NetworkIP Blog

It was a month ago today that Steve Jobs announced the release of the new 3G iPhonefrom Apple. There has been much anticipation, chatter, & speculation about this new phone & this Friday, July 11th, the wait will be over. Many Apple stores in the U.S. will open at 8AM in an effort to get ahead of the rush of orders for the new iPhone.

With the 3G iPhone retailing for $200 USD I have no doubt that the lines outside Apple stores will be worse than they were when the first generation iPhone was released over ago (June 29, 2007). I confess that I was one of many who stood in line for hours outside the Apple store waiting to get my hands on that first generation iPhone. I’m sure I’ll eventually give in & purchase the new 3G iPhone, however, I will not be one of the early adopters who gets one this Friday. While the Edge network from AT&T has its flaws, I’m not ready to invest $200 for the phone & an additional $10 a month (data plan on the 3G version is $30, not $20 dollars) for 3G access & GPS support.

I am however eager to download the new iPhone software & the many new applications that will be available for the iPhone. I think many existing first generation iPhone owners will follow my lead & simply take advantage of the new software & applications. Om Malik, of GigaOM, posted an interesting poll yesterdayasking who really is going to run out & purchase the new iPhone. The reaction was mixed of course. Some folks love it & can’t wait & others could care less. Regardless, it’s going to be a good day for Apple & Apple stock.

I do wonder if AT&T’s 3G network is ready for the additional traffic. Unfortunately we’ll just have to wait & see what happens on Friday.

This past Friday, July 4th, a many Americans celebrated our country’s independence. Typical July 4th activities in the U.S. include firing up the grill with burgers & dogs, heading out to the lake or pool, & shooting off fireworks when the sun goes down.

For those of us heavily involved in the open-source development community we were busy putting in our orders for the new Neo FreeRunner from OpenMoko which was finally released in the U.S. on Friday. Earlier this year we began prototyping some mobile applications using the Neo 1973 from OpenMoko. The Neo 1973 allowed us to get our feet wet with mobile phone application development as well as contribute back to the open-source community.

The OpenMoko phones manufactured by First Internaitonal Computer offer developers the unique ability to completely customize the software of a working GSM phone. While the current software isn’t quite ready for end-users, the new FreeRunner hardware adds Wi-Fi & extended battery life (something the Neo 1973 was severely lacking) to supplement the feature set of the Neo 1973 which includes GPS, bluetooth, USB networking & 2.5G GSM.

The new FreeRunner will begin shipping today & should arrive in our Austin office by end of week. Both our NetworkIP & Jaduka engineering teams are eager to begin working with it. The new FreeRunner & 3G iPhone all in the same week; we can hardly contain ourselves.