UPDATE:

The New York Times gets clarification from Opera (via Daring Fireball):

“We stopped the work because of the prohibitive license,” to Mr. von Tetzchner wrote in an e-mail.

Turns out it was an internal project.

ORIGINAL POST:

So we, along with half the interwebs, picked up a paraphrased comment by Opera’s president that pretty much indicated Apple had rejected popular mobile browser Opera Mini from the App Store.

Well, John Gruber over at Daring Fireball did some digging and found out that it just ain’t so:

My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers is that Opera has developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini, they haven’t even submitted it to Apple, let alone had it be rejected.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, in an attempt to get to the bottom of the PodcasterGate’s latest controversy, namely Apple reportedly slapping “NDA” (Non-Disclosure Agreement) on the rejection notices and discussion there off, confidentially polled developers and came to the following conclusion:

My conclusion is that as [redacted] up as this entire situation is, both with the App Store rejections for “duplication of functionality” and NDA frustrations, it does not seem as though Apple has changed its policy regarding whether rejection notices are confidential.

Indeed, some Mac (but not iPhone) developers reported all their communications from Apple, going way back, bore non-disclosure language. This latest wrinkle does indeed appear to be inconsistent legal notices from different Apple developer reps, rather than any substantive change in response to PodcasterGate.

Still, resentment levels among iPhone developers are still soaring, and due to the NDA, the public displeasure ain’t nothing compared to what’s building internally.

Good news? Looks like there really is a new “Home” option for iPhone activation in the US. Bad news? Looks like it has nothing to do with the iPhone being sold unlocked. Apple Insider, who broke the rumor, updates as follows:

In order to service these customers, a special home pre-qualification web site has been set up so that users can find if they are qualified by AT&T for a phone unit subsidy. Users can set up their account at home so that everything is ready to go when they make their iPhone 3G purchase at a retail store. The new “Home” option that retail employees are seeing on their EasyPay terminals is designed to allow them to use this home pre-qualification step to accelerate the transaction of a new iPhone 3G. That also indicates there is no impending potential for unlocked iPhone 3G sales in the US, although this is expected at some point.

Apple Insider is also sticking to the 32GB SKU, but maybe only after the holidays (though presumably that means short term, not, you know, any point after the holidays and into future months/years…)

Magic 8-Ball?

• Unlocked iPhones in the US? Very Doubtful
• 32GB iPhone in the *near* future? It is certain

Interesting! Can’t wait to see how this one pans out!

No, not the 2.1 firmware beta, that one’s for realz. We’re talking here about the Washington Post, which ran a Techcrunch story breaking the news that:

Now we’re hearing from an app developer that Appleis finally going to start rolling out a new beta program in the next few days has released an Ad-Hoc program. Details are slim, but it seems like Apple is capping the total number of beta participants at 100 per app. In order to download a beta app, users will need to submit their iPhone’s UDIDs number to the developer,who will then need to flag its eligibility in the store itself. All betas will still be distributed through the App Store – you won’t be able to download one on an external site.The apps will be directly distributed by the developer.

Sound an awful lot like the Ad-Hoc distribution method Apple announced for educational institutions way back at WWDC to you? Sure did to iPhone developer extraordinaire Erica Sadun, who rumor smashed thusly:

The “Beta Program” will not be released in the “next few days.” Ad-hoc distribution is already available and working. Developers can create ad-hoc provisions through the iPhone Developer Program site today.

Sadun also provides a handy-dandy Ad-hoc Helper app for mailing your UDID directly to a developer, should you be part of an Ad-hoc app distribution group.

Kinda.

Seems the strings to set 3G preferences exist in the code of iPhone 2.0 Beta 5, but the GUI screen that was rumored to surface it was a mock-up, a photoshop, a con-job, a bamboozle.

The process used to determine that the screen was less “shot” and more “not” is rather involved and — quite frankly — convoluted but the bottom line remains:

We’re getting a 3G iPhone. That 3G iPhone will have settings. We, as yet, have no idea what form those settings will take.

Now bring on the next rumor!

Confession: Yes, when one of these crazy AT&T or Intel rumors come up, I draft a rumor-smasher just as soon as I finish the post. Chalk it up to experience.

Case in point: yesterday we (and everyone else in the blogsphere) reported that Intel Germany Geschäftsführer Hannes Schwaderer done let slip word of an Atom-powered iTablet. Or done did he?

“No Intel exec has said anything about any future Apple product, Atom processor or otherwise,” an Intel spokesperson told AppleInsider. “I think that’s important to note as everyone speculates on future products from Apple.”

