On June 29, 2007, Apple and AT&T released the iPhone for $600 to crowded stores throughout the United States. A whole lot has changed in the iPhone-world in just 2 short years. The 1.0 software is just a distant memory, and looking back I'm a little surprised how limited the original iPhone was at release. I thought for the 2-year anniversary, we could take a little walk down memory lane and see how far things have come.

Apple announced the iPhone at Macworld in January 2007, explicitly stating they were doing it because otherwise the FCC would have outed them. Cingular/AT&T was named as the exclusive carrier. The phone would cost $600, which was a completely unsubsidized price.

Gadget fans can fight endlessly about which device is faster than which, without resolution or relief. Fortunately for the weary, Medialets has found common ground between a few of the most popular smart phones to use as a racetrack.

According to Medialets, there is a common benchmarkable technology -- JavaScript execution in a WebKit-based browser -- that runs across four of the most popular phones: the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 3GS, the T-Mobile G1 with Android, and the Palm Pre. By running a benchmark test called SunSpider it is possible to obtain a rough speed comparison between all four devices.

The test was run on six different configurations: Safari on the 3G with iPhone OS v2.2.1, the 3G with OS v3.0, and the 3G S with OS v3.0; "Browser" on the T-Mobile G1 with Android OS v1.5; and "Web" on the Palm Pre with Web OS v.10.2, with a run of Safari 4.0.1 on a MacBook used as a baseline. Read on for the graph of the results.

Do you have Pre-envy due to the Touchstone and wireless charging capabilities? Well, good news then. A company called WildCharge has stepped in to give you similar charging capabilities with your original iPhone or iPod touch. The bundle is just shy of $80 and includes the charging pad and a gel skin that needs to be attached to your phone. Once installed, just lay your phone on the pad and get your charge on.

The skin unfortunately adds an unsightly hump at the base where the dock connector is, but that may be a small price to pay if you really need your iPhone charged sans wires.

The iPod touch version is available now with the iPhone version coming next month.

Note: AOL Instant Messenger is a product from AOL, which is also the corporate parent of TUAW & Weblogs Inc.

Testing how speedy the iPhone 3G S "S for speed" really is has become de rigueur. iLounge has put together two videos comparing the facility of the 3G S to the 3G, last year's iteration of the iPhone, and to the second generation iPod touch.

The operator tests four applications: Edge, Peggle, Real Racing, and Star Defense. They are all graphically heavy games with initial load times, and likely where the difference will be most exaggerated. As is to be expected from a phone named for its swiftness, the 3G S outstrips both the 3G and the iPod touch by a fair margin, though the iPod touch counters the 3G S a bit more easily than the 3G does.

The videos don't offer any quantitative analysis, nor are they exact by any stretch of the imagination (you'll just have to trust the device operator to touch the application icons simultaneously), but it's comforting to know you that if dropped at least two bills, it was for a reason. Because the videos don't offer any guidance as to which device is where, I'll clue you in: in both videos, the 3G S is on the right.

While I trashed Vodafone NZ's pricing in a previous post, in at least one way it's far ahead of U.S. telco giant AT&T: internet tethering using the iPhone is already possible over Vodafone's network without resorting to lengthy, kludgy, and unsupported hacks. Who knows how long tethering will stay supported here, or how long it will take before Vodafone remembers to charge extra for it, but for now, tethering is go in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tethering works over both USB and Bluetooth. Using USB to tether simply requires enabling internet tethering in the iPhone's settings, then plugging the iPhone into an available USB port on your computer. The Mac will automatically recognize the tethered iPhone, and your connection will be up and running.

Bluetooth tethering obviously requires enabling Bluetooth on both your iPhone and computer, and then selecting "Connect to Network" from the Bluetooth drop-down menu. Once again, the rest of the setup is automatic -- it really doesn't get much simpler than this.

The speed of the internet connection appears to be comparable to the iPhone's standard mobile speed using USB, but Bluetooth was only about half as fast. I didn't remain tethered for long for fear of gulping down my meager monthly data cap, but for the time I used it, tethering worked with no issues whatsoever.

For my money, having tethering available in little ol' New Zealand long before the U.S. will have it puts AT&T in an even less flattering light -- while AT&T has far more users spread over a much larger area than Vodafone NZ, AT&T also has more towers and more money to pour into their infrastructure.

Any other international iPhone users managed to get tethering working on their networks? Sound off in the comments, and be sure to let us know what network you're on.

