Second Generation 3G iPhone To Be Released June 9?

PC World reported we can expect the "first of an impressive wave of new products" announced at the Apple Conference June 9-13 in San Francisco. Rumor has it one of those new products will be the second generation iPhone which will incorporate 3G technology.

I wrote last November about 3G technologies, AT&T's 3G build-out, and the iPhone:

3G technologies provide approximately 144 Kilo-bits per second (Kbps) to around 2.4 Mega-bits per second (Mbps) to mobile devices like cell phones and non-mobile devices like computers. For AT&T, 3G is a significant upgrade from the current EDGE network which, according to PCWorld, averages around 109 Kbps.

First generation iPhones run on the AT&T EDGE network. Here's more from the November blog entry:

EDGE is commonly referred to as "2.5G" or "2.75G" (between 2nd and 3rd generation) and has been the source of a lot of discussion with regards to the iPhone. Many questioned Apple's decision to go with AT&T/EDGE and have debated why Apple did not go with a 3G option for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has always said the decision to go with EDGE instead of 3G (on the first generation iPhone) was based on battery life.

According to PC World and Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research , Apple will not stop making the "2.5G" model but will upgrade the case and drop the price to between US$299 and $349, compared to the current $399.

Apple is also expected to announce an updated Mac laptop and new iPod versions.

An iPhone For A Day Experiment

On Friday I went to New York City for a National Science Foundation sponsored Ethics in Research Workshop held at Borough of Manhattan Community College. The workshop was excellent, with a focus on research integrity and institutional review boards (IRBs) at the community college level.

Over the past ten years I've got into the habit of carrying a notebook computer with me just about everywhere I go. Our campus uses GroupWise for email and I've got the client installed on my notebook. I can usually find wireless access and end up pulling email off locally. I can then answer, create, etc email without a network connection. The next time I get access to a web connection I can send out the email I have queued up and retrieve new email. It works but can get a little frustrating when I need to get to something and cannot fund a connection. I've considered buying a wireless broadband card from Sprint, Verizon or AT&T but have resisted.

Friday was just a day trip for me so I figured I'd try a little experiment and just take the iPhone. One of my biggest concerns was accessing my campus account. IMAP and POP access are turned off and I cannot access directly using the iPhone email app. This left me with a few options:

1. Have all GroupWise email forwarded or delegated to my gmail account which I have setup on the iPhone. I would end up getting all my email this way but it is difficult to reply to messages because I have to retype addresses (the iPhone still does not copy and paste)
2. Use the GroupWise web interface in Safari on the iPhone. In a pinch this works but it is time consuming and not very efficient.
3. Setup an auto-reply in GroupWise saying something along the lines of "I will not have access to this account today - if you need to contact me immediately send me a message at gordonfsnyder@gmail.com"

I opted for #3 and it worked out well - I did actually get one person who had a time sensitive issue and ended up forwarding to my gmail account. It's a solution that works for me right now but I do wish our campus would turn IMAP on so I could start collecting all campus email on the iPhone.

Regarding the iPhone iteself, the biggest issue I had was battery life. I was careful to turn the WiFi radio off in areas where I did not have access to save power and I did not use my bluetooth headset (Bluetooth on the iPhone was turned off). Even so I only got a little over 4 hours of common use (voice, email and web browsing) before I had only 10% of the battery left. Mike Q was at the same conference and had just about identical results with his iPhone. The next time I travel with just the iPhone I'll be sure to bring my charger with me and plug in whenever I get a chance.

I was really impressed with the enhanced map application that came with the iPhone 1.1.3 firmware upgrade released last week. The map application now uses Google Maps at My Location, which finds where you are based on the cell antennas your phone is accessing. You don't have to have an iPhone to use Google Maps at My Locatiion - it is available for most web-enabled mobile phones. It's not as accurate as a GPS but is close with the added advantage of working indoors. With the number of antennas in Manhattan, the location finder was extremely accurate.

Overall my iPhone for a day experiment was a successful one. My biggest concern is the battery life - Apple claims we should be getting approximately 6 hours of battery life so both Mike Q and I are questioning our batteries and will be checking with Apple.

AT&T Wireless Upgrades and the Second Generation iPhone

A small article in the Springfield, MA Saturday Republican paper caught my eye. AT&T has been quietly updating their cell phone towers to 3G in Massachusetts along with 220 other metropolitan areas in other parts of the country. Just last week the company updated 30 towers in the Western part of the state with plans to do the New Bedford area next. Both Boston and the Worcester area have also been upgraded.

3G technologies provide approximately 144 Kilo-bits per second (Kbps) to around 2.4 Mega-bits per second (Mbps) to mobile devices like cell phones and non-mobile devices like computers. For AT&T, 3G is a significant upgrade from the current EDGE network which, according to PCWorld, averages around 109 Kbps.

EDGE is commonly referred to as "2.75G" (between 2nd and 3rd generation) and has been the source of a lot of discussion with regards to the iPhone. Many questioned Apple's decision to go with AT&T/EDGE and have debated why Apple did not go with a 3G option for the iPhone. Steve Jobs has always said the decision to go with EDGE instead of 3G was based on battery life. Here's a quote from Steve jobs in a piece from MacNN:

"The 3G chipsets that are available to semiconductors work reasonably well except for power. They are real power hogs," .... "So as you know, the handset battery life used to be 5-6 hours for GSM, but when we got to 3G they got cut in half. Most 3G phones have battery lives of 2-3 hours [of talk time]."

There have been rumors (see Mathew Millers post at The Mobile Gadgeteer here ) going around since the current iPhone was announced in January that the next generation iPhone would be 3G capable. People have also been questioning whether the current iPhone has both an EDGE radio and a 3G radio built in, which would allow current iPhones to software update to the faster 3G network as the network becomes available.These rumors have pretty much died out after people have taken iPhones apart and have not been able to find an upgradeable radio.

Some complain about EDGE network performance with the iPhone but this has not been an issue with me personally. Perhaps it is because of the places I find myself at - I may be unique - I find myself on a WiFi network probably 90% of the time with the iPhone. The 10% of the time I'm not on a WiFi connection I'm usually checking email, looking up directions on a map or searching for a phone number on the web. On these occasions the EDGE network performance/bandwidth has been fine for me.

Is this 3G build-out by AT&T in (at least partial) preparation for a 3G enabled second generation iPhone? Partial is the key word here but i would say yes - it's time to move to 3G. I'm excited to see what Apple comes out with for the second generation iPhone and it will be interesting to see (if it is 3G enabled) how the battery life issue is dealt with. My bet right now would be on a multi-mode EDGE/3G/WiFi second generation iPhone that would operate on all three types of wireless networks. Time will tell!