iPhone News Updated

AT&T Says iPhone 3GS is Hot in a Good Way

The iPhone 3GS is hot according to AT&T. No, I’m not talking about the overheating issues, but a alleged leaked memo from the iPhone’s exclusive U.S. carrier. In the memo, AT&T reports the iPhone 3GS launch day on June 6 was the best-ever sales day for AT&T retail stores, according to MacDaily News.

June 6 was also the second largest traffic day for AT&T stores, and the most upgrade eligibility checks in a single day were performed during the iPhone 3GS launch day. The 3GS debut was so huge, for AT&T retail stores anyway, that sales for the device surpassed launch day sales for the iPhone 3G by noon Central Time.

After the iPhone 3GS initial launch weekend, Apple also reported a successful launch of its latest smart phone reporting that it had sold more than one million iPhone 3GS devices at Apple retail locations. That’s the same number Apple used to describe the iPhone 3G launch weekend last year.

What’s surprising, however, is a growing consensus that the iPhone 3GS debut may have been far bigger than the launch of the iPhone 3G. Last summer, the iPhone 3G debut was lauded as the most successful launch of any tech product in history. For days after its initial availability, fans were lining up around the block at Apple Stores across the United States and the world to get their hands on the iPhone 3G. Device shortages were a regular occurrence, and customers in less populated areas were left waiting for months to get their own wonder gadget from Apple.
Read the rest of this entry »

Google Latitude for iPhone… a WebApp?!

Techcrunch reports that during Google’s I/O developers conference they showed off the iPhone version of Latitude — which lets users stalk keep track of their friends via GPS and other location-based services — but not as part of some revamped Map or Google Mobile application as many suspected:

Google has been waiting for the [iPhone] 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android.

Now, Google has made arguably the best and most impressive catalog of WebApps seen on the iPhone to date, but why go that route with Latitude? And waiting for iPhone 3.0 to be released this summer, which also sounds strange given MobileSafari in 3.0 doesn’t look to answer any of the persistent-connection problems Latitude faces on the iPhone platform (i.e. lack of background multi-tasking).

So, call us interested but not impressed… yet.

[Thanks: http://www.macworld.com]