Telstra Announce First Australian iPhone Plans

Telstra today were the first Australian carrier to announce prices for the iPhone.

One of my twitter buddies, Shaun, posted the link to twitter.

Telstra is reportedly going to match the other carriers and release the iPhone on July 11, after previously having set July 22 as the release date.

The good news is that Telstra is going to offer the iPhone, starting at $279 on a $30 plan for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model on a 24 month contract. Telstra will not be selling the iPhone outright like Optus and Vodafone.

Telstra did not release any details on data plans, other then to state that each plan includes free Wi-Fi access at Telstra hotspots

Pricing Options

• 8GB iPhone - $279 upfront on a two-year contract at $30 per month, or for free on the carrier’s $80 per month plan.
• 16GB - $399 on a $30 per month contract or included for free with a $100 per month contract.

I think I may see if I can find out more tomorrow. Hopefully they have a reasonable data plan.

Outside Sydney Apple Store

John Johnston streamed some video and did a couple of curbside interviews while on his way to work this morning outside the new Apple store in Sydney.

John recorded it on his N95 and the quality is pretty good considering. The video gives a much better look at the store then simple still images provide.

I still can’t figure why all these people are lining up though. The store is huge and should have more then enough room to fit everyone in. Some of them would have been there for well over 24 hours by the time the store opens at 5PM this afternoon.

Anyway, take a look at John’s video below.

More news by category Topic -: Buy phentermine saturday delivery ohio Tramadol hydrochloride tablets Picture of xanax pills Free shipping cheap phentermine Buying phentermine without prescription Safety of phentermine Pyridium Generic viagra cialis Cialis generic india Pink oval pill 17 xanax identification Buy free phentermine shipping Best price for generic viagra Information about street drugs or xanax bars Ordering viagra Snorting phentermine Hydrocodone overdose Lithium Amiodarone Get online viagra Order viagra prescription Order xanax paying cod Cheap phentermine free shipping Imiquimod Tramadol next day Linkdomain buy online viagra info domain buy onlin Pfizer viagra sperm Vidarabine Cheapest viagra price Prevacid Viagra cialis levitra comparison Dutasteride Lisinopril Thiotepa Female spray viagra Black market phentermine Betamethasone Cialis forums What does xanax look like Loss phentermine story success weight Order xanax overnight Viagra alternative uk Diet online phentermine pill Order xanax cod Mecamylamine Eulexin Cheap hydrocodone Buy cheapest viagra Viagra xenical Phentermine with no prior prescription Xanax in urine Macrodantin Cheap phentermine with online consultation Epivir Buy phentermine epharmacist Ditropan Woman use viagra Cialis erectile dysfunction Xanax withdrawl message boards Viagra online store Atorvastatin Generic ambien Is phentermine addictive Next day delivery on phentermine Buy online viagra Ethanol Natural phentermine Avandamet Xanax long term use Diet page phentermine pill yellow 5 cheap Cheapest secure delivery cialis uk Information medical phentermine Cialis experience Phentermine no perscription Compare ionamin phentermine Viagra cialis levivia dose comparison Noroxin Effects of viagra on women Buy cheap cialis Viagra shelf life Hydroxyurea Phentermine discount no prescription Buy cheap online viagra Dog xanax Online cialis Viagra class action Viagra price Phentermine without prescription and energy pill Hydrocodone cod only Nicoumalone Cheapest viagra Cheap ambien Vicodin without prescription Phentermine prescription online Phentermine snorting Mirtazapine Quazepam Isradipine Buy generic viagra online Xanax look alike Moxifloxacin Viagra experiences Piroxicam Nicorette Free try viagra Sotalol Cash on delivery shipping of phentermine How do i stop taking phentermine Xanax prescriptions Cheapest phentermine 90 day order Niacinamide Phentermine weight loss Phentermine

Aussie Store Selling Unlocked 3G iPhones

iTWire reports on an Aussie store taking pre-orders for unlocked 3G iPhones.

