The cooperation with Apple in terms of iPhone and iPod touch also effects the Mac now: Today, Skyhook Wireless released their Loki 2.0 Firefox toolbar for Mac OS X and Windows XP. Now it’s possible to check the own location with Loki – if there are enogh WiFi-hotspots in reach known by Skyhook Wireless.
Quite amazing technology with a JavaScript-SDK for Web developers, too.

Steve Jobs presented a new feature of the iPhone – and also the iPod touch. Especially the iPod touch transforms into a new category of devices by adding location based services: By cooperating with Skyhook Wireless it is possible to get the own location by triangulating the signals from different WiFi-hotspots. The iPhone uses also the well known method by using the cell-ids to find the current location. It’s quite interesting, that it seems that Apple is not cooperating with the mobile network operators to get the location by cell ids and triangulation: They realized this feature by cooperating with Google. When I think of the hurdles to realize mobile Location Based Services (LBS) with the different operators … this is not a bad idea.
We really can be curious, whether the iPhone SDK will be the kickoff of a new era in LBS. Maybe Apple will also provide the iPhone web developers with the LBS-SDK Loki SDK for their web applications – that would really roll up the LBS-scene

Great to see, that T-Mobile can listen to the complains of their customers. At the start of the holiday season the big "magenta" touched up the iPhone-rates in Germany:

• You don’t find any EDGE-bandwidth throttling in the rate description. Finally, the data-flatrate is a data-flatrate.
• The Complete XL package is now extremely interesting for heavy telephone users: Any Minute above the included 1.000 free Minutes is charged at low rate of 0,09 Euros.
• Also the additional Minutes of the smaller packages are cheaper, now.
• The "Rate-Designers" of T-Mobile upped the ante by adding a weekend telephone flat to all the packages.

Overall, T-Mobile took severe criticism to heart. So, it’s time for kudos to the "Magenta"-team for that reaction! The other mobile operators can take a leaf out of T-Mobile’s book.

Also the first movers, who signed a iPhone contract can respire: All of them will benefit automatically from the new rates.

Source: t-mobile.de

It really looked that easy: Apple picks one exclusive mobile network operator, negotiates a data flat fee fort he iPhone customers and makes money out of hardware sales and mobile spendings of the iPhone customers. And by the way Apple creates an iPhone-hype for the market rollout. The media loves the long lines of waiting iPhone-fans in front of the AppleStores at the first rollout day.

It still worked out great in the United States with their partner AT&T. But in Europe – and especially in Germany – the iPhone rollout evolves into a farce:

• The iPhone can only play to it’s strength with a data flat rate. The customer must not think about the costs of fetching those e-mails, loading a web-page or getting the directions with GoogleMaps. The iPhone concept is only working this way! But T-Mobile seems to afraid of their customers: They sell them a data flat rate which, strictly speaking, isn’t a data flat rate: Depending on the rate plan, customers get a bandwidth limitation to a max. 64 kbit/s download and 16 kbit/s upload starting after downloading 200 MB (Complete M), 1 GB (Complete L) and 5 GB (Complete XL) per month. In plain language: T-Mobile is not charging any additional fees for heavy data usage, but they punish those customers by drastically throttling their data bandwidth.
• The competitor Vodafone was able to provoke T-Mobile to offer a SIM-lock free iPhone for 999 Euro with an interim injunction against the exclusive T-Mobile iPhone bundle. The SIM-lock free iPhone is a world premiere – and a new uncertainty for the customers. Only the worldwide developer community has to thank Vodafone for that step: Now it will be much easier to get a SIM-lock-free test-device, worldwide. There will also be a SIM-lock-free iPhone in France – but anyway this fact is clear before the rollout on November 29th.

Maybe T-Mobile realizes that it would help them to cross their bandwidth-throttling footnote out of their contracts – then the farce would turn into a winter tale. Christmas is near

Sources: fscklog.com, macwelt.de, heise.de

Finally, rumors have come to an end: The Apple iPhone will be distributed in Germany by T-Mobile at a price of 399 EUR including a contract from November 9th 2007. The crucial question about the iPhone rates at T-Mobile is still left open.
Steve Jobs traveled to Berlin personally to present the new gadget with Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann.
From November 9th the iPhone will also be available in Great Britain and France. O2 (GB) will sell them for 269 GBP and Orange (FR) also for 399 EUR. In Great Britain the secret of the O2-iPhone rates was disclosed. O2 will charge a 35, 45 or 55 GBP per month rate for a data traffic flat rate an 200, 600 or 1,200 free minutes.
Accoding to FTD, the Deutsche Telekom is planning to sell one Million iPhones in the last quarter. That’s a quite remarkable number, especially because the missing UMTS support of the iPhone will probably may deter potential customers. Some probably will wait for the UMTS / 3G version of the iPhone which should be available next year. Also the market entry of the iPod-touch as a WiFi capable mobile Internet terminal at the end of this month will more likely lower the needs for iPhones than boost it.
For Apple as a company, for mobile application developers and for the endusers this isn’t bad news at all. Far from it: Because of the availability of a critical mass of standardized mobile web terminals (same screen-size, same usability, same web browser Safari 3) an innovative, viral and worldwide mobile business market may develop!
And this would also make the Deutsche Telekom happy, at the end

Sources: O2.co.uk, Ftd-reuters Video , Ftd.de, Apple.com