Speculation about what Apple's new iPhone will look like is over.
The widely anticipated 3G iPhone was the centerpiece of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference Monday in San Francisco - it is thinner, faster, more open, location aware and even less expensive.
“Just one year after launching the iPhone, we’re launching the new iPhone 3G that is twice as fast at half the price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
“iPhone 3G supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync right out of the box, runs the incredible third party apps created with the iPhone SDK, and will be available in more than 70 countries around the world this year.”
The 3G version of the much lusted after device now combines all the revolutionary features of the iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
A stand-out new app that the iPhone 3G will boast is MobileMe , a new Internet service that pushes email, contacts, and calendars from an online “cloud” to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs.
With MobileMe email, messages are pushed instantly to the iPhone, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads, and push keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically updated on other devices.
Such new capabilities, obviously targeted directly at the business users will now position the iPhone in the same league as the ubiquitous Blackberry say analysts.
So now begins the debate on whether the product's innovations and Apple's strategy are on course to make it another culture-shifting product with a chance to meet its 10 million-unit goal by the end of this year.
While the hype surrounding both the original, and now updated iPhone, clearly outstrips the actual impact it has had on the mobile phone market, its influence over competing hardware and content services is undeniable, according to Kevin Burden, Director of Mobile Devices at ABI Research.
"It has been challenging for competitors to deliver products that rise to the expectations the iPhone is creating, without appearing to chase the innovations of a vendor that holds less than half a percent of the worldwide mobile phone market", said Burden.
"However, the iPhone is one of those rare, disruptive pieces of technology that first raised the bar for consumer-oriented smartphones and is now looking to meet the expectations of enterprise users through support for iWork and Office documents, as well as push support for Exchange, and wirelessly syncing of email, calendar, contacts and gallery content through its new MobileMe service for non-Exchange users."
The device is 3G, allowing it to increase the speed at which users can access the Internet, and is slowly opening the door for over-the-air downloads of rich media content, called by principal analyst Nick Holland "a crippling omission from the first iPhone."
GPS was also a highly desired feature that is included in the new model, with applications that bring location services to social networking efforts and tracking capabilities.
While iPhone's premium price did a lot to improve the value proposition of high-end smartphones, it was one of the factors that limited wider success. Apple has breached the USD 200 threshold with the new version; pricing the 8GB version at USD 199 in every region it is available. The 16GB model will now be priced at USD 299 and a new 32GB version at USD 399.
"At these price points, iPhone has gone from being out of reach to very attainable and compares well from a feature and desirability standpoint against any smartphone currently on the market," according to Burden.
Apple will make the iPhone 3G available in more than 70 countries later this year, beginning with customer availability in 22 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US—on July 11. |
