Is the ranking reliable? "Yes," Akky Akimoto of Asiajin from Japan answered. "The shops which give their POS (point of sale) data to BCN include some nationwide chain stores, such like Eiden, K’s Denki, Bic Camera, Best Denki and, you may know this company name, Amazon Japan." The writer also points out us with the ranking’s Japanese page (update: this is another ranking --the weekly ranking).

Released in July last year, Apple's iPhone 3G has been sold over a million in Japan since then. The survey was conducted before the launch of the iPhone 3GS by Softbank, the country's third largest wireless carrier, on June 26.

Akimoto also wrote:

The new iPhone 3GS started to be sold in Japan on June 26th. For your information, interestingly, the iPhone 3GS (32GB) and (16GB) seemed to be ranked at No. 174 and No. 189 on last week’s ranking, even before its release date.

The old version iPhone 3G 16GB is ranked at No. 27 down a bit from No. 23 last week, which is also interesting. Who buys the old one when the new one is coming and your payment will not differ?

[TG Daily via Fortune | image credit]

Take Gary Ng, 27, one of them.

"If people are committing $1,000 a year for two years to use a 3GS, I would definitely expect my battery to last a lot longer," said Ng, a loyal Apple fan who runs an iPhone blog from his home in Vancouver, Canada.

According to IFixit.com, repairing company which specializes in Apple products, the 3GS's battery life was about 15% smaller than the original iPhone. But Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison emphasized, battery consumption is highly dependent on what applications and features are used.

Are you also having battery issues with the 3GS? Share your experience (or even solution) here.

[via Los Angeles Times]

To get started right now, go to purplera1n.com. Download it. Make sure you have windows (but not 7), the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with 3.0 firmware. Connect your iPhone normally. Click "make it ra1n". Wait. On bootup, run Freeze, the purplera1n installer app. Hopefully you'll figure out what to do from there. Best tutorial gets linked to from purplera1n site. This tool is beta. Make sure to have everything backed up before running. Also if Cydia doesn't show up after running Freeze, reboot.

Despite it doesn't unlock the iPhone 3GS, but at least jailbreak it so that unofficial third-party apps can be installed and enjoyed on your new iPhone 3GS.

The jailbreak for Mac is coming soon, George writes.

[via On the iPhone]

Why is mobile ad share important? Because in the smartphone segment, the tail wags the dog — apps drive customer loyalty more than hardware features... Yes, Apple offers many more apps, and yes, it’s more geared to consumers than Nokia.

Nokia already realized about the power of mobile applications and contents. As we know, Ovi Store is Nokia's answer to the iPhone's App Store.

Yes, that's revealed based on recent Apple patent fillings. Some new patent applications include event-based modes, scheduled and intelligent communications.

Event-based modes: As shown by above picture, your iPhone 4.0 device could be able to automatically adapt to different locations and life events and reconfigure it’s settings – e.g. switch the sound off and turn on a voicemail when calendar shows that you are in the meeting.

Scheduled communications: somewhat similar to the one above, but describes a way for you to automatically schedule/preset communications activities based on calendar events, your location, caller id and other conditions.

Intelligent communications:  You can select appropriate communication modes for incoming communications requests based on a user’s preferences and availability. The device can determine the communication modes of a user based on the current activity and allow the user to provide customized information to his/her contacts.

[via Unwired View]

What’s new in iPhone OS 3.1 Beta build?

1. Video editing on iPhone 3GS wont overwrite the clip over the original when you are editing a clip.
2. iPhone vibrates when moving icons
3. “Fraud Protection” toggle has been added to settings under Safari.
4. iPhone boot time is now faster.
5. Voice Control now works over Bluetooth.
6. New APIs to enable third party apps to access videos and edit them.
7. Updated AT&T profile to 4.2
8. Updated modem firmware to 5.08.01
9. Improvements to OpenGL and Quartz.

[via Redmond Pie, the iPhone Blog]

Hewitt explains the new features:

1. The "new" News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

[via InsideFacebook]

Gizmodo wrote:

...here we are with a truly integrated MMS experience courtesy of the all-powerful hacking community. Granted, there have been MMS apps available for ages, but there's a difference: this is the same action 3G and 3GS owners are getting in conjunction with OS 3.0, which Apple curiously decided to hold back from original iPhone owners.

A member of Hacking0sh forum revealed a tip on how MMS on 2G (OS 3.0) with default SMS/MMS app:

• For install copy mms2g.deb to iphone in folder, for example /var/root
• Then in same folder (/var/root) in terminal input: dpkg -i mms2g.deb
• Reboot

or

• Extract files from Patch.zip to iphone to folders same as arhive. For CommCenter chmod 755.
• Reboot.

In settings, adjust apn, user, password.

it´s now on cydia: ActivateMMS2G

ad rep. in cydia:  http://cydia.alpden.com

[via Gizmodo]

Google has announced that uploads from mobile phones to YouTube have increased by 400% since last Friday, when Apple’s new iPhone 3GS went on sale. The handset lets users shoot video clips and upload them directly to the video-sharing site.

In the last six months, uploads from mobile phones to YouTube have jumped 1,700%; just since last Friday, when the iPhone 3GS came out, uploads have increased by 400%.

[via Music Ally]

The Japan's launch is a week after Apple introduced the new iPhone in the United States and Europe.  It's reported more than 1 million units have been sold in three days.  Softbank, the country's third largest wireless carrier, is the country's sole distributor for iPhone.

The new model also went on sale in the same day in Austria, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands.

[via MacDailyNews]

Looks like the iPhone 3GS is now available in black, white, brown and pink :-) Anybody else with white iPhone 3GS experienced this? Check your phones…

[via Engadget]

[via DailyMobile.se]

Adam Savage (@donttrythis), who has more than 57,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted:

Text messaging fees are stupid robbery? (they are), AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada. Pls RT!

And then, his next tweet:

Did I mention they've turned off my phone until I pay? #attsucks

[via TechDirt | photo credit]

Now, the Dev Team can use the same sort of technique as used in redsn0w to update ultrasn0w for Apple's latest smartphone.  The team believe that the iPhone 3GS' bootrom was finalized in roughly August 2008, so the emergence of 24Kpwn earlier in 2009 did not affect it.

The Team are now working on integrating the new technique into ultrasn0w, which they've warned will "take some time".  Once that's done, however, it will be possible to both jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3GS.

The result is shown in the video below where you can see gpSPhone running at a minimum 150 FPS and maxing out at about 225 FPS, with sound and 0 frameskip! This is a HUGE performance increase where the iPhone 3G needed frameskipping just to reach 60 FPS!

[via Zodttd]