Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Orange have confirmed today that their network will be selling the iPhone to its customers sometime before the year is out, ending the exclusivity that O2 have selflishly claimed for so long. “reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year.” was the quote to have come from the network provider and Apple have also confirmed this.

Making it available in 28 countries worldwide, Orange will be selling it through all of its businesses, shops, online and over the phone. They have also stated it will be available through its “high street partners”. Prices and availability are  unclear at the moment but at least we will be getting more options to snap it up.

They are already allowing customers to register an interest at www.orange.co.uk/iphone

As the unveiling has passed for another year from Apple and as we all knew and expected another year of new iPods. Now obviously I’m all for new technology and gadgets(hence why i write on a blog about them) but I’m getting to a stage of frustration where every year Apple bring out a new set of iPods that aren’t really much better than the last generation. Well this year they haven’t disappointed with only slight changes, but the nano seems to get the major upgrade. Click on for all the info

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Many people though that the iPod Classic may get discontinued however Apple have announced that the Classic is getting an upgrade to 160GB.

According to Apple, that’s enough room for 40,000 songs. Aside from that, it’s the same deal. Same size, same shape, same software.

Pricing will remain the same.

Apple have announced an update to its iPod Touch line, this includes the new 64GB model which will set you back £299.

Prices of the 32GB and 8GB models have dropped in the states to $299 and $199 respectively so expect the UK to follow.

Apart from that there has not been much of a change but it appears that the new models use the same CPU as the iPhone 3GS, since they can run OpenGL 2.0

China’s InfoTimes is reporting via Foxconn(the makers of the iPhone) that Apple will be releasing a Netbook. Its reported to have a 9.7” touchscreen and you should be able to pick one up for $800 in the U.S. What price that would mean for the UK remains to be seen but personally, I can’t see it being more than £800.

This is a surprise really after Steve Jobs slated netbooks and said "As best as we can tell, there's not a lot of them being sold." So why the turn round especially when we also said "one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do".

All this is just strong rumours at the moment so we wont know the full details unless its announced. The main questions whats powerin it and what OS is it running. Will it be good enough for Snow Leopard or will it run an iPhone 3.0 style OS? Who knows?

Oh dear, seems a few people are suffering burnt body parts from hot iPhones. A lot of complaints are being made about some serious heat issues. You’d think with the new all singing and dancing iPhone only being out a fortnight this issue might just be a firmware bug but it seems its quite a big problem, to which Apple has responded.

If your phone is exceeding “normal operating temperatures” Apple says it can affect phone charging, display brightness and signal strength. If your iPhone gets too hot Apple recommends you 1) don’t leave it in parked car , 2) don’t leave it in direct sunlight and 3) don’t use processor-intensive Apps in hot conditions (ie using the ipod feature in the sun, or using GPS in a hot car)

If the white iPhone discolouration complaint continues (for those who may not know, people have been reporting that the white backed iPhones when getting extremely hot have discoloured the white plastic to a pink colour) may lead Apple to recall its “Jesus” of smartphones.

Source : T3

With the conference been and gone, we gave you some snippets of news. The lower priced MacBook excited me personally, but with so much going on we’ll give you a summary of everything else.

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Well the first day of WWDC is over and as expected there has been a new iPhone announced, the iPhone 3G S.

This announcement will come under mixed views as the 3G S isn’t so much of a new phone more just an upgrade.

The phone looks pretty much exactly the same however the processor has been upgraded, it is now 3.5G (7.2Mbps HSDPA), the camera is now a 3 megapixel unit with tap-to-autofocus and auto white balance with support for 30fps VGA video recording with editing features. The battery has also been improved with 5 hours of 3G talk time and 9 hours of WiFi internet use.

Finally there is the improved storage of 16GB and 32GB which should be priced as $199 and $299 respectively.

It will go on sale in the US on June 18th and 80 more countries in August. Interestingly this sounds like the new iPhone will beat the Pre on international release.

They are all obviously welcome additions, though I personally think some of them should of been there from the start i.e. 7.2Mbps HSDPA and video recording.

I do think it is perhaps a bit of a lazy release, it seems each iteration of the iPhone is very incremental to keep maintain a certain level of demand for each year. Personally I would of liked to see an OLED screen, Xenon Flash and better graphics capability as well as full flash support.

Hit the jump for a side by side comparison of the iPhone 3G & 3G S

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