iPhone Cafe

Telus announced today that it will begin selling the iPhone in Canada on Thursday, November 5th. Although specific iPhone plans have not yet been announced, Telus will be selling the three current iPhone 3G and 3GS models at the same subsidized three-year contract pricing as Rogers Wireless. Until now Rogers and Fido have been the exclusive iPhone carriers in Canada by virtue of having the only 3G network rather than any exclusive agreement with Apple. Telus and Bell Canada have recently upgraded their carrier networks to provide 3G capabilities, and Bell Canada is also expected to begin offering the iPhone sometime in November, although no specific dates or prices have yet been announced by that company.

AT&T reported their third-quarter financial results today, crediting the iPhone for stronger-than-expected profits. AT&T reported 3.2 million iPhone activations during the third quarter with nearly 40 percent of those activations coming from new customers.

Following a report from last week indicating that Apple was barring independent labels from releasing iTunes LP-formatted albums and charging a $10,000 production fee to create the associated files, the company has responded saying the prior accusations were false. Brian McKinney of Chocolate Lab Records was the originator of the prior information, and later contacted MusicWeek to add, “I should note that it is currently possible to design an iTunes LP independently. I’ve tested a couple designs on iTunes and they work great. The problem is that Apple won’t let you sell them through their store. So, the $10,000 production fee isn’t the barrier, it’s the exclusion of indie labels and artists by Apple. We love iTunes, hate exclusion. Hopefully that will change. Hopefully we will speed up the process.” An Apple iTunes spokesman dispelled the notion of any production fee in a later email, stating, “There is no production fee charged by Apple. We’re releasing the open specs for iTunes LP soon, allowing both major and indie labels to create their own.” Apple launched the iTunes LP format alongside iTunes 9 at its Rock and Roll media event on September 9.

Vodafone has announced that it will offer the iPhone in the UK beginning in early 2010, and has launched a “coming soon” page for the device. Vodafone will be the third carrier in the country to offer the phone, behind O2, which has offered the phone since November 9, 2007, and Orange, which announced yesterday that it would begin selling the phone later this year. In addition, Reuters reports that Vodafone will also offer the phone in Ireland, bringing the number of countries in which it offers the iPhone up to 13. Pricing and tariffs have yet to be announced.

Apple has announced that more than two billion applications have been downloaded from the App Store since its launch on July 11, 2008. The company also revealed that over 85,000 applications are now available from the store, with over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program and more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide.

Apple has released Software Version 2.0.3 for the iPod classic 160GB (2009). According to the release notes, the software offers support for Genius Mixes; no other changes or bug fixes are mentioned. Notably, the 2009 iPod classic 160GB shipped with Software 2.0.2; the prior iPod classic 120GB was last updated to version 2.0.1, and it is unclear whether Apple plans to add Genius Mixes support to older iPod classic models. The 2.0.3 software update for the iPod classic 160GB (2009) is available now through the Update feature in iTunes.

Apple today released iTunes 9.0.1 via Software Update and the iTunes download site, offering a number of bug fixes.
Both Mac (OS X 10.4.11 or later) and Windows (XP or Vista) versions of iTunes 9.0.1 are available.

Apple is actively investigating the causes of excessive battery drain that appear to be related to iPhone OS 3.1. Since the update became available September 9, a number of users have reported the rechargeable battery seems to drain significantly faster than it did with iPhone OS 3.0.
In order to look into the problem, Apple has been contacting some users who posted about problems with battery life to Apple’s discussion forums and asking them to provide further details about their usage patterns. The questions ask about push e-mail, push notifications, WiFi, Bluetooth, and app usage—all things which long-time iPhone users know can affect battery life.