Its official, Apple’s iPhone will officially be launched here in Singapore in the next few months. Singtel announced on Monday that they’ve clinched the deal with Apple, to launch the device later this year. But it declined to comment when it would launch and how it will be priced.

Singapore’s other rival telcom operators Starhub and M1 was silent on the matter, except that Starhub spokesman Michael Sim stated that he expect all three telcom operators in Singapore to offer the iPhone by the end of the year. All 3 telcom operators have been linked to discussions with Apple to bring in the 2007 device of the year, but apparently it stalled due to Apple’s insistence on an revenue-sharing model.

It’s Apple’s standard policy to sign exclusive distribution deals with one operator per market. Deals involve a 10 to 30 percent of phone revenues from its partners. This is why the main reason why operators in countries like China refuse to carry the iPhone. When news of Vodfafone and Telecom Italia would be selling the device in Italy, it clearly showed that Apple has begun to drop it’s one operator, one market policy.

Apple declined to comment if they had a revenue-sharing model with Singtel.

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Apple’s iPhone has been launched in numerous countries worldwide and they’ve adopted a one telcom carrier policy for their iPhones, until now. In Italy, which iPhones will be available by the end of this year will be available to 2 telcom carriers, Vodafone and Telcom Italia. This clearly signals a shift in Apple’s policy of one country, one carrier. Future buyers of iPhone will be glad to hear that this might be the future protocol of how Apple deals.

Telcom Italia Chief executive Franco Bernando apparently persuaded Steve Jobs to change Apple’s typical business model of signing a 2-year contract with a single carrier that would sell the iPhone exclusively, and split revenues with Apple. As a result, Telcom Italia would be able to offer the upcoming 3G iPhone with no carrier restrictions, making it more palatable to Italians, who are among the largest users of pre-paid plans. This will also mean that the price tag of the iPhone will be higher in Italy.

I can’t help but wonder if Apple’ll emulate this policy of 2 carriers in Singapore.

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Whoa! Reports from Fortune shows that AT&T is preparing a subsidy of $200 for consumers of the next-generation 3G iPhone, which is scheduled to make it’s debut this summer. The assumption is that, since the new and presumably faster models will start at the same $399 base price,that will drop the effective price to $199.

This is certainly good news for everyone as pretty soon, the market will be flooded with iPhones. Apple and AT&T are working hard to get the iPhone to a price that puts it within reach of most people. Research has shown that iPhone owners spend twice as much as the average customer because they buy data plans.

The report also stated that AT&T will offer subsidy to people who buy the iPhones in it’s flagstores, but not to those who buy in Apple stores. I’ve yet to confirm the degree of truth in this report since Apple keeps exceedingly tight control over its pricing.

My guess is that this report may be pointing the way to one of two (not mutually exclusive) developments:

AT&T wants to lower the price of the phone and raise the price of the data plans. Right now the unlimited data plan for the iPhone costs $20 a month, far less than the $45 a month the company charges for unlimited data on a BlackBerry. Now that the iPhone can also connect to corporate e-mail networks, AT&T may not be able to justify a gap in the monthly fees for its smartphones. To make up the difference, it could raise data rates and subsidize the phones. My guess, however, is that the $200 subsidy would be available to people who buy the phones from Apple stores as well.

Apple will start selling unlocked phones. Apple has found that an enormous number of its customers are unlocking the phones, using third-party software, to use on carriers of their choice. If Apple were to remain in keeping with its culture, it would simply try to make the next-generation iPhone even harder to unlock. But then again, it could decide to avoid this fight, change its business model and just sell phones. That would mean, presumably, giving up the monthly fee it gets from AT&T and other carriers. In this scenario, Apple might well raise the price of the iPhone to, say $599. But then it would have carriers offer subsidies in return for contracts, as most other handset makers do.

Here’s one prediction I will stand by: We will have more leaks that don’t entirely make sense and are not consistent with each other until Steve Jobs ascends some stage somewhere with some answers.

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The Apple iPhone team have just released iPhone SDK Beta 5. In this beta 5 released, the only noted changes are bug fixes and support for the latest iPhone OS. There are still known issues with this build.

If you are an ADC member you can check out more detailed release notes, the link is located in the iPhone SDK readme (it’s in the Known Issues section). 

The size of the SDK is about 1.11Gb and the version is iPhone_sdk_9M2173a. You can download a copy now over at Apple iPhone Dev Centre.

The final release of the iPhone SDK is expected to be released on WWDC in June.

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If you are wondering how come you cannot receive call on your iPhone when you are on either Youtube, Safari or online.

This is because when actively accessing the internet when connected via EDGE, downloading a website, downloading or sending email, or downloading a youtube video when a call is received, it will likely go straight to voicemail.

This is an EDGE limitation. The same does not, or should not apply when actively accessing the internet via WI-FI.

So don’t worry, there is no problem with your iPhone.

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Here are the easy steps you can take to install wallpaper on your iPhone.

1. The first step is to save the desired wallpaper to your Mac or PC via your favorite browser.
2. Right click or control click on the image you want as your wallpaper.
3. Select “Save as…” and save the image to your hard drive.
4. Save all the images you found to a folder.
5. Connect your iPhone to your computer using the that came with your iPhone.
6. Launch iTunes then click the Photos tab and select “Sync photos from:”.
7. From the pop-up menu, choose the folder that you have saved your wallpaper.
8. Choose “All photos”, or choose “Selected folders” and choose the folder you want to sync.