And more awkwardly:

“Intel knows nothing over future products of other manufacturers and can therefore over it also nothing say,” press spokesman Mike Cato told ZDNet

Of course, just like AT&T leaking and un-leaking the iPhone Black, this could just be Intel desperately spinning damage control following a “phone call” from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

So, basically, either the interwebs have gone slappy-happy bonkers with pent-up pre-WWDC mania, or a large-screen, Atom-powered, iChat’ing iPhone Tablet 3G Black is coming our way very, very shortly?

MacRumors, source of the original hubbub, is standing firm on the latter, and offers up further corroboration-by-way-of-translation:

“PCGH-Editor Daniel Waadt was there as well an can attest, that Schwaderer referred to the iPhone as an example for the use of the atom-processor from Intel. The Intel CEO mentioned furthermore, that the display on iPhone 2 would be bigger than on iPhone 1 (although it is already quite big). iPhone 2 is also thinner than iPhone 1.”

My bet? iPhone 3G sans-Intel takes stage at WWDC, ships sometime soonish thereafter, and while an iTablet certainly exists, and certainly furthers Apple’s mobile WiFi platform and App Store program, we won’t hear about it until sometime between Thanksgiving 2008 and Macworld 2009. Only way it makes sense anytime soon is if Steve Jobs smells blood in the water and is willing to sacrifice short-term roadmaps for the ultra-mobile kill.

What do you think?

ReadVia

AT&T giveth, and AT&T taketh away. Or so they say…

Hot on the heels of an apparent AT&T web glitch that everyone and their blogs assumed leaked something called the “iPhone Black”, and some maybe corroboration from a UK accessory web store selling what looks like current gen stock under the “iPhone Black” label, reader Bad Ash points out that the Tilt (and maybe other handsets?) were also being listed as “Black”, i.e. “Tilt Black”.

Now AT&T itself has scrambled… er… stepped up to tell Gizmodo that:

[T]he iPhone Black dropdown reference on the AT&T Wireless website is just a temporary placeholder. The spokesperson says that it was used over the weekend for a “scheduled catalog update,” distinguishing the various iPhone models (4GB, 8GB and 16GB). Sorry dudes, the 3G iPhone is probably not called the iPhone Black. Unless, of course, the spokesperson was just covering AT&T’s butt, which could always be possible.

So, either AT&T is capable of perplexingly odd website errors where they unintentionally surface tantalizingly named product fillers onto production servers, or El Jobso chewed them a new one, is even now changing the iPhone 3G’s release name, and spinning AT&T to cover?

Or is that just what they want us to think?

Read

Real? Fake? Really fake? We don’t know yet, but Gizmodo is joining the growing crowd of logo distorted, cheesy-photoshop artifact’ed, no way this thing got within 100 miles (how far is Redmond again?) of Jonathan Ive, doubters.

While the accessory makers may have struck them some gold on the specs-side, it’s looking increasingly like our French compatriots were either duped, or helped consipire up some duping. Merde indeed:

Some frogsters* with no track record are claiming that this piece of scratched plastic—which in the photo looks like a cheapo LG cellphone clone wannabe—is the new iPhone 3G. Although it matches the rumored all-black and specs, we don’t believe it’s the real thing. The reason: these photos have been up since 12:04AM Central European Time and it’s now 4:04PM. That’s 16 hours up with no Cease and Desist order—and Apple Europe is as aggressive with leaks as Cupertino. In any case, check its back and tell us what you think after the jump.

What do you think?

While the interwebs stroke themselves into a furor over rumors that AT&T might just subsidize the iPhone 3G down to $200, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber once again asks that he be allowed to retort:

So says one report, using one anonymous source, from Scott Moritz, a “reporter” with an appalling track record regarding Apple and the iPhone. The same Scott Moritz who reported in July last year that Apple had cut back its production order on iPhones based on a “trading note” from Miller Tabak, a note which, it ends up, didn’t actually exist. And, as we know now, Apple went on to sell more iPhones than expected in 2007, not fewer.

Speculation ensues as to whether or not the AT&T exclusivity extends only to the current iPhone, and not the so-called iPhone 3G, and whether or not AT&T may want to take a price hit to keep Apple close. Gruber, however, quickly points out:

This comes so close to uncovering the obvious and glaring problem with a $200 AT&T iPhone subsidy, but, alas, Hesseldahl and his keen economic mind walk right past it. The problem is this: why would Apple allow AT&T to sell iPhones for half the price of what iPhones cost in Apple’s own stores (including this one)?

What do you think?