Read on for a pictorial guide to enabling tethering over Bluetooth.

It's no secret that I didn't mind AT&T's pricing of their 3G S upgrades. However, 3G owners were upset that they were not offered the same discounts as new customers or those who had not fulfilled their two-year contracts.

Well, good news for those 3G owners who are wanting to upgrade to the 3G S. AT&T listened to your complaints and published an open letter and YouTube video explaining that current 3G customers may be given much better upgrade pricing when the 3G S launches. From the open letter:

"Beginning June 19, iPhone 3G customers [who are] eligible for an upgrade in July, August, or September will get our best upgrade price of $199 (16 GB) and $299 (32 GB)." This is definitely great news for some 3G owners, as it bumps up the date when they can upgrade for less -- however, if your discount date is past September 30, you will still have to wait to get the best pricing. Your upgrade-eligible date is based on both your contract age and your service plan; the more money you spend with AT&T every month, the sooner they will replace your phone.

There is also good news for those of you who have already pre-ordered the new iPhone: if the new eligibility window affects you, AT&T will issue you a credit for the difference.

Although I don't think that AT&T had to make this change in their policy, it's encouraging to know they're listening to their customers and making changes. Now that you're listening, AT&T, how about getting on the ball with MMS and tethering?

With the introduction of the new iPhone 3G S at WWDC, existing AT&T customers who wish to upgrade to the new model are quickly finding out that they are not eligible for the pricing announced today.

If you were among the first 10 million customers to pick up the original iPhone, and you have not upgraded to the 3G, chances are your AT&T account lists your iPhone as eligible for an upgrade. But for many users, this is sadly not the case. Several readers have written in, letting us know that AT&T is not offering upgrade pricing for existing iPhone 3G owners, and is asking $599 for the new 16GB 3G S, or $699 for the 32GB model. Others have things a little easier, with AT&T offering $399 or $499 upgrade pricing. Now that's definitely not the rosy picture that was painted on the slide at WWDC this morning, is it?

So what can you do if you want to upgrade? Well, you might have a few options. For starters, the typical contract cancellation fee is $175. So, depending on your plan, you may be able to save some money by just canceling the contract, then purchasing the iPhone as a new contract. Keep in mind, by doing this, you'll probably need to wait 90 days or so to sign-up with AT&T (in your name anyway) and you'll lose your existing phone number.

You might also want to consider adding a new iPhone as an additional line to your account. If you don't have a spouse or family member to share your existing iPhone 3G with, the additional monthly fees for the new iPhone 3G S probably won't end up saving you any money (in fact, you can pretty much guarantee it won't), but if you want a new iPhone and have a person you can share your existing iPhone 3G with, this might be an option.


Upgrade screen for an AT&T customer just a couple of months shy of the 18-month threshold.

Finally, you can always resort to the old standby method: subsidize the cost by selling your existing phone. Since the hardware changes are fairly minimal with the new model, it's a safe bet that the 3G will still be in good demand, at least for a little while. Chances are pretty good that you can recoup some, if not all, of the cost of the new phone by selling your old 3G after you have upgraded. This is particularly true for 3G phones that have been jailbroken or unlocked. Even though the 8GB iPhone 3G will be selling for $99, users who want to use a phone without a contract or potentially with another carrier are foaming at the mouth for the iPhone.

Keep in mind that these are just suggestions, and may or may not work for everyone in all cases. If all else fails, talk to someone at AT&T. You might just get lucky and find someone who is able to help you out. If you want to wait out your existing contract, it appears that AT&T will approve you for upgrade pricing 18 months into your contract. So if you got an iPhone 3G last June, you can look at upgrading to the iPhone 3G S at the end of December.

Will you be upgrading your iPhone 3G to a 3G S, despite the steep price, or will you wait until you are eligible to upgrade? Let us know in the comments!

Update: As many of you have pointed out in the comments, much of the reasoning behind this is due to the fact that the 3G iPhone's cost was subsidized, meaning that AT&T could sell you the phone for a lower price, while locking you into a two year contract and recouping the remainder of the phone's cost over the length of that contract. In contrast, the original iPhone's cost was not subsidized, which allowed more flexibliity to those wanting to upgrade their phones early.

In all fairness to AT&T, this is the same practice that is followed by most other carriers around the world. However, much of the confusion comes with the fact that many customers were allowed to upgrade to the 3G last year if they owned the original iPhone.

Clayton Morris noted on his blog Sunday that iPhone 3G demo units have been removed from display at his local Apple store.

