Price cuts, new handset highlight announcements at WorldWide Developers Conference (Globe and Mail)
ComputerWorld, June 9 ,2009
Execs tout 2x speed and video camera, reduced $99 price for old iPhone 3G
Apple today took the wraps off the company’s next iPhone, the ‘iPhone 3G S,’ touting it as twice as fast as the current model and saying it would go on sale in the U.S. and several other markets June 19.
The 32GB iPhone 3G S will sell for $299; a 16GB model will go for $199. Both will be sold at Apple and AT&T’s retail and online stores, as well as at Best Buy and Wal-Mart stores. Apple is also retaining the 8GB version of the iPhone 3G, and starting today will sell that older model for $99. All iPhones sold in the U.S. require a two-year commitment to an AT&T service plan, which start at $70 a month.
Those prices and models match what some bloggers, including Jon Gruber, the well-connected author of Daring Fireball, and analysts had predicted. In particular, the chatter about a cheaper iPhone turned out to be correct, although it was, as analyst Ezra Gottheil bet last week, the existing iPhone 3G at a reduced price, not a new model.
“They filled in the holes,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “It’s evolutionary, not revolutionary. But they did what they had to do. They made it faster, gave it a better camera — I love the tap-to-focus — and added voice control, which was always a drawback.”
Apple’s iPhone 3G S will be powered by iPhone 3.0, the new operating system that the company previewed in March. Current owners of the first- and second-generation iPhone and iPhone 3G will be able to download the new OS as a free upgrade starting June 17.
The announcements of the iPhone 3G S and the availability of iPhone 3.0 came at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where company executives, led by Philip Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, earlier announced that the next operating system for the Mac, Snow Leopard, will launch in September as a $29 upgrade to Leopard. Schiller also unveiled a top-to-bottom refresh of Apple’s laptop line.
Canada
- Both Rogers Wireless and Fido will offer iPhone 3GS starting June 19.
- Rogers/Fido pricing is $199 for 16GB iPhone 3GS; $299 for 32GB iPhone 3GS on a three-year voice and data plan.
- 8GB version of the iPhone 3G will drop to $99 on June 19 at Rogers and Fido with a three-year voice and data plan.
- Rogers is reintroducing the $30/6GB data plan for iPhones effective tomorrow, June 9. Offer available for a limited time.
The iPhone 3G S — the “S” stands for “speed,” said Schiller — will be available June 19 in the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. Other countries will receive the iPhone 3G S starting July 9.
Much of the time that Schiller spent talking up the iPhone was dedicated to bragging about the phone’s faster speeds and touting a new autofocusing camera that captures not only still images, but also video.
“Just tap on what you want to focus on,” said Schiller during a demonstration of the 3-megapixel camera’s autofocusing capability. The camera application lets users switch between still shots and video mode, he added, with the later capable of taking video at a rate of 30 frames-per-second. Because the camera is in the same location on the iPhone, however, video chat won’t be possible, contrary to speculation last month based on AT&T’s plan to expand to a faster wireless network called HSPA 7.2 later this year. The iPhone 3G S does support HSPA 7.2, Apple said in a statement.
The new iPhone also features a new voice control interface for making calls by saying “Dial” along with a name in the address book, or queuing up iTunes tracks by speaking “Play all songs by” and an artist’s name.
As reported widely prior to the kick-off of WWDC, the new iPhone 3G S also features a digital compass; supports data encryption and — via the new iPhone 3.0 “Find My iPhone” feature — remote data wiping; enhanced turn-by-turn directions; and improved battery performance. On the latter, Schiller said that the iPhone 3G S’ battery will run the smartphone for nine hours worth of Internet surfing or 30 hours of music playing.
Apple will release the new iPhone 3.0 software worldwide on June 17, considerably earlier than most analysts had predicted. As the company said in March, the upgrade will be free for all iPhone and iPhone 3G owners, although iPod Touch customers must pay $9.95 for the new software.
Some features included in iPhone 3.0 rely on mobile carrier cooperation, which may or may not be quickly forthcoming, depending on the market. Tethering, the ability to use the iPhone as a conduit to the Web for a notebook computer, will apparently not be immediately available in the U.S., where AT&T has exclusive rights to the iPhone. The same goes for MMS, the ability to send photos along with text messages, said Apple; in that case, MMS capability will be available from AT&T, but not until later this summer.
All in all, Gottheil was impressed, although not overwhelmed. “You can’t blow people away all the time,” he said. Among the disapointments, he ticked off a lack of any information about the iPod Touch, the iPhone-look alike that also relies on the iPhone operating system, and no reduction in AT&T’s data plan pricing
Apple is taking pre-orders of the 16GB and 32GB iPhone 3G S starting today on its online store. According to the site, customers who pre-order will receive their iPhone 3G S on June 19.
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