iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Monday, February 11, 2008
News Category: Mix

The iPhone is driving “unheard of” levels of data usage, according to a statement made by a company executive. Vivek Dev, chief operating officer of Telefónica O2 Europe, said, “Our Apple iPhone is already driving unheard-of levels of mobile internet usage, and the introduction of flat rate data tariffs is expected to increase this further.” O2 recently announced improved tariffs for iPhone users.

Boingo Wireless has announced that it will make an iPhone-compatible client for its Wi-Fi service available soon after the device’s SDK is released. Boingo’s system uses a proprietary software client to allow subscribers to connect to more than 100,000 paid Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide. “We will be out as quickly as we can after the SDK is available,” said Christian Gunning, Boingo’s director of marketing, who also said that the company has begun work on the client. Boingo charges $7.95 per month for unlimited Wi-Fi access for handheld devices.

Samsung has announced a new mobile application processor that might appear in future Apple handheld devices. The S3C6410 combines a power ARM1176 processor core, clocked at up to 667MHz, and advanced hardware blocks for multimedia processing such as an embedded, hardwired Multi Format Codec, which can perform video capturing in MPEG4/H.263/H.264 formats and replay functions in similar formats using much less power. The chip is expected to go into mass production in Q3 2008; teardowns of the iPhone and iPod touch have revealed that Apple used a similar Samsung-based ARM processor in both devices.

In a Guardian report discussing the future of DAB Radio, GCap Media chief executive Fru Hazlitt revealed a partnership with Apple that will enable users to listen to digital radio on the iPhone. Further details of the partnership have yet to surface, but a slide from GCap’s presentation (PDF Link) mentions “Brand new applications for the iPod touch,” which suggests that the partnership may simply be a new native application that would allow access to audio streams over the internet.