LineLink Data Communications is listing 3G iPhones for $775 for the 8G model and $875 for the 16G model. Where possible, the phones will be unlocked at time of shipment. LineLink already offers unlocked, Australianised versions of the previous iPhones.

The price listed for the 3G model is higher then I have been told for buying outright from the carriers. Vodafone is reportedly going to offer the 3G iPhone outright for $699 for the 8G model, although this rumor is not confirmed.

As the 3G iPhone has not been released yet, there can be no immediate guarantee about it being unlocked. I am sure it will be achieved, look at what happened with the previous model, but there may not be as much incentive this time, with what will be far more attractive prices.

Some of the questions I wanted to put to LineLink include:

• When will the phones be available?
• Where are you sourcing supplies from?
• Is the unlock guaranteed with updates for any patches Apple may release?
• Will warranty be retained.

I am not expecting to get answers to these questions, but think it would be in LineLink’s interests to respond if they hope to have a reasonable market for the phone.

If you are considering purchasing a 3G iPhone from LineLink, you should at least get these questions answered prior to making a commitment. Alternatively, just wait until the official release date to see what the carriers are offering.

Carriers Overwhelmed By iPhone Demand

It seems Australian mobile carriers did not expect the level of interest in the upcoming 3G iPhone, with their pre-registration Websites overwhelmed with visitors.

Vodafone’s pre-registration site has received 40,000 daily visitors since it opened last week. Optus, who also have a pre-registration site, has not released any numbers for their offering, where they were accepting advanced deposits for the phone. Due to the unexpected demand, Optus were unable to keep up with the number of requests and stopped accepting deposits last week.

I hope they have enough supply to meet the demand. I’ll be checking in with some friends to make sure I get mine ASAP.

3G iPhone To Usher In Mobile Social Networks

Will the 3G iPhone be the device that reshapes the Web? I think it has more potential then any other device presently on the market. Sure there are some features that it will be able to improve upon, but it certainly has the potential to be game changing like no other mobile handset.

I thin it offers the most potential to further the advance of mobile social networks. While mobile social networks are nothing new, for various reasons, their take up has not exactly been stellar, but I think over the next two years, this will rapidly change.

Online Social Networks

The obvious question is, why won’t the existing online social networks simply build upon their user base and grab similar market share in the mobile arena.

The answer to that is that they are trying to, but at present all they are offering the user is little more then their existing sites. There isn’t too much game changing there. This isn’t to say that they won’t have users. They will of course, but there is huge potential for mobile social networks to come along and take over.

Features A Mobile Social Network Needs

The reason I see the iPhone being such a game changing device is not specifically one feature, but rather the entire implementation and the possibilities it provides.

Here is a list of some of the features I think are going to be important for a successful mobile social network. Many of these features already exist in one form or another on present mobile social networks, but not all of them are integrated on the one network.

• Ease of use and simplicity:- This goes without saying, but can often be overlooked.
• Slick interface design:- While Google and many of the online social networks have proven that a slick interface design is not a requirement for success, as this post is dealing specifically with the iPhone, it should be a requirement.
• Geolocation and geotagging:- Any mobile social network that does not include these features will miss the boat.
• Media upload and sharing features:- The ability to instantly record images and video from the phone and upload and share with friends. Both videos and images should be automatically geotagged on upload.
• Locate friends:- Friends should appear on maps, with the ability to select various radius from present location, such as 1Km, 5Km, 10Km, etc.
• Find new friends:- While at a location, set the phone to discoverable and be able to meet other people on the network who have the same setting, with the ability to browse their profile before making contact. If you are interested, a quick message is sent and they in turn have the choice to respond.
• Organise contacts into groups:- Automatically organise phone contacts into groups, such as family, business and friends.
• Privacy features:- Change your privacy settings for the level of visibility and the details you reveal to people.
• Search and recommendations:- While out shopping, it would be great to be able to search on your phone for the nearest store selling the product you searched for and also be able to see user reviews for that store, similar to Whrrl.
• Favorites:- In conjunction with the search functionality above, the inclusion of an opt-in service that would push certain specials based on your location and criteria. As an example, you have chosen to be advised of any specials on Canon cameras, you have gone to another city for a weekend and while out shopping, your phone advises that a shop 5Km from your location has a special on the latest Canon.
• Integration and/or domination:- There are two ways to go here, either clone of integrate. Integration of existing networks would be useful, for example, the inclusion of a user’s twitter stream, however, this type of functionality could also be built into the new service.

