Steve Jobs unveiled the long-awaited iPhone 3G at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, with prices starting at $199 (about £100) for the 8GB storage model.
This is half the price of the original iPhone (which started out at $599). A second model, with 16GB of memory, will sell for $299, said Jobs. Both versions will come in black cases, and the 16GB model will also be available in white.
Twenty-two countries will get the iPhone 3G first, said Jobs, and they'll all get it at the same time: 11 July.
Steve Jobs took the stage on Monday to spend some time talking about enterprise applications for the iPhone and the importance of these to Apple's strategy, before announcing the iPhone 3G.
"Today we're introducing the iPhone 3G," Jobs told the assembled crowd. "We've learned so much with the first iPhone," he continued as he showed off the new iPhone, which is thinner at the edges with metal buttons on the side. It's the same screen, with a camera, a flush-headphone jack and improved audio. It has built-in GPS for expanded location-based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the third-party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
Jobs said that when Apple set about figuring out its next challenges, "3G networking, as you might have heard, is that first challenge. Enterprise support is the second, third is third-party application support, fourth is international support... and fifth, as everybody wants an iPhone, but we need to make it more affordable."
Talking about the original launch almost a year ago, Jobs said: "It's widely believed that this is the phone that has changed phones forever." The thing Jobs said he really likes is that users love their iPhones, quoting 90 percent customer satisfaction numbers.
Ninety-eight percent of iPhone users are browsing, and 80 percent are using 10 or more features, he said, quoting sales of six million units to date.
Jobs compared the 3G iPhone to the Nokia N95 and Treo 750 — two other 3G phones — and said the 3G iPhone is 36 faster to download the same web page. He said the iPhone 3G will 300 hours of standby time, improved talktime from eight hours to 10 hours on 2G talk time, and five hours of 3G talk time. Browsing should give five to six hours, video seven hours, and audio 24 hours of battery life, he said.
Talkback
critics of the iPhone always pointed out it's 2G-ness, now that that's solved, the iPhone's biggest obstacle is network exclusivity, does Apple realise they'd sale a lot more iPhones if they weren't tied to a single network?
Maybe their share of contract fees is too good, but if they want to attract business users and compete with the BlackBerry they'll have to set the iPhone free!
Couldn't agree with you more. Should be user's choice and not the vendor's
right to tell you what network you connect to.
According to O2, they will sell you the new iPhone when it's released for £99.
However you also must sign up for an 18 month contract @ £30 per month. I make that around $1250. Bit far removed from the $199 Jobs is banging on about.
i'm glad i didn't get into the iphone hype. i still have an htc wizard and it's been serving me well for years now. if this breaks down, i'll think of getting the tytn2 or something similar.