iPhone 5 to get 4-inch screen

The rumors flying around today suggest that the next iPhone will get a 4-inch screen.

DigiTimes is reporting that the fifth-generation iPhone may get a boost in screen space, according to component suppliers in the manufacturing loop. The Taiwanese tech journal, who has had a mixed history with Apple rumors, predicts that Cupertino will make the move in an effort to take on larger-screen Android smartphones that are proliferating in recent months.

The Squarespace iPhone app is here

I have been waiting for this app a long time. It was announced months ago, but has taken this long to be approved by the Apple app team. The info below I took directly from the Squarespace blog. And of course it was posted using my iPhone.

The Squarespace iPhone app has a completely custom user interface we have developed in house that matches your Squarespace site’s look and feel completely. We’ve also developed the only iPhone application on any major publishing platform that contains a iPhone native statistics interface, tightly integrating your phone, your site, and your data. The main features of the application include:

Posting - Snap photos on your phone, and quickly post them to your blog! Or easily draft blog posts directly from your “Post” tab — all of your current tags and categories will be there.
Content Management - All of your posts will be accessible directly from your “Manage” tab. You can edit drafts, delete posts and preview posts with ease.
Multiple Account Management - Your “Accounts” tab allows you to manage content for multiple Squarespace sites. You can save a draft post for one site and then easily jump to another site to schedule a post for later in the day.
Viewing Your Statistics - You can now view your Squarespace site statistics right from the application’s statistics tab. Unique visits, page views, popular search terms, RSS subscribers and top referrers are all included.
Live Site Preview - Double check your work before you click “publish” with the app’s “Preview” tab.
We’ve tried to include all the best features of Squarespace in our initial release. So, download the app and let us know what you think!

Note: Due to the extremely long approval times Apple requires — we are already well into the next version of this application. In that version, you’ll have comment management and approval as well as a number of other small refinements. We know this is a big feature, and it’s coming extremely soon.

Nokia ships N97 Flagship Smartphone

Nokia today finally set a launch window for its N97 flagship smartphone. The company’s second-ever touchscreen device ships in June to 75 countries and should include a version with 3G support for North American carriers. It continues to have the same 3.5-inch 640x360 display, 32GB of built-in storage, 5-megapixel camera, GPS and Wi-Fi. The N97 is also Nokia’s first device with a customizable home screen with widgets for Facebook, news and weather.

The US release will for now only involve selling an unlocked but unsubsidized N97 for $699 that supports AT&T’s 3G services as well as 2G for both it and T-Mobile.

Rumor Describes More Powerful 32GB iPhone

The current iPhone 3GJohn Gruber of Daring Fireball has stepped into the iPhone rumor arena for the second time this week. Initially Gruber gave some insight into the potential for background applications on the iPhone, this time the prominent blogger is talking hardware.

Gruber who has been accurate with rumors in the past concurs with speculation that the new iPhone will come in capacities of 16 and 32GB. On top of this Gruber also describes the new iPhone as having a 600MHz processor compared to the current 400MHz processor, but states that the “next-generation” CPU will give the illusion of being much faster than the megahertz increase would suggest.

Let’s say the rumors are right — and I believe they are — that the next-generation iPhone’s CPU will be running at 600 MHz. In the same way that, say, a 90 MHz Pentium was more than 1.5 times as fast as a 60 MHz 486, the 600 MHz CPU in the next iPhone will be more than 1.5 times as fast as the current 400 MHz iPhone CPU.

Alongside the change in processor the new iPhone will also sport 256MB of RAM twice that of the current iPhone.

As we’ve heard from other sources Gruber suggests that the external casing will remain very similar to the current iPhone.

Finally the Daring Fireball blogger confirms the presence of a digital compass (magnetometer) and the ability to record video. The new iPhone is said to have an auto-focus lens which will improve still photography and videos will be able to be edited and very easily uploaded to the Internet.

