Filed under: Cult of Mac, iPhone

No one expects the iPhone 3G S lines to stretch on as the 3G lines did, but that doesn't mean there isn't some anticipation. In fact, in several places where lines will allow (as in, not in my mall) there are queues forming already for the fastest iPhone yet.

How many of you are willing to wait in line? Several of us are getting shiny new S-for-speed-emblazoned iPhones tomorrow. Steve had his shipped, Tim is going to the AT&T store, Chris ordered online but might check out the madness anyway, and I've set up an account already and will hopefully see a concierge at the local Apple Store in the morning. Stay tuned for our coverage of standing in line, swiping a credit card and dialing a phone -- with pictures.

In the meanwhile, you can see what current lineholders are seeing and posting. Here's a sample (post more in the comments if you find other liveblogs or tweets).

FIRST! The iLife blog guys managed to line up at the big glass cube store in NYC. Stay dry, guys!
There's a Ustream channel, of course.
Richard Lai is liveblogging from London... which should be opening pretty soon as I type this.

Note: Thanks to all our international readers for the comments! Also thanks to everyone in the US now waking up and waiting in line. Good luck, everyone.

Sang shares some pics from the Apple Store in San Diego's University Towne Center from about 1:30am ET, below.


Update from Knoxville line at 7am:


More from the line in Knoxville after the break.

Continue reading iPhone 3G S waiting, hoping, livestreaming

iPhone 3G S waiting, hoping, livestreaming originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone 3G S waiting, hoping, livestreaming originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monster Pinball is a gorgeous and fantastically executed game for the iPhone. I would even go so far as to say it's possibly the best pinball app out there to date! Matmi sure hit the nail on the head with this one. The controls are fantastic, the animations are smooth as butter, and the overall look is polished and not quite like anything I've ever seen before.

Monster Pinball is a gorgeous and fantastically executed game for the iPhone. I would even go so far as to say it's possibly the best pinball app out there to date! Matmi sure hit the nail on the head with this one. The controls are fantastic, the animations are smooth as butter, and the overall look is polished and not quite like anything I've ever seen before.

Some of you may remember an incredibly good iPhone game called EDGE that mysteriously vanished from the App Store. The game was released back in February and received quite a bit of critical acclaim, including an incredibly positive review from us. Shortly after its appearance on the App Store, it was pulled due to what turned out to be a frivolous copyright claim. The folks at Mobigame clued us into the back story and now, months later, EDGE has returned [App Store]!

You can check out the back story here if you're interested, or just check it out in the App Store! We gave it 4.5 out of 5 and totally love it! If you need more convincing, look at our review or the video below.

Theoretically, now that our iPhones have OS 3.0 (assuming you've installed it, and you should if you can), they support a nifty thing called MMS. Unfortunately, AT&T doesn't, so those of us in the US will have to wait. One user was so irked by this that he actually demanded a refund from AT&T, and surprisingly, it worked.

IKEA and Spike Jonze remind us above that you can’t really hurt your old iPhone’s feelings by upgrading to the latest, greatest iPhone 3G S, but that doesn’t mean you have to dump the poor obsoleted fella either.

So what are your plans for your last-year’s iPhone 3G or original iPhone 2G? Selling them on eBay? Unlocking them to use as travel devices? Keeping them as backup? Turning them into a dedicated couch-bound iTunes/Apple TV remote? Gifting them to a needy family member or friend? Saving them up to build the world’s tallest iPhone tower? Sending them to Cellphones for Soldiers? What?

Let us know in the comments!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Upgrading to iPhone 3G S? What Are You Doing With Your Old iPhone?

Someone in iPhone documentation has been busy lately. Not only did Apple post an iPhone guide for Enterprise today, but now here’s the iPhone User Guide for iPhone OS 3.0 Software PDF (via iLounge).

Some 200+ pages long, you can read it while waiting in line for your shiny iPhone 3G S tomorrow, or roll it up into a cudgel-like wad and use it to fend off any would-be line-jumpers. Either way, this is the grand-daddy of iPhone references for this year!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Releases iPhone 3.0 User Guide PDF

TiPb just received word from Rogers and, well, it’s typically long and complicated so we’ll just give them the floor:

We’ve just announced the details of special Hardware Upgrade savings for our existing iPhone customers and wanted to let you know.

There has been a lot of excitement around the new iPhone 3G S and we wanted to recognize the early adopters who helped make the iPhone the hottest-selling handset in Canadian wireless history. We will be discounting the price of the iPhone 3G S by between $250 and $500 to provide savings to many of our iPhone customers.

What this means is that eligible iPhone owners can acquire the iPhone 16GB 3G S for as low as $199 or the 32GB for as low as $299 until July 31, 2009.

For Fido customers, we’re offering the Fido Rewards iPhone 3G S promotion. This enables iPhone customers to redeem FidoDollars towards a new iPhone 3G S with an additional $100 top-up from Fido.

