Voice Control, Video Recording iPhone Coming June 19 at $299
SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple said it’s releasing an iPhone 3G S with voice control and video recording June 19 for $199 with 16 GB of RAM and $299 with 32 GB, with a two-year AT&T service contract. The price of the current 8 GB 3G model was cut to $99. “There’s never been a good smartphone in the market at that price,” Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of product marketing, said at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference. CEO Steve Jobs, due back to work this month after a medical leave, didn’t make an appearance -- at what historically had been the annual setting for some of his much-watched announcements -- as it had been speculated he might.
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The new model will run data applications about twice as fast even as current ones with a new iPhone 3.0 operating system, depending on the activity, Schiller said. It will launch first in eight countries including the U.S. and be in more than 80 countries by August, he said. The 3G S will be sold in the U.S. by Apple, AT&T, Wal-Mart and Best Buy, Apple said.
Holding the home button activates the voice-control interface, Schiller said. Calls can be made by saying the number, or for recipients in the user’s phone book, just the name. The interface will ask which of multiple numbers for a recipient should be called. Music can be called up by voice, too, by the name of the act or by playlist, Schiller said. The user can get a spoken answer to the question “What’s playing now” and listen to similar music by saying “Play more songs like this.” Pause, shuffle and moving to the next song also can be commanded by voice.
The 3G S has a 3-megapixel autofocus camera that allows the user to put any element in focus and adjust the exposure by tapping on its image, Schiller said. The video function captures 30 frames per second, he said. Videos can be edited easily on the display and shared by e-mail, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), YouTube or Apple’s premium MobileMe online service, Schiller said. The battery life has been extended 20 to 50 percent, depending on the use, from current models, he said.
“Find My iPhone” is one of more than 100 new features coming June 17 in the 3.0 operating system, Schiller said. It will allow a MobileMe subscriber to have the location of a lost iPhone displayed on a map and to activate an alert sound from a lost iPhone, even if it’s set in the silent mode, or have a text message displayed on it, he said. If the phone is lost, all the data can be deleted. If the phone is found, the data can be retrieved from the iTunes store, Schiller said.
The operating system also allows wireless purchases and rentals of movies, TV episodes, music videos and songs, Schiller said. The OS will be $9.95 for the iPod touch and no charge for iPhones. It will come with the 3G S. At launch, 22 carriers in 42 countries will support “tethering” -- use of an iPhone to connect a computer to the Internet, with Bluetooth wireless or a USB cable -- and 29 carriers in 76 countries will support MMS, Schiller said. AT&T won’t be one of the launch carriers for these functions, though it will add MMS support in the summer, he said. AT&T didn’t get back to us right away to comment.