Vodafone has sent out SMSes to the people, who had pre-registered for the iPhone 3G, informing them about the prices and the ordering process for this year’s hottest mobile device, the iPhone 3G.

Vodafone will offer the 8GB version for INR 31,000, while the 16GB version will be available for INR 36,100.

The iPhone 3G buying experience (at least for Vodafone) will be different from what the world experienced on 11 Jul 2008. There won’t be serpentine queues with people hoping against hope that the stocks last at least until their turn arrives. Vodafone’s SMS asks its potential iPhone 3G customers to visit their stores on 20 and 21 August to make a down-payment of INR 10,000. On making this down-payment, the customer will be given an appointment, starting 22 August 2008, to visit the store to collect their shiny new iPhone 3G instrument after paying the balance amount. Hmmm… now that is a semblance of order instead of the chaotic launch of the device worldwide on 11 July earlier this year.

Vodafone’s iPhone webpage says that they have limited stocks. That is a load of crap! Vodafone should have had a good idea of the stocks they might need based on the number of pre-registered customers. Any half-decent business will know how to manage their stock inventory based on such information. So the “limited stocks” claim is nothing more than a ploy to generate hype, especially since the price Vodafone have quoted is much higher than the rumoured prices.

It would be interesting to know the iPhone prices offered by Airtel. It will put the Vodafone prices in perspective. Also worth knowing will be the Airtel strategy to sell the instruments. Can anyone knowing these details please leave a comment here?

Finally, just a reminder to all those who are planning to buy the iPhone 3G for use in India. Remember that either Vodafone or Airtel do not offer 3G services yet. So some of the iPhone 3G features will be unusable at least for now. Going ahead, of course, when these operators provide 3G services, you can use them.

P.S.: Nokia have announced the launch of N96 to go head to head with Apple’s iPhone 3G in India. So you might want to consider that.

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Recently, the Palm Treo has been the product of choice in high-end smart phones. The Treo can not only make phone calls, but also send and receive e-mail, surf the Web, play music, take pictures and handle Microsoft Office documents, with the aid of a small built-in keyboard. The latest Treo 700 models are more capable than most of Research in Motion’s BlackBerrys, which many companies dole out to employees. But the Treos are fairly bulky and pretty expensive, often costing $400 apiece, depending on the carrier and the service plan.

Now the Treo has a new high-end competitor from Motorola and Microsoft that’s much thinner and cheaper, yet promises to match it feature for feature. It’s called the Motorola Q, and it’s popping up in the hands of more and more power users, intrigued by its stylish looks.

I tested the Q, comparing it mainly with the newest Treo, the 700p. I loved the Q’s hardware design and its price. At $199 (with a two-year service plan), it’s half the cost. And while a little wider, the Q is just half as thick as the Treo 700p and more than one-third lighter. It’s a heck of an engineering achievement by Motorola.

However, the Q’s beautiful hardware is dragged down by poor software. The Treo 700p uses the tried-and-true Palm operating system, which was overhauled a few years back to turn it into a phone-oriented interface you could control with one hand. But the Q is burdened with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile system, which hasn’t been fully converted to quick, one-handed phone use. The result is that it’s much more annoying to use the Q than the Treo, especially if you are a heavy mobile e-mail user. For too many functions, the Q requires more steps, more clicks and more opening of menus than the Treo 700p. (The Treo 700w, which uses Windows software, has many of the same software flaws as the Q.)

Despite being eye-catching, the Q’s design has a few drawbacks as well. Its screen is smaller and has 25 percent fewer pixels than the Treo’s, so you see less of e-mails and other documents, and photos are more squashed. And unlike the Treo’s display, the Q’s isn’t a touch screen, so you can’t use a finger to tap icons for quick results. The Q also has less battery life than the Treo, and while its keyboard is roomier, I found typing on it to be a tad more difficult.

Like the Treo 700 models, the Q works on Verizon’s broadband - like EV-DO data network, so it does a good job with both Web surfing and downloading large e-mail attachments. In my tests, the Q typically reached speeds of between 200 and 500 kilobits per second, only slightly slower than most wired low-end DSL connections at home.

Voice calls on the Q were also clear and strong, better in some cases than on the Treo. But unlike the Treo 700p, the Q can’t be used as a modem for a laptop, at least not out of the box. Neither phone has Wi-Fi wireless capability. Both have cameras with resolutions of 1.3 megapixels.

Many tasks took more work on the Q than on the Treo, even such basic things as muting the phone and locking the keyboard. Deleting e-mail requires two steps on the Q, one on the Treo.

The Q does have one nice navigation control the Treo lacks - a scroll wheel and back button on the right side, like what a BlackBerry sports. But the Q is more limited than the Treo in the way it handles Microsoft Office documents and PDF files. On the Treo 700p, Word and Excel files can be edited, whereas on the Q, they can only be viewed.

Still, the Q should sell well because of its price, speed and svelte appearance. It makes the high-end smart phone much more accessible and much more pocketable, which is no small feat.

When firmware 2.0 came around for the iPhone, it wasn’t such an easy decision for me or most of my colleagues to upgrade. Part of the reason was that we would lose the ability to send and receive MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) via a jailbroken app called SwirlyMMS.

Still, the allure of so-called “Push” Microsoft Exchange email and calendar support was too much to deny. So, we have been living without MMS for a while. Earlier this week, a company called Juicecaster released their “MMS” software, Flutter. As it turns out, it wasn’t real MMS but rather an MMS alternative that allowed us to share pictures with anyone in our contacts list. It’s great, but it’s not real MMS.

