The new 3G iPhone was announced yesterday at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Fransisco, here are some of my thoughts on what transpired.
After listening to Steve Jobs' keynote speech live last night I was very excited by the news that the iPhone will finally be available to buy legitimately in Switzerland from the 11th of July.
Not only in Switzerland however, but 22 countries at launch and 70 countries by the end of the year.
The new phone will have built in GPS, come in 8Gb or 16Gb memory sizes and have Black or White options for the back cover (colour option only available on the 16Gb version).
Other new features include a flush headphone jack. Something many people have complained about, personally I believe that the jack was recessed to stop people using the wrong types of headset with the phone,i.e. without a microphone. Of course this idea falls by the wayside when you realize that any of the iPod headphones work with the phone. 
So 3G and GPS, significant updates to the iPhone but that wasn't all. The new iPhone will come pre-installed with version 2.0 of the operating system. This also has significant updates, including Microsoft Exchange support.
Exchange support is huge! Up until now I have had to carry 2 phones, the iPhone and a Nokia N95 that syncronises my email, calendar and contacts with the Exchange server that I installed and manage at my company. Now I will be able to consolidate to just the iPhone. Also, I will be more than happy to now offer the iPhone to the staff at the company I work for as CTO, who have been pestering me for almost a year for the iPhone.
The fact that, now with the update to .Mac, Apples online sharing service, people who do not have Exchange at work and find owning a Blackberry overkill will be able to do that and much more thanks to Mobile Me!
In Switzerland a lot of people, including myself have been using the iPhone for some months now. The 2 that I own (an 8Gb and 16Gb) are both jailbroken and unlocked, and running with the Orange SIM I used to use in my N95.
With full support in Switzerland I will be more than happy to buy one, if not 2 (my girlfriend wants one of course) with a new tarrif. Luckily in Switzerland, changing to a new phone is not a big problem. Both the announced providers (Orange and Swisscom) will support this and both have well established 3G networks.
I have been to the Swiss Apples store and the iPhone appeared almost as soon as the keynote was over last night. When you click on the buy button you are taken to a page with both Orange and Swisscom links. Clicking Swisscom takes you to their site where you can add your email address for notification of updates regarding the iPhone availability. When you click on the Orange site there is no mention of the iPhone at all (I just tested the link again and the site is down for maintenance).
The price of the phone was announced to be $199 for the 8Gb and $299 for the 16Gb versions and this price is supposed to be the same worldwide. How this translates in real terms we will have to see.
It's very good news for all those Apple fans out there and for mobile phone users in general. Apple and the iPhone are set to overturn the mobile phone market in a big way. July the 11th will be a big day and the weeks and months following are going to be very interesting, especially with the many and varied and useful applications start to appear for the iPhone.
Click here for a walkthrough and more pictures of the keynote speech from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.