The new iPhone is expected to be announced at the WWDC 2009 opening keynote on June 8th.

source:worldofapple

Best Buy will have the Palm Pre for $199, no rebate required

Yesterday, Sprint announced that it will charge $200 for thePalm Pre,but to get that price customers will have to send in a mail-in rebate.  As much as I dislike Best Buy, it looks like ‘the’ place to go for the Palm Pre.

This retailer will have Palm’s latest smartphone in its stores on the launch day, June 6, and will be selling this device at $200 with an instant rebate, not a mail-in one.

To get this price, customers will still have to commit toa two-year service plan, a requirementthat’s become standardfor discounts on smartphone purchases in the U.S.

Update on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 9:39PM by Jon Arnason

Best Buy stores are allegedly restricted to an initial distribution of 4,250 Palm Pres for the June 6th launch day, an unnamed source has told the Boy Genius Report. If true, each of the 1,000 stores to sell the device will only get 4 units at first. A separate source claims that RadioShack will only receive two phones per store, with availability limited to coastal areas such as New York, New Jersey and California.

iPhone doubles smartphone share in early 2009

Apple has managed to more than double its smartphone market share from year to year in the first quarter of 2009, according to Gartner data. iPhones jumped from 5.3 percent of the industry in early 2008 to 10.8 percent a year later. The jump has made Apple the third-largest smartphone maker in the world and gives it twice as much share as HTC, which had just 5.4 percent of the market and grew slowly even with the launch of Android phones.  In terms of unit sales, Apple jumped from 1.7 million in the first quarter of 2008 to 3.9 million during the same period in 2009.

Palm Pre to launch on Sprint June 6th for $200

At long last we have this thing.  Sprint today confirmed that it will launch the Palm Pre on June 6th for $200 on a two-year plan and after a $100 rebate. The first-ever webOS smartphone will sell not only in Sprint stores but also Best Buy, Radio Shack and Walmart. Using the phone will require either at least an Everything Data plan for home users, a Simply Everything plan, or a Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan.

iPhone Falls to Second Place in Smartphone wars

According to data from NPD Group the iPhone lost its position as the best selling smartphone in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2009 to the BlackBerry Curve. According to NPD the top five bestselling smartphones in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2009 were: 

1. BlackBerry Curve (all 8300 models)
2. Apple iPhone
3. BlackBerry Storm
4. BlackBerry Pearl
5. T-Mobile G1

 source:npdgroup

iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 4 and iTunes 8.2 Pre-Release to Developers [Blu-Ray Evidence?]

Continuing a pattern of biweekly releases, Apple tonight seeded the fourth beta version of iPhone OS 3.0 to developers. Apple also issued a developer pre-release version of iTunes 8.2, which is required to activate the new beta. No new features in the fourth beta version have been revealed as of yet.

The iPhone OS 3.0 was first demonstrated at a media event in mid-March and will bring over 100 new features to users. The iPhone OS 3.0 is expected to be a major focus of Apple’s sold out Worldwide Developers Conference to be held in San Francisco in June.

Update: One forum poster points out that the latest iTunes 8.2 beta carries references to Blu-Ray data from Gracenote, suggesting that iTunes could support the reading/recognizing of Blu-Ray discs.

source:macrumors

iPhone OS 3.0 to feature voice control and feedback

Sources have discovered evidence of new voice control features coming to iPhone OS 3.0. Apparently going by the code name “Jibbler,” it looks like it will provide not just voice synthesis, but also voice recognition for the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0.

Not much information is known at this time, but according to our own people familiar with the matter, Jibbler appears be an enhancement to the iPhone SpringBoard application, the Finder-esque app that acts as a launcher and will support the newly announced 3.0 Spotlight search. Jibbler may be controlled via the iPhone headset—button squeezes could be used to record short voice segments from the user, which Jibbler will then interpret. Voice synthesis can then be used to give the user a response, similar to the latest generation iPod shuffle, which can “read” playlists and track names—the difference being that the iPhone hardware itself could handle real-time voice synthesis.

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