Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

If there’s anything I’ve learned about Apple, in all these years of reading, and just recently, writing about them, it’s that you don’t mess with them. Ever. That’s a lesson a lot of would-be Apple product burglars would do good in learning, lest they want to be the ones pictured and talked about in this article here. The two men you see here are the burglars that we reported about previously, responsible for stealing flat-screen TVs, computer games, iPods, DVDs, a box of liquor and even a set of car rims from an apartment shared by three roommates. The one on top is Edmon Shahikian, while the one on the bottom is Ian Frias. They were apprehended shortly after the owner of one of their stolen wares, a Mac laptop, used the Back To My Mac feature to photograph them and show their photos to the police. I wonder when anyone will be able to do that with their Windows lappies.

Read [NY Times]

It turns out that AT&T is making an attempt at keeping their free Wi-Fi offering a secret. Even though its long past the secret part, thanks to the appearance and disappearance act that is has been putting on recently. According to a statement from AT&T they offered up an official “no comment” about the situation, but they also stated that the issues that have come up were nothing more than “human error.” Which based on that it would be pretty safe to say that its just a matter of time before it goes live for real, until then we can only hope the same human that has been making those errors will continue, we love our free Wi-Fi.

Read [New York Times] Via [Gizmodo]

Now is the time to stop wetting your pants, Apple fanboys. Like the boy who cried wolf, it seems our earlier report pertaining to Carphone Warehouse and O2’s lack of iPhone stock in the UK was a mere case of misinformation. Apparently, O2 was just “in the process of replenishing 16GB iPhone stocks,” while Carphone Warehouse is “reviewing the stock situation for 16GB iPhones sold through its website, but added that its stores now have them in stock.” Stocks of the 8GB model are also being considered, although just putting more 16GB iPhones would definitely be a no-brainer. With great demand for the iPhone all across the world right now, what kind of handset retailer would you have to be to not offer the consumers what they want? We’re not sure what exactly, but one thing we know is that O2 and Carphone Warehouse are definitely not like that.

Read [Register Hardware]

God save the Queen!  O2 and the CarPhone Warehouse websites tell the story of no more iPhones.  No availability, no soup for you.  Apparently, the Apple store is the last bastion of stock and I am sure we’ll get live reports of them being run down by anxious consumers.  Perhaps not.

Is this a hiccup in supply as we saw for the New York stores weeks ago?  Is it a sign that iPhone 2 is imminent?  Is it the 5th sign of the Apocalypse?

Is it getting hot in here?

Read [O2] and [CarPhone Warehouse] Via [Wired]

LIke we have mentioned before, the 3G iPhone is one of those rumors that is only going to go away when the phone is actually announced, until then we are going to see more and more speculation.

We have seen a few rumored images hit the web up till now, but these latest images are a first where the phone is no longer in black. As usual there is no way to confirm of deny these images, they are coming courtesy of a Chinese language discussion forum called WeiPhone.com. While my instinct tells me that these are not the 3G iPhone, it does bring up a good question as to why Apple has not released the iPhone in more than one color similar to the iPod line?

Via [MacLife]

An Austrian newspaper, der Standard recently posted an article announcing that a 3G based iPhone would be “soon” available. They are not only claiming the new phone will be available but have also mentioned details about some new “more flexible” service plans to go along with it. Of course this is all just rumor at this point, because as you would expect, Apple would not comment on the ‘news.’ The latest chapter of this rumor was ‘confirmed’ by T-Mobile and it was noted that Austria would be amongst the first to receive the newly updated and highly anticipated iPhone. So the speculation all seems to be pointing toward a June release, but as usual, with Apple products we are just going to have to sit back, wait and try to be patient.

Read [Macworld]

While these images seem realistic, they could be a mix of just about anything from a Photoshop job to simply being an iPhone knock-off. One thing that is for sure is that these next-gen 3G iPhone rumors and sightings are not going to stop until the official announcement comes.

The latest sighting consists of two images and comes courtesy of iPhon.fr, who claim that they cannot verify the source of the images, so take them for what they are worth. Whether real or faked, they certainly look a little more in the ballpark than the last “leaked” image that turned out to be nothing more than a new back piece being sold in Hong Kong.

Luckily June, the rumored release date is somewhat close, lets hope we can put these rumors to a rest. Of course, that just means another will pop up. Keep reading for one more pic, this time of the backside…

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Although Apple started offering customers movie rentals through iTunes back in January, some customers have found the service less than appealing because most of the movie titles, both from major film studios and independently produced titles, took much longer to be released as compared to DVD’s. Normally these new titles are released in iTunes 30-days after their DVD release. But Apple is pretty determined to get a sizeable share of the movie download market and possibly do what it was able to do with music downloads. Thus, it has officially announced that new movie releases can now be downloaded from iTunes on the same day that their DVD counterpart.

So, now we are talking. With the new service, iTunes customers would have access to new releases and catalog titles from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount and more. Customers can purchase new releases for $14.99 and most catalog titles for $9.99.

To kick off this service, iTunes has announced some new titles available for purchase this week, coming from its collection of around 1,500 high-quality films. These new titles include recently released in DVD formats - Juno, Cloverfield, I Am Legend and more.

Read [Apple]

OK kids, get off the Kool-Aid.  AT&T, no matter how cool (or lame) you think they are, is not going to subsidize the second coming of the phone that made people sleep in streets to be first in line to get it.  There are probably a lot more than four reasons, but these four make a pretty solid case.

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With the hotly anticipated summer launch of Apple’s 3G equipped iPhone, Fortune is reporting that AT&T has plans to subsidize the next generation iPhone by $200 for new customers that purchase the phone through AT&T stores, not Apple stores. Which in my opinion, doesn’t make sense. Why would Apple sell their product for more money when their partner, AT&T, is offering the same product with a $200 rebate? However, if the rumor holds true, the discount plummets the cost of the iPhone to $199, a deal that is undeniably attractive. Fortune notes that the subsidy will only be applied to new two-year contract signups. Furthermore, they continue to claim that the new iPhone will have GPS and be 2.7mm thinner.

Apple is expected to have two versions available: a 8GB and 16GB model for a base price of $399 and $499 respectively. Apple’s official 3G iPhone announcement is expected to be delivered at the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference, which begins on June 9th.

Read [Fortune]