There’s still no announcement of new iPhone hardware to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 3.0 software (which should get closer to a finalized version by June’s WWDC), but we’re seeing dribs and drabs of rumors of what might be included in the next iPhone. Today, the gadgetosphere is awash with the leak that Omnivision has been selected to provide 3.2-megapixel image sensors for the next iPhone, as well as 5-megapixel sensors for an unnamed different product that will launch later in 2009. The Register reminds us that size doesn’t always matter, and that if the 3.2-megapixel sensor isn’t backed up with good optics, the camera will still be as frustrating as the current 2-megapixel iPhone camera. Ars Technica suggests pairing the new sensor with OmniVision’s Wavefront Coding technology, “which uses specialized optics and digital processing to achieve much sharper images with greater depth of field.” (And for the love of the gods of Kobol, please please please quicken the shutter speed–I can rarely get a good shot of my never-still toddler; see sample at right. Then again, for a more positive outlook, one could just think of the blurriness and washed out colors as features and a sign of a certain photographic time–much like Polaroid photos from the 1970s.)

The French-based Hardmac site rounds up some other rumors that it’s been sifting through, including the Mac OS X Snow Leopard drop not until September at the earliest and laptop refreshes in November with Intel Nehalem processors. Now, let’s swing through the rest of the bits and bytes of Apple-y goodness from the week that was…

• President Obama met the Queen of England this week and gave her an iPod (not her first–she previously had a 2005 6 GB silver iPod mini), which was loaded up with pictures and video from her 1957 and 2007 visits, as well as a wide variety of show tunes. The exact model is unspecified, but I’m assuming its the larger video-capable iPod classic.

  At least President Obama didn’t double-down on his DVD goof of a present to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown–which were Region 1 encoded so he couldn’t play them once he got home to 10 Downing Street. But Boing Boing wonders if President Obama turned turned the Queen of England into a copyright crook. Additionally, it’s not going to be a piece of cake for the Queen (or, most likely, her handlers) to move the content from the iPod to a PC (I’d direct her tech guru to this iLounge article). The Queen reciprocated with a signed portrait of herself and her husband, Prince Philip.

• Skype finally got the iPhone app treatment (iTunes link) this week–bringing the ability to make phone calls over Wi-Fi to both the iPhone and iPod touch, making the latter a viable mobile phone alternative–and it’s topped 1 million downloads in just two days. Ars Technica has a lengthy rundown on what it does and doesn’t do, CNET provides some handy FAQs, and my pal Glenn Fleishman writes at his Wi-Fi Net News site that AT&T should be thrilled that folks might be using VoIP to make calls: “Every minute that you use over Skype over Wi-Fi is a minute that AT&T doesn’t have to pay cellular transit costs for.”
• Ars Technica also reports on the long-awaited upcoming version of SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone, which will only be compatible with newer newer Slingbox SOLO, Slingbox PRO, and Slingbox PRO-HD devices. And TUAW reports that AT&T has quietly changed its TOS (terms of service) to combat the oncoming rush of streaming video, prohibiting “customer initiated redirection of television or other video or audio signals via any technology from a fixed location to a mobile device.”
• Macworld has a review of Air Sharing (iTunes link), one of my favorite iPhone apps. It allows you to wirelessly drag and drop files to your iPhone/iPod touch (after short process of hooking your device up to your PC), and it supports major document formats (including MS Office, PDF and MPEG-4 videos). I used it to gather PDFs of all of my invites and travel documents when I traveled to Macworld, so I didn’t have to carry a bunch of folded bits of paper with me.
• In other app news, Microsoft exec Stephen Elop, President of the Business Division hinted that an Office client might find its way to the iPhone.
• Now that Apple has pulled out, the 2010 Macworld conference will get out of the way of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and be held in San Francisco from February 9 to 13 (via Cult of Mac).
• The gadgetosphere continues to comment on last week’s big hubub over Lauren (who’s not cool enough to be a Mac person) and her new HP laptop, with the Baltimore Sun’s Apple a Day blog saying that this confirms Microsoft is scared of Apple (largely due to its success with the iPhone and Microsoft’s fizzle with the Zune) and Farhad Manjoo writing in Slate that the ad strategy might be good for the economically crunched moment, but not for the long term:
  

  What happens when young, telegenic people in L.A. can once again spend $1,300 or $1,500 or more for a laptop? What will they do when they hear from Lauren that her $700 machine is grindingly slow and that hauling it around is cramping her acting career? By selling people lots of cheap Windows PCs now, Microsoft risks cementing the idea that PCs are cheap. And in the computer business, “cheap” isn’t an adjective you want to court. Customers may start to think that paying a bit more will get them something better. And when they can afford to pay more, they will.

• Woz Watch: It all came crashing down for Steve Wozniak on Dancing with the Stars this week. But on the bright side, Woz hit it off so well with his dancing partner Karina Smirnoff that he’s going to walk her down the aisle at her upcoming wedding. I gotta say, Woz lasted longer and did much better than I anticipated, and despite the injuries and vote rigging allegations he’s had a really good attitude about the whole thing. So much so that he had one last dance in him for Jimmy Kimmel’s show:

–Agen G.N. Schmitz

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