According to an AT&T company memo, the launch of the iPhone 3GS wasn’t just a banner sales day for the carrier this year but broke records for any single day of retail sales in the company’s history — including for already stellar iPhone sales.

The leaked e-mail characterizes “iLaunch Day 2009,” its nickname for the June 19th iPhone 3GS release date, as the “best-ever sales day” and just second in terms of actual floor traffic. Many of its other sales-related records were also shattered at the same time, ranging from the number of upgrade eligibility checks made in a day to the sheer volume of orders taken through AT&T’s website.

The notice obtained by multiple anonymous MacDailyNews readers also illustrates just how quickly the seemingly more modest iPhone update outpaced the already large-scale iPhone 3G launch last year. 3GS sales not only exceeded the first days after both Thanksgiving and Christmas, either of which have always been popular shopping days, but were so brisk as to overtake the iPhone 3G’s launch day count by just noon in Texas time.

Interest in the stores was so high that AT&T stores were considered at “peak” activity for 11 hours, or nearly half a day, despite the company accepting pre-orders online for day in advance.

As could be expected, the cellular company doesn’t provide a concrete sales number in the memo and, when contacted by AppleInsider for confirmation, only repeats its mantra that it accepted hundreds of thousands of pre-orders in the run-up to the iPhone 3GS going on sale less than two weeks ago.

“We have no further comment beyond that,” a company spokesman says.

Apple has been slightly more open on the subject and previously said it sold one million iPhone 3GS devices over the course of its launch weekend through all of its outlets. Although the same number as for last year, the California-based electronics firm reached this figure in 2009 with only eight countries onboard for the first day, or less than half the 21 that were ready on July 11th, 2008. The similar numbers, combined with a smaller-scale launch, indirectly confirm that US launch sales, including through AT&T, have spiked that much higher in 2009.

APPLE has unveiled “the most powerful iPhone we’ve ever made”, complete with video camera and a new “Find My iPhone” feature.

The iPhone 3GS will be available in some countries, including the US and UK, on June 19, but will launch in Australia on June 26.

The 16-gigabyte iPhone 3GS will cost $US199 ($248), and the 32-gigabyte model $US299 ($372), at launch in America. Australian pricing is yet to be released.

Meanwhile, the price of an original eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G will drop to $US99 ($123).

Apple vice president of marketing Phil Schiller told the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco: “The ‘S’ stands for speed, because this is the most powerful iPhone we’ve ever made.

“What is inside is entirely new.”

The iPhone 3GS looks just like the current iPhone, but promises to load messages, games, documents and website more than twice as fast as the current iPhone.

Apple has also improved the iPhone’s widely criticised camera, increasing its resolution from 2-megapixels to 3-megapixels, and adding video capture and an auto-focus mechanism.

Users will be able to focus the camera by tapping objects shown on the iPhone’s screen.

The iPhone 3GS would also be able to respond to voice commands, Mr Schiller said, announcing what song is playing or automatically dialling names saved in its contact list.

Apple’s new phone will also come with a digital compass, a better battery offering up to 9 hours of web surfing or 5 hours of talk time, and will feature new iPhone software offering more than 100 extra features.

The new software will also be available for use on existing iPhone handsets when it is released on June 17. iPod Touch users will also be able to download the software for a fee.

New features include picture messaging, cut and paste for text, a search function for applications including email, and the ability to remotely delete the data from their iPhone if it is stolen.

Senior vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall said the “Find My iPhone” feature let people use an Apple online Mobile Me service to locate lost or stolen devices.

“It will show you on a map where your phone is,” he said. “You can send it a message and it plays an alert sound whether or not you left it in silent mode.”

The feature also lets people remotely erase all data from lost or stolen iPhones, then reload the information using iTunes if they are reacquainted with their devices.

New Apple 3 GS iPhone

Why We’ve Only Begun to Scratch the Surface

Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 05.13.09 @ 02:10 PM

For nearly a decade, mobile advertising has proven to be the great white whale of digital marketing — forever on the horizon but perpetually out of reach.

But thanks to Apple’s iPhone and App Store, that’s all about to change. The numbers to date are staggering: 1 billion applications served, 35,000 applications available and more than 30 million devices in market. Apple’s meteoric success with the App Store (launched a mere nine months ago) is fueling a mobile-application market boom.

Consumers, once wary of using their phones for anything more than talking or texting, now seem to have an almost insatiable appetite for mobile applications. IPhone owners on average download more than 20 applications to their devices (upward of 40, according to some reports) and Google Android users are even more ravenous.

The market is sure to grow even larger as more companies leap in. Nokia, which has nearly 40% of the global smartphone market, announced that it would be entering the mobile-application fray with its Ovi Store (featuring 20,000 applications available for download) this week, joining competing offerings from BlackBerry, Google’s Android Market, Microsoft and Palm.

