Join Rene and Chad, and welcome Georgia, for all the week’s news, views, and rants. If you have any questions, leave a comment below, hit us up on Twitter @theiphoneblog, or better still — join us live in the chat room via http://www.tipb.com/live

REMINDER: You can watch us live on your iPhone with the Ustream Viewer app [Free - iTunes link]. Just wait until the show starts (8pm ET) and search for iPhone. We’ll pop up. Literally.

Chat with you soon!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Live! Tonight at 8pm ET/5pm PT (1am GMT)

AT&T is finally opening up and coming clean about their sub par service that is offered in areas of New York and San Francisco. Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility, recently spoke at a investors conference regarding the poor service.

"This is going to get fixed, in both of those markets, I am very confident that you're going to see significant progress."

Obviously this is good news for those of you in these areas. Worse news? AT&T might use “unlimited” to sell you your data plan, but they obviously don’t intend for you to use it. And if you do, watch out.

Wireless data hogs who jam the airwaves by watching video on their iPhones will be put on tighter leashes.

Video. The horror!

De la Vega didn’t say exactly how or when the carrier would change its policies, but he said some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable.

If one stops to think about the other carriers getting more attractive smartphone options and the fact that AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity is running thin… AT&T better figure things out and fast.

[Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

AT&T Ready to Improve Service in New York and San Francisco — Just Don’t Use that Unlimited Data

Time magazine has made the Motorola Droid its number 1 gadget of the year while our beloved iPhone ranked in at number 4 behind the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader, and the Dyson Air Multiplier. What pushed the Droid to the top of the heap of these gadgets was the combination of its Motorola hardware and Android 2.0 software.

“A smartphone operating system isn’t all that satisfying without an actual kick-ass smartphone wrapped around it. Now Android has one: The Droid is a hefty beast, a metal behemoth without the gloss and finish of the iPhone, but you don’t miss it. The Droid’s touchscreen is phenomenally sharp and vivid, it has an actual physical (not great, but good enough) keyboard, and best of all, the Droid is on Verizon’s best-of-breed 3G network. It’s Android’s first credible challenge to the iPhone.”

The reason why the iPhone 3GS ranked in at number 4, well to put it simply, was the lack of new features.

“Take the iPhone. Make it faster. There, you’re done. Yes, the 3GS has a better camera — with video. And it has a compass and voice control. Those are all improvements over the original.”

So there you have it folks, in the past the iPhone and awards have gone hand and hand. As it stands now, the iPhone is no longer an award winner. Hopefully that all changes come this June/July.

What do you think? Should the Droid have gotten the nod?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Time Magazine Ranks the Moto Droid Ahead of the iPhone 3GS

If Apple does release a mythical iTablet, could the mythical advertising return them to the glorious campaign of “Think different” past? TiPb doesn’t take anything involving the iTablet as anything approaching news, but seeing as how our site was originally called “Phone different” this particular rumor warmed even our frozen, jaded little blogger hearts.

And, frankly, we’d love to see a refreshed, renewed, Think different on our TV and in our webs.

[via 9to5mac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Rumors we Love: Apple iTablet to Bring Back “Think different”

We are ridiculously excited to announce that today we’re launching the 3rd annual Smartphone Round Robin! If you’ve never heard of the Round Robin, buckle up: Each year the sites of the Smartphone Experts Network spend some time out of our comfort zone, examining the platforms of our sister sites and learning how other smartphone users live. This year, the event will span six weeks, eight sites, over a dozen phones, over five hours of video, hundreds of photos, several hours of podcasts, dozens of discussion threads, and of course dozens of comparison reviews. Seriously.

What’s in it for you? Plenty, we hope. To start with, each site will be giving away one smartphone (or your choice!) representing its platform. We have a Twitter contest for accessory prizes every week too. You can find contest details here.

More than that, though, every year we hear from grateful readers who have said the Round Robin helped them decide on their next smartphone, made them happier about the one they have, or even compelled some to switch outright. Researching and learning six platforms and all the phones on each is a massive undertaking – so we’re doing it for you and you can just follow along.

If you want to know more about how to play along with this crazy event, hit up SmartphoneRoundRobin.com, where we explain the contest, the schedule, the participants, and even have an archive of the last two events.

The event begins in earnest on Monday, but today we’re releasing the first of several podcasts, all of which are hosted by our friends at The Cell Phone Junkie.  We’ll toss direct links to download and subscribe after the break, plus let you know who’s playing along this year.

How to listen:

• The Cell Phone Junkie
• Subscribe with your favorite client
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Listen via phone with Podlinez: 510-495-6352
• Download the show directly

Participating sites

Smartphone Round Robin

@speroundrobin

Android Central, Casey Chan (@caseychan)

CrackBerry, Kevin Michaluk (@crackberrykevin)

Nokia Experts, Matthew Miller (@palmsolo)

The iPhone Blog, Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

PreCentral.net, Dieter Bohn (@backlon)

WMExperts, Phil Nickinson (@philnickinson)

The Cell Phone Junkie, Mickey Papillon (@TCPJ_Mickey)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Announcing The 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin!

