“The continued economic turmoil, and in particular the troubling unemployment rate, is undoubtedly impacting industry sales,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “Our latest Economy Tracker indicated that although consumers’ general opinion about the economy is improving, their outlook on their own personal situation is worsening. If consumers’ personal outlook continues to erode, they could very well be much more conservative with their holiday shopping this year.”

A somber warning for the videogame industry. Even recent price cuts on game consoles have done little to spur demand.

“Year to date, the hardware category has experienced the sharpest decline in the industry, with unit sales down 10 percent compared to the same time period last year,” Frazier wrote. “Recent price cuts helped spur a one- to two-month increase in unit sales, and this month’s Wii sales reflect that boost, but the other platforms have not sustained the sales momentum after price reduction.”

The videogame industry may be recession-resistant, but it is clearly not recession-proof, as some once believed. Sales data, below.

U.S. Hardware Sales, October 2009

1. Wii 506.9K
2. Nintendo DS 457.6K
3. PlayStation 3 320.6K
4. Xbox 360 249.7K
5. PSP 174.6K
6. PlayStation 2 117.8K

U.S. Top Ten Software Sales, October 2009

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, Sony) 537,000
2. Wii Fit Plus (Wii, Nintendo) 441,000
3. Borderlands (360, Take 2) 418,000
4. Wii Sports Resort (Wii, Nintendo) 314,000
5. NBA 2K10 (360, Take 2) 311,000
6. Halo 3: ODST (360, Microsoft) 271,000
7. NBA 2K10 (PS3, Take 2) 213,000
8. Forza Motorsport 3 (360, Microsoft) 175,000
9. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS, Square Enix) 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (360, Electronic Arts) 156,000

“EA is performing well, with quality, sales and segment share up so far this year,” EA CEO John Riccitiello said in a statement. “We are making tough calls to cut costs in targeted areas and investing more in our biggest games and digital businesses.”

“This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers…at no additional cost.”

– Microsoft on its Xbox 360/Netflix partnership, Aug. 2009

So much for Xbox 360’s game console exclusivity on Netflix streaming. This morning, the DVD-by-mail pioneer said that beginning sometime next month, owners of Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles will be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix.

The feature, which brings an unlimited amount of online viewing with any subscription worth $9 or more, will initially require an “instant streaming Blu-ray disc” to enable it. Not the most elegant of implementations, but presumably a firmware upgrade will likely follow and bake the feature into the PS3.

For Netflix (NFLX), the deal provides a chance to broaden its subscriber base. About nine million PlayStation 3 systems have been sold in U.S., and more than 25 million worldwide. So the potential for new customers here is substantial. For Sony (SNE), which already offers movies and TV shows to PS 3 users for a $3 to $4 fee, it’s a way of removing an Xbox 360 marketing advantage Microsoft (MSFT) has been lording over it since this past August.

An interesting claim. Certainly, Palm’s new platform would benefit from some new developers, and offering them a bit of cash to come on board isn’t unprecedented. Remember, KPCB manages a $100 million iFund that’s driving development for the iPhone OS from Apple (AAPL).

But according to the folks I’ve spoken with, Palm isn’t paying developers to write apps for webOS. One source inside Palm dismissed the idea that the company would do so as “rubbish.” Three others in a position to know said they’d never heard of such an incentive. And none of the mobile app developers I’ve contacted have been approached by Palm with such an offer or heard of anyone who has been approached.

Odd, isn’t it? Why would Palm (PALM) offer financial incentives to a developer who created an unreleased civic engagement tool and not to one who offers a popular game? Or a killer productivity app? Or an iTunes App Store top seller?

CitySourced has not responded to repeated requests for comment and clarification.

If it was, surely we wouldn’t be seeing the sixth consecutive month of declining sales reported by NPD. According to the market research firm, overall sales in the United States in August of hardware, software and game accessories were $909 million–a 16 percent drop from the same period a year ago.

