6) Microsoft Exchange Support.

The iPhone 2.0 will have support for Exchange Servers.

5) The iPhone 1.0 was a 1.0 product.

The improvements in the  iPhone 2.0 hardware are worth the upgrade.

4) I don’t need an iPod Experience on my phone.

I have actually changed my mind on that. The iTunes ecosystem in the UK now supports both TV streaming, TV downloads and Movie rental and download. Making it much more desirable.

3) Not a big fan of O2

Not a lot I can do here. O2 still have exclusivity. I do wonder what anti Jailbreak technology will ship with iPhone 2.0.

2) Lack of 3G

iPhone 2.0 has 3g and GPS

1) The Cost.

O2 have now announced pricing: “Best of all, the new 8GB iPhone won’t cost you a penny on our £45 and £75 tariffs. And it’s just £99 on our £35 tariff and new £30 tariff”

So they get you with the monthly contract. TCO for an 8gb model is

£99 Handset, 18 Months @ £30 = £540 TCO for 18 months is £639
£99 Handset, 18 Months @ £35 = £630 TCO for 18 months is £729

£0 Handset, 18 Months @ £45 = £810 TCO for 18 months is £810
£0 Handset, 18 Months @ £75 = £1350 TCO for 18 months is £1350

So the pricing model even with the reduced handset cost is still prohibitivly expensive.

Summary

So my barriers to entry are the choice of O2 and the Cost.

Steve Jobs is due to start the 2008 Word Wide Developer Conference with a series of Keynote product announcements.

This should all kick off at 6pm UK time today.

I will publish a quick summary of the announcements below.

The iPhone getting 3g is old news, want I really want is  a Touch Tablet but we will have to wait and see….

The Key Points:-

3g for wireless data.
GPS for positioning.
Increased Battery Life. 
8GB $199.
16GB $299.
Availability goes from 6 countries to 22 by July then 70 by the end of the year.
Applications Store for new Software applications.
Microsoft Exchange Support.

Product Link: http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=NzY2NzA0

The UK pricing has yet to be confirmed.

Other Links

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-3g-hands-on/

If you want to watch the Keynote you can download it from iTunes

From £269 to £169 but still on the relatively expensive lengthy monthly contract.

A number of things are happening here.

1) The iPhone isn’t actually that popular in the UK. This is based on their choice of network provider (O2) and cost of the hardware.  Outside of some Tech friends I haven’t actually seen an iPhone in the wild.

2) Apple are about to announce a hardware revision. I would imagine the discontinuation of the 8mb model and the introduction of a 32gb to partner with the existing 16gb version. So O2 don’t want left with a load of 8gb stock they cant sell.

So even at £100 off this is still too expensive over the life of the contract.

As for the hardware revision, the worst kept secret in tech is the inclusion of 3g. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for adoption of the iPhone, particularly in Europe.

I finally made it to the end of the video version of the roadmap presentation from March 6th.

The video was so long (78 mins) I was watching a bit here and bit there due to being very busy.

Well all I can say is I am surprised this isn’t getting more news.

Apple clearly are heading for Enterprise and business customers. Their big untapped markets.

Its simple to shrug off the iPhone as a consumer gimmick but some of the business applications shown in the roadmap presentation were very compelling.

Example: The Salesforce.com application, beaming new leads to remote sales people then tracking the new contacts location with Google maps all within a new finger gestures.

All Apple need to do is keep going and they seem to be pretty good at delivering on promises.

The next problem is the iPhone/iTouch form factor but that can be solved by making a  12″ tablet version with multi-touch and it’s game over.

If you have  iTunes installed you can use the link below to download the video (its about 800mb).

This is proper next generation stuff. No one else is innovating on this level.

iTunes Link: Apple March 6 Event_ iPhone Software Roadmap

The BBCi Player. Using the devices built in WiFi you can browse to a web page designed to work on the iPhones small screen (pictured above).

Then you can browse through the last seven days worth of viewing and choose the show you are interested in.

On Windows the BBC iPlayer can download or stream, on the iPhone you can only stream.

Now if you have ever experienced streaming video on a handheld the quality is usually quite poor.

But this streaming model has been designed for WiFi only so they can deliver much better quality video as the target connection would typically at broadband speeds.

I had a chance to play with this the other day on someone else’s iPhone.

First the user experience, you click, you play its that simple.

The quality of the Video has the WOW factor.

For those interested the streams are 516Kbps streams (400Kbps H.264 video, 116Kbps AAC audio).

My advice is till avoid the iPhone 1.0 its still a 1.0 product, better will come. But its great to see Apple allowing innovation like this on the platform. Especially as some of the content is in direct competition with paid for content on iTunes.

Link: BBC Article About iPhone and the BBCiPlayer