The iPhone 3G S has been announced, and we have all the details and pictures for you. See our Flickr collection of 100 images here, and the transcript by clicking on the title of this story!
[Editor’s Note: We’ve heavily pruned the gallery since this article was initially posted, reducing the total number of images to better spotlight the good ones.]
The Keynote will begin at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, presented by Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apple, Inc., as well as a list of unnamed additional Apple executives. Our updates will be presented in reverse chronological order. We ask that you only reload the page if our updates section completely disappears.
12:03 AM: Phil notes everything that was shown. Just a start to WWDC, with many pieces of software to be discussed with developers. Phil thanking all the people who have made this possible – teams of people working on products. Applause for Apple’s personnel. The iPhone 3G[S] is the way they’re listing it. Keynote’s over. Thanks for reading!
11:55 AM: Accessibility features as well to help get emails or web pages automatically read to people, can invert the color for improved visibility. Nike+ added. Businesses have asked for data encryption, now it’s added. Battery life: iPhone 3GS 9 hours internet over wi-fi, 10 hours video playback, 30 hours of music, 12 hours 2G talk time, 5 hours 3G talk time. Whatever. Environmentally improved as well. iPhone 3GS: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, qualified customers. Black or white versions. Will come with iPhone 3.0. More affordable iPhones? Keeping iPhone 3G for $99 at 8GB. Starts today. iPhone 3GS June 19th availability date US/Canada/France/Germany/Italy/Spain/Switzerland/UK, then a week later with six more countries. Then rollouts into a number of countries, over a couple of months in summer.
11:49 AM: 3MP autofocus and autoexpose. Lets you tap on a focus point on screen using the on-screen preview image. Macro from 10cm distance. And video capture. 30FPS video, plus audio, and auto-white balance. Apps can do video capture now too. Voice control has been added to iPhone 3GS. Options come up on screen, and you can dial and read a phone number to the phone. And control iPod playback with the sound of your voice. “Play songs by The Cure.” You can ask it “What’s Playing Now?” It’ll tell you. “Play More Songs Like This” for genius playlists. Also built-in digital compass. Exactly like the images we previously showed. Maps can now re-orient based on the compass.
11:46 AM: Specifically calls out Palm. iPhone 3GS introduced – S for speed. 2.1x faster at launching Messages, 2.4 for a demo game, 3.6x faster for Excel, 2.9x faster for a web site. Looks a lot like the iPhone 3G, no obvious front-facing camera. Now supports 7.2MBPS HSDPA. OpenGL ES 2.0, for gaming. Also has a new camera.
11:44 AM: That’s it for Scott. Phil Schiller is back. iPhone has changed how people think about their phones. 2/3 of all mobile browsing now on iPhone / touch. Comparing against competitors and knocking their app stores.
11:42 AM: iPhone OS 3.0 free for iPhone + iPhone 3G customers, $10 for iPod touch and iPod touch 2G users. June 17 worldwide launch. Developers will be given gold master of iPhone 3.0 today. Two calls of action – go to iTunes Connect and set age ratings for apps. Then download OS 3.0 and test against it to make sure apps are compatible, quickly submit and update. Audience laughs knowingly.
11:37 AM: Line6 and Planet Waves. Two companies have teamed up to let you control your guitar and amp right from your iPhone. RigRemote software lets you choose from various models.
Yet another problem with accessory connecting with the iPhone. Audience applauding again anyway.
11:33 AM: Zipcar. Leading car-sharing service, with 300,000 members, 6,000 vehicles around N. America + UK. New iPhone app – tap ZipCar icon on iPhone to auto-locate available cars. You can easily search, pan, zoom into Zipcar locations, pick one to get a car that’s available now. Can choose whatever car you want, with the cost, facts about the car, and favorite tagging all easily accessible, with a time reservation made instantly from the phone. Tap the iPhone’s screen to activate the horn to find the car. Tap a button to unlock the car. Awesome. There’s an adapter in the car waiting to charge the phone, too.
11:30 AM: Pasco – company teaching science to kids. Science accessory depending on an app – balloon test. Not working quite properly. Welcome to Jeremy’s life testing accessories on a daily basis.
11:26 AM: Ngmoco. Showing off their latest title. Star Defense. Will come with 7 planets plus 1 challenge planet. You’ll also be able to add content + feature packs, with a “Shop” button from the main menu. For a “few dollars more” you get an entire new galaxy. Lot of overenthusiasm here. Over the Internet, using “Plus Network” feature, you can play head-to-head anywhere. Game is available now for $6. 3.0 features will need you to wait for 3.0 release.
11:23 AM: Tom Tom. Wow, Apple’s Forstall is laying it on here – saying that Tom Tom is still the name his kids refer to in-car GPS with. Tom Tom bringing navigation to iPhone. Real Tom Tom navigation in an app. Letting you know where you are with on-screen imaging and voiceovers. Designed to be really easy to use in the car. An optional accessory to be offered – a holder that can mount the iPhone to the windshield or the dashboard. It can improve the GPS speaker and enhance the speaker via your car stereo, and add a microphone for handsfree, as well as powering the iPhone while you drive. They’ll be making maps available for multiple territories: Tom Tom for iPhone. Coming this summer.
