Only one more day remains until we discover the newest things Steve Jobs has up his sleeve, and our sister blog Appletell has a roundup of all the recent rumors I’ve already looked at the rumors that the iPod Touch is going to gain cameras, Facetime, and the Retina Display here and here, suggesting it may become not only a better e-book reader than ever before but also a better communication tool—essentially, a wifi-only cell phone without the cell. And it will even get the “cell” back if it is paired with an unlimited 3G-to-wifi plan...

I’ve written about using a MiFi or similar device—pocket routers that channel cellular Internet into secure WiFi—to “retrofit” 3G-style everywhere-connectivity to WiFi-only e-book and other devices. While there is a monthly charge for this Internet service, unlike the Kindle and Nook’s 3G, it is available for many more potential uses than the freebie connectivity baked into those devices. You can use it with any or every wireless device you own—at the same time. At least, as long as your bandwidth holds out. At the time I wrote the aforementioned article, Verizon was offering 250 megabytes per month for...

On Slate, Farhad Manjoo is making a rather bold prediction concerning the pricing of Amazon’s Kindle. Only a short time after Jeff Bezos dropped the price to $189 and introduced a lower-priced wi-fi version for $139, Manjoo predicts Amazon will go even lower in time for the holiday season: I rarely make predictions about the tech business, but here goes: Before the holidays, Amazon will cut the price of the Wi-Fi Kindle to $99, and the 3G version will go for $150 or less. Amazon will do so, I think, not only to sell a...

(Spotted by eagle-eyed TeleReader Felix Torres!) First it was the markdowns on the Kindle 2, and the even lower markdowns on refurbished Kindle 2s. This should have been an early clue, given that it’s much the same thing that happened to the Kindle 1 shortly before the Kindle 2 came out. When the Kindle 2 went out of stock on Amazon, it seemed obvious a replacement would be coming soon—and now the Wall Street Journal is covering Jeff Bezos’s next e-ink marvel. Engadget has a closer look at the device (and a bigger version of the...

The Wall Street Journal reports that Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo has said it is in talks with video game console manufacturers about adding 3G connectivity to future generations of handheld consoles. Though NTT DoCoMo declined to identify which companies it was talking to, there are really not that many possibilities. The handheld console market is effectively split between Nintendo’s Gameboy DS (and soon, 3DS) and Sony’s PlayStation Portable. Neither of these companies would comment, either, however. Both the DS and PSP use WiFi, and Nintendo has said its 3DS will include advanced connectivity features. Nintendo’s...

Won't go into all the details of the review, but the bottom line is in the headline above. Macworld found that the video quality delivered over the 3G network was significantly lower than on WiFi. Netflix is down-sampled, for example, and they call the quality "passable". The AirVideo video streaming app had pauses in playback and the updated ABC Player had highly variable quality. YouTube videos were "practically unwatchable, due to their low quality" and were "terribly pixelated". On this whole this does not surprise me at all. I've used my 3G iPhone all over the country on AT&T and find...

TechCrunch reports that the 3G iPad will be shipping as of May 7th. This is the model that costs $130 more than the equivalent wifi-only version and includes the no-contract-required ability to buy 3G access from AT&T on a monthly basis. That will certainly be good for downloading e-book when wifi is not available. Meanwhile, our sister site Gadgetell reports that Sprint has come up with a clever way to make a “4G iPad”—an iPad case with a built-in pocket for Sprint’s “Overdrive” mobile wifi access point. Like the MiFi I’ve discussed as a way to “retrofit 3G”...

How spoiled we e-book readers have become! It was only with the advent of the Kindle that delivery of e-books over 3G wireless became a possibility—and now many users find it is something they just can’t live without. On a TeleRead post about a $150 e-book device earlier today, commenter Devini said, “Without the 3G it’s not worth it,” and Andrea told the story of being at an orchestra rehearsal with her Kindle and finding her ten-year-old son had forgotten to bring a book to pass the time. In a minute or so, we...

Screen size of the new PocketBook 360 is five inches, and  supposedly the price will be $300. But here’s the real news. A $400 model with a six-inch touch screen, Blue Tooth, GPRS and 3G will follow in October if all goes as planned. The more expensive model, at least, is to let you connect a keyboard via Blue Tooth. Possibilities for note-taking? What’s more there’ll be an RSS reader. Salvation for news junkies on the go? Check out the page-changing interfaces for both models shown in the videos. What do you think? Beyond the PocketBooks: The e-reader as a commodity At the macro level,...