BuyMeGetMe.com

They didn’t even have to announce any real technological breakthroughs today – even though they did. All they really had to do was cut the price of the current iPhone and create widespread panic in the industry.

This morning, here in San Francisco, at Apple’s keynote speech at their WWDC there were announcements about the next version of the Mac OS X operating system (Snow Leopard) – the newly redesigned MacBook Pro family of laptops – and, of course the third generation iPhone 3G-S.

Snow Leopard adds a slew of cool new features to Apple’s slick operating system including 64-bit hardware support, next-generation QuickTime X and update support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. A little something for average user as well as professionals. They should also be commended for keeping their OS update price at $29.

MacBook Pros now come in 13, 15 and 17-in screen models that sport new features including uni-body construction, better looking displays and a promise of longer battery life. Prices start at $1,199 (13-inch), $1,699 (15-inch) and $2,499 (17-inch).

The new iPhone 3G-S (along with Version 3.0 of the iPhone OS) sports a lot of new features but seems more evolutionary than revolutionary. Don’t get me wrong, any improvements Apple makes to their industry-leading smartphone design is fine with me – and even better with iPhone fans.

The new iPhones have faster processors, tout better battery life, faster HSDPA wireless connectivity (which might negate any improvements in battery life) 16GB of storage in the $200 model and 32GB in the $300 device.

There’s now a 3.0 megapixel camera inside that does stills and videos (which you can edit on the phone), universal search and voice calling and song selection. The new Palm Pre matches the 3MP camera and similar search features but lacks all the voice enhancements.

But the biggest announcement of the day was that the second-generation, 8GB iPhone – the current iPhone 3G was plummeting in price – down to $99 – beginning immediately. Not only does that undercut Palm’s 8 GB Pre by one hundred bucks – but it also kills the market for Palm’s inexpensive Centro. It also puts a damper on any cheap new Palm devices down the road – as well as possible Google/Android phones, future designs from Nokia or, basically, any other phone you can think of.

I told you – it’s pure genius.

Apple’s iPhone 3G-S will be available beginning on Friday, June 19th.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 7:47 pm and is filed under This Just In.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.