[Photo courtesy of Engadget.]
Perhaps it was a direct result of the media's overzealous leak reporting, grasping at whatever rumored straw we could ahead of the device's launch. It's seemingly become harder and harder for Apple to keep its new products under wraps with the incessant rumor blogging and patent monitoring, and the company's unholy--if to some degree necessary--alliance with AT&T.
Whatever the reason might be, Steve Jobs opted to save any mention of new hardware until an hour and a half into today's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), instead rolling out SDK-related announcements and nearly causing massive heart attacks around the blogosphere, not the least of which would have belonged to our own phone analyst, Sascha Segan, who was co-live blogging the event.
At 11:30 AM PST, the announcement finally came in the form of the long-awaited iPhone 3G. The second-generation device features a fully plastic back, a number of metal buttons, and a flush headphone jack, and is slightly thinner, but otherwise looks nearly identical to its predecessor.
The new phone is faster, of course, feature AT&T's new 3G speeds, which Jobs claims speed up the browser by 2.8 times, rendering pages 36 percent faster than the Nokia N95 and Treo 750. The new speeds do, of course, give a bit of a hit to the device's battery life. Users should get 300 hours standby time, 10 hours talk time in 2G, 5 hours talk time in 3G, 7 hours of video playback, and 24 hours of audio playback.
According to Apple, the sound quality on both calls and audio playback have been improved. The new iPhone also features built-in GPS, which performs tracking.
The new device is set for release on July 11th in 22 countries. The phone will be available in 8GB and 16GB capacities for $199 and $299, respectively. [Updated: Apple's site lists no 32GB-capacity phone, as we first reported.]
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June 9, 2008 3:29 PM
the Apple Store does not list a 32gb phone if they do not have 32gb then not worth buyin, also apple investors should be up in arms they have not been selling phones for about a month and a half before this gets released.
June 10, 2008 8:34 PM
What about Adobe Flash support? It is a key web plug-in...
Apple needs to open otherwise Gphone will beat them immediatly.
June 28, 2008 9:27 AM
when will i see the iphone in canada and who carry it?