iPhone Atlas

A report confirms that AT&T has begun to test enhanced 3G services in Chicago. The enhancements being tested give devices supporting HSDPA a theoretical peak 7.2Mbps download speed versus the 3.6Mbps of the current network. The report did not mention much about how upload speeds might be enhanced.

Unfortunately, this news might mean very little to current iPhone 3G users since the Infineon chipset in the iPhone 3G may not support these faster speeds that could top out at 14.4Mbps. A future chip update may allow future iPhones to support this speed or higher.

The report further details AT&T's intent to move toward the intermediate standard of HSPA+ before going to the new Long Term Evolution (4G) specification on AT&T's network. According to AT&T spokesman, Mark Siegel, ""We have some real advantages with our (GSM-based) technology path," Siegel said. "We still have plenty of room left to increase speeds" before moving to LTE."

AT&T refused to give any information related to the timing of the upgrade or really any specific details per the report. However, AT&T is probably going to be acting quickly to stay ahead of competitors like Sprint and Verizon. Verizon is said to be making a quick move to it's own 4G technology possibly completing the move before the end of 2009. Sprint on the other hand is moving along with it's own 4G under the guise of CDMA/WiMAX.

It remains to be seen what advantages if any current model iPhone 3G users will see from these network enhancements. However one could hope that while this is being tested that AT&T continues to add capacity to their seemingly already overtaxed 3G infrastructure. Any enhancements of network speed and capacity would be welcomed by iPhone 3G users.

Cisco has debuted an iPhone application that can make use of the company's popular WebEx collaboration tool. The new app, available free from the App Store, allows users click to join and actively collaborate in WebEx meetings. A company statement reads:

"The online meeting experience gives users the ability to take advantage of simultaneous web and audio conferencing capabilities from Cisco on both the 3G mobile and 802.11 wireless (Wi-Fi) networks. The solution supports multiple telephony configurations including SaaS-based telephony from Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, premises-based telephony from Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, or telephony from Cisco's service provider partners. "

The company says that a future edition will allow users to transfer Cisco WebEx Meeting Center and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace conferences from the Apple iPhone 3G to an office environment and back, by transferring the audio to a Cisco Unified IP Phone and the web conference.

A video demonstration of WebEx for the iPhone is available at http://www.webex.com/iphone/.

As if being the No. 1 free iPhone app of 2008 wasn't enough for Pandora, it has launched version 2.0 of its app just six days into 2009.

New features in this release include a progress bar for songs (finally!), 30-second previews for bookmarked songs, the ability to create a new station from a song or artist, artist information, cover-flow view for song history, and some sharing features.

While this update isn't anything revolutionary, it certainly rounds out the cool features in the app, like embedded iTunes purchasing. With Tuesday's Macworld announcement of iTunes downloads, now being possible over 3G, this could prove to be a very useful feature.

Creating new stations from artists or songs will add a lot to the capability and usefulness of this app as well. The new cover-flow view for song history behaves almost exactly like Apple's. The album covers flip over to reveal information on the artist and why that song was played. One annoyance here is that you cannot bookmark or purchase songs from this view. I suspect that this is an easily correctable issue.

The 2.0 update for Pandora improves upon an already killer and must-have application for the iPhone. It's available in the iTunes store.

Add new songs to your iPhone over 3G.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

Though the addition of DRM-free music is grabbing the most iTunes headlines, there was more music news at the Macworld 2009 keynote on Tuesday.

Apple Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller also announced that beginning Tuesday iPhone users will be able sample and wirelessly download iTunes tracks over AT&T's 3G network or EDGE. Previously, iTunes song downloads, unlike apps, were available only over a Wi-Fi connection.

The process works relatively well, though we encountered a couple of hiccups. It appears that you must use Wi-Fi or a wired connection to your computer to download songs over 10MB. When we tried downloading a longer song, we received a warning message advising as such. We're checking with Apple to verify that it's not a problem on our end. Also, during our first download, our connection was interrupted once. We were able to reconnect and continue the download

We tried downloading a 6.4MB song over 3G. It took about one minute and 15 seconds, which is about the same as a Wi-Fi download. We then downloaded a 7.2MB over EDGE. As expected, it was painfully slow--after all, EDGE basically is dial-up speed. It took about 20 minutes to get our song, which is too long to bother in our opinion.

Although this years Macworld Expo keynote address didn't include any major iPhone-related announcements, a few important feature enhancements were introduced:

• iTunes over 3G Pushing ever-increasing data over the AT&T network, Apple is now offering the ability to push iTunes music files over 3G connections. Previously, the iTunes mobile app could only download songs over WiFi. First-generation iPhone owners are still out of the loop. This functionality requires no software update and works right now.
• Keynote remote control A new application, available through the App Store, allows users to control Keynote presentations from the iPhone. Priced at $.99, the app lets you advance slides via a Cover Flow-like interface.
• iPhoto integration Picturs taken on your iPhone and uploaded to iPhoto '09 include geotagging information. This lets you automatically organize photos by place and recognize landmarks in major cities. Slideshows from iPhoto also now work on the iPhone.

