with due respect, steve is just a businessman, and a very shrewd one. but he's not a god.

Very literary of you Dan. I must disagree, however; everyone knows that the punishment for spilling secrets is pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity. It took the greeks a while to come up with ironic eternal tortures (a la Tantalus or Homer Simpson's brief internment).

I sure hope it'll be an update for the iphone and not a new physical phone because that would be absolutely ridiculous.

ONE THING APPLE POINTED OUT WHEN INTRODUCING THE IPHONE TO THE MARKET IS HOW ALOT OF CONSUMER HATES THE FACT THAT EVERY SINGLE TIME THE MOBILE COMPANY HAS A NEW IDEA FOR A PHONE INSTEAD OF UPDATING THE PHONE THEY CREATE A NEW ONE...WELL HE SAID "THE IPHONE IS GOING TO SOLVE THAT PROBLEM"

I can really care less for 3G but if they introduce 3G iPhone and the current iPhones will be left behind, the iPhone is the last I'm ever gonna buy from apple and alot of iPhone owners are going to be very very pissed. After the whole price drop, people went crazy, imagine having a new physical version in just a year, if not less.

We'll see.

me, literal? :)

in all fairness, the announcement of a 3g product has not been a secret, but has been public knowledge. it's simply old news to those following the iphone market. i think a shrewd businessman/woman would not waste time and energy on common knowledge like this one.

anyway, att is not all there is for apple. companies like apple have better things to do than to worry about its partner spilling old news. there are other potential mobile providers to work with even before the exclusive agreement between apple and att expires. five years (is this correct?) come around quite quickly. in fact, this should give apple enough time to study the current iphone trend, and perhaps introduce their own mobile wireless service. who knows.

i think there are other more relevant technologies (such as 4g) for apple to look into for its future iphone. i think 3g is so yesterday to apple already :)

@Nick Z: Unfortunately, the 3G chip requires an entirely different radio from the current EDGE-based version of the iPhone. This is one update they can't roll out via software.

I am glad to hear that Apple going to come out 3G phone next year. It is very good for us in Asia like Japan, Korea Singapore and the rest of Asia. In Asia, we already starting to use 3G to 3.5G phone, as in Asia we are going to face out the 2G phone soon, as you have heard in the news that Japan, Korea and Singapore they are using 3.5G, as they are going for new level of technology in Asia.

3G is growing very fast in Asia, like Japan and Korea, they are using their 3G Mobile phone to buy things in Supermarket and pay for their train fare. Singapore also going to start this technology sometime next year.

Apple must come out this new 3G mobile phone soon. More and more 3G phone Companies in Asia is coming out their new technology for their phone design and function.

I hope Apple will not delay to come out their 3G phone late in Asia, as you know technology changes very fast every day, soon in Asia we are going for 4G for the new level of technologies.

I think Apple can look into 4G for its future iphone. I think 3G is yesterday Technology to Apple already.

Is this 3G stuff going to require a whole new phone? I was told at the ATT store today that it was going to be a software update and that I would not going to require buying a new phone.

Were they BSing me? I was planning on buying a phone tomorrow.
Please let me know your thoughts Please!!!

3G is not an update. It's a hardware enhancement, not a software enhcancement.

Miker,

As already stated above, 3G EVDO service requires radio circuitry specifically designed for the task: the current iPhone doesn't have any 3G radio chip, just one for EDGE (considered 2.5G by many). It's a bit like asking if a software update can turn a PPC processor into a dual-core Intel: no way.

So unless every tech-knowledgable person around the world who's dissected the iPhone (something that happened on the first day the iPhone was released) is completely overlooking the presence of an invisible 3G-compatible chip, I'd say the sales people at your local AT&T store are talking out of their backsides.

Miker wrote: "Were they BSing me? I was planning on buying a phone tomorrow."

Yes I think they were. Or they didn't understand your question. I'm guessing the 3G implementation going into the iPhone is a brand new 3.5G, low power, LSI chip possibly the one from NEC.

see http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3036
for excellent info

I'm actually not that interested in a 3G iPhone. I live in Hawaii, and AT&T isn't planning on rolling out 3G here any time soon. I'd say it's a bigger deal for those people in Asia. Plus, contrary to what many are saying, I don't find the EDGE network über slow. I lived through the dark ages of dial-up, so this isn't slow at all. Just not a big deal 2 me.

-Sent from my iPhone!!