Today, Apple kicked-off the 2008 World Wide Developers Conference with the usual Steve Jobs keynote to introduce some new, exciting products. It was much of what was expected leading up to the event, some of which were updates to what we already knew. The first thing they showed was an update on the three new features to the iPhone: 1)Enterprise features 2)SDK (Software Development Kit) and 3)iPhone Software 2.0. The Enterprise features included support for Microsoft Exchange (with push email,contacts, calendar), and showed a video of numerous executives praising the iPhones usefulness in corporate America. Then, the iPhone SDK was updated, with many developers demoing new apps that they will be releasing with the AppStore (which will launch in early July). SEGA made a game called SuperMonkey Ball, in which you tilt the iPhone to roll a monkey in a ball around numerous levels of an obstacle course. Pangea ported their game CroMag Rally to iPhone, in which you "steer" the iPhone to race cavemen through numerous entertaining courses. Then came some more useful apps, as medical companies designed apps in which you can diagram the human body, or even view patient X-Rays and PET/MRI/CT scans on the go. Perhaps the most exciting new app to me, as well as most readers of this blog I presume, was MLB's new iPhone app. Through this app, you can keep track of all the day's games through GameDay like interfaces. In addition, within minutes after big plays happen on the field, you can view a video highlight right on your iPhone, no matter where you are.Next up, Apple demoed a new service to keep your life in sync, across every platform you utilize. The new service, labeled MobileMe, will replace .Mac. Through this service, you can access your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Photos no matter where you are--all delivered in desktop-class, Web 2.0 applications on www.me.com. Perhaps the most useful feature, however, is that all of these features will be synced to all of your devices via "push" technology wirelessly. If you get an email, it will automaticall be pushed to your computer and iPhone from the MobileMe "cloud." If you update a contact on your iPhone, it will automatically show up on Me.com and your computer's Address Book app. This service will be automatically available in early July, as well.
Then came what everyone was waiting for, and expecting, for today...the iPhone 3G. Jobs returned to the stage revealing the new product to much applause. He detailed all of the requested improvements for the iPhone, and proceeded to show how these were reached. First of course, this iPhone is at 3G speeds. 3G is must faster than the current 2G (or EDGE) speeds of the first generation iPhone. In fact, demos showed that the National Geographic website loads in 59 seconds over EDGE, while 3G loads it in just 21 seconds (which is approaching the 17 seconds WiFi speeds). Thus, the new iPhone is more than twice as fast as the old iPhone. Along with 3G capability, Jobs revealed that this iPhone will also incorporate GPS technology. The Maps app will know exactly where you are, and will be able to guide you anywhere you please...you'll never be lost again if you have an iPhone. Next, Jobs addressed the issues of Enterprise and third party applications, which had already been taken care of earlier in the keynote. Both Enterprise support (with Exchange support and Cisco-powered security), as well as third party apps (created by the SDK and distributed in the AppStore) will be fully functional and available out of the box upon the release of iPhone 3G. The next issue tackled was for iPhone to be available in more countries, and that was addressed with Jobs saying that their goal of 25 countries by fall/winter will be exceeded as in the coming months, over 70 countries will have the iPhone. This was accompanied by countries lighting up one-by-one on a world map to the song "It's a Small World" (did you know that Jobs is Disney's majority shareholder?). The last issue was, of course, for the iPhone to be more affordable. That was addressed with booming approval by the crowd, as Jobs announced that the new 8GB model will be sold for just $199 in a black, plastic casing, while the 16GB model will sell for $299 and come in black or white. It goes on sale...July 11! Also, some of the features will be available as a free iPhone Update 2.0 to current iPhone owners, and a $9.95 update to iPod touch owners.
Now obviously, these are some exciting new products and features here today. However, today's event was very developer focused with the iPhone SDK, and an early, secret preview of Mac OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard," (which will concentrate on stability, performance, and security). In addtion, the iPhone 3G provides a fast, affordable way for the iPhone to become more widespread around the world. But today seemed to be missing the fun and innovation as seen from Jobs' keynotes in the past. Maybe we'll see some of those products in the coming months, or within the year. Some things that I was hoping for were:
-updates to the family of notebooks (MacBook,MacBook Pro)
-a Mac tablet. There were many rumors for these leading up to WWDC. Rumors of patents for tablet technology, video conferencing on an iPhone-like device, etc. This has been a long-rumored product that will hopefully see light within the year...perhaps at Macworld 2009?
-a little more enthusiasm/fun/creativity from Jobs like usual...however, this was a very developer-aimed keynote that saw many other Apple executives give talks with a lot of technical information, so this is understandable. A lot of business and technical information was discussed, but this was the World Wide Developers Conference, so maybe we'll see some fun stuff at Macworld 2009
So that wraps it up from an informative day of Apple news. We now wait for the July 11 launch of iPhone 3G, and most likely the App Store and MobileMe. Here are some links to the important products/information of the day:
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