Hardware sales were down 25 percent for the month and 17 percent for the year. Software fared little better. It was down 15 percent for the month and 14 percent for the year.

Six straight months of falling sales. Overall, the industry is down 14 percent for the year, earning nearly $9.1 billion so far in 2009, according to NPD. Is this a trend that can be dismissed with the standard “well, software drives console sales” explanation? I’m not so sure. It’s not like Mario Kart and Madden NFL 10 have disappeared from the shelves. Indeed, they’re still top-selling titles. They’re still driving sales. They’re just driving a hell of a lot fewer of them.

Indeed, Electronic Arts (ERTS) CEO John Riccitiello bemoaned this very fact in an email to employees, released yesterday. “It is discouraging that one of our highest-rated and best-marketed ‘Madden’ titles in years is facing strong headwinds,” he said, adding industry trends “present a challenge.”

Perhaps that’s because we’re in the middle of the worst American recession in 50 years and $40 for a videogame is still $40. I’ll bet $5 and my old Intellivision that the videogame industry will post its first year-over-year loss since 2004 this year.

Hardware Sales:

1. Nintendo DS     552.9K
2. Wii     277.4K
3. Xbox 360     215.4K
4. PlayStation 3     210.0K
5. PSP     140.3K
6. PlayStation 2      105.9K

Top 10 Software Sales:

1. Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360, Electronic Arts): 928,000
2. Wii Sports Resort (Wii, Nintendo): 754,000
3. Madden NFL 10 (PS3, EA): 665,000
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360, Square Enix): 303,000
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3, Square Enix): 290,000
6. Madden NFL 10 (PS2, EA): 160,000
7. Dissidia Final Fantasy (PSP, Square Enix): 130,000
8. Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo): 128,000
9. Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo): 120,000
10. Fossil Fighters (DS, Nintendo): 92,000

The week that took us from August to September was one for the books over at BoomTown, especially if you’re 12.

Kara spent Monday morning at Activision Blizzard (ATVI), where they are pushing forward with the entire Guitar Hero line, even as the game industry faces a nearly 50 percent decline in U.S. sales this year. Kara got to play hero to several of the forthcoming releases, including previewing the much anticipated DJ Hero console.

The youth movement continued with the fancy bar graph from Forrester Research’s annual “State of Consumers and Technology,” which drove home an important fact of life for media outlets. All the money being spent on new media expansion is a fight for the young; older consumers are sticking to more reliable fare.

BoomTown wasn’t just about the kids though, as 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey announced her exit from the gene-juicing business to focus on a foundation related to Alzheimer’s research. Avey co-founded 23andMe with Anne Wojcicki in 2006 with early money from Genentech (DNA), Google (GOOG) and New Enterprise Associates, as well as Wojcicki’s husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

While BoomTown was keepin’ it real with the kids, Digital Daily was abuzz with a spate of iPhone news. John started Monday off on the topic of the Sept. 9 iPod event with confirmation that music, indeed, will be center stage. In the Apple world, that means iPods and iTunes, though Beatles fans are keeping their fingers crossed.

Readers got a compare-and-contrast of Apple’s (AAPL) foreign and domestic policy when John covered a potential two-carrier system in China and the long-awaited stateside activation of MMS features in the iPhone OS3. Meaning that while China may get the iPhone carrier flexibility so far absent in the U.S. market, American consumers are just about to get a new feature that’s been standard on every smartphone for a year or more.

MediaMemo covered a fluid week in the world of media giants and Top Chefs. Disney (DIS) went off to the mines and instead of seven dwarfs, found Marvel and the rights to its 5,000-character portfolio. Disney CEO Bob Iger didn’t think $4 billion was too much to pay to bring Iron Man and friends to the happiest media empire on earth and is sure the company will benefit from such “rich intellectual property.”

