Appletell

In a report released Thursday, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann announced that iPhone sales in Germany have reached and passed 100,000 units.  With exclusive rights to the German iPhone, Deutsche Telekom saw sluggish sales through January, but sales looked up after that.  Sales saw an even bigger jump when the company announced a gigantic €300 (over $460!) discount on the 16 GB iPhone until June 30. 

Hamid Akhavan, Deutsche Telekom’s board member at T-Mobile, told Dow Jones Newswires earlier on the sidelines of a corporate event that the sales figures for the iPhone are “about in line” with the company’s internal targets. Akhavan also said that the current price reduction of the device had boosted sales.

Only question is, what does Apple think about the discount?  If Apple took legal action on a UK iPod seller from offering a ₤15 ($30) iPod discount, there is no saying what action Apple will take against the German iPhone purveyor.

[Telekom Europe] Via [CNN Money]

Fueled by the recent snowballing of Mac sales and interest in the iPhone’s mobile WiFi platform, this year’s Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) has sold out for the first time in history.  The exact number of spaces that were available was not put out by Apple, but soon after making the “sold out” announcement, they released the following statement. 

“Response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK. The conference is now sold out.”

There are many speculations as to what will happen at WWDC ‘08, ranging from 3G iPhones to Tablet Macs (the latter taken with quite a sizable grain of salt).  Based on past WWDC history, chances are slim that any new computer designs will be introduced, as those larger announcement are usually saved for MacWorld (small design updates for the Mac line up are more of a possibility).

Luckily for those who didn’t snag a seat at the conference, videos of the session will be on iTunes shortly after for purchase.

Read [Mac Megatsite]

iPhone application developer Intelliborn has just released a new killer application for the iPhone called the IntelliScreen. This new application compiles weather, e-mail, SMS message, RSS feeds, news, sports and wheather widgets and displays them to your iPhone’s “Slide to Unlock Screen.”

The application allows for the display of four widgets at the same time and you can easily switch reading from one widget to another in a jiffy. 

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Nakahara Informatic’s iGet Mobile, a nifty iPhone-Mac application that allows users to remotely access their documents on Mac through the iPhone just got a new Version 2.0 release. This new version boasts of the following new features; iPhone-specific features through the iGet Mobile web interface, an improved web server component, a redesigned user interface and other enhancements.

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We all love the iPhone as we love Google Reader. Now there’s one more reason to love using both, as Google just launched a spanking new Reader made specifically for the iPhone. The new version of the iPhone Google Reader mimics the same feel as you were using the desktop version. Google Reader users who are familiar with the list view when browsing their RSS subscription on their desktop via the Google Reader would be glad to know that the iPhone version sports the same functionality. It’s as simple as tapping the Reader links to expand and read the entire items, right on your iPhone’s display screen.

In addition to this, users could also use the other features of the regular desktop Google Reader. They can star, share and keep unread items without leaving the list view. The Reader page refreshes automatically whenever any of these three actions are performed.  That takes care of the Google Reader’s speed and ease of use on the iPhone.

What was not mentioned though was whether the Reader for the iPhone will be synchronized with the Google Reader desktop. We might as well try it out to find out for ourselves whether marking an item via the iPhone Google Reader would reflect the said mark on its desktop counterpart.

The Google Reader for the iPhone is available at this link - http://www.google.com/reader/i.

Via [The Official Google Reader Blog]

MacRumors has discovered a new preference in the iPhone firmware 2.0 beta. The “Enable 3G” option allows you to turn 3G data speeds on and off - Apple claims that “Using 3G loads data faster, but decreases battery life”. Steve Jobs once said at the iPhone UK launch that the iPhone was not using 3G chips because they sucked up battery life too quickly - this could give users the option of either, when they need it most.

Although the iPhone 2.0 firmware appears to contain this 3G code, owners of current generation iPhones will not be able to take advantage of the 3G speed option without buying a new iPhone with a 3G capabilities embedded. It looks like Apple will be using similar, if not the same firmware for both 3G and 2.5G iPhones. The 3G iPhone is still expected for launch at the WWDC in June, however there is no confirmation of this from Apple themselves.

