Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com
Apple's CEO Steve Jobs has announced the iPhone 3G at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Below is an excerpt of CNET News' live coverage of the event starting with the first mention of this highly-anticipated mobile phone.
11:28 a.m.: Jobs retakes the stage. "Now I'd like to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, the iPhone."
11:30 a.m.: They're showing pictures of the iPhone launch day, almost one year ago. "It's widely believed that this is the phone that has changed phones forever." But the thing Jobs 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. Steve says they have sold 6 million iPhones to date, since they ran out a few weeks ago.
11:31 a.m.: "We did figure out what our next challenges are." 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 &mdash as Jobs jokes about the unlocked iPhones all over the world &mdash and fifth, everybody wants an iPhone, but we need to make it more affordable.
11:32 a.m.: "Today we're introducing the iPhone 3G."
11:33 a.m.: "We've learned so much with the first iPhone." Jobs shows off the pictures; it's thinner at the edges, a black plastic back, and metal buttons on the side. It's the same screen, with a camera, a flush-headphone jack (which gets wild applause), and improved audio.
11:35 a.m.: Jobs goes over the 3G support first. Faster downloads are a no-brainer, he says. He does a side-by-side comparison of a Web page loading on EDGE vs. one on 3G. The National Geographic's home page downloads in 21 seconds on the 3G network, and the EDGE one is taking forever. Twenty-one seconds is a lot, but this is a pretty photo-heavy Web page. It took 59 seconds on EDGE. The 3G speeds are close to Wi-Fi, Jobs said.
11:38 a.m.: He compares the 3G iPhone to the Nokia N95 and Treo 750, two other 3G phones, and says the 3G iPhone is 36 faster to download the same Web page. in an iPhone 1.0 to iPhone 2.0 comparison, an e-mail attachment downloads in five seconds on the 3G model, and 18 seconds on EDGE. Jobs says the 3G iPhone will 300 hours of standby time, improved from 8 hours to 10 hours on 2G talk time, and he's quoting 5 hours of 3G talk time. Browsing should give you 5-6 hours, video 7 hours, and audio 24 hours of continuous operation.
Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com
11:39 a.m.: "Location services is going to be a really big deal on the iPhone." GPS data allows you to do tracking, Apple recorded a iPhone traveling in a car going down San Francisco's famously crooked Lombard Street, showing how precisely the iPhone can be tracked as it navigates the curves.
11:43 a.m.: Jobs then moves into enterprise support, which has been covered in detail earlier today, as well as third-party applications. When it comes to more countries, the 3G iPhone will be available in dozens of countries, as a video with "A Small World After All" plays with the iPhone working its way through South America and Europe. No love for Venezuela or China, but India and Australia are added for a total of 70 countries. It will roll out to those places over the next several months.
11:44 a.m.: On to the price. The first iPhone was US$599, and now sells for US$399. It will now sell for US$199 for 8GBs of storage.
11:45 a.m.: The 16GB model will be US$299, and that model will also be available in white.
11:46 a.m.: Twenty-two countries will get the 3G iPhone first, and they'll all get it at the same time, and it's not coming until July 11. The late rumors win.
11:48 a.m.: Jobs moves into the new ad for the 3G iPhone, which pokes fun at Apple's secretive nature. The demo gods finally make their presence felt as the audio skips on the replay of the video.
11:50 a.m.: Jobs asks Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall, and their employees to stand up and take a bow, which they do to thunderous applause. It appears we're winding down here, as Steve revisits the sessions that are planned for the week's worth of conference events. And we close, to Chuck Berry's "Maybelline."
11:52 a.m.: A quick recap: the 3G iPhone is here, but it's late. It's not clear the slip will mean too much to Apple's goal of shipping 10 million in 2008, but the price cuts will probably more than offset any two-week delay in iPhone sales. Still, this means there will have been no iPhones available for about six weeks, from the middle/end of May to early July.
A full transcript of this event can be found on our sister site CNET.com.
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