If the Disney vault got 5,000 new friends this week, eBay said goodbye to one long-time partner. Peter reported that the long, difficult breakup between eBay and Skype was finalized when eBay sold a 65 percent stake in the VOIP juggernaut to the internationally mixed bag of Silver Lake, Index ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and a Canadian pension fund.

Peter rounded out the week of motion with lots of changes in Google’s ranks. The search giant shuffled the chairs with David Fischer moving out of the self-serve ad business with no sign yet of a replacement. Google China saw the big chair turn upside-down when Kai-Fu Lee announced that he’d leave the company this month to begin his own venture. Lee will be replaced by the tag team of Boon-Lock Yeo and John Liu, who will oversee engineering and business, respectively.

Not all Google’s shifts were outbound though. “Charlie’s Café” at the main campus got its Top Chef back after Preeti Mistry failed to make the cut on the Las Vegas iteration of the popular TV show. Regular fans of the show weren’t surprised by her dismissal, but at least Google can put one in the plus column this week.

Over at The Mossberg Solution, Katie took aim at a possible answer to a question plaguing all image-conscious technophiles: Yea or nay to the omnipresent Bluetooth earpiece. Plantronics (PLT) and Aliph, maker of the Jawbone, both say yea and are upping the ante on the recently reviled symbol of cellphone userdom. Katie reviewed the fashion-forward Discovery 975 and Jawbone Prime, each designed to separate its users from $130. In exchange, they’ll get redesigned outsides and some new features that might even put one back in Brad Pitt’s ear.

“Advertising for the product has increased with a more direct attack on the iPhone but that does not appear to have materially impacted sales from its prior sales levels,” Piecyk writes in a note to clients today. “The Pre continues to add applications that will increase the appeal of the phones like Spades and Bubbles, two game applications and total application downloads have now topped 3 million.

“However,” Piecyk adds, “with only 41 apps available we wonder how apps with limited appeal like Shabat Shalom, which allow users to check candle lighting times, are showing up before proven iPhone successes like a basic fart sound application or Facebook.”

Piecyk goes on to suggest that Sprint (S) needs to step up its efforts to market the Pre lest it fumble the best opportunity to come its way in a while.

“Overall the launch of the Pre has been a success for Sprint by increasing the profile of the company’s data network and its use as an effective retention tool. However, we expect Verizon to heavily market whatever WebOS phone they get their hands on. 

“This is a good operating system,” Piecyk notes, “and phone and the multi-tasking functionality is a clear differentiated advantage but competitive advantages in technology are fleeting and we cant imagine that Apple and others will not be able to replicate the multi-tasking functionality in short order. Between Verizon’s launch of a Palm product in 2010 and the inevitable end of the multi-tasking differentiation we believe Sprint is wasting a valuable opportunity to get the Pre in as many customers’ hands as possible this year.”

And just how should Sprint maximize that opportunity? Simple, says Piecyk: Slash the Pre’s price to $99, or even 99 cents.

But far from the last, I’m sure.

A few weeks back, this sort of update never would have made it into the App Store, but now that the device supports age restrictions for applications, Apple (AAPL) has adopted a more permissive stance toward
“objectionable content.” Browse the Hottest Girls page on the App Store and you’ll find the following warning:

“You must be at least 17 years old to download this game.
Rated 17+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes”

“Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity?” Interesting. It would seem then that Hottest Girls isn’t just the first app to boast nudity, it’s also the first to set up shop in what may become the iPhone’s red light district. It will be interesting to see to what uses the adult entertainment industry can find for the iPhone’s accelerometer….

UPDATE: Apple seems to have pulled the app. It still appears in the iTunes store, but it’s apparently no longer available for download.

UPDATE: The developers of Hottest Girls claim the app wasn’t pulled; it sold out. “The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out,” they explain. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again.”

UPDATE: Apple now says it was indeed responsible for pulling the app.

“I think the iPhone and iPod touch may emerge as really viable devices in the mobile games market.”