11:20 AM: ScrollMotion – digital book company. Bringing content to the iPhone, new in-app bookstore powered by in-app purchase. Over 500 bestsellers in the store already – now 50 major magazines and 170 daily newspapers, and 1 million books coming to App Store. Book downloads directly into the app, with a bookshelf. Swipe to turn pages, pinch to zoom. Copy and paste, in-app email let you now do citations from the books without ever leaving the app. They are partnering with leading textbook publishers to bring textbooks to the App Store. App is the Iceberg Reader.
11:17 AM: Medical community is flocking to iPhone, Airstrip says. New app called Critical Care for doctors. Push notification lets medical professionals get alerts on lab results… see test results and view more info on patient. Can even monitor vitals on a patient while away from the hospital, just as if they were at the patient’s bedside. Can’t wait to see the first made for TV movie on this one. Can also review prior data, zoom in on the data over time, letting doctors have access to any data they need anywhere they are. Awaiting FDA clearance.
11:13 AM: Demos of iPhone OS 3.0. Gameloft up first. Asphalt 5 racing game. 12 locations, 27 licensed cars, 4 motorcycles, including major brands like Ferrari, Audi. Audi R8 going on a spin, so now car stereo has access to iPod audio library. Graphics improve a lot on Asphalt 4, they note – better lighting, environments and frame rates. Better controls, too. Crowd gasping. Peer-to-peer multiplayer, worldwide also over wi-fi, including voice chat.
New levels and cars to be downloadable for 99 cents per pack, 1 track + 3 cards. Airstrip is a medical software company, up next.
11:11 AM: Google Maps can be embedded in apps. Pan, zoom, custom annotations, geocode + reverse geocode from apps. Also devs can make turn-by-turn mapping apps… sigh. Push notifications. Custom Alert Sounds, instant messages/text alerts, numerical badges. Custom Alert can be the sound of an ESPN chime, or whatever developer prefers.
11:08 AM: Huge applause for Find My iPhone. In-app purchase. You can subscribe to content, get new levels for games, etc from right inside apps. Business terms for in-app purchase remain same: 30% cut to Apple. Free apps remain free for lifetime of the app. Peer-to-peer support, totally seamless wireless connection between devices. Accessories. iPhone OS 3.0 lets hardware accessory develoeprs make products that communicate with software. Previously noted Johnson + Johnson blood glucose monitor can communicate with app to help you monitor glucose and plan meals. Developers can create custom protocols if they need.
11:05 AM: Total over 30 languages supported in 3.0; list of new ones (including “right to left” languages, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.) is in our prior article. Next feature – misplace your iPhone? Find My iPhone. It’s a service for MobileMe customers. If you lose or misplace, log into MobileMe and it’ll show you on a map where your phone is. If you left it at a restaurant, you can send a message and have an alert sound play even if you’ve left the phone in silent mode. (Assuming the battery’s not dead. So on an iPhone 3G, you have a few hours.) If it’s actually been stolen, you can also send a remote wipe command to clean it off. Restore from backup when you get it back.
11:03 AM: Support for streaming HTTP audio and video to improve video and audio quality over specific connection. AutoFill for website logins.
10:59 AM: Parental controls, including age-appropriate apps. Tethering to give iPhone Internet connection to your computer – so you can access Internet by connecting iPhone to computer. Works with Macs and PCs. Works wired over USB or wireless via Bluetooth. No need for special software. Requires carrier support – 22 carriers in 42 countries at launch. Audience groans again. Safari is 3x faster now.
10:55 AM: iPhone OS 3.0 is next. Over 100 new features, including Cut Copy Paste. Works across all apps. Undo support to let you undo your last action. Landscape mode, letting people use keyboard on widescreen into multiple apps – all key apps. Mail, Notes, Messages (SMS). MMS added this time to Messages, letting people send audio files, locations, text. Requires carrier support. 29 of carriers in 76 countries will support MMS at launch. AT&T will support it “later this summer.” Audience groans. He continues on: Search. You can search calendars, notes, emails, etc, including old messages on mail server. Spotlight is the single location on the home screen to search across the phone, including applications. iTunes – rent and purchase movies and audiobooks and TV shows from phone.
10:54 AM: People all over the world listing their favorite apps. Apple’s marketing the developers’ dreams to developers in the audience.
10:52 AM: People talking about their great stories of iPhone changing the way people enjoy and access content, how they’ve had great experiences creating apps. Video’s going on for a while.
10:50 AM: “Amazing” developer stories of people making titles for the iPhone and doing well financially, changing jobs as result of iPhone app development opportunities. Video to show off the stories.
10:47 AM: Scott Forstall up for iPhone chat. Incredible year for iPhone. Less than year ago OS 2.0 + SDK. Developers could build native apps. Free SDK = 1m downloads. 50,000 apps in App Store. Apple has gotten App Store to run on iPhone + iPod touch.
