UPDATE: Daring Fireball takes apart the Wall Street Journal story about Steve Jobs recovering from a liver transplant, his time table on returning to Apple, and what — if any — changes we may see in his role there. Gruber sifts the sources and ranks the theories. If this interests you, check it out.

ORIGINAL: We’re really not sure how, or even if and when, to cover Steve Jobs anymore. We’d just rather report he’s back at work, personally carving the 4th gen iPhone out of adamantium, and not telling Kevin Rose anything about Video iChat.

Absent information, rumor spreads, however, and given that — we’re not really sure where the Wall Street Journal’s latest piece falls exactly.

If you don’t care about the details, they claim Jobs is recovering from surgery and still expected back at Apple later this month, just like Apple has been saying all along.

If you do want more, check out their article.

Either way, get well soon Steve Jobs.

(Thanks to RascalsBarbers and DigitalLifeDad for the tips)

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

UPDATED: Wall Street Journal - Steve Jobs had Liver Transplant, Returning to Apple Soon

Pinger fulfills the longstanding demand for SMS-style alerts with iPhone 3.0-style support for Push Notifications in the aptly named Textfree 3.0 ($5.99 - iTunes link).

What does that buy you? One year of free text messages for the iPhone (and iPod touch!). With support for every U.S. mobile carrier, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, Alltel, and others, if the idea of paying Big Telco big money for incredibly small amounts of text doesn’t appeal to you, check out Textfree 3.0 and let us know what you think!

Screenshots after the break!

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

Quick App: Textfree 3.0 with Push Notification for iPhone

Busy week for TiPb in the media! Smartphone Experts Editor-in-Chief Dieter Bohn joined CNN’s Richard Quest on Quest Means Business yesterday to talk about the Latest smartphones

iPhone 3G S, Palm Pre, and “any of the others” are discussed. Give it a watch!

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

TiPb on CNN - Quest Means Business

According to Anandtech, Dieter was spot on in his iPhone 3G S vs. Palm Pre browser speed test video. (as was our iPhone 3G S vs. iPhone 3G smackdown video)

The bigger story, of course, is not only do we have several great devices pushing competition and better serving users these days, but Mobile WebKit (the rendering engine behind Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome Lite, Palm Pre’s browser, and Nokia S60 (tip of the hat to Sascha Segan) has become the mobile internet platform.

That it’s relentlessly standards based, scales elegantly from desktop (where it ironically holds minimal share) to handset, and is continually being improved upon makes us especially happy for all concerned devices.

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

iPhone 3G S vs. Palm Pre Web Render Benchmarks

We’re figuring a lot of folks will default to the ubiquitous YouTube for iPhone 3G S video sharing, since Apple was user-minded enough to include it in the options. But for those who want pristine QuickTime quality, the Mobile Me news blog has you covered:

The new iPhone 3G S lets you shoot video in addition to photos, and sharing those videos on your MobileMe Gallery works exactly the same. From your camera roll choose what you want to share — video or photo — tap the arrow in the lower left corner, and choose Send to MobileMe. Enter a title, choose the album you want to publish to, and tap Publish. (If there are no albums in your Gallery, one called “New Album” will be automatically created.) Click here to learn more about Gallery.

If you’re sharing some iPhone 3G S video, let us know how you like the quality, and the MobileMe gallery uploads.

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

How To: Share iPhone 3G S Video via Mobile Me

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple, iPhone

We don't want to imply that the iPhone 3G S launch was a dud. There's reports out that the 3G S may have sold more units than the 3G on opening day, but even more reports are coming in that the lines and general mayhem at Apple and AT&T stores were much more subdued this year than in previous years. There's a lot of speculation as to why, but we at TUAW figured we'd go straight to the source and ask our dear readers. Why weren't you in line this morning?

View Poll

Why weren't you in line this morning? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Why weren't you in line this morning? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, MobileMe

I just got back from the Apple Store and am now the proud owner of an iPhone 3G S 32 GB in basic black. I can't wait to get at it, but before dive in, I want to write a bit about the experience.

Driving to the Apple store at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, NY, I drove past an AT&T store which had no line and very few cars in the parking lot. When I got to the Apple store, it was a different story. There was a bit of a line or actually two lines, but nothing big. When I got to one of the Apple reps at the start of the line, I was asked if I pre-ordered. I had, and my name was on the list. I was told to stand on a line of only five people, the other line of people who had no pre-ordered numbered fourteen.

It was about 1:50 pm when I got there and I was curious to see how the Apple experience would differ from what I was accustomed to. The last few times I bought a cellphone, it was a slow, laborious process where the store rep had to take a ton of information from me, get a credit check, wait, find a phone, wait, get more information from me, wait, take the phone to the back to infuse it with life by chanting arcane spells and pushing arcane buttons, wait, hear a canned sales pitch on how the phone would be absolutely no good without a dozen or so accessories that they would be very happy to sell me, refuse, wait, sign a sheave of documents, wait, get the okay, a shopping bag and a receipt and finally leave the story after well over an hour. Let's see how Apple does it.

While waiting in the line with a bottle of Poland Spring Water given to me by an orange-shirted rep, I struck up a conversation with Angelo Vergara who was trading in his three month-old 16 GB model for the same capacity in a 3G S. He told me a story that made me do a double-take. Angelo could have upgraded a year ago according to his contract, but didn't. Instead, he bought his iPhone 3G a few months ago. To upgrade it would cost him $399. That sounded a bit steep. I asked him why he couldn't just cancel his contract, sell the 3G iPhone and pay the early termination fee, and then start a new contract along with paying only $199 for his new phone. He told me that doing so would lose his phone number which he was not wont to do. The net dollars spent would be close, but it seems like he was caught in an odd concatenated AT&T policy. When I got to the front of the line, I asked Jane, my sales rep if this was, in fact, policy and she told me it was. Seems somewhat fishy though.

Continue reading iPhone 3G S buying at the Walt Whitman Mall, Huntington, NY

iPhone 3G S buying at the Walt Whitman Mall, Huntington, NY originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone 3G S buying at the Walt Whitman Mall, Huntington, NY originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re pretty sure you were turning your eyes to TiPb today for the haps on the iPhone 3G S launch, but you weren’t alone in seeking out the sage wisdom found here. Our very own Rene Ritchie had a brief spot on NPR’s Marketplace, a daily half-hour radio show devoted to all things financial. Rene’s take:

iPhoneblog editor Rene Ritchie says people might scale back on downloading music, kill their landline, even cut back on their cable. But they will not do without their smartphones.

Rene Ritchie: I think they’re becoming increasingly a necessity. Now your instant messages, everything can be popping up at you 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ritchie says now that smart phones have made it possible, we’re all expected to be on call around the clock. Employers want to be able to reach their employees at will. Clients expect immediate attention. Friends feel snubbed if you don’t text them back, right now.

You darn tootin, Mr. Ritchie. Jump to 8:15 in the show to hear the story, or hit up 9:30 to hear the dulcet tones of your favorite iPhone blogger.

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

TiPb on NPR, OMG

The iPhone Dev Team has posted an iPhone OS 3.0-capable version of the PwnageTool for unlocking iPhone, iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPod touch running the OS 3.0 released Wednesday. It should be noted that it will not work for the iPhone 3G S posted a guide detailing how you should use their jailbreaking and unlocking tools based on your situation is.

Several users in the US are reporting problems activating their new iPhone 3G Ss for use. A message displayed for many users during the activation process suggests that it could be as much as 48 hours before the activations go through. Some users have had some luck calling AT&T and having a representative help them get it activated, while others weren't so lucky.