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, November 2008

Sony doesn’t consider Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone a serious rival to its PlayStation Portable. This according to Sony Computer Entertainment’s Ray Maguire, who says a converged device like the iPhone will always be inferior to a dedicated gaming platform like the PSP. “The iPhone has the advantage of being a single device and is growing a reasonable installed base, but it doesn’t have the production power that a PSP has,” he told MCV. “As a specific games machine, the PSP is always going to win out.”

Not that Sony (SNE) is ignoring the fast-developing market for time-waster, or snacking, games that has arisen around the iPhone. Said Maguire, “We’re in a great position to take on the interest in these snacking games and produce them at better quality, lower prices, with lower cost of development–that’s a great business model.”

And for Apple’s (AAPL) sake, I hope he does. Because with expectations running this high, I’d hate to see what happens if he doesn’t. Although the new Apple Store housed in a life-size replica of the Golden Gate Bridge pictured in the invite would certainly take some of the heat off …

Anyway, I’ll be live-blogging from inside Moscone West in San Francisco starting at 10 a.m. PDT. Here’s something to read while you wait …

• From Moscone West: This is crazy. They just opened a single door to let cameras in and the media rushed the gate. Its like that 1979 Who concert in Cincinnati.



• The hall in Moscone West is filling quickly to the sounds of Jerry Lee Lewis. From the looks of it media and developers are here in equal numbers.
• Jobs takes the stage. I’m sitting about 20 rows back, but even I can see he’s looking pretty thin from here. He gets right into it, pulls up a slide of a stool and describes Apple as a three-legged company. Macs, music and the iPhone.
• Jobs will spend the morning talking about the iPhone. This afternoon Apple will discuss OS X “Snow Leopard.”
• Talking about iPhone SDK: In the past 96 days, 25,000 people have applied to Apple’s paid developer program. It’s had 250,000 downloads of the iPhone 2.0 software SDK.
• Three parts to iPhone 2.0: enterprise, SDK, “new features.”
• Apple has built exchange support into iPhone 2.0: push email, push contacts, push calendar, auto-discovery, global address lookup, remote wipe. Also supports Cisco VPN security.
• Everything enterprise has told us they’ve wanted in the iPhone, we’ve built into it right out of the box, he says.
• 35% of Fortune 500 companies have participated in iPhone 2.0 beta: top five banks, securities firms, 8 of 10 top pharma companies, 6 of 7 leading airlines. Lots of support from higher-ed market as well.
• Cutting to video now: Execs from Disney (DIS), Genentech, U.S. Army discussing iPhone 2.0 beta: all of them talking about the extraordinary demand for the iPhone among their employees.
• “iPhone 2.0 is extraordinarily well-integrated with Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange.”
• Video goes on: Talking about security now. Army rep talking about how important remote wipe is. Disney exec describes iPhone as “an enterprise-level device that packs the power of a laptop into a device the size of a phone.” Video ends.
• Moving on to iPhone SDK. Jobs welcomes Scott Forstall to the stage to discuss the SDK. “We’re opening up the same developer tools we use internally,” he says. “Developers will create applications in exactly the same way we do.”
• Core OS: Core operating system of iPhone uses the same elements as OS X. Offers a quick overview of Cocoa Touch, Xcode, Interface Builder, Tethered Debugging, Instruments and other developer tools, before moving on to a quick demo of Interface Builder.
• Launches Xcode and creates a new project in Xcode. App will use built-in address APIs as well as core location APIs to locate contacts within a 10-mile radius of the iPhone.
• He opens Interface Builder and drags and drops some buttons and fields onto an iPhone test screen on his desktop.
• The UI finished, he opens the iPhone simulator to test it out. It works.
• He links the UI features up to the code he’s written and bang, it’s linked up and ready to go. That’s it.
• Forstall says developer response to the iPhone SDK has been enormously positive. He refers to a number of developer quotes that really lionize the platform: “It blows away anything we’ve seen from RIM” says one.