AT&T has been very vocal about its efforts to rapidly build up its 3G voice and data network. The reality really hit home with the advent of the iPhone, 3G which many feel overwhelmed AT&T's 3G network. The sheer number of iPhones on AT&T's network due to the popularity of Apple's handset was never before seen in the current mobile phone market. Complaints poured in, eventually leading to class-action lawsuits against both AT&T and Apple over performance complaints. This has led to AT&T's aggressive 3G infrastructure upgrades, which purportedly come at the expense of EDGE.

According to a report on Open for Business(OFB), AT&T is upgrading it's 3G voice and data network while intentionally reducing signal strength on its existing EDGE, which is used by many different cell phones including both iterations of the iPhone. This is happening because, in some markets, AT&T is switching some of its cellular towers from the 850 Mhz band used by EDGE to the 1,900 Mhz band. The result is that 3G users see improved signal reception while the EDGE users are seeing reduced signal reception. Users wishing to resolve the situation and remain as an AT&T customer have to upgrade to a 3G phone.

If an existing customer contacts AT&T technical support seeking a resolution to the problem, according to the report, AT&T will offer that customer a $200 one-time credit to upgrade their handset.

An excerpt from the report:

"AT&T's executive director of analyst relations, Mark Siegel, 'categorically' denied to OFB that AT&T was advising customers to dump 2G equipment such as the iPhone for 3G versions. In a follow-up message, Siegel added that the company was not requiring anyone to switch to 3G equipment. Although that is technically true, customers in affected areas are all but required to upgrade due to the dramatic signal strength drop over the last few months."

Add electronics retailer Best Buy to the list of places you can get a used iPhone cheap.

Best Buy is now selling refurbished Apple iPhone 3G models at a $50 discount to brand-new, unused models, according to the Reuters news agency. The lower prices of $149 for the 8GB iPhone (normally $199) and $249 for the 16GB iPhone (normally $299)--with a two-year service contract with AT&T contract--apply to devices that were returned to the store within 30 days of their initial purchase.

The move comes a little more than a week after megaretailer Wal-Mart Stores began selling iPhones at $197 for the 8GB model and $297 for the 16GB model.

Refurbished iPhones are also available from AT&T, the sole wireless carrier for the devices. Apple itself has also sold refurbished iPhones in the past, but a check of its Web site shows no such offers at the moment.

Best Buy representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Update 11:05 a.m. PT: Best Buy put out its press release a little later in the morning. In addition to the pricing stated above, the company said that current iPhone users can upgrade to a "refreshed" iPhone 3G. It also said the refurbished devices are available now at 350 Best Buy stores and by the end of January will be available at all U.S. Best Buy stores that offer AT&T.

Developers continue to push the envelope on iPhone application development, skirting the bounds of Apple's development guidelines and discovering means for implementing undocumented, pioneering functionality. The latest breakthrough comes from Innerfence software, and is best described by its author: "Go somewhere; do something; come back."

Most iPhone applications offer a one-way street when it comes to accessing other applications' functionality. Click on a URL in Mail, for instance, and you are transported to Safari. In order to get back to Safari though, you need to click the home button then tap the Safari icon again. In other words, once transported to a new app, you are (in a sense) marooned there.

Innerface gets around this limitation by exploiting Apple's URL-based method for applications to communicate with each other. Via URL schemes in applications' respective Info.plist files, said apps can communicate and pass control between one another.

Developers from Innerface have posted source code for the scheme, but they note a few security ramifications:

"By registering to handle a URL scheme, an iPhone app becomes a de facto web app, subject to many of the nasty attacks that work on the web. Apps implementing this scheme must be careful to validate any parameters they get from the URL lest they be vulnerable to old friends like SQL injection."

Feedback? iphoneatlas@cnet.com.

The popular U.S. online classifieds site where you can find just about anything imaginable for sale is now available on the iPhone via the Craigsphone app (iTunes link) from Next Mobile Web.

The currently free app makes the popular online classified service available on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The app allows you to browse and post listings on Craigslist sites across the globe. You can also upload photos and share your location information with the app. However, the best feature of the app is that it allows you to direct dial numbers posted in the classified ads. If you see an item that you are interested in learning more about and there is a phone number in the ad simply click it and the app launches the Phone app dialing the number for you. The app also keeps a history of ads you've viewed in case you need to take a look at an ad again.

Another major feature of the app which isn't perfect yet is it's "Nearby" feature that lets you browse ads closest to you. Unfortunately this feature only works if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area or Manhattan. The vendor's website indicated that this is only temporary so one can expect this feature to be expanded, but no timeline for this was given.

The app was initially released this past Friday and has already seen some substantial updates. We noted in our tests that the app performs some tasks better with a Wi-Fi connection especially when we changed our location and the app went to gather up the required city and state information for the US. The app would consistently time out trying to get the same information over a 3G connection. Hopefully a future update will resolve this issue.