Orange is offering a new Film to Go service that offers a pre-selected free movie rental via iTunes each Thursday that can be watched at any time in the following 30 days. The films should work on your iPhone in a WiFi area.

Apple is reportedly disabling any iOS 5 device that isn’t a developer device. Right now, the OS is meant for registered developers only.

Orange has promised to provides each of the iPhone 4 buyers an adapter for the microSIM that will let them use the card in any unlocked smartphone. O2 will also offer a similar adapter.

Apple has announced that video calls placed using Face Time will not count towards the user’s voice minutes. The voice calls end when the Face Time calls starts.

Orange has announced that its iPhone data plan has a 750MB fair use cap. After that amount, you will be paying more for your data.

If you have been waiting to pre-order your iPhone 4 in the US and UK, they are sold out for launch day. The ship date is now slipped to July for those who pre-order.

According to PC World, the iPhone as an eBook reader poses a threat to the Kindle. The iPhone is reportedly becoming the eBook reader of choice for many users. One out of every five new apps in the App Store in the last four months were reportedly eBooks.

Orange has revealed the pricing for the iPhone 3GS on its network. The device can be had for free with plans starting at £45 per month, which is about $74. I wonder if we will ever see free iPhones with contracts here in America.

Orange hasn’t yet released information about pricing and specific availability dates. You can expect the prices to be very similar to what O2 is offering right now for the iPhone.

Orange plans to offer the iPhone models via its website, phone sales and with select high street partners. Orange customers interested in the iPhone can sign up for more information on the firm’s pre-registration site.

Although there has been plentiful speculation about O2 losing its iPhone exclusivity over the last few weeks, ME has seen documentation that states it will end officially on October 9th.

However the Cupertino-based company will continue to give O2 exclusivity for iPhone 3GS.

[via ME]

The addition of a new network selling the iPhone will break O2’s UK exclusivity on the coveted handset, and will offer a challenge to O2’s prices and tariffs.

Sources said O2 has been furious with the news and is concerned potential rivals will undercut its prices on the older model.

[via Mobile Today]

The App Store was in the spotlight once again this week as several new apps were announced. iVerse Comics will be coming to the App Store soon, which allows users to access comic books via individual icons on their iPhone home screens. An LED football game, that is very reminiscent of the old handheld games is on the way, too. BeeJive, which was formerly called JiveTalk, offers a more functional IM experience and is even outfitted with background notification should Apple activate it.

We got our hands on a leaked video that showed Last.fm v2.0 in action and Sharpcast’s SugarSync was revealed to be a MobileMe alternative for those who are fed up with the Apple cloud. Most interesting of all, however, is a possible Steve Jobs email that revealed an official tethering function might be coming to the iPhone soon.

The reception issues that dominated last week’s news carried over into this week when a series of independent surveys revealed iPhone 3G performance varies over regions and the networks themselves are what need fixing, not the phone’s internal antenna. Over the course of these tests, Orange France admitted to capping their 3G speeds, but now promised to raise them. We also got a good look at just why the 3G is so slow. It seems all iPhone users need to update to the latest firmware version–otherwise the users with the old version will continue to bog down the network.

Two new international data plans from AT&T were made available to iPhone users on Wednesday and though its intent was to lower prices, it’s still rather steep. A security flaw was revealed this week as well that made it so even password protected phones could be hacked by a few taps of the home button. But not to worry, Apple has admitted to the flaw and will include a fix in the next update.

If you’re keeping up with the Dev Team, you already known Pwnage Tool 2.0.3 is already out. Plus, a brand new iPhone magazine will be released on September 9th called iPhone Life that gives readers the scoop on the latest news, reviews and more.

Finally, this week we featured a review of the BlueAnt V1 Voice Control Bluetooth Headset, which features voice activation functions. And though the audio wasn’t quite as good as it could be, this headset offers functionality like to other.

Currently, iPhone 3G speeds in France are being capped at 384 kbps. However, on September 15, the speed cap will be raised to 1 Mbps. This is an obvious improvement and should help people in France with iPhones experiencing better reception and faster data transfer.

Interestingly enough, the 1 Mbps cap is still under HSDPA’s maximum limit and quite less than what T-Mobile users in Europe experience, which clocks in at around 1.8 Mbps.

[via MacRumors]

The logic behind this marketing scheme is that whole “keeping up with the Joneses” thing. After all, if people are willing to wait in line for it, you automatically will want it, right?

Kind of loses some of its steam when you find out those are actors lined up though. In fact, it just makes Orange Poland look sort of desperate. They must have their hands on some estimated sales figures that don’t look too hot. While else would they pull such a stunt?