• Forstall invites a Sega rep up to the stage to demo some of their work for the iPhone. Sega’s Ethan Einhorn offers a bit of background on their Super Monkey Ball project. He notes that the company was able to demo an early version of the game after just a few weeks of work at the iPhone SDK launch announcement. Now, after a few more months of work, they’ve managed to create a full-featured version of the game.
• Super Monkey Ball will be available at the launch of the App Store for $9.99.
• Up next: eBay’s Ken Sun. The iPhone has become the No. 1 mobile device for accessing eBay, Sun says.
• Six weeks ago, eBay began developing a new interface for the iPhone and was able to quickly pull one together.
• The application supports auction watching and bidding. Bids placed on an iPhone are instantly registered in eBay’s system. The eBay app will be available for free when the App Store launches.
• Loopt’s Sam Altman takes the stage to talk about the company’s location-based social-networking app: “We make serendipity happen.” Pffft. He pulls up the app and uses it to locate a friend and a list of the thing’s she’s done today. He notes that the friend is close by at a cafe and sends her a quick message asking if she’s available for lunch.
• Next up: TypePad and its mobile blogging application. Michael Sippey takes the stage and after talking up TypePad as a blogging platform, he moves on to the company’s new iPhone app.
• Demo will focus on photoblogging. He browses the photos on his iPhone, selects a picture, crops it, adds it to a blog post, publishes it to his blog, taps view and Safari launches and displays his new post. Very fast, very slick. Oddly, no mention of a cut-and-paste feature.
• This app will also be available at the launch of the App Store for free.
• Associated Press follows TypePad. AP’s Benjamin Mosse describes AP’s Mobile News Network, which uses the device’s location API to provide location-based local news, photos and video.
• The app also supports citizen journalism and permits AP readers to send the news agency their own photos and news reports. This app will also be available for free at the launch of the App Store.
• Next up: Brian Greenstone from Pangea software. The company has ported two of its games from OS X to the iPhone.
• The first is Enigmo. The second is Cromag Rally–a 3D caveman racing game. The graphics in both games look great. Greenstone notes that in this particular game, the iPhone itself is the controller–in this case, the steering wheel.
• Greenstone really talking up the SDK, says porting the game was almost a no-brainer.
• Forstall welcomes Moo-Cow-Music’s Mark Terry to the stage to demo Band. It’s a collection of virtual instruments that allows users to create music on the iPhone. He pulls up a keyboard and plays the first few bars of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
• He moves on to a drum kit, and then to a “blues interface” that includes all the instruments you need to play the blues. And now the bass; he plays a few bars of Pink Floyd’s “Money.” He notes that tracks can be recorded and mixed together to create songs individually or collaboratively.
• Onstage now is Jeremy Schoenherr from MLB.com to demo an app developed exclusively for the iPhone. The app offers real-time updates of game info and also nearly real-time video highlights. Videos will reportedly be uploaded minutes after a play is made.
• Next: Modality, which will demo the first of two apps designed for the medical industry. S. Mark Williams takes the stage to talk about a learning application for med students. Looks like they’ve created an iPhone version of “Netter’s Anatomy.” All the graphics have been ported to the iPhone, and you can zoom in and out, and use touch to locate different areas of the body, the same way you use the Google maps application. Modality says that within weeks of the App Store launching, it will be offering this application as well as others for different education markets.
• Mark Cain from MIMvista onstage now. Looks like we’ve got a medical imaging application. Onscreen now is a CT scan and a PET scan overlaid on an iPhone screen. (My god, this is really cool.)
• The application relies on the iPhone’s pinch, slide, touch and drag to navigate images. You can also toggle to a planar view as well. Whoa–it supports movies as well. Cain stresses that this is a highly complex and computing-intensive application that’s been ported to the iPhone. And his company was able to do it with relative ease.
