D-day, June 9th 2008 was a huge day for Apple and the future of their iPhone. We already broke the news on the $199 3G iPhone hitting 22 markets this year, starting July 11th, but there was a whole lot more news. Steve Jobs keynote filled with 52,000 attendees which included Al Gore and Walt Mossberg and as expected was sold out, completely. Steve started out by going over the stats for the iPhone SDK, stating that over 250,000 people have downloaded the iPhone SDK with over 25,000 applications, but only 4,000 have been in the beta program.
Besides the stats, Steve went on to say that much of the iPhone code is the same as OS X and uses the same native APIs which helped tremendously on their OpenGL implementation. Cocoa Touch, Media, Core Service, Core OS help bring the iPhone GUI and software development to the next level. The development tools and Interface Builder for iPhone applications is what is going to set the device apart and revolutionize the industry.
The first application outlined was called ‘Nearby Friends’ which ties into the address book API and the core location API. It works very similar to the Helio phones which offer the Buddy Beacon service, locating your nearby friends within 10 miles and placing them on the map in Google Maps. Apparently the ‘Nearby Friends’ App only took 10 minutes to create and is a good example of XCode and the Interface Builder capabilities.
iPhone gaming kicked off next with the announcement of SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball. Ethan Einhorn from SEGA broke the news and explained how impressed they were with the coding of Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone (development was so quick they were able to include over 100 levels and all the monkeys). Ethan went on to demo the game and show the tilt control capabilities of the iPhone using the accelerometer. It took 95 days to code Super Monkey Ball and it will be available in the App Store for $9.99.
The next order of business was eBay’s app which was not as exciting as Super Monkey Ball, but very useful. Ken Sun was there to kick things off for eBay’s app by showing the bidding, browsing and navigation of the eBay app on the iPhone. The eBay app will be free and also available through the App Store.
As we previously announced, one of the first two developers to get their software approved by Apple, Loopt, was there to show off their product. Loopt’s location-aware app functions much like Helio’s Buddy Beacon by locating all your nearest friends, but also adding in Facebook-like status tweets for each person very similar to using Twitter. The concept is to take social networking to the next level through the GPS and A-GPS supported on the 3G iPhone.
TypePad was next on stage with the announcement that they would be the iPhone blogging tool of choice (while we use Wordpress), we were still excited to see the photoblogging functionality and geotagging capabilities. Best of all, much like the standard web platform, Typepad photobloggin will be free in the App Store.
Not to be outdone by the big giants of software development, the Associated Press (AP) was on stage to announce their Mobile News Network which brings thousands of news sources to your iPhone. While we are big fans of RSS, the Mobile News Network will cache your news sources so that even without service you can get your fix of the daily news breaks around the world. What really makes this software unique is that it takes advantage of the location based services and will display the news that is relevant to your current location. It was pretty easy to see from the demonstration that this is the next generation of mobile news and a good sign that the iPhone location mapping will be some of the best we’ve seen on any device.
The Keynote then switched back to gaming with announcements of two games ported from OS X; Cro Mag Rally and physics-based game that you touch drag and rotate. According to Pangaea, the creators of both games on the Mac, Cro Mag Rally only took 3 days to port over to the iPhone since all they needed to do was to change the controls so that tilting the iPhone would mimic the steering wheel. Both of the two games were listed at $9.99.
The announcements continued with MLB.com entering the stage and talking about their baseball application for the iPhone which displays scores, stats and fantasy sports capabilities. A doctor from Modality also entered the stage and showcased two new medical apps which use the iPhone as a teaching tool and this is about when the Keynote really took shape and answered our 3G iPhone prayers: Steve Jobs announced the 3G iPhone, complete with GPS and 3G connectivity. Best of all it will be priced at $199 and available in 22 countries starting on July 11 2008. With an 8GB ($199) and 16GB version ($299) available in two colors, black and white, it will be very interesting how Apple sells the devices and ensures a carrier commitment. If the iPhone 2.0 software is as easy to jailbreak as we think, the $199 price tag could just make the iPhone into the most popular phone, ever.