New iPhone 3GS announced, pricing and release dates

Apple showed off their newest model of the iPhone today called the iPhone 3GS (the 's' standards for speed). The new model looks almost identical to the current 3G iPhone, with a rear facing camera, same basic trim and finish.

Some highlights to the new iPhone include a 3 mega-pixel camera, with auto focus, auto white balance and auto exposure - allowing you to change white balance and focus on the fly by a tap of the screen. The camera also doubles as a VGA video recorder at 30fps with audio. The video recorder also allows trimming of videos done on the iPhone or iPod touch, with simple taps of the screen.





3MP camera being used:



Low level and Macro modes:



Video editing:



The phone also has voice control or better known as voice recognition, that allows you to say the name of the person you want to call, great for hands free calling. Consumers can simply say "Call Tom Warren", calling the contact stored in the phones memory. These features and more come under iPhones new accessibility feature, such as VoiceOver that is touch-to-talk, where the device reads what you touch on screen. The new iPhone also recognizes simply commands like "What's playing?", reading back to you the current article and song.

VoiceControl:



The new device also has a built in compass for navigation purposes, going along great with the new TomTom addition, consumers navigation purposes are all built into the new iPhone 3GS. Nike+ support comes built into the iPhone, for consumers with the required shoes or devices can track their workout progress from the device and on iTunes.

Built in compass:



Nike+ support:



Apple says that, "this is the most powerful, fastest iPhone ever made." and that launching messages will load 2.1x faster, loading SimCity loads 2.4x faster, viewing Excel files loads 3.6x faster, and loading New York Times loads 2.9x faster. Apple also included some benchmarks of SunSpider javascript showing the difference between each model load times, iPhone 2.0 126 seconds, 3G 43 seconds and 3GS 15 seconds.

The iPhone 3GS shows improved battery life across the board, with the exception of stand-by time and 3G Internet usage. The device, which doesn't state if it is a new battery configuration or reduced energy usage in applications, but the device improves usage by a few hours in audio, video playback, wi-fi and talk-time.

Improved battery life:


(images courtesy of: gizmodo.com)

The iPhone 3GS also has a hardware encryption to protect users data, including an instantaneous remote wipe, that can be executed from MobileMe via your Mac or PC. It also includes an encrypted iTunes backup for your TV shows, music, movies and other personal media.

Pricing and launch date:
Pricing for the current iPhone 3G will be dropped to $99* for the 8GB model, where the new iPhone 3GS will sell for $199* for 16GB and $299* for 32GB in both black and white available June 19th in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Other countries will follow July '09 and August '09.
* is with contract from AT&T

The iPhone 3GS is available for preview at the Apple.com Store