• Up now: Digital Legends to demo another game. They’ve developed Krull, a fantasy action game, on the iPhone. Accelerometer is used to move the character, to jump, swing weapons, etc. The graphics are very impressive.
• The person demoing notes that in some cases they’re better than those of handheld gaming platforms. The app will be available later this year. What we were just shown–which was damn impressive–was pulled together in just two weeks.
• Forstall back onstage. He’s talking about one feature that developers have requested that wasn’t included in the SDK: The ability to run applications in the background as well as the foreground.
• He pulls up a Windows Mobile task manager to demonstrate the wrong way to address that request. “This is nuts,” he says. Apple has come up with a far better solution: We’ve developed a push notification service.
• Apple will maintain a persistent IP connection to the iPhone through which third-party applications can push notifications to the device. These can be badges, text notifications and audio notifications. There is also a unified push notification service for all developers that preserves battery life, maintains performance and works over the air. This will be available in September, but Apple will begin seeding it soon.
• Jobs strolls back onstage to discuss some new features.
• The first: Contact Search. Your standard contact search.
• Second: Full iWork document support: pages, keynote. MS office support as well: Word, PowerPoint. (Cut-and-paste support?)
• Third: Bulk delete and move.
• Fourth: Save images from email.
• Fifth: A landscape view of the calculator.
• Sixth: Parental controls.
• Seventh: Languages: there are two forms for Japanese, two forms for Chinese (simplified and traditional) including one that allows you to draw the characters with your finger. “One of the great advantages of not having a bunch of plastic keys on your keyboard,” says Jobs.
• What about 8, 9 and 10? Cut-and-paste, chat and a better camera? No? Damn.
• “iPhone 2.0 raises us to a whole new level,” says Jobs. “We’ll release it in July. It will be free to all iPhone owners, and $9.95 for iPod Touch users.
• Moving on to the App Store. It will be on every iPhone, and it supports wireless downloads, automatic installs and automatic updates. Developers can set the price of their apps. Developers take 70%. No credit card or hosting fees. Apps will be DRM’d for FairPlay.
• If a developer chooses to offer their app for free, Apple won’t charge them anything. Apps under 10 MG can be downloaded over the air. Apps above that size can be downloaded over iTunes or via Wi-Fi.
• Apple has also developed an enterprise version of the apps store that will allow companies to distribute their custom applications only to their employees on their phones.
  There’s another distribution method as well: Ad Hoc. Developers can mail apps to up to 100 users.
• Now we’ve got something entirely new: It’s called MobileMe. Phil Schiller takes the stage to talk about it. What’s MobileMe? “It’s like Exchange for the rest of us.”
  (Haha.) He just slipped up and called active sync “active stink.”
• With MobileMe, iPhone users can have mail, calendar, etc. pushed to their phones. Information is stored in the cloud and then pushed to all a user’s Apple devices. Change a meeting on your phone, the update is pushed to MobileMe, which then pushes that update to your laptop and the machines of the people who are scheduled to attend it.
• All this is done over the air. MobileMe works directly with Apple apps. It also works with Outlook for PC users. Apple has also built a suite of Web-based applications. You’ll find them at me.com. The applications look pretty robust. More like those you’d see on the desktop than on the Web.
• Mail, contacts, calendar, photos–which can be sent directly to MobileMe from the phone–iDisk for storage.
• He’s demoing it now: supports drag and drop. Also supports real-time contact search with links to Google (GOOG) maps for directions.
• Calendar supports drag and drop as well. Want to reschedule a meeting? Drag it to another date and time.
• Moves on to iDisk, which has a new interface. All this is tightly integrated with the iPhone. He checks a push email on his phone, saves the sender as a contact. Now he checks his MobileMe account online. The email and new contact are already there.
