Filed under: iPhone
AT&T's Stephenson: 3G iPhone
The iPhone has been a big financial win for Apple. So, as pretty much everyone and their brother expected, Apple will follow up the current EDGE version with a true 3G iPhone in 2008: "later next year", according to Jobs back in September. Today, AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson confirmed a 2008 ship date.
Apple's dedication to evolving the iPhone product line may indicate further development of non-phone platforms including the touch line and, perhaps, a larger tablet computer. Apple is not alone in exploring the wireless tablet market. Amazon recently introduced the Kindle e-reader, which sells for about the same price as an iPhone and offers fee-free (albeit limited) wireless browsing. (It also has a crappy 256 MB onboard, so if you want to talk about evolutionary dead ends, the Kindle may not survive rekindling.)
Thanks everyone who sent this in.


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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Josh said 11:38AM on 11-29-2007
There is no ship date yet. Everybody only know that it will be sometime in 2008.
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Riine said 11:41AM on 11-29-2007
I'm actually surprised at how my 8gb phone isn't full yet. I'm very content with the size, although one new versions come out I doubt that I won't want them.
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Riine said 11:41AM on 11-29-2007
I'm actually surprised at how my 8gb phone isn't full yet. I'm very content with the size, although one new versions come out I doubt that I won't want them.
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Marc said 11:44AM on 11-29-2007
the big question is: is it going to be a software-upgrade or will it be necessary to replace the phone entirely... ?
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Todd said 11:54AM on 11-29-2007
Thanks for a good laugh!
Frank said 12:02PM on 11-29-2007
i don't think that 256 megs is something to ding amazon for on their kindle. that's a lot of text files.
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Dan B said 3:59PM on 11-29-2007
Plus, the Kindle takes SD cards so it is easily expandable.
Billy K said 12:12PM on 11-29-2007
My question is, when is Apple going to add some of these features they've hinted at and left space for? One of the big promises of the iPhone was it wasn't a static handset, it was a dynamic pocket computer platform that would grow and improve. Well, we're already looking to the next version, and aside from a WiFi store, I haven't seen any growth and very little fine tuning to my iPhone.
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GQmacguy said 12:39PM on 11-29-2007
Don't forget, the Apple iPhone SDK comes out in Feb. Wait till then - I think we'll start seeing some really great iPhone apps.
Billy K said 12:46PM on 11-29-2007
Yeah, I know. I'm not talking about apps. I'm talking about Apple upgrades.
Jeff said 12:12PM on 11-29-2007
Hope they crank up the battery for 3G, 'cause it's a big drain.
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Quix said 12:22PM on 11-29-2007
Throw in a GPS chip, and I'll be sporting a new iPhone while my wife gets my old one. :)
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Blu-Sam said 12:27PM on 11-29-2007
We shall see 3G iPhone on early (Feb or late Jan?) when Apple Expo will be held.
la de la de...
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Bill G said 12:35PM on 11-29-2007
I'd put money on a Steve announcement at Jan Macworld with ship date in the first half of '08.
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thefireguy said 1:13PM on 11-29-2007
Now if we could just have a iPod "Touch" with real PDA functions... I would be most happy... after all my handspring is starting to show it's age!
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pscs said 1:28PM on 11-29-2007
there are 366 days in 2008 :P
but still, there's 0.27322404371584699453551912568306% a day :)
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Pete said 1:47PM on 11-29-2007
Seems a bit odd to be comparing the Kindle to the iPhone -- completely different devices, different purposes, different markets, different... everything?
And as someone already said, 256MB is a lot for books... and really utterly irrelevant to this news item.
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patvg said 2:38PM on 11-29-2007
well, I have - next to my iPhone which I use all the time - an HTC 3600 whcih is 3G ; my provider is full 3G ready and guess : the performance of the HTC on 3G is closer to the performance of my GPRS (not EDGE) on my iPhone, then my iPhone WIFI performance
I think Apple's choice to go for full WIFI coverage is definetly best in performance, and don't forget : FREE !!!
My point : everybody wants 3G, I doubt they will be that happy the day they have it in their hands (I'm not even considering the look on their faces when they will see their bills ....)
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PSM said 5:09PM on 11-29-2007
I have the AT&T Tilt (Kaiser) and find that I use 3G even more than wi-fi. There is a speed difference, especially when I have full wi-fi signal, but the 3G is fast enough that I often keep wi-fi off to save the battery and to avoid having to worry about turning it on and off every time I go in or out of range of my home and work networks. With an unlimited data plan, I find that I don't see wi-fi as such a huge feature.
stonetrail said 4:37PM on 11-29-2007
I'm pretty sure the iPhone itself isn't even half of what it is supposed to become. I'm absolutely sure that they have
thrown this on to the market just because of the huge demand for it. But I'm thinking, way for about a year and you'll see what the iPhone was realy ment to be.......
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