Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 30, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Apple will bring an iPhone with UMTS support to market next year. Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T http://www.att.com, Apple’s exclusive US partner, announced this. Future iPhones are to be able to transmit data over third-generation mobile radio-networks and will definitely be available next year, the Bloomberg news service quotes Stephenson as saying. He could not provide any information on prices. Apple CEO Steve Jobs will “dictate where the price for the mobile phone lies.”
The lack of support for the fast radio technology attracted a great deal of criticism, especially in Europe. The fastest connection the iPhone can currently offer is EDGE. The decision against the 3G standard was justified by the energy hunger that UMTS chips would exhibit. “European mobile network operators are certainly uim somewhat happier if they can sell an iPhone with UMTS support, especially since UMTS coverage here is significantly better than in the USA,” Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told the pressetext.de news service. “However, it was clear that there would be a 3G version of the iPhone,” Milanesi continued. The only obstacle had been the weak battery performance, which the Apple boss wanted to avoid.
According to Jobs, the iPhone is intended to shine above all through its long battery life of eight hours. An energy-hungry component would be counterproductive here. “3G components only become an option when the batteries last five hours or longer with them,” Jobs said in September. In the second half of 2008, however, the energy storage devices could be good enough to integrate UMTS, according to Jobs. As usual with Apple, industry analysts and the media can only rely on rumours in advance of product launches. The presentation of a second-generation iPhone is expected for the Macworld Expo trade fair, which takes place in San Francisco in mid-January. In addition to UMTS, functions such as GPS and an improved camera are also being discussed.
