WWDC 2008: 3G iPhone and MobileMe announced - detailed report

During today's World Wide Developers Conference, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs announced the very anticipated 3G-capable iPhone which packs some pleasant unexpected features as well as MobileMe which proudly replaces .Mac.

The Software

We all knew that Apple would bring several new features for both the current and the 3G iPhones since the company announced the iPhone Software 2.0 in March. Among them are the ability to purchase and run third-party applications as well as a set of enterprise features like Exchange push mail support.

But Steve Jobs learned us today that the iPhone Software 2.0 would do even more. It will be capable of opening all kinds of office documents such as Apple's Pages, Numbers and Keynote presentations or even Microsoft's Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

In addition to full office documents read support, Apple also added some very pro features like secured wireless authentication protocols such as 802.1x, WPA/WPA2, LEAP, PEAPv0 and PEAPv1.

It will also include contact search, bulk email deleting and moving, a landscape calculator, localization in 8 languages and Simplified Chinese Input which lets you draw the chinese symbols with your finger.

The AppStore will launch on early july with several free and paid software dwonloadable either through iTunes or through the iPhone with Wifi or 3G. Software which weights more than 10MB will only be available through iTunes and Wifi.

An Enterprise version of the iPhone will let companies to create application stores with their own software for their employees.

The Hardware

On the hardware side, Apple brought us two models with the same storage as the current ones, or 8GB and 16GB. Both will include 3G, built-in Global Positioning System but retain the same old 2 megapixel camera.

Edges are quite a bit thinner but the device is overall roughly the same size as the 2.5G iPhone released last year. Note that, as mentions Apple's web site, the 16GB version also comes in a white version.

The Services - MobileMe replaces .Mac

The only point that does not concern only the iPhone, in addition to a brief mention of Mac OS X Snow Leopard which is said to be revealed during WWDC training sessions, Apple announced a new service called MobileMe, which will replace .Mac.

MobileMe provides storage, yourname@me.com push mail, shared calendars, photo galleries and other data sharing and syncing features. All those features are available on Mac iPhone and also through an all new Web 2.0 styled web interface also accessible on a Windows-based PC.

The annual fee is still the same as .Mac was, or $99 per year and Apple will be offering a free 60 days trial as soon as the service will be made available.

Pricing and Availability

The iPhone will be released in 22 countries on July the 11th and on 70 countries, including the non-announced yet China and Russia, by the end of this year.

The 8GB model is now priced $199 while the 16GB one comes at $299. A significant price drop compared to the 2.5G model which is priced respectively $200 and $399. We can guess Apple has allowed subsidizing by carriers.

Developers, Developers, Developers

Instead of playing the monkey like Ballmer would have done, Steve Jobs prefered asking Scott Forstall to come on stage along with several developers who showed what they can do on the iPhone.

Sega and Pangua showed us a few great titles while eBay and typepad respectively showed an ebay client and a blogging client. A couple of medical applications were also highlighted.

Band, which is a music application showed really impressive results, allowing someone to play instruments, record them and sequence them right on the iPhone.

The only really technical part was about an SDK feature several developers had been requesting, it's background applications. Apple solves the battery life and performance issue with a centralized notification system that will handle every background task an application would need to run.

Numbers and Marketing

Steve Jobs said during the keynote that Apple has sold 6 million iPhones so far, gathered 250 000 developers in a few weeks and 4000 beta testers.

He also gave some statistics regarding the iPhone experience. He said that the product has 90% of customer satisfaction, with 98% using the web browser, 94% using e-mail, 90% using text and 84% using at least ten features.

A new ad was showed for the 3G iPhone, it was aired during the keynote and is now available on Apple's web site. It shows two guards carrying a steal case with the iPhone inside it and then unlocking it in a room.