While it is not uncommon to see one or two displays missing for various reasons, Clayton noted that there were at least nine units missing from the main iPhone display tables. Couple this with reports from some Apple stores that they have additional staff scheduled for the next couple of weeks (starting today), and you have some pretty good signs that the new iPhone model might just be available today.

[via AppleInsider]

In the past year, my iPhone has become packed to the gills with apps. Some are for fun and some are for work. A prime example of the latter is Trip Cubby. My job (and Uncle Sam) requires me to keep close tabs on mileage. Trip Cubby makes recording my trips simple and fun, and version 2 improves upon a winner.

To get started, add a new trip and fill in your destination, purpose, any tags you'd like and so on. Designate a vehicle and its starting odometer reading. You can also categorize a trip (business, charity, etc.) and add relevant notes (tip: Add frequent trips to favorites for future reference).

From there, click done and you're off! Once you arrive, select your trip again, enter the final odometer reading and click Done. Trip Cubby assumes a mileage rate of $0.550, but you're free to change that if need be.

Here's where it gets good. You can sync all of your data online at App Cubby, should you lose anything. Also, you can mail all of your data to yourself from within the app as a CSV (a HUGE time saver at tax time). Typically I'm a pen-and-paper guy, but Trip Cubby has replaced the notebook in my glovebox.

Here's where it gets really good. Version 2 has introduced fantastic new features, including:

1. Predictive text input and data entry shortcuts. The main reason I use paper for text-heavy input is that I can write much faster than I can type. Predictive input helps a lot.
2. Charts. Oh, the charts. My favorite aspect of Gas Cubby is the beautiful and informative charts and graphs. It's so very helpful to see your data presented with a graph, and with a simple tilt of the iPhone you can view your Trip Cubby data depicted by category, paid vs. unpaid and miles driven per day, all across various amounts of time.
3. Bulk edit trips. Delete several trips or mark them paid all at once.

There's more to this update, but these are the highlights for me. Trip Cubby is an app that I use and rely upon every day. It's a free upgrade for registered users and can be purchased via the App Store for $9.99US.

Here's an interesting idea. The Mainichi Daily News is reporting that Japan's Aoyama Gakuin University has distributed 550 iPhone 3Gs to staff and students so that they can use the phone's GPS capabilities to monitor class attendance. In fact, the school will cover the basic charges so that the students aren't required to absorb the extra financial burden.

That seems like an awfully expensive way to accomplish what my sixth grade teacher, Sr. Dolores, did by shouting, "Caolo!" and waiting for my "Here!", but a major university has different needs (and budgets) than a tiny elementary school in Scranton.

We've seen similar large-scale iPhone adoption recently at University of Missouri's Journalism School and Abilene Christian University. Good luck to everyone involved.

[Via MacDailyNews]

I'll be honest, I adore Twitter. I don't mean "Oh it's so cute and Oprah's on it," I mean in a way that is likely unhealthy. It was just another technology I had an account for but only sort of used until I found out that the Iconfactory created an application for my desktop called Twitterrific that allowed me to have a little corner of my desktop devoted to microblogging. So then I used it a little more.

Then I got my iPhone 3G and the Iconfactory made a version of Twitterrific for that, too. Today, here I sit more than sixteen thousand updates later. Twitterrific was among the first desktop and mobile Twitter apps and terribly exciting. Then some other folks came on the scene, having re-imagined what an iPhone Twitter app could look like. We got Twitterfon and Tweetie, and I found myself very disappointed to have bumped Twitterrific from my home screen.

All of that has changed. Twitterrific 2.0 is out and once again I have an Iconfactory app on my home screen. There are loads of changes, but the standout feature is the option to turn some of these off and on as you desire.

Multiple account support was the revolutionary feature of other clients, and it has now been added to Twitterrific. Adding more is a piece of cake, and the nice thing about it is that your account(s) live on a "Sources" page with the public timeline, saved searches and a list of the current trending topics. I really like this view and it makes things very convenient, especially if you want to check the trending topics on the go.

You'll notice you get three views of your timeline: A "mini" view with just a name and a tweet, the "standard" Twitterrific view of an avatar and bold name with a tweet, and an additional "mega" view, with a larger picture and the text a bit bigger as well (including the client). So far I am loving the mini view, since I can scan easily.

In case a black background with lighter text isn't your thing, you also have the option of three different color schemes, Raven (the classic black), Snowy (lighter, with some 3D elements for selected tweets), and Basic (a black and white option). Right now Snowy is the one that's working for me. I really like the way selected tweets stand out.

