The buzz around today's conference is absurd, the predictions of the technology press have been all over the place, and the lengths people are going to to get a scoop on this stuff is incredible. I think my favorite so far is that group that monitors customs to try to find big shipments of products, and how they found an enormous shipment of "Electric Computers" being sent to Cupertino.

What do you guys predict? So far, I've heard rumors of a new iPhone with 3G, GPS, a second camera on the screen side for video conferencing, and most importantly a white or black back instead of chrome

The only other rumor I've heard (as far as I can remember), is that Apple will be releasing some other product, possibly an internet tablet kind of device, like the Nokia 880.


As for the iPhone rumors, it's pretty much a certainty that a new phone revision will be released, what with the depleted stock in AT&T and Apple stores, which is really the only solid information we have going into the conference. That, and the uncovered option in the new iPhone firmware to turn off HSDPA. So if nothing else, it's probably 90% certain that there will be a 3G iPhone announced. I have no idea if the other stuff is true, but the GPS would be pretty neat.

As for the second device, I'm pretty skeptical. When the iPhone was released, it was billed as one third internet tablet. I'd be surprised if Apple tried to get into that market, considering how small that market is (really, how many of those Nokias have sold?).

So, what are your predictions?

Mr Jobs will look very pleased with himself and everyone in the hall will cheer loudly.

Is this where he goes "and one more thing...."?

I'm waiting on the new iPhone. I'm glad to hear that it looks like this time around the price will be subsidized! I'm hoping that they add Bluetooth sync, for at least the calender.

That one has been all over the place, but I'm 100% confident everything visual we've seen about it has been faked.



They released this last year. It's called an iPod Touch.



I think the most solid information was when Steve Jobs told the world that a 3G iPhone would be released this year. Straight from the horse's mouth trumps all the speculation. No amount of speculation and container ship spying can tell you when the announcement will come though. Today just happens to be the best opportunity given the imminent launch of the App Store. Not to mention extolling the benefits of a firmware 2.0 release and new hardware capabilities to the biggest crowd of Apple developers in one location. There aren't any other scheduled events where Jobs will be up for a keynote this year either.

Instead of any other hardware announcements, I'd rather hear that the new iPhone falls outside the exclusivity contracts Apple has previously announced and that it comes unlocked when you buy it. Kind of shitty to have a quad-band phone that you can't just toss another SIM into when you're traveling.

I've been waiting to pull the trigger on an iPhone, so today is the big deal for me. Everyone is fairly confident about the new feature set for the 3G iphone, the only real question has been: When can we actually buy one? That'll be announced today, and will decide whether or not I'm going to the Apple or AT&T store right after work.

But how many people know how Apple is going to roll it all together? That's going to be the tastiest part of all.

On the flip side, you can see what happens when some of the other handset makers reveal the full details on their products. Hardware that sounded promising suddenly looks like a pile when they unveil their software. Samsung's latest being a timely example. Tomorrow no one will even remember Samsung makes handsets at all.

Damn, it's 10 minutes in and nothing's been announced yet. Hurry up Steve, I need to go to the can.

Why the heck is he spending so much time on software at a developers conference

The apps from eBay, AP and MLB could probably all have been done through Mobile Safari - which would probably save a few squares in the app launcher.

Bruno

I've been watching at http://www.macrumorslive.com/ and so far they're concentrating on all the new software features of the new iPhone 2.0 stuff. They said "Early July" for all this software stuff.

Still no mention of whether the actual new iPhone hardware is available now or if it will be July.

Big oops. I go to me.com and get redirected to snappville.com, which clearly has nothing to do with Apple.

It's official Tony...3G iPhone with GPS

Yup, saw that, still waiting for the one tidbit I need: A buy-it-now date...

More importantly is the price. With a huge push to new markets, this thing is going to put an enormous dent in WinMo phone sales as well as hardware products from TomTom, Garmin and other GPS makers. Those last guys better start cracking with the iPhone SDK real soon now if they haven't already.

Woot! You can get an iPhone in Malta!

Holy cow, what a price drop. $199.00 for the 3G iPhone 8gb.

There have been phones with built in GPS for years now. The iPhone 2 isn't going to make TomTom/Garmin/Navman/whoever start worrying anytime soon. They don't cater for the geek with the GPS smartphone.