Nuance’s Dragon Dictation for iPhone raised some privacy concerns upon launch due to the server-side nature of its transcription and the apparent transmission of users’ contact list to Nuance’s servers. Addressing at least some of these concerns, Nuance has posted the following statement:

Some people have expressed concern about what the new Dragon Dictation for the iPhone application does with your contact information. As you may have experienced already, Dragon Dictation for the iPhone goes through your contact list on your iPhone and uploads the names to our server. We do this for a pretty simple reason: we found that people are often dictating names from their address book and expect the names to be recognized. We take this information and create an anonymous user profile for your device that understands what names are likely to dictate into a document. It’s important to note that we only upload the names, not the e-mail addresses, phone numbers or any other personally identifying information from your contacts.

Even though there is no personally identifying information, we still treat all of this information with the highest privacy standards. All of our servers are located in the United States and meet the most stringent privacy and security standards. We conform to these high standards because we use the same data centers for other areas of our business where we are required to store personal information.

All of this is spelled out in our license agreement that comes with the Dragon Dictation for the iPhone application. Since most people only see that license agreement briefly when they are installing the software (and they usually can’t wait to start using their software, so they don’t spend 30 minutes reading a complex legal document…), we provided a link to that agreement here: http://www.nuance.com/company/privacy/.

So the bottom line is that nothing scary is happening with your data and we only use a little bit of information from your phone to help make the dictation accuracy as high as possible. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, feel free to post them here.

Michael Thompson, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Nuance Mobile

Of course, Nuance is storing all your transcriptions on their servers, which while not dissimilar to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, or Apple storing all your email, documents, location, etc. is an important factor for users to keep in mind so as to make informed decisions about services and the companies behind them.

Let us know what you think of the statement, and if it does indeed address your concerns (or not).

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Nuance Responds to Dragon Dictation for iPhone Privacy Concerns

Marketwatch is citing “checks” and saying that Apple’s unannounced, still mythical iTablet will begin production in February, “implying” a launch in March or April. The iTablet and also-unnannounced companion services delivered via iTunes are said to feature:

• 10.1 inch multi-touch LCD (no OLED)
• Traditional Apple 30/70 split for print publishers (which is better than Amazon’s traditional 50/50)
• To be sold at an average price of $1,000 at a 22% margin

Price sounds high to us. Apple has had tablet concepts in the vault since before the iPhone but they’ve never made it past Steve Jobs. He’s going to need to see a market for them and a price that delivers that market. Apple is premium, but they’ve already got the iPod touch at under $500 and the MacBook at over $1000 (both of which provide great balances of portability and functionality). If a place exists for an iTablet, it would seem to be between those two points.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Yet More Mythical iTablet Rumors: Coming March for $1000

No sooner did Apple get their new iPhone developer-centric RSS feed up and running than they’re used it to announce that iTunes Connect will be unavailable December 23 – 28, 2009:

iTunes Connect, the tool you use to manage your applications and access your reports, will be unavailable from December 23 through December 28, 2009.

Access to iTunes Connect will resume December 29, 2009.

The post is called #holidays, so is this totalitarian Apple trying to force developers to relax a little and enjoy some down time? Are they hoping to give the App Store reviewers the week off? Or will the busy Cupertino elves be doing some re-working behind the scenes? We haven’t heard any rumors of a new iTunes Connect, or new functionality for the New Year, but if Apple can keep chipping away at developer sore spots, it could make for a great 2010…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iTunes Connect Unavailable December 23 – 28, 2009

UPDATE: Yes, Ustream Live Broadcast is iPhone 3G compatible, and you can use it to record video from the iPhone 3G (no Jailbreak for Cycorder required!). If you’re trying it out on a 3G, let us know how it works for you!

ORIGINAL: Ustream Live Broadcaster [Free - iTunes link] for iPhone has arrived, enabling users to point their iPhone cameras and instantly share whatever they’re looking at with internet viewers everywhere (terms of service appropriate, thankfully).

It’s been a long, slow road getting live video up-streaming onto the iPhone, with Ustream in specific releasing a limited viewer-only app first, then a record-now-upload-later app. Does this mean the gates are open for yet another previously unavailable category? We’ll see. And while we’re happy with video, we’re still waiting for VoIP over 3G as well.

Meanwhile, we’re bracing ourselves for the flood of “Come see me live” posts to flood our Twitter feeds. So just do us a favor and point that iPhone camera at something interesting, will ya?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

UPDATED: Record iPhone 3G Video! Ustream Live Broadcaster Now Available for iPhone

Apple has sent out an email to developers that informs them iPhone developer news and announcements are now available via RSS feed.

You can now subscribe to a new RSS feed for iPhone Developer News and Announcements. Stay up to date and receive valuable information on a wide range of topics including:

Tips on submitting apps to the App Store

Current turnaround time for app review

Program updates

Development and testing techniques

If you’re a developer, let us know if you find this helpful. Also, if iPhone 3.2 beta news pops up the feed, let us know and we’ll cancel the “missing” posters we’ve had printed up…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Makes iPhone Developer News and Announcements Available via RSS