More iPhone news

TechNewsWorld.com has more by Chris Maxcer about the iPhone 3.0 release:

The iPhone sat firmly in the center of the Apple-focused blog world this week. Apple, of course, delivered an iPhone 3.0 OS sneak peek to the press, which led to a stampede of blog activity. In addition to showing off a lot of new software goodies, Apple briefly tossed the ball into the service provider court in regard to data tethering (using one's smartphone as a way for a laptop to access the Internet).
Meanwhile, the latest AT&T rumor has the company offering iPhones for sale without massive two-year service contracts, but without the sizable price subsidy, either.
In building its third generation of the iPhone operating system, Apple boasted that it will deliver more than one thousand new APIs (application programming interfaces) for developers in iPhone 3.0 software. For end users, Apple has added one hundred new features. Highlights include a long-awaited cut-and-paste feature, MMS (picture messaging direct to other phones), in-app purchasing, peer-to-peer connectivity (take that, Nintendo DS!), third-party hardware accessory options, push notification, more landscape keyboard options, Spotlight searching across all applications, and stereo support for bluetooth headsets.
iPhone developers have access to iPhone OS 3.0 now, and consumers will get it free this summer. iPod touch owners, however, will have to pay a $9.95 upgrade charge. While most everyone seemed pleased with the announcements, some seem to believe Apple didn't show its whole hand.
"This is an advance preview, so I have a feeling a lot more is coming. They're only showing what developers need to see, not everything that will come. This way competitors won't have all this extra time to copy," Mykbibby commented.
"I hope by summer we'll also see new organization options within the home screen. Spotlight search helps, but real categories/organization of some kind is still needed when you have tons of apps. (Not to mention, I need room for more apps. At least raise the nine-page limit.) I suspect 3.0 will address these needs, but it would have been more fun to know the details today," added nagromme.
Of course, some of the limitations were puzzling. For instance, MMS will only be available to iPhone 3G owners.
"Any idea why MMS isn't available on 1st gen iPhones? I understand the stereo bluetooth, but can't think of anything that would make the 1st gen unable to send picture messages," tbealmear asks.
"I think there's a size limit with MMS on 2G phones (1st-gen iPhones). Perhaps Apple are going with current standards (3G) rather than deploying two versions of the code to do this?" answered darkpaw.
There's definitely more to this release than meets the eye. iPhone OS 3.0 might even further extend Apple's smartphone ecosystem lead.
"Super hot is the new subscription model for in-app commerce," Raven Zachary, founder of iPhoneDevCamp and a contributing analyst for The 451 Group, told MacNewsWorld. "You're going to see two new kinds of apps emerge. You're going to start seeing games start implementing in-game purchasing of equipment and land and these sorts of things, which is a very big deal for many of the genres of gaming. And also for content companies, you're going to see them be able to sell content inside of the application; obviously the subscription model is going to be useful for things like subscriptions and magazines that have content that comes on a regular basis, and they can have an associated charge. That's very big," he explained.
"The big sleeper feature, and one that was underreported, is hardware accessories. Apple is providing not only the ability to connect things with a 30-pin connector, but also with Bluetooth. So what you're going to see is a whole new range of accessories for the iPhone," Zachary said.
Apple noted that tethering will be built into iPhone 3.0 OS, but that it'll be up to carrier service providers to deliver solutions to use it. No doubt jailbroken iPhones, whenever a 3.0 jailbreak solution comes along, will be able to take advantage of it. AT&T has said it plans to offer a tethering option for iPhone owners in the US, but the company hasn't offered further details on the matter.
Developer Steven Troughton-Smith inadvertently turned on tethering while poking around with 3.0, and a few other developers have figured it out too. The Unofficial Apple Weblog covered some of the action. The big risk, of course, is losing your carrier service or getting charged for tethering.
"It's funny how scared people in the US are to do this, I am on the iPhone data package and wouldn't think twice about doing this and did it all the time with Netshare (pretty sure them letting me go to town using netshare means they will be ok with other means)," commented Dyranios on a TAUW post on the subject.
"It's funny until AT&T sends you a bill for thousands of dollars. At this point, perhaps they aren't looking very intently for people with jailbroken iPhones using tethering since the phones seem to be bandwidth hogs in any case, but it's only a matter of time before they figure out how to track this and charge people for it," added Brian.
"Yeah, tethering is cool, but wait till you see how much extra the carriers will want for it. I'm guessing at least $50 per month, and that's with a bandwidth cap," noted jollyllama.
The general consensus seems to be that AT&T will offer a $30 per month tethering feature, which would be in addition to the already mandatory $30 per month data fee for iPhone 3G owners. AT&T's tethering solution for other smartphones costs $60 per month and is limited to 5GB of data.
"Tethering will not be a consumer feature. This is all about business, hence the reason Apple passed the buck to the carriers," SvenOnTech.com blogger Sven Rafferty told MacNewsWorld. "Having witnessed the squashing of the two other tethering apps early in the App Store history, it's obvious the carriers want to make as much money as possible anywhere they can. We are the only country that incur charges for incoming calls, so why not double-tax for data?" he added.
Of course, there's the very real possibility that AT&T's 3G network isn't capable of handling a mad rush of iPhone tethering users.
The latest rumor floating around is that AT&T is going to be selling iPhones without long-term service contracts. The cost of entry would no doubt spike, perhaps reaching as high as $699. AT&T said it would offer some sort of option like this last year, but never got around to making it happen.
Cnet's Apple-focused reporter Tom Krazit asked, "Would you buy a $599 8GB iPhone if it meant you didn't have to sign a two-year contract?"
"Only if I could put it on Verizon," answered commenter dr_modean.
While the idea might be nice, it sure doesn't seem particularly likely that AT&T would plan on selling phones that could be used with its competitors.
"If you get an iPhone that is contractless, what's the point of it being contractless if all you have is one choice??" asked timber2005.
"Offering it without a service contract may not mean it is offered 'unlocked.' Probably they will just let you pay for the service month-to-month, but you'll probably still have to jailbreak the phone in some unauthorized way to use it with another carrier. This failure to separate sale of handsets from carriers is the worst thing about the US mobile market. Doesn't work this way in Asia," explained walterhutchens.
"Even if it is unlocked, your options are limited. It won't work on Verizon or Sprint, and it won't have 3G with T-Mobile. I would like to see the separation of phone and provider like it is in Europe in Asia, but until next generation (when Verizon moves to LTE) it's pretty much meaningless," added dpchris.
All of which goes a long way to explain why AT&T hasn't yet offered an iPhone without a contract...

Rico says he's gonna wait until he can afford the 3G iPhone and sort it out then...