GottaGo is really worth a note! It is the first iPhone native app for public transportation in Switzerland. First it asks you for the start location and destination. It then gives you info about the commuter trains in the next 10 to 30 minutes which you thek can take. GottaGo incorporates the CoreLocation feature to find out your current location and shows you the nearest train stations. Fantastic!!

You cam download this application in the App Store or via iTunes.

There we have it. Today Apple officially announced the next iPhone generation with 3G UMTS/HSDPA and GPS (A-GPS) support. This new version comes with a glossy black back plate, the same 3.5 inch multi-touch screen, a headphone jack mounted flush with the enclosure. The new iPhone comes in 8GB and 16GB flavors with the latter one in a special white backplate edition. 

The iPhone 3G will cost you either 199$ for the 8GB model, or 299$ for the 16GB model. It will be available to 70 countries around the world in the next serveral months.

Visit your localized Apple website for more information.

So, Softbank the third biggest mobile phone operator besides NTT Docomo and KDDI in Japan signed an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone through out the country. As we all might know, Softbank operates solely on a W-CDMA network in Japan, so the iPhone Softbank is going to sell, must be a 3G UMTS/HSPA version. Softbank announced the iPhone to be available later this year.

Source: Engadget and AppleInsider

Not long ago, Phil Lu of Genoco came up with an idea to bring your iPhone and a visit in Starbucks together. The idea was to get your Starbucks coffee quick and fast in ordering and paying just with your iPhone in your palm. The cool thing, Phil’s idea involved a payment solution with semacodes, which are commonly used in other countries for underground transportation and so on.

This time he shows us another design mockup called Transfer. It is about an application that holds all the features you need as a photographer in just one place, again your iPhone. This application consists of five major functions, which are: Remote, have full control over your camera via a remote connection. Trigger is also like a remote function with the ability to control your camera over the internet, anywhere you are. The Transfer function allows you to store and backup your data wirelessly over several storage locations. The Preview category let’s you preview your images in multiple ways and the Storage function lets you save your images directly on your iPhone.

What’s so special about these design mockups? Well, it’s the way Phil presents us his ideas. I like his mockups because there’re clean and clever made. It would be cool to see one of his mockups making it into a real application.

Yes, you read it right. The iPhone SDK ist not just for Developers who want to develop native iPhone applications. It’s also for Web Developers who want to take the capabilities of the SDK to write code for their web apps. Apple did a fine work here enhancing Dashcode, the Environment for programming Dashboard Widgets on Mac OS X, with a new feature to directly build your web apps in Dashcode. In Conjunction with the iPhone Simulator you now can, preview, debug, optimize and build your web applications all in Dashcode. Apple also put online an introduction video into iTunes (note: you must have an ADC membership account) which describes new technologies like advanced JavaScript functions, native SVG support, CSS effects, offline data support, full screen mode and gesture events.

More Information

Today, Apple held a conference in where Apple CEO Steve Jobs among others talked about new enterprise features for the iPhone such as full Microsoft Exchange integration, Push Mail, Push Contacts, More VPN procotols and others. Also, they talked about the new iPhone SDK that is released today and is free for download.

The SDK is available from today and is aimed at developers to develop applications for the iPhone. Apple will release a new firmware version 2.0 for their mobile phone via Software Update in June including the App Store, where developers can distribute their apps and customers can than buy them.

Enterprises can apply for a beta program, where they can try out a new beta firmware already including the above mentioned enterprise features.I am sure, there will be some great applications for the iPhone released. Gonna wait and see.

Swiss blog “apfelblog“ is claiming the iPhone is coming to Switzerland on 29th of February 2008 and it’s carrier to be Swisscom. The release goes with an updated iPhone version 2.0 with UMTS (HSDPA??), GPS and an upgraded NAND memory to up to 16GB and 32GB.

My thought: The release date could be true, the rest is part of the great Apple rumor mill.

Source: apfelblog.ch