Browsing around in Cydia today, I discovered that SwirlyMMS is now upgraded to version 1.2, and it supports iPhones with firmware 2.0 and above! Naturally, I immediately installed it to check it out.

Having used SwirlyMMS before, it wasn’t difficult to configure. I knew all the MMS settings for my mobile operator, though SwirlyMMS now has a “Request Auto Setting” feature. It would be interesting to find out how that works. I tested sending and receiving MMS - both worked flawlessly. If you receive an MMS with a photo in it, you can save the photo to your iPhone.

SwirlyMMS is not free. You can try it out for 14 days, after which you have to fork out US$8 to continue using it. In my opinion, most people can live with that price, because we get a full-featured MMS client. When I think about it, though, it seems like a big omission for a modern mobile phone not to support MMS out of the box.

Let’s hope Apple eventually supports MMS natively, perhaps integrated into their SMS client. In the meantime, SwirlyMMS will fill in the gap quite well.

In a stroke of irony, the iPhone Dev Team, the folks who brought the world consistent jailbreak and SIM unlock tools, could totally save Apple’s ass right now, as their activation servers are toppled due to the massive user-base (6 million) trying to update to firmware 2.0 on the 3G launch day.

It’s assumed that the Dev Team jailbreak tool currently cracks firmware 2.0. The tragically named “Pwnage Tool” is not yet publicly released. However, if the Dev Team decided to release “Pwnage” at this very moment, it would presumably bypass AT&T/Apple activation procedure.

In this scenario, perhaps millions of users would grab “Pwnage” and then back off Apple’s activation server. That would be a huge favor to Apple on behalf of the rogue development community.

Could it happen?

UPDATE: In retrospect, this was a dumb entry. Rather than retract it, we’ll just leave it as evidence of this day’s mass hysteria and leave it at that.

So I have a PS3, and Bluray movies look and sound great.

I also have an Xbox 360, an Onkyo Receiver and a Samsung Plasma television, and long ago gained the benefit of utilising a Logitech Harmony remote control so I only have one remote to deal with.

But Sony… oh Sony! In their infinite wisdom (and goal to make the PS3 affordable) removed a $2 component from the PS3 called an Infra Red receiver (IR for short) that EVERY other home theatre style device (DVD, CD, Amplifier, TV, Radio, VCR etc) has.

This means I’m back to having to use another remote. Just as my kids and wife got used to hitting a button to choose what they wanted to do, Sony steals the peace and quiet away and makes things hard again.

Then I found IR2BT

This is a group of people that have developed a clever little box that receives IR commands, and converts them into a Bluetooth signal that the PS3 understands. It’s not out yet, but it looks really promising, being the only way to take all 51 buttons from the PS3 remote and let you program them into your programmable remote control.

Here’s a link to a video of it in action.

I personally can’t wait to get my hands on one. Peace and quiet may return to my house for the bargain price of $58. I’ll post back when I get one to play with.

Update: The product is now available to order and mine is on it’s way!

Update 2: My IR2BT has arrived (Production Run 1, Unit 24), and after a quick update of my Logitech Harmony Remote 525 (the IR2BT is in the database already under Gaming Console with DVD), I have paired my IR2BT with my PS3 (PS3-Add Accessory/Add Remote, plug in IR2BT power, hold “2″ button on remote down).

I had to modify my Activity buttons in my Logitech Harmony config as some didn’t map although this is probably my fault. I also suggest some config changes: OK = X, Prev = Circle, Exit = PowerToggle, Info = Triangle, Guide = TopMenu.

This device has now made my PS3 part of my Home Theatre family, and the team behind it has done an excellent job.

Thanks,
Shane.

IBM has brought access to its Lotus Notes application and Domino server to the iPhone. It has released Lotus iNotes Ultralite, a Web application for the iPhone that allows a person to access Lotus Notes email, calendar and contacts using the iPhone. Lotus iNotes is available free of charge and can be accessed through the Safari browser. For added security and protection of corporate data, iPhone users can choose to use IBM’s Lotus Mobile Connect virtual private network software along with Ultralite. The Lotus iNotes Ultralite is also included with IBM’s new Lotus Notes software 8.0.2.

Read more…

Currently, Sprint offers one of the best deals in the music download service industry, by enabling customers to download a separate copy of purchased songs to their PCs, aside from the ones downloaded to their mobile phones.

However, Sprint will soon cease this kind of operation, saying in an update on its web site that, “Beginning October 15, 2008, Sprint Music Store purchases will no longer include a second PC copy. All Sprint Music Store purchases will continue to be conveniently delivered directly to your Sprint handset.”

The company reassures that it will stay true to its word and gives customers the chance to download for-PC copies of purchases all they want up until October 14th, before the service update goes into effect.

So if you are one of the Sprint Music Store’s customers, now’s a good time to put remember your favorite artists and songs and download copies of their tracks onto your PC before it’s no longer allowed by Sprint.

Via RCR Wireless

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Wil Shipley on the iPhone App Store. This is mostly the same thing I’ve been thinking, with the exception that I’d have removed the $999 I am Rich/I’ve been scammed! application without apology or even reason, even if the App Store offered some sort of price warning.

There was a lot on the line with the stadium setting and my impression, albeit one influenced by an enthusiastic crowd, was that Obama pulled it off. It was an aggressive, at times emotional speech and it hit all the key points.

One funny moment: A guest speaker, Barney Smith from Indiana who lost his job to outsourcing was one of a group of ordinary people who spoke before Obama. His line that America should put Barney Smith before Smith Barney was a hit with the crowd who began chanting “Barney, Barney”. This promped a clueless journalist to ask me, “Who is Barney Smith, do you know?” Apparently she hadn’t been listening.