For customers who don’t qualify for these extra savings, we are pleased to offer Rogers Wireless customers the iPhone at our cost on rogers.com. This cost - $580 for the iPhone 3G, $680 for the iPhone 3G S 16GB and $780 for the iPhone 3G S 32GB – represents the price we pay for the device plus a nominal fee for the SIM card. Customers can access these devices at retail locations for just $19 more for the three devices.

We’re also happy to announce that Rogers and Fido are extending the 6GB/$30 data promotion until July 31. This offer is valid for customers on a new or existing iPhone plan or customers buying an Android-powered HTC Magic or HTC Dream.

Details after the break!

Five ways to save

1) For Rogers Wireless customers who bought an iPhone 3G between July 11 and Sept. 30, 2008, and with an average monthly spend of at least $100, Rogers will provide $500 off the cost of an iPhone 3G S. This special offer expires July 31, 2009 and comes with the addition of a one-year term to the customer’s existing service agreement.

• 16GB 3GS $199
• 32GB 3GS $299

2) For Rogers Wireless customers who bought an iPhone between July 11 and Dec. 31, 2008, but aren’t eligible for the above offer, Rogers will provide $250 dollars off the purchase of an iPhone 3G S. This special offer expires July 31, 2009 and comes with the addition of a one-year term to the customer’s existing service agreement.

• 16GB 3GS $449
• 32GB 3GS $549

3) All Rogers Wireless customers can upgrade to the iPhone 3GS at our cost at Rogers.com, or for a suggested retail price of just $19 more than our cost through our retail channels.

• 8GB 3G $580/$599
• 16GB 3GS $680/$699
• 32GB 3GS $780/$799

4) Fido customers can take advantage of the Fido Rewards iPhone 3G S promotion:

• Use FidoDollars towards the purchase of a new iPhone 3G S
• Fido will top up the FidoDollars amount by $100
• This promotion does not include an extension or renewal of their service agreement.

5) New and existing iPhone customers can take advantage of a limited-time promotion of 6GB of data for $30, now extended until July 31. Other Rogers and Fido data plans will remain the same, including the only national standalone data plan at $25 per month for 500 MB. We know that this is the right plan for most Canadians – 93 per cent of current iPhone customers on a data plan use less than 500 MB of data per month.

So, has this changed anyone’s mind about upgrading on Rogers or Fido?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Rogers Canada 11th Hour iPhone 3G S Savings! Sign for 1 Addition Year, Save Up to $500

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

In the ecosystem of the App Store, the postcard-sending app occupies a healthy niche; about two pagefuls -- 60 apps -- show up in the store, for a category weighting of 0.125 flatulans. The flatulan, of course, is the unit of measurement of App Store penetration, equaling the 480 individual apps that include the word 'fart' somewhere in their description.

Among those postcard apps, there are several standouts for virtual cards (ADA winner Postage, for example) and even a few that let you send physical postcards for a small fee (TapTapCards, goPostal and Postino).

With Postman (iTunes link/website), released today by Freeverse and Taptivate for $0.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 devices, the postcard-sending app category gets a social media boost. Postman lets you deliver your two-sided ecards (yes, the app gives you the option of simulating the back of a traditional postcard, complete with stamp graphic) via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, email, or simple upload to the postmanapp.com website for public review. You can already track several tweeted postcards (some which probably should never have been sent.) You can also simply save your postcards to the photo roll on the device.

Creating postcards with Postman is fast and easy; all the controls are persistent in a small icon bar at the top of the screen and large front/back and 'share' buttons at the bottom.

Postman has style and several handy features. In addition to using your own camera images/photo library or the included stock images for postcard sources, you can locate yourself on a Google map and use that graphic instead (this leverages the Map API in iPhone 3.0). Once you pick a graphic, you've got a choice of one-click filters to apply that spice up the look of your card. You can easily switch fonts and colors for your text input on the card front or back, and then send with a couple of taps.

There are a few rough edges with the first release. I found the lack of a portrait mode frustrating, as I'm actually a faster typist on the vertical keyboard; not that you'll be keying in a chapter of War and Peace, but there's quite a bit of room for copy on the postcard back and I'd like to be able to rotate on that screen. The selection widgets seem cramped a bit, particularly the one for the stock templates. It would be nice to save postcards in progress and switch back to them, but for now there's only one card and no way to revert to earlier versions.

If you want to have super-slick, email-only postcards from your iPhone, and are willing to spend a couple of dollars more for some added flexibility, you may be better off with Postage or the still-awesome Comic Touch. For $0.99, however, the first pass of Postman delivers ease of use and some very handy delivery mechanisms on the back end.

First Look: Postman adds social networking to the iPhone ecards mix originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

First Look: Postman adds social networking to the iPhone ecards mix originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, the new iPhone OS adds a bunch of fun stuff like Spotlight search and a few more home screens (longer list here) but don't overlook that it also adds roughly 38 security fixes in things ranging from CoreGraphics, Exchange, ImageIO, Mail, Safari and Webkit, and even one related to the telephone connection.