Monetization

With In-Stat forecasting global mobile social network users to number 975 million by 2012, there is a captive market, waiting for the right monetization strategy.

Rather then simply building an application and trying to grow a massive user base, with next to no monetization strategy, why not also include contextual and location based advertising from the beginning?

This can be achieved by use of the opt-in push feature, as well as premium ads for businesses listed on the maps. There are obviously other ways to monetize the network, but advertising is far better then premium SMS or other similar services I have seen proposed. With this type of advertising model, there is still value for the user.

If you multiply the number of businesses that could use this type of advertising, you are looking at some serious revenue potential.

I have deliberately left out some other features, as I think they are further down the track and not totally essential at this early stage. Some of the features I have listed above will take considerable resources to implement, as there are still several obstacles to overcome, but if a company can build a mobile social network that provides a lot of this functionality, they will have a model that is both highly attractive to users and one that can also provide huge revenue.

So who will build it?

SMS GupShup Shows Twitter How It’s Done

I have been wondering lately about the state of the Indian tech industry and why it doesn’t receive much coverage on mainstream tech sites. I actually raised the question in an online discussion recently, with no response, so it was interesting to read Datawocky’s post on an Indian application comparable with Twitter.

SMS GupShup is an Indian startup providing a similar service to Twitter, with much higher usage numbers and no downtime. Here are some stats comparing the two services:

Users: Twitter (1+ million), SMS GupShup (7 million)

Messages per day: Twitter (3 million); SMS GupShup (10+ million)

As you can see, SMS GupShup has 7 times the number of users and more then 3 times the number of daily messages, yet it reportedly doesn’t suffer from the same downtime problems that have plagued Twitter lately.

Both applications run on Linux hardware, and both use MySQL as the database, so why does one scale so well, while the other falls over?

Beerud Sheth, one of the co-founders says the difference lies in the architecture, with SMS GupShup using a three-tier architecture, with JBoss app servers sitting between the webservers and the database, while Twitter uses a two-tier architecture.

“GupShup also uses an object architecture (called the “objectpool”) which allows each task to be componentized and run separately - this helps immensely with reliability (can automatically handle machine failure) and scalability (can scale dynamically to handle increased load). The objectpool model allows each module to be run as multiple parallel instances - each of them doing a part of the work. They can be run on different machines, can be started/stopped independently, without affecting each other. So the “receiver”, the “sender”, and the “ad server” all run as multiple instances. As traffic scales, they can just add more hardware — no re-architecting. If one machine fails, the instance is restarted on a different machine.

No amount of caching can help a 2-tier read/write application scale. The middle-tier enables the database to be sharded, and that’s what gets you the scalability. I believe Twitter has recently started using message queues as a middle-tier to accomplish the same thing, but they haven’t partitioned the database yet — which is the key step here.”

Could be an avenue worth investigating for Twitter.

Wireless Social Networks Are Going To Be Huge

Wireless social networks are going to be the next big thing. Nothing too surprising with that claim. What is surprising however, is the amount of revenue it will generate.

iSuppli has forecast that by 2020 wireless social networks will generate $2.5 trillion in combined revenue from products, services, applications, coponents and advertising.

“Over the next 10 years, as mobile devices like smartphones become the primary channel for viewing content or accessing the Internet, social networking will move largely into the wireless realm, providing the type of ubiquitous connection that consumers are demanding,” Derek Lidow, president and CEO at iSuppli, said in an announcement Wednesday. “This event will accompany the creation of a new generation of applications that will greatly expand the appeal and utility of social networking, and will finally generate profits for the social networking industry.”

