Apple's iPhone 3G hits shelves; Extras Store also Opened

Apple's international launch of iPhone 3G began in New Zealand and Japan on Friday, as a freshly-opened ‘App Store’ tempted fans with independently created mini-programs for the coveted devices.

New Zealanders were the first to be able to buy the much-hyped iPhone 3G when three stores opened just after midnight, and Tokyo followed shortly afterward.

Sales of iPhone 3G models begin later in the day in 21 other countries.

On the eve of the iPhone 3G launch, Apple opened an App Store stocked with hip, fun or functional programs crafted by third-party developers.

The shop, accessible through Apple's online iTunes store, opened with more than 500 mini-programs, many of them free.

Mini-applications include games, photo-sharing and mobile versions of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and eBay.

"Facebook is even cooler on the iPhone 3G, with the ability to discover friends nearby, or to effortlessly take pictures and upload them instantly to Facebook," said the social-networking website's founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Game makers are capitalising on touch-screen and motion-sensing technology in iPhones.

"The touch and tilt controls are natural and easy to learn, making gaming even more inviting, creative and rewarding," said Sega product development vice president David Cobb.

A version of the Japanese company's "Super Monkey Ball" tailored for iPhones is in the App Store.

"Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch open up the world of games to an entirely new audience," Cobb said.

Applications crafted for iPhones will also work on iPod Touch models, which are basically iPhones without the telephone capabilities.

Brian Greenstone, president of computer game maker Pangea Software, called the iPhone platform "truly ground-breaking."

Software creators are allowed to set their own prices, as long as figures end with 99 cents. Apple keeps 30 percent of sales prices to pay for operating the store.

Apple senior vice president of world-wide product marketing Philip Schiller said the iPhone "represents a new software platform for developers, combining the most advanced mobile operating system, sophisticated developer tools and a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly sell and distribute their applications."

Apple released an iPhone kit to outside developers in March in an effort to make the hot devices even more popular and wrest market share from smart phone market powerhouse Blackberry.

The kit lets programmers customize programs for the touch-screen mobile devices combining telephone, video, music, and Internet connectivity.

Apple vets software creations before making them available exclusively at the App Store.

Apple will sell iPhone 3G models in the United States for 199 dollars and 299 dollars, depending on memory capacity. The original eight-gigabyte iPhone was priced at 600 dollars when it debuted in June last year.

IPhone 3G prices in some countries will be as low as one euro (1.57 dollars) provided customers purchase multi-year service plans that translate into lucrative long-term revenue streams for carriers.

Apple is continuing its strategy of locking iPhones exclusively to one telecom carrier per country.

Apple and numerous technology websites have posted online tips on how to navigate Friday's anticipated buying frenzy.

Auckland student Jonny Gladwell, 22, had been first in line outside the Auckland store since Tuesday after being dared by friends who promised to pay for his phone if he lasted the distance in the queue.

"I'm going to go home, put this on charge, have a play with it and have a nice big sleep," Gladwell told Television New Zealand after securing one of the first iPhones sold in the world

iPhone moves a step closer to getting IM

A recent patent filing indicates that Apple is getting closer to adding its own instant messaging client to the iPhone.
he filing is titled "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging," and covers methods for sending, receiving, and viewing ongoing conversations. The proposed GUI is similar to Apple's current interface for SMS.

Built-in support for IM has been missing from the iPhone, to the dismay of many users. The patent filing shows Apple has IM on its mind.

At the recent launch of the iPhone SDK, AOL demonstrated an AOL Instant Messenger client, but it isn't allowed to run in the background, which normal IM applications rely on.

Support for IM is quickly becoming a must on mobile phones. Users want the same thing on their mobile phone as they have on their computers including IM, according to Leif-Olof Wallin, research vice president at Gartner.

"It will be a blockbuster in two, three years," said Wallin.

But instant messaging is also a threat to the massive amounts mobile carriers make from SMS messaging, which the iPhone currently supports.

"They can charge much more for SMS compared to IM," said Wallin.

Pressure from its carrier partners is a possible explanation for why Apple has taken a hands-off approach to a feature many users want, according to Wallin.

"At the same time it can't afford to be left behind" he said.

Nokia signs Sony BMG for free music offering

Nokia will offer free 12-month access to music from artists of Sony BMG, the world's second-biggest label, to buyers of its particular music phones, the world's top cellphone maker said on Tuesday.
ast December, Nokia unveiled a similar deal for its "Comes With Music" phones with the top record label Universal.

