Apps and lawsuits pile up even before the new iPhone appears
Everyone's favorite pastime seems to be forecasting exactly what Apple's new iPhone will look like, even though the firm hasn't even confirmed what everyone assumes - that one or more new models will appear around June, to steal the thunder from Palm and others. But while the operators may be clearing their shelves in readiness for a new Apple handset, the software houses are not waiting for new models to update their offerings. The new Skype client for iPhone enjoyed a million downloads in its first two days in the App Store, and this week sees new offerings from Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.
There are even reports that Microsoft's Office Suite is coming to the iPhone, though the company would only say: "Not yet, keep watching." But Microsoft did announce QuickOffice for the iPhone, which costs $20 and supports writing and editing of Word and Excel files. Previously these could be viewed but not edited.
Meanwhile Google and Yahoo have also both expanded their iPhone offerings. Yahoo unveiled a version of its Messenger for the platform, while Google brought out a new mobile version of Gmail for the iPhone and Android. Yahool Messenger is also available for RIM BlackBerry devices and T-Mobile Sidekick.
It's not all good news for Apple - it has been slapped with yet another patent lawsuit, this time from Taiwanese chip designer Elan Microelectronics, which alleges that the iPhone, iPod Touch and MacBook touchscreen technology infringes on two of its 'multitouch' patents. It filed suit in the US District Court in San Francisco on Tuesday when two years of licensing negotiations apparently broke down. "We couldn't find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action," an Elan spokesperson told The New York Times.
Meanwhile, what about the new iPhone? Or multiple iPhones, if the latest look in the crystal ball, by Lazard Capital Markets, proves correct. Lazard analyst Daniel Amir thinks there will be a high end phone for Europe and north America and a low end version for rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, China, India and Russia, where operators rarely offer subsidies and so Apple has had trouble shifting fully priced iPhones. According to Amir's predictions, the bigger model would have video support, a better digital camera and 32GB of memory; while the cutdown iPhone might not have video or Wi-Fi, and would have less memory (but could look like the long anticipated 'Nano').
Several hardware IDs were found in the beta version of the iPhone 3.0 software, raising the prospect of multiple new devices, and even of entirely new formats. Meanwhile, Apple is readying a low power implementation of 802.11n for its mobile products, according to Network World. This may require an upgrade to the central processor, so the support would only be available in new models, rather than available as an update for existing iPhone owners.
Again, the recently unveiled beta code for the iPhone 3.0 operating software has given the clues – experts found some radio component specs that indicated a shift to a different Broadcom Wi-Fi chip, the BCM4329, a highly integrated product that combines MAC, baseband and radio for all the Wi-Fi variants (802.11a/b/g/n) plus Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and FM radio receiver/transmitter.
It supports both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, which is important because the latter is less congested, and Apple could increase the synergy between its phones and its AirPort Extreme WLan access point or AirPort Express portable unit, by segmenting them to handle 11n mobiles on 5GHz for superior performance.
Broadcom's chip is targeted at mobile devices, supporting one data stream and one antenna instead of the 2-3 usually specified in 11n - this reduces power and size, but caps performance at around 50Mbps, rather than 11n’s full potential of about 150Mbps. This would provide a significant boost for over-the-air content downloading, especially in uncongested spectrum.