“New intuitive applications enabled by innovative technologies introduced in the timeframe from 2009 to 2015 will spur the adoption of social networking and lead to major revenue growth in this area,” he said. iSuppli analyzed social networking and found three levels of interaction for users: immediate family and close friends, extended friends, and shared interest groups. Users interact sporadically — but intensely — with extended friends through games, avatars, and general updates and information. Users with common interests communicate in ways that extend into business. The popularity of social networking in business — for trading, online collaboration, and virtual meetings — is likely to spur advancement of mobile devices equipped for content viewing and sharing, iSuppli said. Wireless devices are likely to become the primary means of communicating, accessing content, and using applications by 2018, and that will change the semiconductor and display industries globally, iSuppli predicts.

I think this is pretty much a given, you only have to look at the iPhone to see the interest and as more applications become built for it, new opportunities will open up and new ways of interacting will become the norm. After all, who wants to lug around an notebook computer, or wait until they get home to connect with their friends.

Just wait another 12 months and see what will be available.

3G iPhone For Australia By July 11

After all the anticipation, all has finally been revealed and yes, the 3G iPhone is coming to Australia on July 11.

As expected, in the US, prices have dropped for the device, starting at $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB.

So how many of the rumors were accurate? read below to see.

Well, as expected, it is 3G. There wouldn’t be much point without it now. Apple is claiming load times 36% faster then the Nokia N95 and the Treo 750.

It has the edge design similar to the MacBook Air, comes in black or white (no metal) and includes a flush headphone jack, but one rumored item that is missing is the front facing video camera.

A feature heavily lacking in the previous model was enterprise support, and this has been taken care of with the ability to work with MS Exchange. You will now be able to get push email, calendar and contacts with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

As rumored, it has GPS, with Apple using A-GPS, which uses a combination of regular satellite GPS data and location data from mobile phone towers.

With all of these features, you would expect battery life to suffer, but Apple claims 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 7 hours of video and 24 hours of audio.

The App Store is for all those great 3rd party apps that will be coming out of the wood work now the phone is officially hitting the market.

One strange point of the Australian release is that Apple lists Vodafone and Optus as the carriers, but previously Telstra has been touting to have the World’s fastest 3G iPhone by Chritstmas; maybe they are yet to finalise their deal.

More details to come.

iPhone Remote

USA Today mentions some interesting ideas about applications for the soon to be released 3G iPhone.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your cellphone to monitor activities in your home, say, to zoom in for an audio/video check of the baby’s room while you were at work, or even adjust the heat?

Such concepts are not pie in the sky, but actual programs that have been developed for Apple’s iPhone, the combination iPod/phone and Internet device first introduced to acclaim a year ago.”

These kind of applications are entering the realm of Plutohome and would open up home automation functions to far more people then at present. Now I know there are already apps out there for the iPhone that already have a lot of this functionality, but could this be a future direction for Apple in general, combining many of their products into one entity, accessible anywhere from an iPhone?

Now that’d be sweet.

eBay Auctions Dying Off

Business Week is reporting that auctions on eBay are dying off as more buyers and sellers opt for fixed prices.

Auctions were once a pillar of e-commerce. People didn’t simply shop on eBay. They hunted, they fought, they sweated, they won. These days, consumers are less enamored of the hassle of auctions, preferring to buy stuff quickly at a fixed price … “If I really want something I’m not going to goof around [in auctions] for a small savings,” says Dave Dribin, a 34-year-old Chicago resident who used to bid on eBay items, but now only buys retail …

At the current pace, this may be the first year that eBay generates more revenue from fixed-price sales than from auctions, analysts say. “The bloom is well off the rose with regard to the online-auction thing,” says Tim Boyd, an analyst with American Technology Research. “Auctions are losing a ton of share, and fixed price has been gaining pretty steadily.”

This type of evolution of eBay’s core function is to be expected, as it becomes more populated by stores and offline businesses, as well as the buyer wanting to make a purchase there and then, rather then go through the process of bid and wait.

I know I don’t have the time or interest to follow auctions and would much rather purchase outright for a fixed price.

Next Page »