Gearing up for WWDC Today

Today is the first day of the WWDC in San Francisco and the web world is all abuzz about what might come out.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to announce as I have recently joined the ranks as a Mac user.  I still have my Blackberry Curve and I love it but the iPhones are just so damn sexy that I want one of them too.

Hopefully today they announce a way for me to get one.  I doubt it but I can dream right?  I just read a rumor that the new iPhones might just be available today after the keynote so that would be pretty cool.  With all the buzz surronding this, I can’t tell what might happen.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what the next 2+ hours brings.

Let me know what you think and I’m surely going to post my thoughts post-keynote as well.

iPhone 2.0 Thoughts

So it’s been about a week since the newest iPhone was announced and I’ve had time to think about the good and bad now. In previous posts, I’ve mentioned possibly getting an iPhone in place of my T-Mobile Dash. Well I decided a couple of weeks ago to get a Blackberry Curve and I love it. And now, looking back, I’m glad that was the decision that I made.

When I first heard about the iPhone possibly being $299 for a 16gb model, I thought that this might just work. But then reading up on the fact that you had to sign up with AT&T for 2 years made this not that attractive for me.

I really love the idea of the GPS included in the newest version. I like it more that the addition of the 3G network. To me, if the 3G is only 2 times faster, it’s not worth the extra hassle. But I am very interested in the GPS.

I also think that the quality of apps will greatly increase due to the iPhone SDK that’s been out for a while now. I’m also a fan of the Application Store. Gives the developers a chance to see some return on countless hours spent developing apps. It also gives them a wide user base to potentially sell their apps to. I think Apple did well with this.

But the one stopping point for me is the fact that you have to get the iPhone activated in an AT&T store, thus removing any reason to jailbreak it. That is unless you don’t mind sending AT&T a check every month for services you might not use if you switch to a different network. That makes it really hard for people like me who might be locked into contracts with other carriers.

Overall, I really like the changes made to the new iPhone 2.0 but I think that the lock downs make it more unattractive to me as before. What do you think?

iPhone 2.0 Announcement

Steve Jobs has just finished his keynote at WWDC and here are my thoughts along with some highlights:

• The new firmware won’t be available until early July so this is a bit disappointing as most thought it would be released in the next couple of days. Kind of a let down but I think it would be hard for them to release it today or even tomorrow.
• One awesome feature is the syncing with Exchange. Data will be synced both ways and stay up to date on your iPhone as well as the exchange server. Really cool feature it sounds like. This is also going to use the recently purchased me.com website to sync everything together. And that looks like it is replacing the .mac service; for the low price of $99 a year.
• Now to the big news. The new iPhone will use the 3G technology thus drastically improve the speed of the network. Also, GPS support is integrated. That is really cool. With the 3G and the GPS, I am really enjoying what’s being said right now.
• And now the price has been announced. $199 for an 8gb model and $299 for the 16gb one (which you can also get in white). Will be available on July 11th in 22 countries.
• That seems to be it as Steve Jobs has just left the stage

Overall I am really excited about this announcement today. He never mentioned any catch for the low prices for the iPhones but I am guessing that there is. Hopefully I am wrong.

UPDATE:

Apple’s iPhone page does state the following:

Requires new 2-year AT&T rate plan, sold separately.

That sucks. I guess the price is $200 higher as per the rumors if you get it without. We’ll see.