iphone 3g s

Apple cuts $500 million flash memory deal

Apple said Tuesday that it has made a $500 million prepayment to Toshiba for flash memory chips and indicated the market is stabilizing.

"The NAND flash market has now begun to stabilize and we expect it to move to a slight demand imbalance," said Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook in Apple's Tuesday earnings conference call. (The call is available as an audio Webcast on Apple's Web site.) The news was reported earlier by Reuters.

"In terms of the Toshiba prebuy, we did a long-term supply agreement with Toshiba, as a part of that, as … Read more

Help me find the best iPhone 3GS apps

ARCO, Idaho--For almost a year, I've owned an iPhone 3G. I've done lots of things with it and loaded a lot of apps on it. But now, Apple has released the iPhone 3GS, and it's got new features--including a compass, voice commands, video recording, and auto-focus.

Luckily for me, I'm on Road Trip 2009 and am testing a number of gadgets, including an iPhone 3GS that Apple lent me for my journeys through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Colorado.

I've already downloaded Brushes, the amazing painting app that was used to draw the cover … Read more

AT&T breaks sales records with iPhone 3GS launch

The first day the Apple iPhone 3GS went on sale was the biggest sales day ever for AT&T, according to an internal memo sent to company employees that has since been published in various blogs.

That's right, iPhone Day 2009 beat out the two previous iPhone launch days, as well as surpassed traditionally heavy retail sales days such as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and December 26th, the day after Christmas.

The new iPhone may not have added a whole bunch of new bells and whistles, but it seems to have certainly been a crowd pleaser. … Read more

From iPhone pitches to VC prospects

After you've helped develop and launch a game-changing mobile device on the market, what do you do for an encore?

Bob Borchers, the former head of Apple's worldwide marketing for the iPhone and an original member of the team that developed the iPhone, hopes he can help nurture entrepreneurs and inspire others to innovate.

On the very day that he helped launch the latest version iPhone 3G S, Borchers left Apple to embark on a new career as a venture capitalist at Opus Capital, a small Silicon Valley firm. A week later he's already starting to settle … Read more

Apple triples stake in U.K. chip company

Apple on Friday upped its stake in U.K. chip company, Imagination Technologies.

The company purchased 2.2 million shares at 1.43 British pounds ($2.36), for a total cost of 3.14 million pounds ($5.19 million). The purchase brings Apple's stake in the company to 9.5 percent, effectively tripling its ownership in Imagination, according to a report on MocoNews.

Apple uses Imagination's SGX GPU in the recently released iPhone 3G S, allowing it to have much better graphics using Apple's OpenGL ES 2.0, according to AppleInsider. Samsung is reportedly integrating Imagination's … Read more

Apple iPhone 3GS: The sum ($) of its parts

The iPhone, of course, is more than the sum of its parts, but the cost of individual components adds up--to $178.96, to be exact.

A new analysis by iSuppli details the cost of the iPhone 3GS and the motley collection of chips inside.

The entry-level (16GB) version of the iPhone 3GS carries a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, for a total of $178.96, said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst, teardown services, for iSuppli, in a statement.

Service providers are paying more for the low-end iPhone 3G S than the original iPhone 3G, according to Rassweiler. "Although the retail price of the 16GB iPhone 3GS is $199, the same as for the 8GB version of the original iPhone 3G, the actual price of the phone paid by the service provider is considerably higher, reflecting the common wireless industry practice of subsidizing the upfront cost of a mobile phone and then making a profit on subscriptions," he said.

And what are the major cost drivers? The 16GB flash memory chip is the priciest at $24--and reflects the rising cost of flash chips due to supply constraints, according to iSuppli. This part is also available from Samsung. So there could be some second-sourcing (sourcing the part from a second chip supplier) in the future.

The next rung in the cost ladder is the 3.5-inch display module and touch-screen assembly, at $19.95 and $16, respectively.

Below this, is the main Samsung applications processor. Priced at $14.46, it is the fourth most costly component in the iPhone 3GS.… Read more

Finding iPhone OS 3.0's small changes

Though everyone knows the iPhone OS 3.0 brought welcome and long-awaited changes like multimedia messaging; a landscape keyboard; and cut, copy, and paste, there are a host of other tweaks from the software update that Apple has not publicized. According to Apple, the update offers 100 additions to the iPhone, but we covered just a handful in our iPhone 3GS review.

What other features are new? Well, a week after Apple released the update to the world we have a better idea. We've done our own exploring, but last week we also asked for your help in finding the update's hidden treasures. Thankfully, you responded in force, so we're glad to offer you this list. It's still not complete, so we'll be adding more as we (and you) find them. (Note: I've only included features not listed in the review.) Also, Apple has posted a handy chart detailing which OS 3.0 features are available on the iPhone Classic and iPhone 3G. … Read more

AT&T's 3G upgrades to improve iPhone service

AT&T is upgrading its network and using 850MHz spectrum to beef up its 3G wireless network, which should help alleviate dropped calls and slow network connections for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S users.

Apple said this week that it sold more than a million of the iPhone 3G S model worldwide this past weekend after the phone went on sale Friday. Exactly how many of those phones were activated on AT&T's network in the U.S. isn't yet known, but the addition of more data intensive iPhones is likely to put a strain … Read more

By giving credits, Apple gets credit

Some iPhone 3G S customers are having trouble getting their new handhelds activated.

An Apple e-mail sent to those being affected by the issue said that it could take up to 48 hours to complete the device's activation. The e-mail claims the delay was due to "system issues" and "high activation volumes." It started after the iPhone 3G S was released last Friday.

But not all is lost. Apple told affected customers that it would offer them a $30 iTunes Store credit for "the inconvenience this delay has caused."

Apple has a proven record of trying to do what's right after it makes mistakes; this is no exception.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1,002: The French Connection

Without Rafe and Brian Cooley on the show, we felt it was safe to have French tech podcaster Patrick Beja on the show to talk tech. Don't worry, he speaks in English for this show. We talk about the iPhone phenomena, the poor penetration of broadband in the US, and how HD-DVD is still beating Blu-ray.

Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video) EPISODE 1,002

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Google to cut China porn results http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8112971.stmRead more