After you have sync with your iPhone. Now to your iPhone:

1. Go to the photos section of your camera. Browse through the albums or camera roll until you find the picture you wish to use.
2. Select the picture so it is displayed full screen.
3. Tap the icon at the lower left corner of the screen. If you don’t see the icon, single tap the picture to display the menu.
4. A menu pop up and it allows you to either Assign To Contact, Email Photo or Use As Wallpaper.
5. Select Use As Wallpaper and you are done!

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Apple reported on Wednesday that they’ve topped one billion dollars of sales in the first quarter of the year as sales of Macintosh computers climbed more than 50 percent.

The tech giant said it earned 1.05 billion dollars or 1.16 dollars per share on revenues of 7.51 billion dollars for the quarter as compared to 770 million dollars, or 87 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs was delighted to report 43 percent revenue growth and stated it was the strongest March quarter revenue and earnings in Apple’s history. He also stated that Apple has gained strong momentum to launch new products, with its over 17 billion dollars of revenue for the first half of their fiscal year.

Apple has shipped 2.29 million Macintosh computers during the quarter - a rise in more than 51 percent compared to the same period in 2007. It also sold 1.703 million iPhones during this time.

Chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said Apple expects revenues of 7.2 billion dollars and profits of a dollar per share in the current quarter.

The profit outlook was weaker than analyst forecasts for earnings of 1.10 dollars a share

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Mark your calendars, the 3G iPhone debuts on the 9th of June. With its highly anticipated 3G version, Apple expects to sell 10 million iPhones this year. The 3G iPhone will be the “first of an impressive way of new products” from Apple, wrote analysts. They’re also looking to launch an updated Mac laptop and iPod during the Apple conference scheduled in San Francisco from the 9th to 13th of June.

With the 3G iPhone’s release in early June, the 2.5G version will have slight modifications of a “minor casing change” and an expected price dip to between US$299 and $349, compared to the current price of US$399.

These predictions are in line with a February prediction in which analysts announced that 3G iPhones will be announced by the midyear. They also included said that the 3G iPhone will help Apple’s target of 10 million iPhones this year. Despite strong sales of the iPhone, Apple’s iPhone inventories were not enough to meet the strong demand. Apple has since acknowledged this fact, which in the past has led to outsiders to conclude that Apple is reducing current iPhone stock to prepare release of the 3G iPhone. Speculations of increased sales could lead to the acceleration of the iPhone 2.0 software, which was released earlier last month as a beta and will be delivered by iPhone users by the end of June.

The iPhone 2.0 software provides enterprise applications to iPhones, including push e-mail support through the Microsoft Exchange mail server. It also includes an SDK (software developer kit) for developers to write iPhone applications. Native Exchange support on the iPhone could boost its adoption, the iPhone SDK should deliver many third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch by the end of this year. The SDK has already been downloaded 200,000 times and is being used in one-third of Fortune 500 companies to develop applications for the iPhone, according to Apple.

The exact date of when it’ll hit Singapore shores remains a question. I”m excited to see where this goes.

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With so many things that are possible with your iPhone; from reading a document to playing games on the internet, it’s little wonder that the iPhone is alot more susceptible to viruses than compared to most phones. With hundreds of viruses lurking out there in the cyberworld, users can fell prey easily without first hand knowledge. Viruses can be spread through different avenues like traditional downloads, MMS or email attachments and Bluetooth. Before the iPhone came out, mobile phones running Symbian or Windows and Palm softwares were the most vulnerable, but as soon as the iPhone hit the market, it became the new target for hackers.

Recently, a team of security analysts discovered a vulnerability in Safari that allowed them to take control of the iPhone two weeks after the scheduled release. Web pages which contained malicious codes which were accessed through the iPhone’s Safari browser compromised the iPhone severely. Fortunately, the vulnerability has since been patched via iPhone software updates.

Like a normal OS, the iPhone is never safe from hackers.

Here are some good advice on how to prevent that virus from getting into your iPhone.

Change your Bluetooth settings: Users should turn off Bluetooth when they’re not using it. Go into hidden mode and most importantly, change your phone’s default name because hackers will usually go for known vulnerabilities first. New phones may come with Bluetooth turned on as a default, so make sure you double check your settings. You can access your iPhone’s Bluetooth settings by going to Settings > General > Bluetooth.

Don’t click on it: This is the general rule of thumb when dealing with something foreign. Got a dubious mail or MMS attachment, the safest way is not to open it. Exercise common sense.

Install a security software: Granted that the iPhone is relatively new, but a security software that prevents and scans for viruses should be in the works and out in the near future.

Good luck, happy safe surfing with your iPhone.

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Apple released the fourth version of the iPhone SDK beta today. The iPhone SDK now includes OpenGL ES support for the iPhone (Aspen) simulator.

The size of the SDK is about 1.15Gb and the version is iPhone_sdk_9M2165. You can download a copy now over at Apple iPhone Dev Centre.

Apple also put the release notes on their website. You can find them here: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/navigation/index.html

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