Apple WWDC 2008 Event: Keynote Summary

Originally written on June 9th:

Apple WWDC 2008 event in San Francisco has answered our expectations with some major announcements from Steve Jobs, including the new iPhone 3G revelation. The keynote has introduced us as follows:

New iPhone games for $9.99.
New iPhone mashups.
New MobileMe syncing service.
iPhone 2.0 firmware available in early July.
iPhone 3G officially goes live on July 11th for $199 (8GB) or $299 (16GB), with a built-in GPS.

Again, rumors prove to be right and today they just get the official stamp from Apple. Lets view some of them in a nutshell:

New companies join Apples train, to bring iphone / iPod Touch users some fantastic and realistic games with amazing graphics and seamlessly playable elements. The keynote has introduced companies like SEGA, Pangea and Digital Legends, offering games such as Super Monkey Ball, that was first introduced at the SDK event back in March, Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally, turning iPhone into a steering wheel, thanks to the accelerometer function inside the unit device. In addition we can find some neat fighting games to be available around September, all for the price tag of $9.99.

New iPhone mashups

Apple has decided to team up with some of the most popular services, by assimilating special designated applications inside the iPhone, making the access and the use to those services much more easy and free of charge. Current list includes:

eBay – from now on, you will be able to use the service from your iPhone device, thanks to a new application that lets you search items, watch favorite stuff, place a bid and follow auctions, all for free (well, just the application, not the items).
Loopt – a nice location-based application that lets you discover whos hanging within your location range (dont try to hide with this service ON).
TypePad – one of the most popular blogging services, now available from your iPhone, allowing users to upload real time photos, straight from their handset, directly to their blogs.
Associated Press – another free application, allowing users to upload their media stuff to AP service and contribute to the content.
Band – a cool feature, developed by an independent insurance developer, allowing users to create their own music and play it from their own iPhone device, with the ability to choose from a various of instruments.
MLB.com – a nice application, designated for baseball fans, allowing them to receive real time results and watch highlighted moments.

New MobileMe syncing service

A new service for your iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac and PC that works with the applications you know, like Microsoft Outlook on a PC. Mail, Address Book, or iCal on a Mac. Mail, Contacts, and Calendar on your iPhone or iPod touch. The service keeps multiple devices always in sync, allowing users to access and manage their emails, contacts, calendar, photos, and files at me.com, all with amazing applications that are so feature-rich and easy to use on the go. The Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously, so you will receive all your stuff immediately, without the need to dock or hook your handset. You can drag and drop, click and drag, use keyboard shortcuts, and even switch between applications with a single click. Unfortunately, the service is not free and will cost you $99 a year for 20GB of space, and therell be a 60 day free trial.

iPhone 2.0 firmware available on July

iPhone 2.0 firmware update will be available on July for free ($9.95 for iPod touch owners), featuring some interesting functions, including a sophisticated scientific calculator, iWork documents and MS Office documents support, allowing you to read Word, Excel, and PowerPoint presentations from your handset, image saving from emails, new contacts search, direct download from the new App Store, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support, offering push email, calendar, and contacts, with enterprise-grade networking from Cisco IPSec VPN and WPA2 Enterprise support. In addition, The latest iPhone 2.0 update adds support for mass email move and delete. So you can delete many messages at once and organize groups of messages by moving them into different mail folders. Furthermore, it will offer complete language and dictionary support for 20 different languages, including English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean (no dictionary), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish.

Update: you can download firmware 2.0 from here.

iPhone 3G officially goes live on July 11th

With fast 3G wireless technology, GPS, support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more amazing features in your hands. And just like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device. Here are the official specs:

Screen size: 3.5 inches (diagonal).
Screen resolution: 480 by 320 pixels (163 ppi).
Input method:Multi-Touch.
Storage: 8GB or 16GB.
Cellular:UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) Wireless data; Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.
GPS: Assisted-GPS.
Camera: 2.0 megapixels.
Battery^:Talk time: Up to 5 hours on 3G; up to 10 hours on 2G. Standby time: Up to 300 hours. Internet use: Up to 5 hours on 3G; up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi. Video playback: Up to 7 hours. Audio playback: Up to 24 hours.
Dimensions: 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.48 inches (115.5 by 62.1 by 12.3 mm).
Weight: 4.7 ounces (133 grams).