iPhone 4 and iOS4 Sound Like Strong Products, But AT&T?
I just finished listening to and reading blog entries and tweets about Steve Jobs' keynote at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. As expected, he focused his keynote entirely on the new iPhone 4, due out June 25, and on its iOS4 (the newly renamed iPhone OS) that will be the platform for the iPhone as well as iPad and iPod Touch. The new products look like very strong offerings with some great new features (over 100 of them accessible to developers in more than 1500 APIs).
I was particularly drawn to the new form factor (razor-thin with glass on both sides) and some of the new features (muilti-tasking; two cameras, one of them front facing; WiFi video chat; the ability to create folders; even sharper display). Some of the sexier stuff isn't really useful to me. I don't take or edit videos, though I admit being impressed that the new iOS4 includes the ability to do in-app video editing right on the device. Video chat will be quite cool, but it's limited to iOS4 devices which I gather means even Macs won't be able to participate (which seems odd somehow given Apple's pioneering in that area).
While I'm not sure this was meaningful, I could swear I heard Steve make an indirect allusion to expanding their service beyond AT&T. He said the video chat will initially be wireless only "for the rest of 2010" because (and here I'm not 100% sure I'm right) Apple has to work with the cell vendors to get G3 ready for that service. I hope he meant we'd get a choice of cell vendors at some point because I'd much prefer Verizon in my area. (During his keynote, for most of the presentation, Steve couldn't access the Internet from the new iPhone 4. Turned out it was because several hundred of the developers attending the conference had WiFi base stations running in the same room and the AT&T cell towers couldn't handle it. That's an unexpectedly huge load, but I'm sure more than a few developers were muttering what one yelled: "Get Verizon!")
I'll definitely order my upgrade. My service plan with AT&T has gone past its two years so I qualify for the lower-cost upgrade. I have a feeling I'm going to be happy I didn't leap on the 3GS bandwagon.
