Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Apple launch a new iPhone model complete with a video camera and slashing the price of its predecessor to 99 dollars.
Apple vice president of marketing Phil Schiller made the announcements at an annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco bereft of any sign of the firm's renowned chief executive, Steve Jobs.
Schiller said the new iPhone 3GS, the first model to capture video, will be available on June 19.
"The 'S' stands for speed, because this is the most powerful iPhone we've ever made," Schiller said. "What is inside is entirely new."
He said a 16-gigabyte iPhone 3GS would cost 199 dollars while the 32-gigabyte model would cost 299 dollars.
He said the price of an original eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G dropped to 99 dollars from 199 dollars as of Monday.
Schiller also said a next-generation iPhone 3.0 operating system will be released worldwide on June 17 as a free upgrade to owners of the smartphones.
Senior vice president of iPhone software Scott Forstall said meanwhile that sales of applications for the smartphones had passed a billion in April.
Apple also reported it has sold more than 40 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices, which are essentially iPhones without mobile phone capabilities.
Enhancements crafted into the iPhone 3.0 operating system include downloading rented videos and customization to additional languages including Arabic, Hebrew, and Korean.
A new "Find My iPhone" feature lets people use an Apple online Mobile Me service to locate lost or stolen devices.
"It will show you on a map where your phone is," Forstall said. "You can send it a message and it plays an alert sound whether or not you left it in silent mode."
The feature also lets people remotely erase all data from lost or stolen iPhones, then reload the information using iTunes if they are reacquainted with their devices.
The new operating system also lets iPhones connect to one another wirelessly for communal activities such as playing games.
"The iPhone has just blown everybody away," said analyst Ken Dulaney, vice president of mobile computer research at Gartner.
Dulaney noted that Apple and AT&T, exclusive provider of iPhone service in the United States, made no mention of reducing service plan prices that "are a challenge for people."
Also missing was an upgrade that would enable iPhones to run several applications simultaneously, a feature analysts say is needed by businesses and would match a capability of market new-comer Palm Pre.
By: DocMemory
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