The iPhone is a series of best selling smart phones licensed with AT&T. Created by Apple, the iPhone continues the line of innovative Apple products such as the iPod mp3 player. The iPhone has become famous for its application system, a marketplace of downloadable applications that give the iPhone unlimited functionality. Since 2007, there have been four models of the iPhone with a new phone released each year.

The Original iPhone

The original iPhone was created as a hybrid between cellular phone and PDA technology, utilizing new designs such as a touchscreen interface. The glass touchscreen was unique for its multi-touch functionality. The user could touch multiple points on the screen for additional functions (such as zooming). The keyboard and mouse controls were incorporated entirely into the touch interface, similar to a tablet PC. Internet access was provided through the EDGE network. The original iPhone was released with a 4GB and 8GB model, with a 16GB model released later.

The iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G was the second generation of iPhone, released in July 2008. The iPhone 3G came with much of the same hardware as the original iPhone, but had an increase in software functionality. The major introduction for the iPhone 3G was the Apple App Store. The App Store allowed users to purchase and download applications, small programs which added additional functions to the phone. This became a trademark of the iPhone brand that has continued to this day. The iPhone 3G was also the first iPhone built to use the 3G wireless network for internet access – the original used only the slower EDGE network.

The iPhone 3GS

The iPhone 3GS, released in June 2009, was created with a focus on hardware improvements. The display screen for the phone was updated to use a greater number of pixels and have a richer color display. The processor and memory were upgraded for the first time since the original iPhone, allowing for faster speeds and better performance of applications. A new camera was also added, allowing 3 megapixel photos and video capture in high definition. The iPhone 3GS also included a compass application, using a built in magnetometer.

The iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 is the latest model of iPhone, released in June 2010. The aesthetics of the phone were the focus with an all-new steel frame and glass display. The phone is thinner than previous models – the exterior antenna in the steel housing gives the phone a smaller profile than older iPhones. The iPhone 4 also received a hardware upgrade with a new processor and double the memory of the iPhone 3GS. It also uses a forward mounted video camera (in addition to the rear HD camera) to allow for video conferencing.

This guest article was contributed by Jennifer Bell from Health Training Guide. Check out her site to learn more about vocational nurse training and other exciting health careers.

Photo credit: Burt Lum

It’s not cheap or easy to develop an iPhone app and so the apps which make it onto iTunes have made it through a rigorous screening process, and are there because their makers have seen a need, a niche and an opportunity to help their fellow iPhone users. However, with so many great apps available, it can be hard to track down the ones you really need, which is why the following is a list of the most useful personal finance apps you can use on your iPhone.

iReconcile

The iReconcile app will help you to manage your personal finances with a budget tracker toll which can give you an overall picture of your situation, as well as let you break down your finances to a yearly, monthly, weekly or daily budget. You can also use tools such as the check register, reporting options, as well as backup and sync all of your details.

When you set up the app you can choose from the categories and sub categories you want to include so that you have access to all of the information you need. There is also an automatic roll over feature where the remaining funds from one month’s budget are automatically rolled over into the next month.

Expenditure

Expenditure lets you effortlessly budget and track your finances with simple ways to add new transactions which include adding a photo or a quick note, making your iPhone budget fully customised. There is also a built in currency converter with an extensive list of currencies loaded.

MoneyBook

The MoneyBook app makes it easy to enter new transactions as well as add notes and specify a category. You can also export your finances, as well as password protect sensitive parts of the app. While MoneyBook doesn’t include any graphing or charting options, there is a free cloud backup service so that even if you lose your iPhone, you can access your stored transactions outside of your device.

Toshl

Toshl has free built in online synchronisation services where you can take advantage of cloud technology in the palm of your hand. Every piece of information in the Toshl app is synchronised to cloud automatically whenever you make a change or add a new transaction. You can also set a manual sync option if you want to maintain control.

The Toshl app has a well designed interface as well as additional features such as family budget, and the ability to export to Excel, PDF or Google Docs.

Mint

Mint is a comprehensive personal finance app which automatically updates your spending and transactions without you needing to input any information, as Mint connects directly to all of your bank accounts. The Mint connection is secure, and allows you to see all of your account balances in one place, while the app automatically categorises your transactions.

You can also track your checking account, your savings account and your retirement fund in one place, and see an overview of your spending habits. you’ll also receive notifications when a bill is almost due, when you are approaching your spending limit and if there are any suspicious transactions on your account.

Bloomberg LP

The Bloomberg app is a free download, and gives you access to information about stock investments so that you can track a stock before you buy it, or track the performance of your portfolio. You will be able to view share prices, a 52 week summary chart, volume and news related to the stocks you are watching, all in the palm of your hand.

Balance

Balance lets you keep a track of all of your bank accounts in one place, and every time you make a withdrawal or receive a deposit, your iPhone app automatically recalculates your account balances so you always know how much money you have available.

