GottaBeMobile - Apple News Roundup From WWDC : Tablet PC & Mobile PC News & Video Reviews, and Tablet PC Forums

Monday, June 09, 2008

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Apple News Roundup From WWDC

- Rob Bushway

Here is a wrap-up of Apple WWDC iPhone news that I followed via MacRumorsLive.com and live audio feed courtesy of iPhoneAlley.com

Next iPhone: 3g, enterprise support, sell in more countries. Pricing - more affordable. Today introducing iPhone 3G. 3G approaching WiFi speeds.

Available: July 11 in 22 countries
Pricing: 3G - 8 GB: $199, 16 GB: $299. White also available.

Camera, flush headphone jack, thinner, black plastic back. GPS built-in.
They sold 6,000,000 iPhones in first year.
entirely New - MobileMe. "Exchange for the rest of us". We all get push email, contacts, and calendars. Access from iPhone, Mac, PC, or other devices. Keep it all sync, just like Exchange. Works over the air wirelessly. me.com - new web application for MobileMe. iDisk is integrated. iPhoto synchronization. From the sounds of this, and from images I'm seeing on MacRumors, this has the potential to really challenge Gmail and their disparate solutions. This solves some huge holes for many not in the enterprise space. $99 per year. 20 gb of storage. Free 60 day trial. Available in early July with iPhone 2.0 software. What about .mac? MobileMe replaces .mac.
ad hoc distribution of apps - distribute your app to up to 100 iPhones at a time. Must be certified to do it.
enterprises can also distribute their own apps, create apps that only run on certain phones, and can distribute those apps over their intranet
app store distribution: 10 mb or less - download iPhone apps over cellular. More than 10 mb, download over WiFi
early July release for iPhone 2.0 software, free for iPhone owners, $9.95 for iPod Touch
handwriting recognition for Asian languages
New contact search
bulk move and delete
Support for word, excel and powerpoint
Save images from email to local storage
Scientific calculator - landscape
Parental controls ( yeah! )
Almost all the focus of WWDC was on the SDK and from companies like eBay, Modality, MIMVista, TypePad, etc that have already developed software to be available on the App Store at launch for a fee or for free. Tons and tons of demos - touch, music, gaming using the accelerometer, etc.
Initial focus was on Exchange for enterprise support in iPhone 2.0 software

Apple

6/9/2008 12:14 PM MST

Apple News Roundup From WWDC Comments [9] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Monday, June 09, 2008 12:58:59 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

$199 for the 8gb and $299 for the 16gb. HTC and WM7 better have something up their sleeve or else they're going to lose a healthy share of the market, especially considering all the improvements and enhancements that the iPhone is bringing to the table. In fact, HTC's current offerings and WM6.1 will is already behind Apple with the release of the 3g iPhone. The first looks at the HTC Diamond's UI on WM6.1's backbone is molasses slow compared to even the first generation iPhone.

truc

Monday, June 09, 2008 1:39:25 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I officially have no reason to not upgrade to the iPhone.

BTW, Rob and Warner, I previously disputed your claims that the iPhone SDK was the final blow to the competition. I still wouldn't say "it's all over except the crying", but I admit the demos were more impressive than I was expecting. And I'm not just saying that because there was a PET/CT image viewer showcased (my livelihood depends on such images).

Sumocat

Monday, June 09, 2008 1:43:40 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I like a lot of the improvements, but there still is no mention of a task list -- I'm not quite sure what to make of it, given the exchange support, but I guess it will depend on what they actually deliver on 7/11.

Paul Harrigan

Monday, June 09, 2008 3:27:12 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Any word on the pricing of the voice and data plans for the iPhone 3G? I assume the voice plans remain at the same price, but have not seen any indication of prices for the 3G data plan. Are they sticking to the $20/month add-on to voice?

Fernando

Monday, June 09, 2008 3:35:27 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

have not heard, but I'm assuming it stays the same. I can put my iphone sim card in my HTC Tilt and have 3G access for the same price.

Rob

Monday, June 09, 2008 4:34:51 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Unfortunately the data plan increases to $30/mo to add 3G - epic fail IMO.

So, I'm part of the silent significant percentage who has an original iPhone and will not upgrade. I'm going to college next year and there's going to be WiFi all over campus, and it's not like GPS is going to help me find my way around campus. Besides that, there's no real changes - just another $10/mo. Epic fail.

So although Apple did make the actual phone itself cost less, it's still pretty unaffordable when you have people on $30/mo Verizon basic voice plans and you're trying to convince them to all of a sudden pay $80/mo - it's not actually affordable now. But, if you're already paying that kind of money per month on a cell plan, and you don't already have an iPhone, there's honestly no real reason not to get one - even if they don't have task lists, a) somebody will probably write a program for the App Store that incorporates task lists and b) the new stuff you're getting like Safari and the iPod functionality far outweighs that kind of negative.

wickedpheonix

Monday, June 09, 2008 8:09:15 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

No mention of a task manager has got me concerned too. I'll still buy one though.

Doug

Doug Peters

Monday, June 09, 2008 11:04:03 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Wow, I just might jump on this band wagon and give a it a go. My contract with Sprint is due in July and I think a new iPhone would make a nice complement to my MacBook Pro.

VT808

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:59:02 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I don't want to be, as we say here in Italy, a "bastian contrario" (a person who always says the opposite of the others) but I'm not really "WOWed" by this iPhone 3G, I admit that I waited for something more.
What exactly?
1) An higher resolution screen.
or
2) A thinner form factor

I've used for some time the iPhone first generation and, as a pure phone, it's big! I can accept its size because it's a lot more of a pure phone but to me the most important feature is the global internet access and the resolution of the screen is simply not enough, even considering the really good zoom feature.
So what?
It has ALMOST bought me but I'll still wait some months to see what Android will have to offer.

Franco

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