CapMac iPhone SIG

Not many folks think of Ralph Lauren as an electronics store – but you’d never know it from their latest feature on ‘Global Connectivity’ featuring iPhone travel apps in their RL Magazine online:  RL Magazine Online

Thanks to Patti Edelman for the heads-up!

AdMob, the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace, says in a new report that, despite challenging economic conditions, smartphones gained significant market share worldwide over the past six months – rising from 26 percent to 33 percent of requests in February 2009.  And, worldwide, the iPhone is the number one smartphone.

Other iPhone highlights from the “February 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report”:

° The iPhone generated 33 percent of smartphone traffic worldwide and 50 percent in the US.

° Worldwide the top five smartphones are the iPhone, Nokia N70, BlackBerry 8300, Nokia N80, and Nokia N73. The top five US smartphones are the iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl, Palm Centro, and HTC Dream (G1).

It depends on who you talk to – but everyone at AT&T agrees on one thing – “something big is going to happen in June” and Apple and AT&T will both benefit.

The new iPhone will reportedly feature a U-Verse app which will allow control of home DVR systems, and is much faster and unmatched by any of the current devices in the market today. It is also rumored to come with HSDPA supporting 7.2Mbps connectivity, which ties in nicely with the tethering support in OS 3.0, should mobile carriers finally decide to allow that feature.

Reports and confirmations are leaking from within AT&T management. More details will surface as we get closer to the expected mid-June launch.  Until then – patience.

There have been a number of stories recently about doctors armed with iPhones, using the device to save time and provide better care for patients.

Business Week led with a long feature about “Dr. iPhone,” calling it a “critical tool for saving time and improving the quality of the care” provided by the doc profiled, Dan Diamond, a family practitioner who works at the Doctors Clinic in Silverdale, Washington.

“If I leave my iPhone at home, I will turn around and go back for it,” he says. “It’s that important.”

Of 22 applications Diamond has installed on his iPhone, 10 are health related. The most important, he says, is Epocrates Essentials, which lets him quickly check for drug interactions, look up disease symptoms and find out what lab tests he might need to order. “I don’t have everything I need to know memorized,” Diamond says. “This makes me look like I do.”

Interesting that traditional media is looking into how smart phones change the medical profession — just like they are changing police work and other sectors.  Does your doc use an iPhone?

After declaring its intent to follow Apple’s wildly successful iPhone into the smartphone business – Dell’s first attempts to produce a phone have been rejected by the carriers for being too dull and lacking enough differentiation to stand out in a competitive environment, according to a report.

A research note published today by Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu said that Dell’s new prototypes, capable of running both Windows Mobile or Google’s Android, simply didn’t interest the carriers.  I guess analysts remember the tremendous success that the Dell DJ enjoyed…

The upcoming iPhone 3.0 firmware may serve as an essential lure for Apple, argues Needham analyst Charlie Wolf. The firmware will add a number of important software features, of which push notification and copy/paste are said to be the most critical. Such a strategy could be useful not only to Apple but to the entire smartphone industry, Wolf suggests.

Apple’s emphasis on software is a “different bet,” Wolf noted, an attempt to draw both developers and  users to the iPhone. The new iPhone OS — alongside the over 25,000 titles at the App Store — and almost a billion downloads — may theoretically be a more powerful force than the hardware itself.

We’ll have more at our April meeting:  iPhone SIG April Meetup

With over a 100 new features, and over a thousand new API’s — application hooks that developers use to craft programs efficiently — it’s no wonder that the iPhone 3.0 software is creating buzz.

Want to see what all the excitement is about?  Catch the whole March 17th media event:   iPhone 3.0 Special Event

AT&T has confirmed earlier rumors of a contract-free iPhone, says the Associated Press. Under the new scheme — set to begin on Thursday, March 26th — an 8GB iPhone 3G will cost $599, while a 16GB model will cost $699. The prices are a full $400 more than the $199 and $299 options, which should remain available under the limits of a two-year contract.

While pre-paid and other contract-free iPhones are sold in a number of countries, residents of the US have always been forced to accept two-year agreements. The new prices also mirror the costs of the original 4GB and 8GB 2G iPhones, which were set high due to a lack of subsidy payments on AT&T‘s part. The new contract-free iPhones may retain subsidies, as with other iPhone 3Gs, but AT&T has not disclosed this information.