iPhone News Updated

Snow Leopard, new iPhone promising

Snow Leopard, new iPhone promising

Apple is famous for its obsession with secrecy.

But it was surprisingly chatty about future products and plans at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference last week in San Francisco, where it revealed details about two previously unannounced products — the new iPhone and the next major release of Mac OS X, dubbed Snow Leopard.

The new iPhone, known as iPhone 3G, is faster, cheaper and better than the original iPhone.

It’s faster because it supports AT&T’s next-generation data network (3G) in addition to the older, slower Edge data network used by the original iPhone.

The new models are somewhat cheaper. The purchase price is roughly half the current prices (8 gigabytes, $199; 16 GB, $299), but your savings are reduced by a mandatory two-year AT&T plan that costs $10 more per month than the current one.

Finally, it offers new features, such as:

• Support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

• Built-in Global Positioning System, with real-time mapping.

• Simultaneous voice and data communications, so you can browse the Web or check your e-mail while you are on a call.

• Ability to install and use native third-party applications in a variety of categories including games (Super Monkey Ball, Enigmo, Cro-Mag Rally), business (eBay), news (Associated Press), sports (Major League Baseball), health (MIMvista), blogging (TypePad), social networking (Loopt) and more.

• Integration with the new MobileMe Internet service that pushes e-mail, contacts and calendars from an online “cloud” to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs.

MobileMe replaces the current .Mac Internet service. It pushes e-mail to your iPhone instantly so you never have to check it manually or wait for downloads. It also keeps contacts and calendars in sync on all of your devices.

Snow Leopard, the next major release of Mac OS X, is optimized for multi-core processors and will take full advantage of the computing power from your Mac’s built-in graphic processing unit.

It will also allow, theoretically, for up to 16 terabytes of RAM, include a higher-performance media platform called QuickTime X, and for the first time ever, out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that iPhone 3G will not be available until July 11, and Snow Leopard won’t be available for “about a year.”

For additional iPhone info, visit www.apple.com/iphone. For more on Snow Leopard, visit www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard.