iPhone 3G S

Here's a quick look at Apple's big iPhone announcement during yesterday's keynote at WWDC.

As many suspected, there is indeed a new iPhone this year: the iPhone 3G S.  The “S” stands for “speed” and represents one of the biggest changes to the phone: increased processor speed.  Other changes include a 3 megapixel autofocus camera with video capabilities (up from a still-only fixed-focus 2 megapixel camera in the 3G), voice recognition, and a magnetometer for compass duties.  One thing that didn’t change: the design (hence the lack of a picture with this entry).  The 3G S looks the same as the 3G, and comes in the same colors as the old 16 GB model; the S comes in 16 and 32 GB models.

In addition to the hardware upgrades, the operating system is being bumped up to 3.0 (a free upgrade for existing iPhone users).  The new software sports a multitude of features, including long-yearned-for abilities like cut, copy, and paste and MMS messaging (pictures, photos, videos, etc.).  The new software also brings a voice memo recorder, search capabilities in all major applications, phone-wide search (called Spotlight), landscape keyboards in all major applications, and a whole lot more.  The new features are too many to list here; see Apple’s iPhone 3.0 page for details.

With these updates, the iPhone now meets or exceeds most expectations for the device, save one: the phone still does not support Flash, the browser plug-in responsible for the animations on many web pages.  While not a major hindrance to the Internet experience, there are some sites that are built entirely on Flash and are thus not accessible by this phone.  To the best of my knowledge, however, few—if any—phones out there support it either.

The new phone and accompanying software arrive on June 17th.  If you are a 3G owner and are interested in upgrading, think again: you need to be at least 18 months into your current contract before you can upgrade for the regular price.  For many of us, that means at least December.  If you just can’t wait, you can pay an extra hundred or two (I don’t remember) to upgrade early.  Personally, I think the 3.0 OS update will be enough to tide Karrie and I over for a while; I believe we will wait an additional six months after we become eligible and pick up even newer iPhones a year from now (if current trends continue).

The two price points remain the same: $199 is now for a 16GB model and $299 is now for a 32GB unit.  If the monthly plans seem OK to you but you’re not quite ready to drop a couple hundred for one of these, you may be interested in an 8GB 3G (no “S”) for only $99.  I’m not sure if this is a way to burn off old stock or whether they will continue making these, so if you’re interested you might want to act soon.  Next week I’ll report on iPhone OS 3.0 after I have it on our phones.