Umm, other "phones" don't matter. They weren't the iPhone. Like it or not, it's made a huge impact on the industry with a small roll-out over the past year.

The price has just been dropped to $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB. This thing is going to make an Earth-killing crater-sized impact.

Mom, dad and the grandparents are going to be using the iPhone. They're not going to be picking up a $400 Nuvi anymore.

But not until July 11th, it seems.

Right. They're going to continue to buy the $25 phone that comes with the service.

Small roll-out?

Dude?

Wow, that was all pretty dull. I know it's a developer's conference, but did they have to highlight TWO boring medical apps that nobody cares about? It just feels like the wrong venue to showcase new hardware.

I also have two questions:

1) is that an absolute price point, like the last one was? Or will I need to sign up for a contract? I would assume he would mention something like that.

2) I need to see some official specs on this thing for one reason: will it finally have A2DP? I know it sounds freaking insane, considering the capabilities and price point of this phone, but I might hold off if they still don't have A2DP in there. My phone cost me $20 eight months ago and has A2DP.

All in all, it seemed a little...anti-climactic. Maybe it was that all the wild speculation before the event was more exciting, and didn't contain any of the horribly dull software discussion.

Oh, and one last thing: "Mobile Me" is a terrible name.

People I know got the TomTom because its easy to use and just works. It does one thing and one thing only and thats how they like it. There isn't any way of them screwing it up. The cheapest TomTom is £120 here so its not going to be $400+ in the US.

Does the GPS in the iPhone even do full routing?

Bingo! I recently got my folks to switch to AT&T, and instead of buying two of my phones for $40 total, they went with the free ones. Both phones were sliders, so they didn't see any difference.

Four million in six months is small, right?

I'd assume that it was still under contract and heavily subsidised.


Doesn't mention it on the website. Just has Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR so again, assume not.

Ya, small, in terms of markets. For the longest time it was US-only. Then finally opened up to a few other countries. In those countries saddled with exclusivity like in the US. Now going to open the floodgates to the masses in 70 countries with many having availability on multiple networks.

Bitt, have you ever been to Europe? Sure a lot of people here (in Canada) as well as the US pick nothing but the nearly free feature-phones, but the number or people dropping $200 on a relatively basic phone is enormous. I see every day what the carriers are offering and what people are carrying.

I'm not saying it's going to be an overnight iPod, but it's going to get a lot bigger than it's been.

I would assume so too, but that wasn't the case for the previous iPhone. There was a single price no matter whether you were signing up or were five months into your contract.


Yeah, just saw that here. That, to me, is unbelievable. Am I wrong in remembering that someone said the hardware was capable of A2DP? Something tells me that if they didn't care enough to implement a seemingly simple feature in a year, but were able to put all this other stuff in, they're not going to do it anytime soon. That's really disappointing.

*edit*
And yes, I realize that this isn't a very widely popular feature, and there aren't even many headphones that can do it, but there are plenty of phones out there with it already, and new A2DP headphones are coming out all the time.

Unless you're buying the latest greatest smartphone then most are under $100 and usually totally free. After a few months when the initial demand has passed then they end up free. Even the smartphones don't debut for very much and they also soon drop in price.

If you're not interested in the iPhone then WWDC this year was pretty uneventful. New .Mac replacement and thats pretty much it...

GPS just does positioning. Routing is all a matter of application software. As far as I know the new iPhone doesn't even come with a routing application. I don't have much doubt we'll see something from TomTom appear on it. But so too will apps from other vendors show up.

I used a Garmin Nuvi for 3 solid weeks in Portugal and for a week here in Canada before I left for vacation. It was anything but simple and bulletproof. If the execs at the GPS companies aren't worried about the iPhone then they've got their heads in the sand or elsewhere.

Ask the execs (or former) at Motorola or any number of other handset makers about their comments leading up to the iPhone's announcement in January 07. Better still, about the comments from early in 2006 and prior stating with complete certainty that there was no way Apple or anyone else was just going to jump into the mobile game.

When I picked up a current-gen iPhone I found a number of things wrong with it - or things I simply didn't like. I'm willing to bet it's going to be the same situation with the new one. But anyone can see how wildly popular it's been with limited roll-out, no official support for third party applications and a significant price-point barrier.

The only way you're not going to see an iPhone everywhere later this year is if you lock yourself in a room without any access to the outside world or images of it.