Spend Lite

Spend Lite allows you to set five weekly budgets for anything you spend your money on, for example, food, entertainment, family, savings and so on. Then, when you spend anything you enter it into your app, and your budgets are updated so you know how much you have left to spend for each category.

Tripometer Mileage Log

If you are on the road a lot for your work, you will find a big part of your personal finance routine is recording the miles you drive. Therefore, use the Tripometer app to track each trip in your car, and enter where you went, who you met and which client needs to be billed for the fuel. You’ll then have a detailed record to easily work from when it comes time to invoice. You can also save favourite destinations or pull out a destination or a starting point from information in your iPhone address book. Plus, you can export all of your trip information into your chosen spreadsheet application and email it directly to the boss.

Bill4Time Mobile

If you are a contractor, freelancer or small business owner then your personal finances are often managed closely with your business finances and so you could benefit from the Bill4Time app which lets you track your spend on a project. You can record your time spent and the travel hours spend, as well as record expenses and notes on the job. You can also schedule tasks which are then converted into completed time entries as a record of your work.

Alban works as a freelance personal finance writer and a huge fan of Iphone app. Alban is amazed by the fact that you can now compare home loans on your phone while commuting to work.

With the iPhone approaching its fifth iteration, a monumental milestone for the lifecycle of any product, an Apple fanatic has to hope that Apple has something up its sleeve for its release. While evidence is building that changes are in the works, nothing is for certain until Apple itself removes the sheath on the highly desired product. As the normal, annual release window for the iPhone has already passed, the rumor-mill has been speculating that the delay has been partly caused by new changes in the physical product, along with the development of iOS 5 and iCloud.

I myself still have a 3GS and was hoping I would be able to update this June to the new model, so I’m holding out that the new phone packs some killer updates. Additionally, upon past analysis, it seems that the 3GS was a very mediocre upgrade and I am also hoping that the supposed “4GS,” as other sites have been calling it, incorporates more than just faster speeds. The following is a list physical features that I, as well as many other fanboys, would love to see.

Bigger Screen

Most Android phones, the iPhone’s biggest competitor, seem to have a much larger screen than Apple’s product. While the product will no doubt continue to remain relevant, to keep up and hopefully surpass competition, Apple should definitely expand iPhone screen size. This would allow better gaming and video display (movies and FaceTime), a larger touch keyboard, and more open space between apps on the Home screen (a la the iPad) for a less busy feeling. Supposed pictures have leaked out of iPhones with larger screens, so it looks like Apple has taken notice to what others are doing. But, who is to say that the larger screen will actually happen? The Motorola Droid 2, with a much larger screen, is already on its second iteration and gaining followers. If Apple knows what is best and wants to halt customers from switching to phones with larger displays, they know what they need to do.

NFC

Rumors have also been circulating that Apple is toying with near field communication technology in the next iPhone. This technology is popular overseas and could act as a payment device or e-wallet as some call it. Potentially, the phone could store your credit card data and would allow the user to “swipe” their phone instead of your card. My phone is always within easier reach than my wallet and I’d think this feature would be great for speedy transactions. While NFC technology is not widely used so far in the US, if Apple, being a leader in just about everything these days, does incorporate this feature into the next iPhone, you can expect a huge increase in adoption of this tech.

Larger Storage Capacity

iTunes was released over 10 years ago and people have been building their music libraries ever since. Lately, it has become a struggle for me to decide what music I want to remove from my iPhone in order to put new music on. I know I’m not the only one with this problem. A 64 GB model, along with a low-end 32 GB model, would be great for keeping more media on the phone: more music, more videos, more pictures, and more apps.

Better Cameras

Thankfully, the iPhone 4 included a camera upgrade. Again, since the competition has bested Apple in the photo-taking abilities, Apple should include an 8 megapixel camera. With all-in-one devices becoming almost universally popular, this feature would only strengthen the possibility of iPhone adoption. I remember the days when I carried an iPod, a Blackberry (*sigh*), and a camera. With an 8 megapixel, we can safely remove the camera from our pockets or purses and not have to suffer from low-quality photos. A better front-facing camera is another feature that would be great to see. As Apple pushing for FaceTime to become the default video-calling program, a high megapixel front-facing camera would help Apple define its products as best-in-class for this service. Let’s just hope we can use the network for this too.

With only a few months to wait before an announcement, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for these features.

About the Author: August Drilling works for CliqStudios.com, an online site for Kitchen Cabinets, and can always be found with iPhone in hand.

YouTube announced today that they have seen an increase of 1700% in mobile uploads over the last 6 months.  They also acknowledge that the iPhone 3GS has increased mobile uploads by 400% A DAY! Here are some quotes from the article:

“This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements to the upload flow when you post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows your videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through your social networks. It takes just a minute to connect your YouTube account to your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts.”