All of this is igniting the imaginations of brand marketers and ushering in a land grab for an increasingly valuable piece of real estate: the always-on device in our pockets.

Enter “app-vertising,” a new name for an emerging mix of branded mobile applications and in-application advertising that is finally poised to deliver on the promise of mobile marketing. Here are some marketers getting into the act.

Branded Apps

Uniqlo: Branded applications have seen the most growth since Apple launched the App Store, and Uniqlo’s Uniqlock app is easily one of the most imaginative. Produced by Projector, Uniqlock fuses the utility of a clock with videos of models, attired in Uniqlo clothing, performing a series of mostly quirky dances. Weighing in at a hefty 181 MB, the app certainly packs a punch.

Adidas: The Adidas Urban Art Guide was created specifically as a walking guide to Berlin’s impressive street art, which includes paintings, stencils, paste-ups and stickers from underground artists. The app taps Microsoft Virtual Earth to create routes, provides galleries and even allows users to upload their own artistic discoveries.

Chanel: Fashion brands have certainly embraced the video elements of the iPhone and iPod Touch, and Chanel’s mobile application is no exception. Featuring video from Chanel fashion shows, 70-plus looks and accessories, Chanel News video segments, and even a store locator, this app clearly knows its fashionista audience.

Audi A4: More than half of the top mobile applications are games — and engagement for apps averages nine-plus minutes per session — so it makes perfect sense that the Audi created the A4 Driving Challenge game app. Taking advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer (which allows the device to detect movement), the A4 game allows users to select courses, choose car specifications and more.

In-Application Advertising

Levis: The next wave of mobile advertising will certainly be in-application advertising, and the creative possibilities there are limitless as well. Levi’s Dockers’ “shakeable” ad, built on the Medialets platform, is a great example of how savvy creatives can take advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer to add motion to advertising — in this case, making a khaki-clad model break dance — when the user shakes the device.

Burger King: For Valentine’s Day, Burger King crafted a clever in-app ad, “The Scent of Seduction,” that allowed users to burst heart-shaped bubbles by touching the screen. Greystripe, which ran the in-app ad, reported that 14% of users interacted with it and spent 16 seconds on average playing the game.

While “app-vertising” provides tantalizing opportunities, we are still in the early days here. Recently, Pinch Media analyzed 30 million iPhone app downloads and discovered that only 5% of users will open either a free or paid app 30 days after the initial download. It’s enough to make even the savviest developers or brand marketers question basic assumptions about mobile utility and entertainment.

Still, we are just scratching the surface of what mobile marketing will start to deliver. It’s not hard to imagine how we leap from the Uniqlock app or the shakeable Dockers ad to a whole new world where the GPS is integrated with content and offers; video actually reacts to user movements (think about the storytelling possibilities); and our own voices, channeled through the phone’s microphone, start to control interactions.

Best of all, in the future we’ll still have access to all the rich functionality of some of these mobile apps when the phone goes offline, too. This is due, in large part, to advances in pre-caching technology — a certain relief to anyone who’s struggled to find a 3G signal either on the road or in their own living room.

So will “app-vertising” finally take off? Analysts certainly think so. Sanford Bernstein’s Jeff Lindsay predicts that the worldwide mobile-advertising market will explode, mushrooming from $700 million in 2008 to $7.2 billion by 2012. And with Silicon Alley Insider estimating that in-app advertising fetches a hefty $20 to $30 CPM, there’s no turning back now.

April 23rd 2009 by Mark Walsh
The iPhone once again helped power AT&T’s earnings. While the telecom giant’s first-quarter net income fell 9%, the company managed to beat analysts’ expectations on the strength of its wireless business and the Apple device in particular. AT&T activated 1.6 million new iPhone accounts during the quarter and added 1.2 net new wireless subscribers overall, with 75% signing long-term contracts. The influx of new customers amid the economic downturn helped AT&T report net income of $3.2 billion, or 53 cents a share — down from $3.52 billion, or 57 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue fell slightly to $30.6 billion.

The company’s wireless division had a 13% profit increase and a 9% gain in revenue. The key for AT&T with the iPhone, and other smartphone, is boosting revenue from services other than phone calls like messaging and Web access. To that end, AT&T increased mobile data revenue in the quarter 38.6% to $3.2 billion. And nearly one-third of its 61 million contract customers now own “integrated” devices.

The continued slide in AT&T’s wireline business, with revenue dropping 5.4%, was offset by gains in its high-speed Internet and television services. It added 359,000 Internet connections — up from the fourth quarter — and 284,000 subscribers to its U-Verse TV offering.