iPhone 2.0, Leopard's makeover and SDK-crazy developers

Apple introduced the new iPhone 3G and more at the Worldwide Developers' Conference this morning.

Apple's WWDC announcements - iPhone 3G hits New Zealand in just one month, the new iPhone SDK has topped 250,000 downloads, Dot Mac will become the wireless MobileMe service and the next OS has been announced.

The 11th July release of the iPhone 3G makes ours among the first the worldwide releases, with Australia, Italy and Portugal joining us at the forefront of Apple's release plan. Like New Zealand, Australia and Portugal have shown dramatic rises in Apple uptake over the last few years, and Italy has been at the forefront of iPhone negotiations for some time. Indeed, Apple is handled by Apple Australia anyway, almost like a state of Australia.

The new iPhone 3G model is slimmer than the one it replaces (Apple has sold out of all its old stock, apparently, to pave its way) and 3G makes the new iPhone twice as fast, according to Apple.

It's cheaper too, at US$199 for the 8GB model and US$299 for the 16GB (about NZ$259 and $394 respectively). The NZ models will most likely sell for more - I'm guessing as high as $375 and $500, going by trends. Ouch.

The NZ iPhone 3G will be carried by Vodafone NZ as both prepay and on contract price plans which will include, says Vodafone NZ, "great value data bundles". Other iPhone 3G markets will follow the first four countries already announced.

Customers in Vodafone's ten markets where iPhone 3G will be available can pre-register online and in retail stores in the next few days, according to Vodafone's announcement.

Big deal, huh? Actually, yes, it is. The new iPhone will not only be fully supported by a powerful NZ cell phone carrier complete with full email and internet access, the new model boasts features designed to appeal to the enterprise sector.

These include support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide over-the-air push email, and contact and calendar syncing as well as remote wipe and Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to corporate networks.

The iPhone 2.0 software can achieve real-time mapping and tracking using GPS technology, mass move and delete of multiple email messages, contact search, a new scientific calculator, parental control restrictions and the ability to save images directly from web pages.

Imagine a rep driving along, listening to their iPhone's music collection over their car stereo. A call comes in, the car is stopped, the call is answered, instantly online and doin' business ...

And if you think the other big players don't care about what Apple does with its "phoney" (ha ha) iPod, they're already reacting - check out what 9to5Mac has to say about that.

A greatly expanded base of application developers are madly building programs to further expand the iPhone 3G's capabilities, with over 250,000 downloads of the iPhone 3G Software Development Kit listed already from this site, free. 

Among other Apple announcements today at the World Wide Developers' Conference in San Francisco was the new App Store, an online service for iPhone users.

The App Store deals native iPhone applications in the categories games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. The App Store on iPhone will work over cellular networks and Wi-Fi so you can purchase and download applications wirelessly for immediate use. Some applications will be free and the App Store will notify when updates are available for you. This service will be available in 62 countries at launch.

Another new service announced today is MobileMe, a new online subscriber service that pushes email, contacts, and calendars from an online "cloud" to native applications on the iPhone - and on the iPod touch, on Apple Macs - even PCs. MobileMe - you can take Apple's guided tour - is a replacement for Apple's doomed Dot Mac service, with Dot Mac users already getting emails from Apple telling them how to prepare for the switch.

With MobileMe email, messages can be pushed instantly to iPhones, removing the need to manually check email and await downloads. Push keeps contacts and calendars continuously up to date so changes made on one device are automatically updated on others. With the iPhone 3G, you can snap photos and post them directly to a MobileMe Gallery to share with friends and family, for example.

Oh - and Apple's next OS won't be a Cheetah - it may be fast, but it won't be false. It's called Snow Leopard.

Meanwhile, we await Vodafone NZ's pricing for the iPhone 3G and its various plans. Come on, abate our baited breaths, Vodafone.

Mark Webster, mac.nz