Everybody has been playing the guessing game on how many iPhone 3Gs Apple has sold. The numbers have been pitted at 11 million this year and 25 million in 2009 on the low end and 13 million this year and 45 million in 2009 on the optimistic side. Well according to people familiar with Apple's production plans, it looks like Apple is preparing for the high end of the spectrum, upping their yearly production to around 40 million.

As it stands, Apple is pumping out 150,000 iPhones a day which roughly equates to 39 million a year (5 days a week, 52 weeks a year). Apple should have no problem selling these iPhones because of the international rollout and the Best Buy initiative, greater availability leads to more sales.

What does need to be fixed is the activation process, analysts deem the current process as the bottleneck that limits efficiency. Analysts are also pointing at a cheaper iPhone model to be announced during Macworld. That'll certainly help Apple reach its ambitious goals.

We at TiPb think it's entirely feasible to reach 40 million by 2009. Even after the initial hype subsides, there are still plenty of new markets to reach. If the iPhone begins to come in colors, new models, and more polished apps the iPhone 3G will continue to stay fresh for a long while. Now if Apple ever decided to sell the iPhone online again, well then, 40 million will be easy as pie. What do you think?

ReadVia

If all of these were made into news slices, we'd have to reconfigure the page to fit everything in. So, it's going to have to go into a roundup article instead. We'll start with the above cartoon from Gizmodo, who apply the curious moniker of "Jesusphone" to the iPhone. I'm more prone to calling it the Mosesphone, as it's leading me to the promised land of smartphones. If it really was the Jesusphone, all of my other smartphones would suddenly stop sucking, right?

Activation and Deactivation? Inactivation?

Should you wish to avoid these problems, perhaps try this advice, or just trust in the fact that AT&T has fixed the server bug and you had a 98% chance of going through anyway. I've only seen one gripe of a defective iPhone, and the article about it is here.

iPhone Firmware Hacking

The next big story is disassembly and hacking. In addition to our takeapart coverage, there's more at Wired and All Things D.

Wired launched a call to hack the iPhone, as did iPhoneTunes. It was not long before their call was answered, and the iPhone firmware was found [via] They found out what kind of processor the iPhone uses, it's a beefy Samsung processor.

Around the World in 80k

There are still places in the world the iPhone isn't available. If you live in Alaska or the Midwest, this may interest you: AT&T is buying Dobson [via], who owns cell phone companies in Alaska and the midwest. If you're in Europe, this rumor was posted, claiming Vodaphone and T-Mobile both as the iPhone vendor. We'll find out tomorrow if it was true, eh? Also, still no official word on Canada, besides that the AT&T iPhone doesn't work on any network besides AT&T, as it's not available unlocked. A somewhat clueless U.K. company claimed Java is surely the route for games on the iPhone, when Steve Jobs confirmed otherwise.

Activation Hacking

Fear not, though; the race is also on to unlock the iPhone. It's been claimed to be done already, but I think they may have confused activation with unlocking. Speaking of activation, if you want prepaid, there's an easy way to ensure prepaid is offered to you.

Huh, the i-What?

Competitors are unafraid, naturally. In the off chance that they admit they've heard of it, they thump their chest. RIM, makers of popular Blackberries, saw their stock surge up, and by quite a bit. Verizon stayed open late for iDay, but for no apparent reason.

Apple News

Then, there's some Apple news. Apple sold anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 iPhones. This kind of component speculation is always anyone's guess, but current groupthink puts the actual component cost (that's minus R&D) to be about 200 bucks (more or less what iSuppli predicted), which is a tidy sum of profit for Apple and Foxconn. Also, User guides have been posted online. Secret workings of iTunes 7.3 have been discovered. Apple has posted official store accessories for the iPhone. Universal, clamoring for attention, wants more money and is "threatening" to pull out of #3 music retailer iTunes. $ure, they are.

Other Reviews and Roundups

In addition to ours, there are some full reviews and first impressions at some well respected sites. If this is not enough, there are other roundups out there.

Upsides:

• Safari: The web browser is great. I haven't missed flash yet, and the fact that YouTube is built-in more or less means that I'm not too broken-hearted about Flash. Maybe we'll see it in an update, maybe we won't. If we don't, I hope they give me the ability to turn it off.

