blaHCL Presents

So here we are, the WWDC keynote behind us, His Jobsness spoke and the iPhone 3G is out of the bag, and I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed. A few things I’ve been having gripes with the original iPhone are a) Slow EDGE network, b) 2.0 megapixel camera, c) no video capture, d) no third party support, and e) no file management system. As my appetite for video podcasts grows, I also recently added a new gripe f) not enough disk space.

Today’s keynote solved some of my gripes - namely the inclusion of App Store and 3G support. I’m looking forward to what the new App Store has to offer, and would hope to see some freebies on there upon launch. I’m used to the free apps on Installer.app, so unless the app offers exceptional functionality, I’m not sure how much I’d be willing to shell out for these applications. Another concern is the lack of storage boosts. iPhone 3G will be available in 8GB and 16GB - I’m already having exceeding the 8GB limitation on a regular basis, with the added 3rd party app support, I was very surprised to see Apple opted the keep the 8GB version in lieu of a larger storage space.

The battery life also appears to receive quite a significant boost (Apple’s word, I still have my doubts, especially with the inclusion of 3G and GPS). The new GPS integration is a neat addition, but living in NYC, I doubt I’d find much use of it. 3G support, on the other hand, is an extremely welcoming, yet expected, feature. I used to have a Samsung 3G phone, and the internet connection was far better than my current iPhone.

Oh, the Asian language input looks pretty neat too. I’m curious as to how well the writing recognition works. But what happened to the rest? All those features that’s been buzzing about? Video capturing? Video conferencing?? Improved camera quality? Nothing? At all? Normally Apple lives up to, or beyond, expectation, but I guess there’s an exception to everything.

One other announcement that piqued my interest is the instruction of MobileMe (replacing .Mac). The online UI looks very streamlined and desktop-app-like. The ability to simultaneously sync between a mobile device, a Mac and/or a PC is very cool. I also loved the “pushed” services for calendar/contact/mail/photo. Looks like Apple’s finally taking its first step towards cloud computing. I’m considering subscribing to MobileMe once it becomes available. That should make data management in between my Mac/iPhone a lot easier.

Apple’s very aggressive with their pricing this time around with a $299 price tag for 16GB iPhone (seriously, buying the 8GB iPhone is like buying an iPod Touch and trying to pass it off as an iPhone - you’ll just screw yourself over down the road). I’m hesitantly tempted… (perhaps someone will come up with an app to allow video capturing on iPhone)

By the way, is it just me or does His Jobsness lost a lot of weight? He didn’t look very healthy at the keynote today…