iPhone To Provide 42Mbps Browsing - I’ll Believe It When I See It
Details of Apple’s new 3G iPhone are starting to emerge, ahead of the presumed launch at the Apple World Wide Developer Conference that’s coming up in June. Australia’s ChannelNews is reporting that, by Christmas this year, the 3G iPhone will provide web access at speeds of 42Mbps.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Or rather, I should say - I’ll believe the iPhone will give a web experience that matches the expections of 42Mbps connection when I see it. Why? Because the speed of the connection is only one half of the story. The other half has to do with the phone CPU, which has to have the horsepower to process all the information it receives in a timely way. The truth is: very few mobile phones (or, perhaps, no mobile phones) have the horsepower to process the data coming in at current connection rates; let alone 42Mbps connections.
However, while a “42Mbps browsing experience” is rather unlikely for the upcoming 3G iPhone, it does suggest two interesting things:
- Firstly, that the 3G iPhone will support the very latest 3G technology;
- and secondly, that the 3G iPhone would make an absolutely killer modem for providing laptops with broadband access on the move
I hope that Apple and its mobile operator partners take the opportunity to allow the iPhone to be used as an easy-to-use mobile broadband modem…
Asam Bashir wrote:
Wanting to use the iPhone as a modem for laptop has been a feature request from road warriors from launch, though Apple’s reason for not including it does make sense, it was pointless on the EDGE iPhone. Would be very surprised if Apple does not include this option on 3G phone. It’s very easy to do, Mac OS X features sharing Internet connection over most ports, BlueTooth, WiFi and USB, which the iPhone has. So it’s very easy to do. Rather then Bluetooth, on the iPhone it would make sense to share the 3G network over the iPhone WiFi, making an ad-hoc network which a laptop would be able to connect to. It would be a huge power drain though, so it would have to work via USB as well, so you could plug in the iPhone via USB and have the 3G connection shared to laptop and charge iPhone at the same time.
Processor in 3rd generation iPhone will be interesting if it’s based on Intel Atom in the future, that would make a very powerful device…
Posted 23 May 2008 at 2:25 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
PS the GPS enabled Geo-tagging features will make for interesting applications,
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/22/latest_iphone_2_0_beta_adds_geo_tagging_to_camera_photos.html
Apart from iPhone 2.0 firmware, 3G upgrade and GPS, I think the biggest news at WWDC will be the worldwide roll-out. It’s expected to be huge and increase market availability by four times what it is now.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/16/latest_iphone_deals_nearly_quadruple_apples_addressable_market.html
Posted 23 May 2008 at 2:31 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Actually, I’ll be surprised, and very impressed, if Apple delivers the ability to use the phone as a modem, all within the same contract prices as they have now.
Using a 42Mbps connection with a laptop could draw down a huge amount of data. I don’t expect the mobile operators will like the idea of that *at all*! One way forward would be to have a fair use restriction, and not allow downloads of more than a few GB per month. Actually, I’ll be impressed if they offer even that at the same contract prices as they have now!
Posted 23 May 2008 at 3:00 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
At the very most it couldn’t cost more then existing data plans offered by carriers in ExpressCard solutions, like those currently on offer from Orange and Vodafone.
Since Apple has listened to enterprise and added specific support in it’s iPhone 2.0 update, one would assume the carriers will start offering business data plans and solutions for enterprise.
Posted 23 May 2008 at 6:03 pm ¶