New 3G iPhone to hit Australian shores July 11

Unveiled by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the opening of Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WDC) in San Francisco, the new 3G version of the popular iPhone will allow faster Internet access for both consumers and business users alike.

"We've learned so much with the first iPhone," Jobs told a packed audience at WDC. "We've taken what we've learned and more and created the iPhone 3G; and it's beautiful."

The 3G iPhone will include built-in GPS for real-time mapping and location-based services. It will also feature new iPhone's 2.0 software that will provide support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, allowing users to send and receive Microsoft Exchange email.

"We've done it. You can push email to Microsoft Exchange," Jobs said.

Apple said the 3G iPhone’s battery life will deliver 10 hours of talk time on 2G networks and 5 hours using 3G, with up to 5 to 6 hours of web browsing, up to 7 hours for video playback and up to 24 hours for audio playback.

Both Vodafone and Optus announced that the 3G iPhone would be locally available on July 11. While both carriers declined to announce pricing details, Vodafone said it would release the 3G iPhone on both prepay and contract price plans.

And although pricing for the 3G iPhone has been released in the US, (the base model 3G iPhone will sell for $US199 with 8GB of memory, the 16GB model will retail for $US299), it’s hard to gauge local pricing as Apple has typically increased pricing by 20 to 30 percent for its products in Australia.

Eager customers in Australia can pre-register for their iPhones from Vodafone at iphone.vodafone.com.au, or from Optus at www.optusiphone.com.au.

Meanwhile, Apple has also announced it will open its new $15 million Sydney Apple Store on July 19.

The new Apple Store will occupy three floors of a newly-refurbished building that stands on the corner of King and George streets in the Sydney CBD.

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