Steve Jobs, the emperor of computer cool, has again stood up on stage at WWDC2008, the World Wide Developers Conference held every summer and used as one of the two annual presentations that he typically give to tell us what new gems Apple have for us to drool over.
You can see the full video at Apple. Be warned, this is a long film.
So the big announcement was the iPhone 3G. A brand new iPhone with two key new features. 3G and GPS. Also the device gets better battery life and improved audio. So is it worth it?
Well the big thing that his Jobbieness told us is the new device is going to cost just $199 for the 8Gb version or $299 for the 16Gb version. This is half the price for them on the other side of the pond. So what do we pay back in the UK?
Well that is quite interesting because for the first time, the phone is subsidized. So if I upgrade my phone on my £35 per month contract then I can get the iPhone 3G for £99. Not bad but a little annoying that I get nothing for being a loyal early adopter of the new device. A brand new customer can walk into the O2 store and get the same deal.
There is a new £30 contract but this offers just 75 minutes and 125 SMS messages. For the 35 contract I get 600 minutes and 500 SMS messages. Both of these plans of corse include unlimited data.
The big deal comes when you step up to the £45 or £75 contract when you can get the 8Gb iPhone for FREE! The 16GB is also free on the £75 contract and just £59 when purchased with the £45 contract. See the O2 site for details.
So will I get one?
Yes. But not yet. I am perfectly happy with my iPhone v1 and I am very much looking forward to the free update to version 2.0 that will offer some fantastic new features.
The Apps store has been much anticipated since its announcement in March. But now I am very interested in the Mobile Me service. I have my own MacBook and a company Tosh Windows PC and my iPhone. Mobile Me offers to keep them all in sync. Email, address book, Calendar & pictures. This will push all of these items to all of my devices and keep them in order all over the place. I have been using the .mac service for a little while and this is promised to be the re birth of that service. Very exciting.
The iPhone will have Exchange support and it looks like my company is moving over from Lotus to Exchange so this too is exciting.
The faster data of the 3G network will be nice and the GPS location improvement over the existing GSM location system will be nice. But neither are that much of a big feature to make me rush out and slap down the cash for the new shiny model.
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