Gizmodo confirms 3G iPhone launch date? - iPhone Australia :: News, Rumours and Reviews for Aussies

Gizmodo confirms 3G iPhone launch date?

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

Gizmodo US says a source ‘very, very close to’ Apple confirms what we’re all already expecting. What’s that? The 3G iPhone, available to buy, worldwide, bang on June 9 – right after the launch.

With just over two weeks to go before Steve Jobs strides upon the stage at the Moscone Convention Center for his WWDC keynote speech where he is expected to unveil the iPhone 2, aka the 3G iPhone, the big question has been: when will the 3G iPhone actually go on sale?

Although some have predicted it might not arrive until later in the year, the unavailability of the iPhone from the US Apple store truly signals only one thing: the 3G iPhone will go on sale from June 9 in the US, or so says Gizmodo US, which for countries like Australia means June 10 thanks to time zone differences.

One reason for sales to happen immediately, aside from the fact everyone’s busting to see what it looks like and either upgrade to the 3G goodness or finally buy one because it has reached version 2.0 at last is so that Apple can book massive day one sales in the second quarter to make up for the fact first-generation iPhones have been ‘unavailable’.

Of course that’s just someone’s theory, but given the fact sales quarters and numbers are important, a massive surge in ‘last minute’ 2nd quarter sales will smooth out the sales numbers and help Apple surge ever closer – if not beyond – its promised target of at least 10 million iPhones sold in calendar 2008.

But despite saying the 3G iPhone will go on worldwide sale on June 9, Gizmodo’s article then states that some new iPhone countries, such as Spain, won’t actually get the new iPhone until June 18, when Telefonica (Spain’s dominant telco) opens its megastore on June 18.

This also casts doubt on Australia getting the iPhone from June 10, as it will likely co-incide with the opening of the Southern Hemisphere’s first Apple store in Sydney, which only today (May 26) had a huge banner unfurled promising the store would ‘open soon’, something that some commentators take to mean ‘within the next 30 days’.

Gizmodo also speculates upon ‘new sales policies’ for the 3G iPhone, suggesting different prices, subsidised prices, trade-up plans and a range of voice and data plans, all of which make sense considering it’s how most other phones are sold today.

The rumours of new iPhone features haven’t stopped either. The latest beta of the iPhone 2.0 firmware supposedly shows ‘geotagging’ features built in to both the Google Maps and the camera application.

For digital photography, this would allow the iPhone to record where your photos were taken, either through the expected built-in GPS module, or through phone tower triangulation, with the location of photos taken then able to be displayed on the Google Maps application.

It would let you – or others if photos are shared on the web – search for images based on the location they were taken in, although this feature – if implemented – is hardly unique, already possible on competing phones such as the Nokia N95 with suitable software and some Windows Mobile smartphone models.

Well, one thing’s for sure. The hype around the 3G iPhone has been built up so high that if Steve Jobs doesn’t deliver all users expects and leaves out major features, Apple’s share price could easily plunge on the very day it should rise, thanks to the 3G iPhone finally being delivered.

But predicting stock market movements is about as accurate as predicting what Steve Jobs will really do – you’d might be better off asking a clairvoyant although we don’t really recommend that either.

So, sit tight, enjoy the rampant ripples of raucous iPhone rumours, and if you haven’t already, start saving up, because the 3G iPhone should pack one heck of a powerful feature packed punch – if all these radical rumours are right!

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