AT&T to simplify iPhone bills; Apple release iMovie '08 update

AT&T iPhone statements

Many iPhone customers were taken by surprise last month when they received their first paper statement (bill) from wireless carrier AT&T. As the guys at ArsTechnica have been reporting, some of these things were just massive and ridiculous in length.

"One of our bills is a whopping 52 pages long, and my own bill is 34 pages long," wrote Ars's Ben Kuchera. "They're printed on both sides, too."

It was even worse for other customers, some of which reported that their bill arrived in a "box" and was in excess of 300 pages. Essentially, AT&T for whatever reason was itemizing some iPhone customers' data usage every time they hopped on the Internet via EDGE — even if they were signed up for the unlimited data plan.

"AT&T goes into an incredible amount of detail to tell you—well, almost nothing," Kuchera explained. "For instance, I know that on July 27 at 3:21 p.m. I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as 'Data Transfer.' The Type of file? 'Data.' My total charge? $0.00."

The matter soon gained national media attention from the likes of USAToday and ABC television news, which appear to have hit their mark. AT&T iPhone customers on Wednesday began receiving text messages from the carrier explaining that it plans on "simplifying" future bills by "removing itemized detail."

iMovie 7.0.1

Meanwhile, Apple on Wednesday afternoon release iMovie 7.0.1 [9MB], which addresses issues associated with publishing to .Mac Web Gallery. The update, which targets the version of iMovie included with iLife '08, also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.