Closing in on the 3G iPhone
Ever since Steve Jobs told the British press last September that they could “expect a 3G iPhone late next year,” the question has been not “if” but “when” exactly.
Speculation grew in October when Broadcom began delivering samples of what it called a “3G Phone on a Chip” (link) and again in November when AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promised that we’d “have it next year” at whatever price Jobs decides to set.
Now, with less than three months before Apple’s (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference (June 9-13), we’re getting a flurry of leaks and rumors offering fresh details about the 3G iPhone and zeroing in on a late-May to June release.
- Last Friday, Digg founder Kevin Rose, who has a mixed record on iPhone predictions, told the audience for his Diggnation podcast that the 3G iPhone would have live video-conferencing capabilities. (YouTube link)
- On Tuesday, Gartner Group analyst Ken Delaney told iPod Observer that slower than expected sales in Europe for the EDGE-based iPhone had increased pressure on Apple to release a 3G model, and that according to his Asian sources Apple had ordered “a second round of 10 million iPhones based on the 3G network.”
- On Wednesday, Digg’s Rose followed up on his Friday podcast with a Twitter post in which he reports that a high level vice president with a big company that works with Apple told him that the new iPhone “will ship in June w/3G and GPS.”
- Reflecting the newly reported 3G iPhone build plans, BMO Capital Markets’ Keith Bachman on Thursday raised his bearish 2008 estimate of 8.5 million iPhones to 9.9 million, just a hair under Apple’s own target of 10 million. Even his new estimate, he now says, may prove conservative.
Jobs’ keynote address at the WWDC that second week in June would seem a logical moment to reveal the new phone, of course. But that’s what many observers thought last year, when they predicted that Jobs would release the original iPhone at the end of his speech. Instead, Apple began selling the phone a few weeks later, on June 29.
The most detailed speculation we’ve read to date about the likely specs of the new iPhone is still Seth Weinraub’s “best guesses,” posted in mid-February in his Apple, Ink column at Computerworld.
EDGE allows data transfer around 200Kb, while 3G allows 3.5 Gb.
for people who already have an iPhone, i would hope the 3g capability willl be a free downloadable software upgrade. for someone like me who doesn’t have an iPhone this is great, because i have been waiting for this release before i buy one. my sympathy for those who bought the now worthless, no re-sale value 4GB phones. i hope this iPhone 2.0 will also be 32GB. never buy 1st generation anything, people - patience is a great thing!
I can’t help but think us consumers are getting ripped off. Just as soon as the original iPhone has finally been rolled out worldwide; rumours start about a new 3G version. Apple could easily have released a 3G version to begin with but I guess if you can get people to pay for an iPhone twice why not take their money!
To Freddy - no, the point of 3G is: faster data speeds, better voice quality than GSM (assuming that full-rate codecs are used), and simultaneous voice and data capability. In practice, 3G isn’t really that much faster than EDGE when surfing on the phone itself - the phone’s processor is a bottleneck there. But when tethered to a laptop, the speed differecne between 3G and EDGE is very apparent, though 3G tends to have higher latency than traditional broadband cable or DSL.
Well, isn’t the main point of 3g so that it can work around the world on networks other than At&T’s?
I don’t think the 3G web-surfing experience will be that much faster than EDGE when surfing on the phone itself. It’s when tethering to a laptop that it makes a huge difference. The processor on a phone is the real bottleneck.
Most people have speculated June would be the 3G iPhone release date. I’m still not convinced that 3G is going to be that much faster than the edge but, if it will get people to stop complaining about it then I’m game. Video conferencing. I haven’t heard of that news before. That would be sweet.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
3G does not allow simultaneous voice/data - only certain phones with specific hardware can do that. Voice comms over 3g have NO DIFFERENCE in quality as they are still circuit switched - if anything the wider 2G/GSM network is more reliable. Only 4G VoIP will have complete packet-switched comms.