gateway and HP of knowingly treading on 4 of their patents for encrypted wireless signals and other things. Apple didn't comment anything yet...

I always enjoy well done product presentations and hands-on reviews. When talking about Apple's iPhone, it's always a pleasure to watch it in action. Now, everyone is waiting to see the iPhone 3G in action, obviously. Since we're getting closer and closer to the official release date, there's no surprise to see Apple showing up with new materials related to the iPhone 3G, and what could be better than a video guided tour?

Anyway, until we get to Apple's guided tour, let's see what happens in AT&T's back yard, shall we? First, you should check the AT&T YouTube video channel. The reason will reveal itself as soon as you have loaded the page, but you should also spend a few minutes checking the iPhone 3G pricing page on their site, just to make sure everything's official...

Now, to the Apple iPhone 3G guided tours(yeah, there are two of them, not only one!)... The last one was added less than a day ago, and I think best thing to do now is go through the highlights of the tours, since they answer some frequently asked questions about the iPhone 3G.

- The iPhone 3G comes with GPS, new metal buttons, upgraded speakers and microphone, all mentioned in the videos.

- When talking about software, the "Interactive City Guides" is the best part for now, but I am sure we'll get a bunch of games to makes us forget about that PSP...

- Unfortunately for those hoping that this may be possible, the iPhone 3G won't be available online from the Apple Store. The official Apple website will offer a list of retail stores for those interested, and that's all.

Well, that's all for now. Less than 10 days remaining to the official release in the wild of the iPhone 3G...

The Mac Pros are very  powerful machines, and their design won't ever make you ashamed of the animal below(or ON) your desk. The Mac Pro has always been a great rig to own, even back in the day when it was known as the Power Mac G5, and used the PowerPC 970 CPU. Anyway, today they are using Intel processors, just like the other Macs Apple has in the portfolio, but one thing has been missing in the last years - a Blu-Ray drive. The good part is that now, this issue has just been left behind!

Currently, the Mac Pro computers available feature one optical drive, the 16× SuperDrive (multiple DVD write formats), and to be more accurate, the Pioneer DVR-111D or Sony DW-D150A are the only choices available. Fortunately, a second optical drive is optional. Thanks to MCE Technologies, the Blu-Ray for Mac is finally here!

Since the name is not quite an original one - SuperDrive...another SuperDrive? Well, that could surely cause some confusion! Why not...BlueDrive? Well, whatever, let's see what this beauty can do, apart from - as you can see in the picture - being blue, shall we?

Able to burn 25GB single layer and 50GB dual-layer Blu-Ray discs, the MCE Super Drive features 6X Blu-Ray write speeds and 16X DVD recording speed. It fully supports Lightscribe, and can play both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media.

All fine, until we get to the painful part of the whole deal - the price. I know it comes with Toast 8 Titanium and a 25GB Blu-Ray rewritable disc, but a SRP of $699??? Not my thing, thank you! Anyway, I am sure that, if you really need a Blu-Ray unit on your Mac Pro, $699 won't be that much, after all, but for me, the DVD is still the right path to follow.

As we have seen a few days ago, the cheapest subscription plans available for the iPhone 3G are spinning somewhere around $50. Obviously, carriers must try to mold their offers to match various markets and the behaviour of the consumers in a certain area, so we finally bumped into what I can finally call "a decent plan for the iPhone 3G." Unfortunately, it doesn't happen at the closest mobile carrier in my city...but those in Hong Kong will surely be glad to find out about the iPhone plans coming from the "3" network!

3 is operated by Hutchinson Telecom, and they just announced that the monthly service plans for Apple's iPhone 3G will start at $24, and if they end up offering this on the same markets as AT&T, I think someone should do something about those outrageous prices...

The low-end plan is worth $24, and allows you to purchase an 8GB iPhone 3G for about $377, or the 16GB model, for $479. This plan includes 500 basic minutes, 500 heart-to-heart minutes, 25 multimedia content messages, 15 text content messages, 500 MB of data usage and unlimited Intra SMS messages.

The most expensive plan from 3 is worth $64, giving you a free 8GB iPhone 3G, and the 16GB model for only about $20! The plan includes 2200 basic minutes, 1500 heart-to-heart minutes, 150 multimedia content messages, 50 text content messages, unlimited data usage and unlimited Intra SMS messages. Is this awesome, or what?

Yesterday, the Apple iPhone celebrated its first birthday, but it wasn't just that, because June's end arrives with more than just this in Apple's backyard, as we're going to see right away. Even more, there are only 11 days remaining until the official release date of the iPhone 3G, so this summer is really going to be hot for Apple and all the fans of the Cupertino-based company out there!

Ok, so let's take them one by one. First, the anniversary. Well, what would you like to know about the iPhone? Originally released on the 29th of June, 2007, Apple's first mobile phone managed to sell no less than 5 million units so far, probably even more than 6-7, I lost the count, to be honest, but it's not the numbers. The iPhone 3G will come with a great price, although missing some features we were all expecting, but I guess that can be fixed in some future version...

Just in time to consider it a gift for the iPhone, Apple also released the 8th Beta version of the iPhone SDK, available in the iPhone Dev Center. The new release comes with a complete set of tools for creating iPhone and iPod Touch applications. This Beta is fully compatible with iPhone 2.0 final, and must be used to build and sign any application, which can only be done if you're a member of the iPhone Developer Program, of course. Anyway, if you only want to play with the SDK for now, downloading it is free, so no problem for beginners!

At last, you should also be aware that the 8th Beta of the iPhone SDK requires the pre-release version of iTunes 7.7. I know, it may sound strange, but that's it - you can wait for the final version, or get busy now, and assume the risks.

Once again, "Happy Birthday, beloved iPhone!" If you didn't have your Apple cake yet, there's still time to go for it. More than yesterday's event, I have a feeling that 2008 is going to be "the year of the Apple," so why not celebrate every day? ;)