"Comes With Music is expected to launch in the second half of 2008 on a range of Nokia devices in selected markets," Nokia said in a statement.

Nokia gave no financial details.

Sony BMG, home to artists including Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen and Celine Dion, is jointly owned by Sony Corp and German media group Bertelsmann AG.

The new music offering from Nokia -- the first cellphone maker to push heavily into content -- would differ from any other package on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 months.

Such unlimited download models could offer a shot in the arm to the music industry, which is struggling to find ways to make up for falling CD sales.

Nokia said it expects all top labels to sign up for "Comes With Music" offering.

"We are quite confident that we will have all the labels at the table for Comes With Music. We are progressing in those negotiations," said Liz Schimel, head of Nokia's music business.

Sony BMG joins Universal in offering catalog on Nokia phones

Sony BMG is joining Universal Music Group in allowing users of select Nokia mobile phones access to its entire music catalog later this year.

Nokia Corp.'s "Comes With Music" program will allow users who buy select cell phone models to download any song from Sony BMG's catalog onto their phone or their computers during the first 12 months of owning such a device. Nokia announced a partnership with Universal last fall, and now has brought Sony BMG aboard.

"When you give consumers the key to the candy store without any limitations, there's a lot more opportunity for discovering music that you might not have found before," Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony BMG Music Entertainment, told The Associated Press on Monday. "We think this will energize the discovery of music."

Nokia said the phones should be available in the U.S. by the second half of this year. While fans would be able to download an unlimited number of songs by way of their phone or on their computer from hundreds of thousands of tracks, they would not be able to burn the music to a CD or use it with iTunes, Hesse said. However, after the year is over, the music fan can keep the music.

"It's not like some other subscription services where you lose everything," said Tero Ojanpera, Nokia's executive vice president, entertainment and communities. "Here you can keep everything. This is like really getting access to a store where you can really now explore freely."

Ojanpera didn't disclose the price range for the phones, but said they would vary according to the model.

BlackBerry outage caused by upgrade

The company behind the BlackBerry smart phones said a three-hour e-mail outage Monday was caused by an upgrade designed to increase capacity.
Research in Motion Ltd. Tuesday said the upgrade was part of "routine and ongoing efforts," and that similar upgrades in the past had caused no problems.

The outage, which started about 3:30 p.m. EST, annoyed subscribers who are used to checking and writing e-mail whenever they're in cellular coverage and able to make voice calls. It affected only some of the BlackBerry users in North America — for others, the service kept working fully.

It was the second major outage for the service in less than a year. In April, a minor software upgrade crashed the system for all users. A smaller disruption in September also was caused by a software glitch.

RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, has been on a tear, adding 1.65 million subscriber accounts in the quarter that ended Dec. 1, for a total of 12 million subscribers worldwide. It has deals with scores of wireless carriers around the world.

Experts said RIM's system is relatively reliable, but its centralized structure means that when there are problems, they can affect millions of users.

E-mail sent to and from BlackBerry phones in North America all goes through a Network Operations Center. It appears the problem occurred there, when one of two Internet addresses that relay e-mail from corporate servers stopped responding, according to Zenprise, a Fremont, Calif., company that helps companies troubleshoot BlackBerry problems.

"Any time you got a system that's got a NOC, a Network Operations Center, you have the potential for a single point of failure," said Jack Gold, with technology analyst firm J.Gold Associates in Northborough, Mass.

"What's a bit surprising to me is that with all the work they've been doing over time ... that they haven't been able to have enough redundancy in the NOC so that there isn't a single point of failure," said Gold, who has done business with RIM.

Microsoft's competing solution for mobile corporate e-mail doesn't use an equivalent to the NOC. Instead, it sends e-mail directly from a corporate server to user's handsets. That means widespread outages are unlikely, though the system can fail on the local level.

"Those types of issues occur so often ... they slide under the radar," said Chris Ambrosio, director of wireless research at Strategy Analytics.

The analysts agreed that RIM's centralized system had advantages, including strong security.

Ahmed Datoo, vice president of marketing at Zenprise, said RIM had significantly improved its handling of the outage, notifying customers soon after it started.

"That process didn't exist a year ago," Datoo said, noting that most subscribers affected by the April outage learned of it through the news media.