Apple rolls out new iPhone, new notebooks, and a new OS

Jake Widman
Tuesday, 09 June 2009 03:12

IT Industry - Strategy

In the keynote address to the company's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple finally answered the rumors about a new iPhone with a resounding "Yes." The iPhone 3GS shared the stage with a refreshed notebook lineup and a peek at the next revision of Mac OS X -- but not with Steve Jobs, who didn't show.

As multiple livebloggers tracked the event minute-by-minute, Apple finally ended the suspense about the next version of the iPhone.

Senior vice president of iPhone Software Scott Forstall started by touting the success of the iPhone app store, saying that there are 50,000 apps available and that as of April, more than a billion (1,000,000,000) apps had been downloaded.

The next version of the iPhone OS, due out June 17, will support touch-based cut, copy, and paste, as well as landscape mode in far more applications.

It will also permit multimedia messaging (MMS), which will be supported by 29 carriers at launch. AT&T, though the default carrier for many iPhone owners, won't support MMS until later this summer.

After the OS discussion, senior vice president for worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller took the stage to introduce the iPhone 3GS -- that's S as in "speed."

Schiller claimed that the new phone is twice as fast as the existing model on activities like launching messaging and viewing attachments.

It also comes with a 3-megapixel camera that can capture VGA video, and introduces voice control. Available June 19, it will cost $199 for a 16GB model and $299 for 32GB with a 1-year service contract.

More on the new iPhone here . For the new notebooks and OS, continue to Page 2.