Starting this week, the country’s users can pre-order 16GB Black, 16GB White, 32GB Black and 32GB White models. Telkomsel, the only operator for Apple’s iPhone in Indonesia,  launched iPhone 3G last March.

[via 3G Week]

The mysterious products might be the very model designed for Chinese users, according to another source, noting that the massively-produced device has no Wi-Fi functions, just like the A1324 model, the Chinese version of 3G iPhone being sent to the China Telecommunication Technology Labs (CTTL) for a test.

[via Trading Markets]

According to Vodafone Australia, all Vodafone iPhone 3G customers will have access to the Visual Voicemail application by close of business Friday 29 May 2009. “Over the next few days, Vodafone will proactively notify customers via a TXT message, alerting them to this new service.”

To activate this feature, just synchronise your iPhone, checking for updates in iTunes, download the latest software update and then turning the phone off and on.

[via MacTalk Australia]

About 550 students and staff at Japan’s Aoyama Gakuin University will be getting free iPhones through SoftBank as part of the school’s Mobile & Net Society Education and Training program. Aoyama Gakuin University will use the iPhone’s GPS hardware to help administrators determine if a student is on campus and whether or not they’ve actually been going to class.

[Mainichi Daily via IntoMobile]

The company’s website says:

Book now until 17th March (11:59) to be exclusively invited for the Official iPhone 3G Launch Events! Held on the 20th-22nd March 2009 at the KL Convention Center. Exciting activities and iPhone 3G demos await you!

The operator offers the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G models with various postpaid plans called iValue, starting from RM100  or roughly US$ 27 per month  (US$1 = RM 3.6925). If you sign up for a monthly commitment of RM375 over a 24-month period on the iValue 4 plan,  you will get the 8GB iPhone 3G  free of charge.

[via Bernama | image credit]

The price, according to 3GWeek, will touch more than IDR 10 million, roughly equals to US$ 900 (1 US$ = IDR 12,000). According to a local blog Ndorokakung,  with IDR2.5 million upfront plus IDR750,000 monthly installment for 18 months,  users can bring their 8 GB iPhone 3G home.

The country’s first operator to launch 3G services in September 2006 had 67 million customers or more than 50% market share.  The operator had the biggest 3G community with more than 6.2 million subscribers in more than 120 cities.

Indonesia’s largest full-service telecommunications operator, Telkom and SingTel, one of Asia’s leading telecommunications service operators, owns 65%  and 35% of Telkomsel’s issued share capital.

[via 3Gweek]

Once the app is installed, PCs on the internet can access the iPhone to upload or download files through a browser or they can use the webDAV protocol. If the PC and the iPhone are on the same network, the PC can connect directly. If they are on separate networks, then FreeBit’s VPN software will engage the connection.

The Freebit’s ServersMan@iPhone app is not new. A similar app, Air Sharing (iTunes link), has been launched September last year (and you don’t need to wait for this app to be translated into English, because it’s an American/global version).

This app is a file storage application that works with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux systems. Of course it also uses the open WebDAV protocol to accept and share files through your file system or web browser.

[via ReadWriteWeb, Lifehacker]

In the latest round—their third—the two haggled over which company would sell iPhone applications directly to customers. As it does everywhere else, Apple wanted to sell directly to consumers through its App Store. China Mobile chiefs, however, balked at this. Wang apparently considered the notion of Apple interacting and directly collecting payment from Chinese consumers as a “threat” to the operator’s dominance over the country’s mobile internet market.

The first two negotiations stalled when China Mobile rejected Apple’s proposal on profit sharing schemes (1. Apple gets a 20-30 percent cut of the revenues; 2. China Mobile should buy each iPhone at $600 a unit and subsidize the handset).

[via MocoNews]