Downsides

• Web Applications and built-in apps in general: Most applications that Apple has included are great: Text, Calendar (mostly, see below), Photos, Camera, YouTube, Maps, Weather, Clock. I found Notes and Stocks to be underwhelming (and as of this writing, undeserving of the front screen), plus there's an entire empty row sitting there waiting eagerly to have application buttons stuffed in. You can't replace this kind of immediacy with web services -- I don't want to open Safari, create a new window, or find it with a bunch of button presses in my bookmarks. I want it there, on the main screen.
• To Do: Implement To Do: The sync doesn't bring over to-dos from iCal, which is going to be a big hullaballoo. On the flip side of events, it doesn't sync notes from the notes app back to the computer, so there's no way to back them up either. I'm guessing something will happen here once Leopard comes out, or that we'll see some updates here, but this aspect is very disappointing; the omission of this is actually downright weird. Any fans of GTD will have to use a web app for To-Dos as of this writing.
• Activation: When I first installed the iPhone to my computer, it took a while to activate. The system failed on me. I was nervous of a double-billing situation, but I resubmitted my information anyway. The activation system found my info and to my relief I had already been accepted. Other folks in our organization were not so lucky; Chris Kingree at our warehouse had to wait 60 hours (!) for his activation to go through.
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR: So what? there are *no* supported profiles for interfacing with a computer. None! That includes DUN, AVRCP, OBEX, the whole shebang. This means you can't use the unlimited internet on your computer; nor can you sync your iPhone via Bluetooth. A2DP seems to be unimplemented as well. This one is downright weird to me; if I was assigning a score to this review, they'd lose some serious points here.
• Preferences: They don't allow you to set too many preferences. Granted, this keeps things simple to support and you're never in a situation where you're not sure where the preferences are (they're right there in the Settings app). But if you don't like the default SMS message alert, tough! You can't change it. You can disable it, but not change it.
• Ringtones: Apple has included ringtones on the iPhone, and some of them are pretty good. Thank you for the effort, Apple, but I would prefer to be able to use my own. I'd love to be able to blare video game sounds from Galaga or the theremin-like intro from Dr. Who whenever someone calls me, but that functionality is not with us. I'm guessing they just haven't finished it yet, or don't have legal agreements with labels yet in place.
• AT&T / EDGE: If you're a technophile, you expected this here, and I am not willing to disappoint. EDGE brings me back to dialup days. AT&T's coverage in my area is adequate, but it's nothing to praise. I dropped two calls on the first day of use. AT&T's commercials about dropped calls are like salt to my wounds now.
• Filesystem and Mass Storage: The iPhone doesn't show up as a mass storage device when you plug it in to a computer, nor is its filesystem browseable. I can't peer around on the inside, much with things, see how it works, and the like. It's essentially a black box, which is annoying. This doesn't bother me too much, but nor does it make a lot of sense. I didn't think I'd still have a use for memory cards once the iPhone came out. This one doesn't bother me too much.

All in all, what Apple has completed is mighty. That's not to say that there aren't missing pieces; there are serious missing pieces from the iPhone. Still, for an entry to the smartphone market, or mobile phone market in general, it's a very impressive device. I'm glad I bought it; I'd recommend it to anyone while making note of the above caveats, it's the most fun I've had with a phone in a long time, and I haven't even installed any games on it yet. Oh wait, that's still a sore spot.

Apple has posted a new training video to the site. The trainer is the same as the previous video, and he instructs in the activation of a previously purchased iPhone -- you can apparently purchase the iPhone and activate it (as well as select your plans) via iTunes, which hopefully means that the lines will move quickly on Friday.

Apple has also posted information on the rate plans. It looks like they are indeed the new version of the old AT&T Unity plans (see here), as they all include unlimited internet and 200 text messages.

Here are the plan details for new customers:

$59.99      $79.99      $99.99
450 mins    900 mins    1350 mins
200 SMS     200 SMS     200 SMS

$80.00      $100.00     $120.00
700 mins    1400 mins   2100 mins

All family plans include unlimited data, 200 SMS messages, visual voicemail, Rollover minutes, unlimited night and weekend minutes, and unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. Additional lines are $29.99 each.

Existing customers can add a data plan to their existing voice plan:

$20.00      $30.00      $40.00
200 SMS     1500 SMS    Unlimited SMS