New iPhone Details Announced (And Mike's Kinda Disappointed...)

Today was a big day in the Apple community. The 2nd Generation iPhone was officially announced. We got what was expected, 3G capability, A-GPS, the app store, Enterprise support, and games.

Not much of this is that much of an improvement over the original iPhone, though. Most of it is software updates. And with the 2.0 firmware that includes all the new software updates, the only real features that differentiate this new version from the old one are 3G capability and A-GPS.

Not only that, but the back of the phone is going to be completely plastic now. This bodes well for the reception and call quality, yet doesn't say so much for the build quality.

The price for the data plan has also jumped up $10/month. I expected this with the 3G data plan, but I was hoping that AT&T would take pity on us. It's not terrible, I suppose, it could've been raised even more and people would have still paid it.

So what else was left out that people have been clamoring for? Here's a portion of the list from Gizmodo:

- No 32 GB model.
- No better camera.
- No MMS.
- No front-facing camera for video conferencing.
- No video recording.

The good news? $199 for the 8GB model. That's half the price of the old one! And the 16GB model comes in at $299. AT&T is subsidizing the price of this new model, hence the lower price. Of course, this also means you'll have to sign up for a new 2-year contract, but apparently buyers of the original iPhone should have no problem "overlapping" their current contracts. That means you won't need to sign up for yet another 2 years, making for a total of 3-4 years, but instead are only committed for 2 years after the renewal date.

It will be released July 11th. I'm settling in for the (seemingly) long wait. :o)

Oh yeah, this "MobileMe" thing sounds pretty cool, too. Too bad it costs $99/year.