Via [MacRumors]

TUAW has received information from an anonymous tipster about future Apple plans. Apparently, .Mac is going to undergo a complete revamp - and will be re-launched at the same time as the iPhone 2.0 launch - which is expected some time in June (most likely in the Worldwide Developers’ Conference). .Mac’s new changes would bring new features to the service for both Mac and Windows users for the first time; some of these features include:

• .Mac push e-mail
• Wireless syncing for calendars, contacts, and email (similar to Microsoft Exchange)
• .Mac syncing on Windows

It makes sense for Apple to integrate .Mac into the iPhone. Wireless syncing of calendars and contacts would make it a big competitor to Microsoft’s Exchange service - which is widely used as the standard for many businesses. .Mac hasn’t been too successful either, this could be Apple’s way of bringing the product to success.

Via [TUAW]

There has been tons of rumors lately about what the new iPhone is going to look like and and what features it will have.  Sure, the iPhone is bound to be updated (or announced to be updated) in June at WWDC, but what about that little thing we call the iPod?  Can’t we give them a little loving?  What is the next iPod going to be like?  Unfortunately, it seems like this device has gotten lost in all the iPhone shuffle.  Well, let’s bring it back into the limelight, even if only for a little bit!  Keep in mind, I have no idea when they will be updated, but it’s always interesting to speculate on what they may look like and contain.

So, what do you think?  Is that old scroll wheel out of fashion?  Will they eventually all have wifi and Safari?  Are they all going to contain some sort of touch screen?  These are all good questions to ask, and with the way Apple keeps its secrets, any of those could be just as possible as the next.  I strongly believe they will all have some sort of advanced touch system, whether it be the actual screen or just adding multi-touch to the scroll wheel.  Apple has learned a lot from both the iPhone and iPod Touch about multi-touch displays, and the consumers seem to love them.  Furthermore, I think they will all be capable of wireless connectivity.  Even if it’s not Safari, Apple could possibly even add a more simplified iTunes Store to normal iPods.  This would be a great way for Apple to sell more songs and users to find even more music.

Now let’s talk more hardware.  With flash memory get cheaper everyday, will the new iPods move to flash?  I hope not.  Well, at least not now.  The Classic and its 160GB are great for people who have a ton of music as well as some movies, and I don’t believe hard drives are dead just yet.  Going along with my multi-touch theory, I also believe the new iPods will get larger screens to make them more able to support that feature.

What are your thoughts? Let them fly in the comments!

Graphic via [Gadget Reviews]

The iPhone is finally rapidly expanding into more worldwide markets. Vodafone has just made an announcement stating that it has signed a contract with Apple, and will start selling iPhones in 10 new countries: Australia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. No specific date has been given, but expect the phone to be out later this year.

The fact that Apple has chosen Vodafone for all 10 of these countries speeds up the process of deploying the iPhone. It means Apple doesn’t have to deal with 10 different carriers for each country, as they have previously. Apple chose AT&T in the US, O2 in the UK, Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany. It’s good to see Apple meeting their goals with bringing the iPhone to the rest of the world, especially where it has huge demand. This should also prevent iPhones being exported from the US, and being hacked to work on local networks.

Via [Engadget]

Twitter is an amazing social network - there’s no doubt about it. Most Twitter users find themselves addicted to the thing, and therefore need ways of catching up with friends’ updates, and even posting their own on-the-go. Thanks to the iPhone’s sophisticated Safari web browser, iPhone-specific web apps using Twitter’s API can be created. In my opinion, Dean Robinson‘s Hahlo is the best iPhone Twitter web app out there.

Hahlo 3, the highly anticipated version of Hahlo, has just been released to the public and is no longer in beta testing. All users who visit Hahlo.com on their iPhone or iPod Touch will be able to notice the new features and design immediately. In addition to the newly designed user interface, Hahlo 3 has full search capabilities through Summize.

Via [TUAW]