Apple yesterday introduced “the fastest iPhone ever”, with speed and software upgrades, a video camera, a compass as well as more storage capacity. The broadband speed upgrade was sort-of announced by AT&T in late May and it seems that Apple has done enough to maintain the sex appeal of the iPhone. Oh, and yes, there is $99 iPhone now as well.
Apple did not believe that it was already time for an entirely new iPhone after all. At its WWDC event in San Francisco, the company announced a new “S” version of the iPhone 3G and we are told the “S” stands for “speed”.
That speed is mainly based on support for OpenGL ES 2.0, which renders 3D graphics much more effectively than before, indicating that the iPhone is moving even more into the mobile gaming field. Apple also promises that the battery life has been improved. At least from a hardware perspective, support for HSPA 7.2 may be the most interesting new feature of the device. In theory, the iPhone 3G S will offer a maximum bandwidth of 7.2 Mb/s, up from 3.6 Mb/s. However, users are not likely to see these numbers in the real world, but should be able to hit download speeds of 0.7 to 1.7 Mb/s.
