There’s less than 24 hours before Apple’s big media event on the company’s Cupertino campus and the rumor mill is in high gear. Here’s all the news you need to know for Monday, October 3, conveniently put together in one place!
While the spotlight has been shining on a potential iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 for Tuesday’s main event, RBC Capital Markets analyst expects Apple to continue offering the iPhone 3GS as an entry-level handset, priced at $399 off contract or the low, low price of absolutely free with a two-year agreement, according to MacRumors. We already know it’s a fine device and iOS 5 capable, so why throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak?
Adobe Systems is holding their annual MAX conference this week, announcing a new Adobe Creative Cloud initiative as well as six new tablet apps that will debut first on Android devices in November, followed by the iPad editions in early 2012. The apps will feature introductory pricing of $9.99 each and include Adobe Photoshop Touch for image editing, Adobe Collage, Adobe Debut presentation software, Adobe Kuler for generating color themes, Adobe Proto for roughing out websites or mobile apps and Adobe Ideas, a vector-based drawing app already available for the iPad.
We’re sad, too, because it makes our job that much harder to report whatever Apple has in store. 9to5Mac reports that one of Cupertino’s own press representatives has thrown cold water on the possibility of the company live streaming the “Let’s talk iPhone” media event, which kicks off at 10am PST on Tuesday. But fear not, we’ll have folks on hand to report everything that goes down as quick as our little fingers can hit those keys.
There are few apps that truly make our lives easier, but one of them has to be Growl, the ultimate notification system for your Mac. Particularly useful for those of us with apps always churning away in the background, Growl has taken a huge leap with its latest version 1.3 -- not only is it now available exclusively from the Mac App Store, it’s no longer a free app. But don’t let the meager $1.99 price dissuade you -- new features like Rollup (which lets you revisit missed notifications similar to the forthcoming iOS 5) more than make it worth the price of admission. You’ll need OS X Lion and a 64-bit processor to make the jump, however.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that third-place U.S. carrier Sprint is planning to “bet the company” on Apple’s iPhone, committing to 30.5 million units over the next four years -- whether they’re purchased by customers or not. That adds up to a nearly $20 billion commitment, which is likely to see the carrier pushing the iPhone over rivals such as Android as well as a “staggering” whack to Sprint’s operating income.
“In order to keep the price people pay for the phone low and competitive with rivals, Sprint would be subsidizing the cost of each phone to the tune of about $500, which would take a long time to recoup even at the high monthly fees iPhone users pay,” the report claims.
Meanwhile, all this talk about Sprint landing the iPhone has apparently made the folks at BGR a bit loopy, with the website separately reporting that the carrier may get an exclusive in return for this massive investment -- as in the iPhone 5 we’re all hoping will be announced tomorrow, which could launch as a 4G WiMAX capable handset.
“I have been told that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 -- yes the real iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4S -- as an exclusive,” BGR reports. “And it will be a WiMAX device. AT&T and Verizon would launch the iPhone 4S and get the iPhone 5 sometime in the first quarter of next year as an LTE device. Globally, the iPhone 5 might be available as a 4G HSPA+ device.”
No offense to BGR, but it might be time to switch medication. Then again, who’s up for switching to Sprint if this rumor pans out on Tuesday morning?
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