[via The iPhone Blog]

As expected, the U.S., Japan, Germany and France topped the curve, taking in a cumulative 81% of the first million 3G iPhones sold. But this isn’t really news. 

What is interesting, however, is the dispersal of carriers. And though AT&T tops the list with 600,000 units sold, T-Mobile sold 89,000, Orange sold 77,000 and Softbank Mobile sold 70,000 in the overseas market. 

Even though the iPhone is a U.S. dominated product at the moment, it still has a large resonance overseas. This data reflects only the first three days of sales, so it may be affected by the initial troubles people had registering. 

[via Medialets]

Of course, this is referring to the mystery device that is rumored to drop at WWDC. We heard rumors about the device, and then even a confirmation by Intel’s German unit, saying that the device will be powered by their new Atom processor. These comments were of course retracted, and dismissed by Intel as a example of a device that could be powered by Atom.

The iPhone will see some new distribution in a few more countries according to Orange. The new countries include Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets. It is expected that the new markets will get the device by years’ end.

WWDC is going to be the place to be this year. Unfortunately though, unless you have already been accepted, you are not going to get in. The event is now fully booked. Those wanting to see the action can log in to their Apple developer accounts to check out video clips from the event. Do not forget to follow our live coverage of the event at live.iphonebuzz.com.

3G iPhone rumors are slowly pouring in still. We have heard rumors that the 3G iPhone may come in up to three different color choices. This is not all, as we are also hearing rumors that the device will come with GPS, Mobile TV, and even video conferencing. This would be an amazing addition to the 3G iPhone, and with all that 3G action, will be welcomed with open arms.

An option for ‘iPhone Black’ showed up on AT&T’s website as an option for choosing your device. The option was found next to the normal iPhone option, which sparked a wave of rumors about the 3G iPhone launching soon. AT&T of course denied the rumors almost immediately, giving this response.

“The reference to “iPhone Black” was simply a temporary placeholder used over the weekend for a scheduled catalog update. It was meant to temporarily distinguish the various iPhone models-4GB, 8GB and 16GB-but was never reassigned. It should be corrected on the site by now.”  Brad Mays, PR for AT&T.

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year. -From Press Release

It seems to be the common consensus across the internet that they are talking about the 3G iPhone. Many of these markets already have iPhones being sold in them, so it is very likely that yes that is what they are talking about. The press release does not say explicitly 3G iPhone, new iPhone, or any other alias we know it by.

[Via SlashPhone]

Image credit Andrew Mager

However potentially more worrying for the price of whatever Apple eventually launches is the news that European carriers are currently nursing far more unsold stock than they planned to have at this stage in the iPhone’s lifespan.  Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty blamed over-excitement and a weakness for hype as key factors affecting the carriers’ ordering decisions, and predicted “significant” losses on first-generation hardware.  Unofficial figures suggest Apple and the carriers expected almost twice as many sales as the 330,000 iPhones shipped by O2, T-Mobile and Orange in the three European regions the handset is available in.

Huberty also believes the initial exclusivity deal Apple arranged with carriers was for a mere two years rather than the well-publicised five; as a result, Apple could begin selling handsets through other carriers later on in 2008. 

“Steve Jobs’s (Apple’s chief executive) end game is not to limit distribution and maximise carrier payments. It’s to bring the best mobile platform to the market and then sell as many units as possible. There’s lots of ways Apple can drive revenue from the iPhone that aren’t part of the current model” Kathryn Huberty, analyst, Morgan Stanley

We’ll ignore the fact that the paper also gets the current iPhone’s screen size wrong, claiming it’s 4.5-inches, and presume that was an accidental slip of the finger rather than a sign they have no idea what they’re talking about.

[via Pocket-lint]

According to Les Echos, Apple is disappointed with sales figures for the cellphone in France, 100,000 handsets of which have been sold since it went on sale there.  Takeup of the iPhone generally in Europe has been less enthusiastic than in the US, perhaps because 3G networks (and the handsets to take advantage of them) are more common and to some degree expected among European users.  As a result, Apple are encouraging all carriers to further subsidise the initial cost of the handset to boost sales, which some are seeing as a way to clear first-generation iPhones before the 3G version’s imminent launch. 

Orange, however, is content with the current pricing, telling the paper that there is “‘no question of changing the business model of the iPhone” and that “everything is going well”, revealing that the carrier obviously had lower sales expectations than the manufacturer did.  They have countered Apple’s suggestions with a request to re-open the revenue sharing agreement that sees the US company get a slice of every handset sale, presumably to minimise the loss Orange would see through subsidisation.

The 8GB iPhone has recently seen its price slashed in the UK, from £269 to £169.

[via iLounge]