Now you can also pick your reply method which is one of the most impressive features. If you have a tweet selected when the entry window comes up, you get your pick of whether or not to tweet, tweet a public @ reply, or DM the author of that tweet based on which tab you choose at the bottom of the window. You can also hide the keyboard to peek back at the timeline in case you want another look at the tweet. This is a really elegant method for entry since a lot of times I want to reply via DM to someone who sent me something publicly, or inadvertently have a tweet selected but I don't want to reply to it. Every time I use this interface I am happier with it in a new way.

To keep from using a lot of screen for the buttons for different views (one each for your timeline, replies, and DMs) there's a little funnel you tap that pops up a bar with those view options in it. As a fan of the mini view this helps me pack even more information on the screen and I like how it's implemented. Next to this icon is a little snowflake/asterisk icon you can tap to get buttons for a link to a selected tweet, retweet, reply to the author, the author's info page, see the conversation thread, email it, or favorite it. You also get a button to mark a tweet. Marking a tweet is like a favorite, but currently those marks are only saved on your phone (it has been mentioned that this will sync with the desktop version eventually).

Other features I really like: the left-handed option made it forward from the previous version, configurable options for tapping an avatar (1, 2, or 3 taps can be set to different actions like show the author or the conversation, add it as a favorite), and there is a notes field on authors so if you are out and about and add someone you can take note of where you met them or how you know them or whatever else you can sometimes want to keep track of.

I love the new version, and I like to think it came about because others came along and innovated which made the Iconfactory step up THEIR game, so now there are a variety of easy to use and nice looking Twitter clients for the iPhone. Now, on to the desktop!

Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW: the place where we try to answer all of your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're answering questions about taking apart a MacBook Pro, installing Leopard on a Mirror Door G4, watching movies streamed from a Mac media server and more.

As always, we welcome your suggestions for this week and questions for next time. Please leave your contributions in the comments for this post. When asking questions, please include which Mac and which version of OS X you're running. If you don't specify, we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac.

Jim asks:

Hey guys, Jim here. I am running OS X 10.5.6 on an Intel 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro (2007 model). Lately, this thing has been getting really, really hot. I've tried a lot of things, fresh OS X installs, laptop cooling pads, but none of it seems to work. A quick Google search told me that my laptop's innards might be clogged with dust, blocking its airflow. I'm thinking of opening it up and using some compressed air to clear out some of the dust. What do you guys think?

Opening up any computer can be sometimes lead to difficulty; opening up an Apple laptop even more so. Apple packs their computers into as small a casing as possible. Consequently, they are sometimes difficult to work on and may require a trained Apple tech.

That said, you can take the MacBook Pro apart successfully if you are very, very careful and make sure to keep good track of all the parts and pay close attention to what you are doing. Of course, Apple always recommends you seek help from an authorized repair facility but if you decide to take the plunge, the guides provided by iFixit are especially useful. Check out their MacBook Pro guides here to find your specific model.

ifoAppleStore is reporting that Apple has instituted a new policy that will let iPhone owners swap their liquid-damaged iPhones for replacements. For $199US, customers can swap their defunct phones for a refurb unit, provided that it succumbed to an out-of-warranty encounter with liquid. Here's the catch: Said swap renews your 2-year contract with AT&T -- so it's pretty much like buying a new phone, except if you were to do that out of contract it would cost you $499 for a 16GB unit.*

Of course, this could also be another way to clear current iPhone inventory in preparation for a new model.

We couldn't determine if sweat-induced failures are covered by this program, but we'll let you know if we find out.

*Update: Apple has told us that a replacement under out-of-warranty service would not renew a customer's contract. We apologize for the error.

Once again, the folks at DigiTimes have leaked information about a forthcoming Apple product. Citing "Industry sources in Taiwan," they've published an alleged parts list for the next generation iPhone.

Standout items include the 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor from OmniVision, which seems in line with the rumored video features in iPhone OS 3.0. Also listed is NAND flash from Samsung and Toshiba and Mobile DDR DRAM from Samsung.

Most interesing is what missing from the list. Namely, the processor. So far, there are no solid rumors on what this could be, so it's really anyone's guess. We think it's safe to say, however, that Apple will release new iPhones this summer. Those who purchased original phones two years ago will have their contracts expire in June, just around the time that iPhone OS 3.0 and WWDC will drop. Here's to this summer!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via theAppleBlog]