Appletell

According to a report by Fortune today, AT&T Inc. will subsidize $200 of the purchase price for new iPhones purchased this summer, reducing its cost to as low as $199. Although Apple wouldn’t be particularly happy, they wouldn’t be able to object either, due to increasing iPhone sales through AT&T.

Fortune claimed in its report that AT&T will subsidize the price of new iPhones capable of accessing the 3G data network that the carrier is currently expanding in the United States. AT&T’s $200 price cut would likely be limited to customers who sign a two-year contract, and would not be available directly through Apple. Apple and AT&T now sell the iPhone for $399 for the 8 GB model and $499 for the 16 GB model, and the expected 3G models are estimated to have the same list prices. Several weeks before the new 3G iPhone is to be released, Apple will stop supplying the current iPhone models to reduce inventory, according to Fortune.

Both Apple and AT&T declined to comment on the report, with representatives from both companies stating that they do not comment on speculation.

Read [Fortune’s Report]

Apple is getting sick of all the iPhone clones overseas and is beginning to crack down on sellers of the devices.  It is known that the most clones are showing up in China, where Apple’s iPhone is too expensive for most of the consumers.  For example, Apple has began to pursue legal action against such sellers as Digital Playworld.  According to Playworld’s managing director, they had to remove all the clones from their website, promise to not sell any more clones, and tell Apple who supplied them with the products and how much was payed for them.  This was done to avoid a harsh lawsuit against the company.

In their letter to the company, Apple stated that the clone “looks very like the iPhone.” It appears that Apple has had enough and is no longer ignoring the issue.  Hopefully these clones help Apple realize that they need to drop the price if they really want the phone to succeed.  Despite all this, Apple has reported in its second quarter press release that 1,703,000 iPhones have been sold in this quarter.

Via [MacNN]

Apple shares fell about 4% after AT&T’s first quarter earnings report despite rising for the two days beforehand.  Investors were expecting huge iPhone sales for AT&T to help Apple reach it’s 10 million iPhone’s sold goal.  However, AT&T announced that it has only received 1.3 million new net subscribers across all of its devices which means not as many iPhones were sold as expected.  Still, TechCrunch points out that many iPhone’s have been sold internationally and then unlocked (around 30%), meaning that Apple could have sold more phones that AT&T’s numbers show.  From the call:

iPhone continues to be very popular with customers, feedback is very good. ARPUs are in the mid to upper 90s across the base. We continue to see customers adopting iPhone. Over 40% are new to us. Nothing really new in trends there. Continued, solid growth

All of these numbers and reports are, obviously, before the announcement of a 3G iPhone.  This device is expected to increase sales by a huge amount due to the high anticipation and demand.  However, even before this announcement, AT&T has reported a 22% profit increase, so the iPhone must be doing something right for them.  What do you think of all this?  How close is Apple to 10 million devices?

Now that the Mac line has been refreshed, let the next-generation iPhone rumors begin. Infineon, the current iPhone baseband supplier, will provide Apple with a new chip solution for its next-generation iPhone, which is expected to launch by mid-year - according to the investment bank, UBS. Research analyst Nicolas Gaudois said that a “new systems solution” will be provided by the German chipmaker. This includes a digital baseband controller, power management unit (PMU), and radio frequency (RF) module. “Consistent with these checks, our Apple analyst Ben Reitzes believes that 3G iPhones will be released by mid-year.”

The 3G iPhone was originally expected by many at the European launches. However, Apple released the standard 2.5G iPhones across Europe, and sales have proven good so far. Compared with other phones at this price level, the iPhone’s biggest let back is probably 3G connectivity. And seeing as the iPhone is advertised for having the world’s best web browser, the connections should be fast enough to get a good experience. I suspect the next iPhone will have a higher resolution camera, which has video support - maybe even supporting video calls over 3G… but these are just what I want.

What do you want from a next generation iPhone?

Via [AppleInsider]

Microsoft employee Jeff Jones has released his findings from a comparison of Vista, XP, OS X Tiger, and RedHat Linux.

“Windows Vista One Year Vulnerability Report” by “Jeffrey R Jones, Security Guy (and Microsoft Director)” already has an inconclusive feel about it as soon as that title page is splashed up. But let’s give it a chance.

Before the report starts, we are met with an Executive Summary, telling me first that “This paper analyzes the vulnerability disclosures and security updates for the first year of Windows Vista and looks at it in the context of its predecessor, Windows XP, along with other modern workstation operating systems Red Hat, Ubuntu and Apple products.”

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