3G iPhone in SA soon

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, speaking at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, announced that the phone would launch in 22 countries on July 11 with more than 70 countries, including SA to follow before the end of the year.

At the time of writing Vodacom was not able to provide greater detail on the exact launch date or the nature of the services or packages that would be provided alongside the handset.

Recent reports in the SA media indicate that the SA launch date is going to be 20 July, but this has not been confirmed by Vodacom.

Additionally, Jobs announced that the company had managed to slash the price of the phone from the current $399 to $199 for the entry level phone.

During his keynote, Jobs stated that $199 would be the maximum price that networks would be allowed to charge across the globe, which would equate to a price in SA of around R1 500.

However, VAT and other duties might result in this being closer to the R2 000 mark when it hits the streets later this year. There are also two versions of the phone with more memory that will sell in the US for $299 and $399.

Jobs commented that the aim of the company with the new product was to answer a number of criticism the company faced with the original version of the phone.

These were 3G network capabilities, support for corporate applications, allowing the iPhone to run applications from 3rd party software creators and broader geographic support.

Achilles heel

The 3G iPhone also has a built in GPS to allow it to be used for navigation although its reliance on Google Maps for its location data could be its Achilles heel in SA as local Google maps data is sketchy at best.

Jobs also claimed that Apple have tweaked the way the GPS operates so that is not on all the time and thus does not sap battery life in the same way that other GPS phones do.

The new phone is reported to have a standby time of up to 300 hours with 10 hours of talk time on 2G networks, 5 or 6 hours of web browsing, 7 hours of video playback and a massive 24 hours of audio playback.

Jobs also unveiled full support for Microsoft Exchange Mail allowing the iPhone to compete directly with Blackberry for the lucrative corporate market.

At the conference, Apple also demonstrated a number of applications that 3rd party developers had built for the iPhone, including games, a location aware application from Associated Press which would display news relevant to where you were at the time and software for medical students to make studying the human body more interactive.

These and other applications will be delivered through an online application store, which will be available in every country the iPhone is sold in.

In addition he showed a new web service from Apple, dubbed MobileMe, which will give consumers the ability to keep their desktop and iPhone synchronised.

The service, which will cost $99 a year, includes the ability to keep a central repository of all email, contacts and calendars which will link to either their Mac or Microsoft Mail software such as Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail and Contacts on a PC.

It also allows subscribers to send photos they have taken on their iPhone up to the MobileMe photo gallery to share with friends and family.

- Fin24.com