It’s Official: iPhone 4 Coming in 17 More Countries on July 30th

Telenor Denmark called it this morning. Steve Jobs has just announced that the iPhone 4 will be released in 17 more countries on July 30th. The white iPhone 4 will also ship by the end of July, but we don’t if these countries will actually get it.

The countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

We’ll keep you posted about offers and carrier plans.

Apple Gives Away a Free Bumper to Every iPhone 4 User Until September 30

This was pretty much expected, and we can’t help but be happy about it. At Apple’s special iPhone 4 conference in Cupertino, Steve Jobs has just announced that Apple is going to give away a free bumper to every iPhone 4 user until September 30. Then they’ll examine the situation.

If you bought one already, you’ll get a full refund. You’ll also be able to apply for a free case through Apple.com and Apple will send one to you.

Nice.

iPad Sales to Dominate Notebook Market

With the iPad being one of the only viable tablets currently on the market for consumers, it’s no wonder that Apple will dominate 93% of the the tablet space by the end of this year. 9 to 5 Mac reports,

The Chinese-language Commercial Times tells us global shipments of tablet PCs in 2010 and 2011 are predicted to come in at 16.4 and 35 million units. That’s nice, but even better (for Apple) 93% and 75% of these tablet PC shipments will be accounted for by iPads. In fact, the iPad is going to grab 40 percent of global demand for notebooks.

Which is bad news for Microsoft and related companies such as Hewlett Packard, whose shipments fell 9 percent while Lenovo and Apple have seen increases in demand.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

Apple Not Paying Foxconn Employees Additional Extension as Rumored

Apple news seems to come in waves. Before we had all the negative iPhone 4 press, there was a period of time when Foxconn was constantly making headlines among Apple sources, and near the end of the bad press, there was a rumor that Apple would be paying Foxconn an additional 2% so that employees could receive wage increases. This never happened.

Foxconn officially denies any involvement with Apple concerning the wages of their employees, stating that they never received any subsidies from Apple. “This isn’t true.” 9 to 5 Mac reports,

The intention of these payments was to end a wave of suicides among Foxconn workers, reportedly unhappy at long hours, long wages, anti-social working conditions and authoritarian management practises.

Foxconn has moved to offer workers large pay hikes, while breaking some of its production units into plants it owns elsewhere in China.

[via AppleInsider and 9 to 5 Mac]

Firefox Home Approved, Mozilla Fans Rejoice

Looking to access your Firefox profile in the cloud? Firefox Home, approved by Apple yesterday, can now be found on the App Store. While I don’t touch Firefox too often, I still appreciate some of its features and am looking forward to the latest update. For those still using the mighty fox, Firefox Home for the iPhone can collect your open tabs, bookmarks, and other related data so that you have a portable carry-on for that workflow.

You can download Firefox Home at this link.

[via TechCrunch and CNET]