New Luke Wilson Ads for AT&T Attack Verizon

No specific mention of Apple or the iPhone, but you can see the Droid in one of the ads.

AT&T Launches Mark the Spot App for iPhones

AT&T launched an app to help get feedback on dropped calls for the iPhone. It gives users the ability to send information back to AT&T about dropped calls and gaps in coverage. In their statement:

AT&T is committed to providing its customers with the best network experience possible.

This application will help contribute towards this goal and its utilization is greatly appreciated.

It's something, so I guess it's better than nothing. But I have a question, if you aren't getting any service, how are you suppose to send feedback to AT&T. Heck, right now I can barely get service to download the app! Also, looking at the picture above, the app tells you to call customer service i at 611 if you need help. AT&T customers know that calling customer service is the biggest pain in the ass about AT&T. I'd almost rather live with the problem than call those know-nothing-jerk-offs.

Apple Decides to Get in the Middle of AT&T/Verizon Dispute

Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Apple is releasing these two ads as a response to the disputes between Verizon and AT&T. Instead of worrying about who has a better network, Apple sticks to the iPhone as being the key reason to be on the AT&T network. Remember, no phone on the Verizon network allows you to multi-task like the iPhone.

Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

Verizon Quick to Point Out AT&T's Flawed Service

Mocking the AT&T networks and the Apple iPhone, Verizon came out with a "there's a map for that" ad by Verizon that shows off Verizon's 3G network vs. the AT&T network that sucks. Too bad Verizon doesn't have a iPhone for me. Good thing they are getting Android phones in a couple of weeks, because the rest of their phones can shove that map up their sd card slots.

MMS Finally Coming to iPhone on September 25th

News from AT&T says that MMS will be available on the iPhone 3G and 3GS beginning September 25th via a software update.



The date is September 25th, which does indeed fall a few days past the official end of summer. It was important to give our customers a positive experience from day one. We support more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world so we took the time necessary to make sure our network is ready to handle what we expect will be a record volume of MMS traffic. We truly appreciate our customers' patience and hope they'll understand our desire to get it right from the start.

The service will be enabled with a software update on the launch date. Customers can obtain the update from iTunes, just like all other iPhone updates.

As for tethering, by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect. We expect to offer tethering in the future. [TUAW]

iPhone Firmware Update 3.1 Coming Soon!

Among the goodies to come in the new 3.1 firmware are:

• Voice Control now works over Bluetooth
• Updated AT&T profile to 4.2 (MMS is now enabled)
• Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.
• iPhone vibrates when moving icons
• Non-destructive video editing means trimming a clip no longer saves over the original video but gives you the option to "Save as copy..."
• APIs to allow third party apps to access videos and edit them.
• Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01

Some are more useful than others, I'm glad clipping a video won't ruin the original and AT&T will enable MMS. If that second one is true, this firmware won't be out for the general public til August. Still, it's something good to look forward to on your iPhone. [TUAW]

UPDATE: More than likely this won't destroy the tethering "hack" that already works on iPhone 3.0, but we'll have to wait to find out.

Not so Illegal Way to use Tethering with iPhone 3.0

It's still unknown if AT&T will charge any fees for this, but many people have found ways to make the still unavailable tethering on iPhone's 3.0 firmware...available. It's a small short hack, but if it works for free it would probably top my list of favorite things on the iPhone 3.0 firmware. Choose the provider and country and then enable tethering on the iPhone. Follow the above video on how to configure tethering.

Basically, on Safari on the iPhone, you go to: http://help.benm.at/help.php

Choose the provider and country and then enable tethering on the iPhone. Follow the above video on how to configure tethering.
[Gizmodo]

UPDATE: AT&T did not charge any sort of fee for the tethering!!!!!

AT&T Offers Free Wifi Hot-Spot Auto-Authentication

iPhone 3.0 users will have access to free auto-authenticated wifi hot-spots. Basically this means when you walk into a Starbucks, your phone will be connected to the wifi.

AT&T Extends iPhone Discounts to More Customers

Basically, if you will be eligible for iPhone upgrade between now and September, you can get the new iPhone 3GS (or the 3G) for the discounted prices. They will offer MMS for no additional charge later this summer and tethering will be enabled on the network for a fee, no word on exact pricing or release date yet.

MMS on iPhone Won't Cost Extra!

AT&T has already said that they would enable MMS later this summer on their network. When exactly? Who knows. But what we do know today is that all that MMSing won't cost you anything extra.

Later this summer, as part of the 3.0 software, AT&T will make multimedia messaging (MMS) available at no extra cost to customers with a text messaging bundle.

[The iPhone blog][AT&T FAQ page]

AT&T iPhone Plan Price Drop Rumors

Rumors say today that AT&T may create a price drop for the entry level iPhone plan from $69 to $59 a month. This would be more than likely the case for the iPhone 3G and would take place over the summer when the new supposed iPhone is released.

For customers, this would be a net savings of $120 a year. For AT&T, they would be making room for new inventory of iPhones and attracting new customers for the cheaper iPhone 3G plan. Most likely, the new iPhone plan would be $69 a month and old iPhone plans would either stay the same. There's no reason to drop the old phone's price plan because, well, they don't make them any more and the plan only exists for people who still have that old phone. They can't attract any new customers by lowering that plan.

But of course this is all rumor. [PC World]

New iPhone Details Coming From Someone "high-up" at AT&T

BoyGeniusReport has this information from someone "pretty high-up" over at AT&T about the announcement for the new iPhone that is supposedly coming out in June. Here are the detailed updates.

• New iPhone announcement around mid-June (duh)
• New iPhone will be faster and have a more seamless experience unmatched by any device (could be just talking about 3.0, but we think it’s also a new iPhone)
• U-Verse iPhone application; will allow control of your home DVR (play, pause, rewind, etc.)
• Nothing official is being confirmed, but they said that people should prep for an exciting time this summer.
• AT&T is said to be working with Apple to create a unified product with an unparalleled experience across all their products and services.
• Apple’s 3.0 software should tell us where the iPhone platform is going… uh, k?
• They said customers shouldn’t need to choose from AT&T’s high-end devices because of features, they should choose based on preferences. The gap in capability should be filled with the new iPhone. Ok, bets on slide out QWERTY, autofocus camera, video sharing, blah blah?
• Seems like the higher speed HSDPA (7.2Mbps) is being hinted at too which should confirm the earlier rumors of the new Infineon chipset.
• The $99 3G netbook will start selling this summer, and the first one won’t be a Windows OS.

Granted that not all off the above will hold true, it seems like Apple is set to have a great summer.