Apple Thoughts: I Know, You Are Shocked, But There is a New iPhone!

"After the most number of rumours I've ever seen about any Apple product, Apple finally showed up at WWDC with a new iPhone that looks exactly the same as the previous one. The iPhone 3G S, where the S stands for Speed. Perhaps it's not all that bad as there are some more features under the hood, and new software features enabled by this new speed."

I don't think anyone was surprised by the announcement of the new iPhone 3G S after the plethora of stories that were in the mix in the months leading up to WWDC '09. Now that it has been officially announced, just what do you get for your money? Speaking of money, lets start with pricing.

Thankfully they bumped up the storage in the new iPhone 3G S to 16GB and 32GB, so for $199.00 USD you get 16GB and if you want to go a bit higher, they have the 32GB version for $299.00 USD. The older version of the iPhone 3G 8GB is now $99.00, that is if you can find one in stock.

Along with the storage bump, they also improved the graphics and processor speeds, although they haven't released specifics yet. The speed at which everything works on the iPhone 3G S is supposed to basically double, from loading web pages to opening up applications to improved gaming performance. I'm very happy about this, one of the annoyances I've had with my current iPhone is the delay at times in being able to use applications. Nothing consistent, just random delays. I'm hoping this upgrade will take care of that!

They have also included a new camera, bumping up the equipment to a 3 mega-pixel camera. While this isn't a huge improvement over the current 2 mega-pixel, they also added in the video capability to sweeten the pot a little. Not HD mind you, just VGA. But you will be able to edit and upload your 30fps VGA to YouTube, MobileMe or send it via MMS (if your carrier is supporting it via MMS, something that AT&T currently does not, but that is for another post!).

They have also added a digital compass to help with mapping and GPS applications, and thrown in Voice Control so that we can finally voice dial. The coolest part of Voice Control is that it will also control your music, so you can just tell your iPhone what music or playlist you want to play. This is also going to have the Nike+ support for you athletes out there. Oh and last but not least they have improved the battery life. On 2G you will have 12 hours of talk time, 5 hours on 3G, and 300 hours standby time. If you are watching video, you'll have about 10 hours, or if you prefer listen to 30 hours of audio. If you are surfing on WiFi, you'll have about 9 hours of playtime.

All in all, I think it was a pretty good upgrade to the iPhone. I hear though that there may be some problems in current 3G customers upgrading to for the low prices above, and that some of the features in the 3.0 OS may not be functional with AT&T, but more on that later. How about you, what do you think of the upgraded iPhone 3G S? Anyone going to jump right in on June 19th and pick one up?