3G iPhone on the Way?

mooseman93 wrote to point out Forbes is suggesting that if you haven't purchased an iPhone yet, you may want to wait just a little bit longer. Supposedly the next generation of iPhone will offer some substantial upgrades, including 3G capabilities. "To be sure, a 3G iPhone likely won't pop up over the next several weeks. The Unofficial Apple Weblog reported this week that Apple is hiring a television production firm in preparation for a high-profile late February announcement. That event, however, will likely detail the widely anticipated release of a software developer's kit for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. But the wait can't drag on much longer. AT&T is building out its high-speed wireless network as quickly as it can, announcing Wednesday that it will expand its 3G wireless broadband service to more than 80 additional cities by the end of the year for a total of roughly 350 markets."

Comments

Re:Only now 3G in US?

[jrothwell97]

A great point: over in Great Britain 3G has been working (very quickly) for several years now, whilst O2 have only just started rolling out EDGE for the iPhone (mainly). When I tried using an iPhone in an O2 shop a few months ago, it was painfully slow under EDGE (but fine under Wi-Fi).

Forbesian Bullshit

[lancejjj]

Here's why Forbes pretends it knows what its talking about:

• AT&T announced that it will expand its 3G wireless broadband service
  
• Broadcom, last year began "cranking out" samples of the BCM21551 3G chipsset
  
• Apple "quietly" upgraded the storage on its highest-end iPhone to 16 GB
  
• Jobs "complained" about the slow pages of the nytimes.com
  

Here are some questions that Forbes should have asked:

• Is the AT&T's 3G expansion really about the iPhone, or is it about AT&T advertising the fact that it wants high-value data-centric corporate accounts to come on board?
  
• Does the Broadcom chipset fit Apple's need? Yes, it is designed to be a low-power 3G chipset. But does it deliver, and is it designed well enough for a product like the iPhone? Is it stable and reliable?
  
• Does a memory upgrade of the iPhone merely mean that Apple thinks users will pay for more memory if offered?
  
• Was Jobs complaining about EDGE, or about the busy NYTimes page? After all, he was using WIFI, and he wasn't loading the simplified NYTimes mobile page.
  

Again, Forbes shows that journalism takes the back seat. There are plenty of great articles that could be written. Instead, we get an article that isn't even worthy of an unpopular rumor blog. Like mine.

Re:iPhone in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html, then tell me: who's the oddball. Japan is special because there's no GSM coverage (their second generation network is PDC, which exists only in Japan), but their 3G network is the same kind you'd find everywhere else in the world, except in the US.

Re:Apple SHOULD go 3G

[anothy]

3G beats the crap out of Edge

this is totally non-sensical; it's like saying "Hybrids beat the crap out of a Prius". EDGE is 3G. IMT-2000 sets the definition for 3G overall, and the 3GPP and 3GPP2 (stupidest organization name ever) do it for GSM and CDMA technologies respectively. both of those organizations recognize that they're working within the IMT-2000 framework, as defined by the ITU (the telecom standards people).

the market use of these terms has changed over time. five years ago, nobody questioned that EDGE was 3G. the marketing hype was that once 3G (by which everyone meant EDGE) was ubiquitous, it would change everything. well, we got EDGE, and very little changed. so they kept the same marketing message - once we get 3G, everything will change - and just obliterated and precise meaning of what 3G was.

EDGE is explicitly a 3G technology. the speeds found in real-world applications are dependent on far more things than the underlying technology used. one can run EDGE slower than RTT (a clearly 2G technology) if you allocate few enough cells, or faster than EVDO if you allocate enough. if what you really mean is that we want HSDPA, please just say that. if what you really mean is that you want >300Kbps, say that.