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A lot has been written about the new 3G iPhone, its price and its impact. Now it’s time to shift attention to the most important question about this device: How much money will it make for Apple and its carrier partners?

While I don’t have any concrete financial projections, after reading some of Wall Street’s better analysis and taking clues from my own sources, I can offer some observations, which I’ve packaged in a Q&A format here: Continue »

Today’s launch of the 3G iPhone has some welcome changes to the phone itself, but also highlighted the details behind the iPhone development platform. It’s nice to know that when the iPhone comes out on July 11 a horde of programmers have been working around the clock to port and build applications for it. Below are some coming and existing attractions to download to your iPhone.

Productivity and Information (or things your boss won’t mind you using):

iCall: A free Wi-Fi VoIP calling service that allows a user to switch calls from the cellular to the Wi-Fi network, even mid-call. Very handy for saving your minutes. It’s still in beta, though.

Associated Press Mobile News Network: Native app from the AP to offer local news depending on location. Users can also contribute photos taken with their iPhone to the AP. Like almost all news on the web, it’s free.

LingoLook: This foreign-language flashcard maker is taking its paper products and digitizing them for the iPhone, costing $7.95 $4.99 for digital flashcards in each language. And because these cards are so cool, I’ll tell you that BlackBerry and PocketPC users can download them too. Continue »

OK guys, instead of liveblogging the event, we are standing in line to buy the new iPhone, which went totally “real” a little while ago, according to a blog post by our buddies at Engadget and Gizmodo. But the company says no new iPhones till July 11, which is kind of a bummer. Here are some features:

* It is 3G
* Has a plastic back and thinner edges.
* The speed improvement over other 3G phones is 36 percent.
* 300 hours of standby, 5 hours of 3G Talk, 8 hours of 2G talk time. Seven hours of video and a day of audio. (I will believe it when I see it, for Apple makes some wild-ass claims about battery life that are just flat-out wrong. P-o-s Macbook Air is a case in point.)
* Geolocation’s Cadillac. I love this feature and can’t wait for the location-based revolution it will unleash, extending the good work of the folks at Nokia.
* It seems they’re still using the same processor, and the same kind of video-processing unit as they did with the original device. I wonder why that is?

Bonus link: Slim Pickings For Web Workers: WebWorkerDaily. They are rightfully underwhelmed, and after all the hype, so am I. What’s the point of not having the phone available on the day you announce it? All iPhone related news is not worth it, unless you can test it. Of course you can do press release rewrites…

NewTeeVee: Latest iPhone Wins One & Sucks Some On Video

Jobs photo courtesy of Engadget and their live blog coverage and extensive array of photos.

In a few hours from now, there is a good chance that as part of The Steve Jobs Show, Apple will introduce a brand-spanking new, 3G iPhone. It has some folks I know in the wireless world not really looking forward to the big surge of traffic such an 3G-capable iPhone will bring to their networks. Think of it as an iPhone-inspired stress test for their high-speed wireless networks. Continue »

What do they say – one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Looks like that was for T-Mobile USA that has filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, which had recently switched over from T-Mobile to AT&T.

AT&T offering free WiFi at Starbucks locations is putting the hurt on T-Mobile’s WiFi business, prompted the lawsuit. (Hey Ma Bell, thanks for listening to our suggestion about free Wifi. ) At the time of the original WiFi announcement all three parties – Starbucks, T-Mobile and AT&T – made polite noises about getting along and impacting each other’s business.

Even though, only two markets (San Antonio, TX & Bakersfield, Calif.) have switched to AT&T, T-Mobile is chagrined that Starbucks & AT&T are offering a free WiFi promotion. ( Rest of the Starbucks’ stores still use the T-Mobile network. As a result the free offer breaches most of the agreements put in place between the three parties.

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“iPhone, till now, has not exactly been video-friendly,” writes Liz over on NewTeeVee. And that is a damn shame because the screen is pretty awesome and made for enjoying video-on-the-go.

However there seems to be a thought that the new version with video features and 3G could change that. “I personally haven’t been persuaded by the touch-screen dream machine yet, but I’m thinking this could be my moment. How about you?,” Liz asks. Take our poll, and answer her question.

MogoTXT, a San Mateo, Calif.-based startup, has launched a service that allows you to send free SMS messages from your iPod Touch, which uses Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet. The SMS messages, which are ad-supported, can be sent to either a single person or to groups. The service works with regular cell phones as well, as long as they have a web browser — and just not if the carrier is Verizon.

To be clear: You can’t can send and receive SMS messages on your iPod Touch with this service, just send them. MogoTXT is using an IP-to-SMS gateway, so it doesn’t cost the sender any fees. And you need to be registered to send messages, which is clearly MogoTXT’s way of preventing abuse from spammers. The company also plans to make the service work with any networked or WiFi-enabled device, including video game consoles.

Related Reading: 5 ways to SMS for free

Depending which iPhone rumor you believe, the 3G version of iPhone has either been delayed or already landed on U.S. shores and is on its way to being announced at Apple’s WWDC in San Francisco next month. The interest in the 3G version of the iPhone has been building since AT&T executives “accidentally” talked about it at various events.

But whether it’s a new 2G model or a super-fast 3G, there is one thing that’s for sure: The new iPhone has Global Positioning System (GPS) built into it, thanks to legal requirements put in place by the FCC. The company supplying the GPS to iPhone is going to be a big winner in this space; according to my sources, the contract has been nailed down by Broadcom, a relatively new entrant into the GPS market. The Irvine, Calif.-based chip company had acquired Global Locate in July 2007 for $143 million in cash and $80 million in incentives. In the past such a deal would have gone to someone like SIRF, which is in a bit of pain these days. Continue »