CORP TALK: It has been in talks for months but it’s finally here. The two remaining telecom companies in Singapore - M1 & StarHub - will be joining SingTel when they launch the Apple iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS this Wednesday, 9 December 2009.

SingTel was the exclusive distributor of the iPhone 3G when it was first launched last year. It then brought in the iPhone 3GS on July 10 this year.

The Singapore team at HardwareZone.com has compiled a chart comparing the plans of all three telcos in the run-up to their impending launches.

Hit the link to check out the chart (prices are in Singapore dollars). (more…)

The Teardown Squad at Nikkei Electronics has dismantled the iPhone 2G and 3G models to compare component placements and reduction in costs.

SHOWCASE: The Nikkei Electronics Teardown Squad has put up a feature story showing the difference of the internal structure between the iPhone 2G and the iPhone 3G.

What the team had done is to disassemble the iPhone 3G and compare its components with those found in the the 2G model. While on the outside, both models look similar, engineers found that Apple had taken some measures to reduce the mounting area and parts costs with the 3G model.

What the engineers found is that the 2G model had its main parts mounted on both sides of a frame in the center of the chassis while the 3G model had parts placed on the back cover of the chassis. (more…)

First launched for Singapore, BuUuk, a free iPhone app, will soon allow iPhone 3G users in Indonesia to collectively rate a restaurant in Jakarta and Bali.

CORP TALK: Looks like all five countries HWM is in (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines) will finally see the Apple iPhone 3G officially being launched and made available to all. Indonesia’s Telkomsel will be launching the phone on the same day as Malaysia’s Maxis (as announced a few days ago), completing the much documented and final official push of the iPhone 3G (and its highly attractive App Store) into the region. 

The Indonesian launch will be held at Pacific Place South Pavilion, Jakarta and customers can buy the iPhone 3G during the launch period over three days starting from 10pm on 20 March 2009.

One-year service plans include the cost of the iPhone 3G with the lowest being 2,622K rupiah (US$219) for the 8GB to the highest being 5,912K rupiah (US$493) for the 16GB. Subscription plans, which offer free data capacity of either 500MB or 1GB with different free talktime minutes and SMS, would then cost between 354K rupiah (US$30) and 733K rupiah (US$61) per month. (more…)

While the price plans are up, we're curious as to whether the App Store will be a popular haunt for iPhone 3G users in Malaysia.

CORP TALK: Malaysian telecom company Maxis has joined the ranks of SingTel (Singapore),  Globe (Philippines) and TrueMove (Thailand) to make Malaysia the fourth country to officially bring the Apple iPhone 3G into the ASEAN region. Available for pre-order on their website, the iPhone 3G will launch in Malaysia on 20 March with a price plan dependent on the type of contract a user chooses.

There are three main contract plans: 6-month, 12-month and 24-month, with each plan having four different tiers of free talktime minutes, data usage, additional data usage, SMS and so on. For those who take up the 6-month plan, there are two tiers where voice rate charges differ if a Maxis user calls a non-Maxis user versus a Maxis user.

Anyway, for a 12-month contract, the 8GB iPhone will cost between RM1080 (US$295) and RM1900 (US$519) while the 16GB version will range from RM1470 (US$400) to RM2290 (US$624). That’s just for the phone. For free talktime and data usage rates, plans like i-Value 1 costs RM100 (US$27) monthly and gives users 333 minutes and 500MB of data. The highest plan, i-Value 4 costs RM375 (US$102) monthly and gives users 2500 minutes and 3GB of data. (more…)