Steve Jobs announces the new iPhone at WWDC 2008-Chris has mild heart attack shortly thereafter...

Posted: 2008-06-09

Well, what can I say that the mainstream media hasn't already bludgeoned everyone to death with? If this thing has a fuller Bluetooth stack, I'm pretty much walking around looking like a Mac-head for a day. Here's a quick rundown of what I'm most excited about:

• 3G. Yes. God yes!.
• Bigger capacity at a much cheaper price. $199 for an 8 gig and $299 for a 16 gig model. Just to clarify, that'd be a whole hundred dollars less than the 8 gig I picked up not too long ago. And twice the capacity.
• A flush headphone jack. There's a reason the whole audience at the conference was flipping out when this was announced. Try using your iphone in public with that monster headphone adapter plugged in. It looks like an army radio for chrissakes!
• Built-in GPS. Wow. Just...wow. If you've ever tried to use your iPhone for driving directions, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Now add to that list the fact that I just figured out how to write software for this thing and it's pretty obvious that the only thing missing from this iPhone is a belgian waffle maker that twiddles your naughty bits between flips. Hot damn!

Still not convinced? How about this: if you look on Apple's store page for the iPhone under the "What's in the box" section, you'll find a little item called a SIM Ejector Tool. Now, why is this a big deal?

Well, to put it frankly (and this is just my own kooky theory): Apple is making this phone for current iPhone customers. Just think about it. Apple unveils their new phone which has a multitude of the very features current owners are already asking for at a Developer's conference instead of a press event. It's pretty obvious they wanted everyone there who most likely already had a iPhone to buy the new version. Apple makes it cheap as hell so everyone who already bought one feels better about shelling out another couple of hundred for another one. Finally, we get to the brilliant part: they remove any question about expanding contracts or difficulty in switching hardware by the simple inclusion of a tool that facilitates changing your hardware!

It's pretty obvious this isn't just another one-trick pony meant to grab market share from Verizon or Motorola or whomever the competition is at this point. In fact, it seems to me that the new iPhone is yet another example of what Apple is famous for. What is that? you ask? Well, ask any Mac user and they'll tell you this is part of the reason they love Apple products: Apple listens to their customers and gives them what they want.

Well played, Jobs. You'll find me at the 5th Avenue store on 7/11/08.