3G iPhone Announced by Apple

3G iPhone has been released in North America (July 27, 2008)

The 3G iPhone from Apple has now been released, and over one million units were sold in the first weekend of sales. Touted as 'twice the phone at half the price', it is likely to be a popular successor to the original iPhone.

Sporting more memory and faster internet speed, it will finally catch up with other 3G phones like the HTC Touch that have been out since late 2006.

It will continue to be available exclusively in the USA through AT&T, and Rogers is the exclusive distributor in Canada. Both providers run the iPhone on the GSM network and so far, there hasn't been a CDMA version in north America. 

Pricing for unlimited internet in the US has been running around $60 per month, with extra charges for using the built-in WiFi. The original iPhone was not capable of being used as a modem (tethered), so we are curious to see if this new one will have this feature.

Apple will no doubt continue their policy of strict control over the platform, with very limited opportunities for 3rd party developers like ourselves. They have recently released a very restrictive SDK (Software Development Kit), but anyone considering software development for cellphones would probably find more opportunities on Windows Mobile devices.

The iPhone has a nice graphical interface, but we have seen several products for the Windows Mobile platform that look just as good and offer more flexibility. The SPB Mobile Shell is one of our favorites (pictured).

Rogers (the Canadian GSM provider) will be in an interesting position, because they will have to finally drop their very high data rates if they expect to compete with the likes of the Bell Touch 3G unlimited data plan at $7 per month.

Now that Rogers has released the iPhone in Canada, it looks like the best rate they have for data is $100 per month for 6GB (no tethering).

There are other restrictions and additional fees, if you care to wade through their website at Rogers.com. Although the new iPhone is advertised as 3G, the Rogers network is not - you'll be stuck with the slower EDGE system they currently use.

Some of the features we've noticed that it doesn't have:

• Tethering - using iPhone as modem
• Multimedia Messaging
• Copy and paste
• Video recording
• Voice command
• Bluetooth flexibility