• Now he creates a new calendar entry on his laptop. He check his phone and there it is. Now he leaves the iPhone view up on the screen behind him, walks back over to the laptop and adds another meeting to his calendar. A few seconds later, the iPhone screen updates with that new meeting. He demonstrates the same thing with a photo.
• MobileMe will be available for $99 a year, with 20 gigabytes of storage. It will be available in July. And yes, MobileMe does replace .mac. Mac users will be automatically upgraded.
• And what about that cut-and-paste support? No? Anyone? Bueller?
• Jobs back onstage. In a few weeks, it will be the iPhone’s first birthday, he says.
  He shows some photos of the crowds outside the Manhattan Apple store.
• Jobs: “This is the phone that has changed phones forever.” He says the iPhone has 90% customer satisfaction; 98% of iPhone users are mobile browsing; 94% are using email; 90% are text messaging; 80% are using 10 features or more. “You can’t even find 10 features on other phones,” he adds.
• Apple has sold 6 million phones so far, Jobs says. Now we need to address our next challenges:
• 1. 3G
• 2. enterprise support
• 3. Third party applications
• 4. more countries
• 5. more affordable.
• Jobs notes that everyone wants one, but 56% of consumers Apple surveyed said it was too expensive.
• iPhone 3G announced to roar of applause, camera flashes.
• iPhone 3g is thinner, full plastic back, solid metal buttons, but same display, camera, a flush headphone jack, dramatically improved audio. “Feels even better in your hand, if you can believe that,” Jobs says.
• How does the iPhone 3G tackle the challenges I just mentioned?
• Video of EDGE vs. 3G pageload on Safari: 3G takes 21 seconds, EDGE still grinding away. Web site is National Geographic, very image heavy. EDGE still grinding; audience begins laughing. EDGE takes 59 seconds; 3G is 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
• Jobs notes that 3G speeds approach those of Wi-Fi. Apple compared the iPhone 3G to two other state-of-the-art 3g phones, and the iPhone is 36% faster than Nokia N95 and Treo 750.
• Video of same comparison with an email attachment: 3G downloads it in five seconds; EDGE takes 18 seconds. 3G is 3.6 times faster.
• Talking about battery life now: iPhone 3G has 300 hours standby. 2G talk time: 10 hours; 3G talk time: five hours–that’s an industry-leading metric.
• Five to six hours of browsing. Seven hours of video. Twenty-four hours of audio.
  One other thing that benefits from fast data is GPS, and we’ve built that into the iPhone 3G, Jobs notes
• Jobs talking about how location based services for the iPhone are about to explode. He’s demoing GPS tracking now. Jobs tracks a car driving down San Francisco’s Lombard Street.
• Now, he circles back to enterprise support, third-party apps, and international distribution. Apple hoped to put the iPhone in 25 countries. World map appears on screen. Theme from “It’s a Small World” plays as countries in which the iPhone is distributed are quickly colored in. Half-hearted “Small World” sing-along fades after a few verses.
• Lots of applause for this: “We’ll be rolling out the iPhone 3G in 70 countries over the next few months.” The next time you’re in Malta and you need an iPhone, it’ll be there.
  Deals for all these countries are signed, sealed and delivered, according to Jobs.
• Moving on to price: iPhone 3G will sell for $199 for 8GB version. Huge applause.
  “With think at that price point it will be affordable for everyone,” Jobs says. The 16GB model will be $299 and will be available in black and white. Apple will start rolling the iPhone out in 22 of the largest countries on July 11.
• on to a new ad: “It’s finally here. The new phone that beats the iPhone–it’s the iPhone 3G.”
• The ad’s tagline: “Twice as fast. Half the price.” You can almost feel the early adopters in the audience wincing.
• Jobs after ad ends: “Isn’t that nice? Would you like to see it again?” Audience roars; Jobs plays the ad again. “Just like the first iPhone, this new iPhone is one of the most amazing products I’ve ever had the pleasure of being associated with.” Jobs asks iPhone team to stand. Lots of audience applause.
• Looks like that’s it. “Take advantage of the great sessions and go make some great products,” says Jobs. And the keynote ends. Sadly, there’s no “one more thing” moment today — no video-chat support, no chat support, no cut-and-paste.
  ]]> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080609/wwdc/feed/ 5