The new iPhone, although almost everyone knew it would have 3G and GPS, was still an extremely hyped keynote on Monday, June 9. Held at the WWDC (World Wide Developer’s Conference) the keynote obviously had a lot to do with development of apps. I’ll do a review of those and some of the new features for the new iPhone coming out on July 11th.
First and foremost, the new body of the iPhone. The casing is now a full plastic and comes in black on the back. The price has also been cut to $199 for the 8GB version and $299 for the 16GB, which also comes in a white casing. The iPhone 3G feels even better in your hand, according to Steve Jobs.
Next, new features. As plainly seen from the name, the new iPhone will feature 3G for wireless data downloads. Tests presented by Jobs at the keynote shows that 3G is over 3X as fast as the Edge network, and nearing Wi-fi speeds. New iPhone users will love faster web and email access with speeds like these. Also, iPhone 3G will include GPS integrated into the Google Maps application, making it an amazing navigation device. Also, the new App Store which will act similar to the iTunes Wi-fi music store and will sell the 3rd party apps for the iPhone, more on that later. Lastly, the iPhone 3G will include accessibility to a ton of more languages.
The main focus of the iPhone 3G seems to be to make it more accessible for the enterprise. Apple had a whole video prepared of many companies discussing how well the new software (iPhone 2.0) was so easily integrated into their network. The software has compatibility with Microsoft Exchange, which will let business not have to switch any other tech. Jobs also discussed in much detail about how business can keep certain apps within their own network.
Jobs also discussed the success of the developer’s SDK and went into deep discussion on the App Store. Developer’s name the price of their apps, and can even distribute them for free. Apple keeps 30% of the sales. The new iPhone 2.0 software can also be used on the iPod Touch and will be sold for $10.
Still, even a second generation device can’t achieve perfection, and neither does the iPhone. Here’s a small list of the problems as generated by C/Net. “Unfortunately, we hoped for an even larger bundle of features in this round. Apple still leaves multimedia messaging out of the mix along with voice dialing and video recording. We still don't understand why Apple can't include these basic features, many found in even the cheapest and simplest cell phones. We were also hoping for a landscape keyboard, the capability to cut and paste, Flash support for the Safari Web browser, expanded memory, and additional Bluetooth profiles. Apple, you left us hanging in a big way. It's also disappointing to hear that the dock is now sold separately for $49, but we suppose that helped cut the price. No, you don't need the dock, but it's nice to have. Even the power adapter and the SIM card removal tool that now come in the box won't make up for its loss.” ~Cnet’s Kent German.
So, the final question remains, should you buy it? If you do not yet have an iPhone, this seems like a perfect opportunity to gain a new device if you don’t mind the small lack of nit-picky features. If you have an iPhone, you will definetly by angered by the GINOURMOUS price cut, so if you want to take advantage of it go ahead, but keep in mind that if you’re not going to take a large advantage of the new hardware features, it might not be worth it, because you can still get the software update in early July.
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