So while the new iPhone and the easy YouTube integration has certainly helped with the increase, social networks have also helped spur the growth.

[YouTube Blog]

Apple support just posted a chart that outlines the differences that exist between the 3 iPhone models that exist out there.  Here is the chart:

iPhone Chart Options

Apple Article

AT&T posted a PDF that seems to answer common questions related to the new iPhone.  Two of the bigger questions has to do with how they are going to handle MMS and Tethering.  While the pdf mentions that MMS will be provided at no extra charge, they still don’t address tethering.  As I stated in a previous post though, I would expect tethering to cost an extra $30 a month.

AT&T Questions from our Customers

On Monday, Apple officially launched the new iPhone at the World Wide Developers Conference and to everyone’s surprise AT&T was absent from the list of providers who will support tethering and MMS. On Wednesday, AT&T was quoted all over the web saying that they would support MMS by the end of the summer as they are in the process of upgrading their networks to provide the best service possible to their customers.

As for tethering, that still seems to be up in the air, but people are beginning to speculate on what the real motive behind the delay is and people are curious if they are looking at charging extra for tethering and MMS.  My thoughts on this is that AT&T will charge extra for the tethering, but not for the MMS.  If you look at their existing plans for smart phones they have tethering and messaging options for those phones.  Tethering is an extra $30 and according to the details of the messaging, it includes MMS.

Here is a screen shot from the AT&T website:

ATT Features for tethering and MMS

If iPhone users are given an “iPhone Tax” for MMS, then AT&T and digging their grave even deeper with iPhone users.

What are your thoughts about an iPhone Tax?

T-Mobile Netherlands just published specs for the iPhone 3G S.  The specs pretty much match what was rumored back in May by MacRumors.

According to the T-Mobile spec page, the iPhone 3G S has 256MB of RAM, which is up from 128 in the current iPhone 3G model.  The new iPhone 3G S also has a faster processor running at 600MHz, compared to 412MHz found in previous models.

[T-Mobile Link]
[MacRumors]

Yesterday during the WWDC, Apple announced some new iPhone hardware.  During the keynote two new features were announced, MMS support and Internet tethering.  During the announcement, it was mentioned that AT&T would support these features later this summer.

After the keynote, AT&T announced the pricing and upgrade information for existing iPhone 3G customers.  Long story short, if you have owned your 3G iPhone for less than 18 months, it would cost you $399 for the new 16GB model and $499 for the 32GB model.  If you have had your phone for longer than 18 months, then you qualify for the $199/$299 pricing.

Based on various tweets and blog postings, people are pretty upset with AT&T.  I can understand being upset for not supporting MMS and tethering at launch, but I think people are overreacting to the upgrade policy.  When you got the iPhone 3G you signed a 2 year contract for that phone, so they are not required to let you out of your current contract just so that you can get the latest and greatest iPhone.  We can definitely thank phone subsidies for this as this is a pretty standard practice across the mobile industry.  When the Storm 2 comes out for Verizon, those customers are going to have to go through a similiar process if they want to get the newest version.

Could you imagine life without phone subsidies?  I sure wouldn’t want to?  Yes, I know we marry ourselves to a carrier for 2 years, but it gives us the option to own incredible “phones”.  I use the term “phones” losely because these days these phones are turning into mini super computers.  With this capability, comes a price that would prevent most consumers from ever even coming close to owning these devices.

So please, lets move past all the griping about AT&T and how they mis-treating loyal customers, and lets start focusing on the countdown to the new 3.0 OS that will give existing customers most of the new features that are part of the iPhone 3G S.

So now that all the new sexy hardware and software has been announced, we can now focus on what was not announced for the new iPhone 3GS:

Same Case/Body – The biggest thing that wasn’t announced for me was a redesign of the case.  I was really hoping that Apple would have moved to a soft back like the Storm has.  While I have already added my own case to provide that, it would be nice if it was built in

No glowing Apple logo – I am so glad this rumor is not true!  I could not imagine having something as silly as a glowing logo on my phone, and lets not even get started on how that would affect the battery.

No screen improvements – I was really looking forward to some improvements to the screen as this could have helped with some of the battery issues, but maybe they are holding this back for the next version

No color selection - No big loss here thanks to skins and cases, but I am sure some people would have liked to have the iPhone in various colors

No Verizon deal – Looks like we will have to continue to wait to see if the iPhone eventually lands with Verizon.  Based on what I have read so far today, there are a lot of Apple fans who are just flat out pissed with AT&T right now, so it will be interesting to see what happens here

No camera flash, or front facing camera – I have a feeling this will stay on the wish list for a lot.  I think we would see a front facing camera before a flash, but no one really knows

Adobe Flash support – I think for this one we can blame Adobe, but again we will have to wait and see.  The nice thing about this feature is they can add this through a software update.

Wireless N – Another nice to have and I assume this will be in the next revision.

What feature do you really wish they would have announced?