MacRumors

In the months leading up to the iPhone 3G launch, there were a few early 3rd party case leaks that claimed to depict the upcoming iPhone 3G design. First reports of the case specs came from iLounge. They accurately described tapered edge designs, a glossy plastic back, with white and black colors. One aspect of the original story that we haven't been able to confirm is the reported addition of a 3rd sensor, which drove speculation about the possibility of video conferencing. No additional sensor has been described in the tech specs for the new iPhone. However, iPhone 3G case designs do appear to have adjusted with a larger openings at the earpiece.

This brings us back to two early reports of 3G iPhone case designs by XSKN and Griffin Technology. Both sets of images appear to have been accurate.

Images of XSKN's EXO Mask iPhone 3G were posted in May generating a lengthy debate. Their product remains available with the design consistent with the actual iPhone 3G release. In retrospect, Griffin's leaked case molds were also accurate with the final FlexGrip for iPhone 3G now announced.

Update In the end, it appears accessory manufacturers did get dimensions of the iPhone 3G prior to the official release. According to Jeremy Horwitz at iLounge, however, the specs did not come from Apple themselves and instead leaked from Apple's iPhone contractors.

AppleInsider publishes some information released to some developers this week about how they can submit their iPhone/iPod Touch applications to the iTunes App Store.

Applications are submitted via iTunes Connect and do have an absolute size limitation of 2GB. Apps can be limited to specific geographic regions, and information about iPod Touch compatibility and game content ratings can also be specified.

While Apple does give a wide range of pricing options, pricing is restricted to between $0.99 to $999.99 with increments ranging of $1 to $100 depending on relative price differences. Alternatively, applications can also be given away for free. Only a handful of developers have publicly announced specific prices for their iPhone applications, but it appears iPhone games are starting to settle around $9.99.

AppleInsider suggests the iTunes App store will launch on July 11th alongside the iPhone 3G. This date has also been reported by AppleGazette.

Apple announced the winners of their annual Apple Design Awards (ADA) tonight.

The Apple Design Awards, held at Moscone West during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, recognize technical excellence, innovation, and outstanding achievement in software development. With new categories for iPhone development, this year's Apple Design Awards will be more exciting than ever.

The ADAs feature categories in both Mac and iPhone categories this year. TheiLife reported the winners from tonight's presentation ceremony. The winners include:

Best OS X Student Project
- Squirrel (finance management) by Axel Peju
Best OS X Graphics and Media Application
- ScreenFlow (Screencasting) by Vara Software Limited
Best OS X Application
- ScreenFlow (Screencasting) by Vara Software Limited
Best OS X User Experience
- Macnification (organize microscopic images) by Orbicule
Best OS X Game
- Guitar Hero III by Aspyr Media, Inc

Best iPhone Web App
- Remember the Milk (task management) by Remember the Milk
Best iPhone Game
- Enigmo by Pangea
Best iPhone Entertainment App
- AOL Radio by AOL LLC
Best iPhone Social Networking App
- Twitteriffic (twitter client) by The Icon Factory
Best iPhone Productivity App
- OmniFocus (task management) by The Omni Group
Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application Winner
- MIM (medical imaging) by MIMVista, Corp.

The native iPhone winners, of course, are not yet available to the public. Runners up are also listed at TheiLife. The winners received two 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops, two 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays, one 16GB iPod touch, one 8GB iPhone, an ADC Premier Membership, reimbursement for one WWDC 2008 E-ticket including airfare and accommodations, and one 2009 ADC Macworld Expo Exclusive Marketing Package.

LogicielMac publishes a screenshot of the system requirements for Mac OS X Snow Leopard which was seeded to developers this week. The requirements list the following:

- An Intel Processor
- An internal, external, or shared DVD drive
- At least 512 MB of RAM
- Display connected to an Apple-supplied video card
- 9GB of disk space, or 12GB for developer tools

Developers received an early copy of Snow Leopard at WWDC this week. As this is an early developer version, requirements could change in the future, but the dropping of PowerPC support has been long rumored. MacRumors can independently verify that these are the current requirements for Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard is the next major version of Mac OS X and is expected to ship in "about a year".

On Monday, Apple officially announced the iPhone 3G. The final phone design matched up closely with expectations as spelled out in our pre-WWDC rumor roundup. The 3G/GPS iPhone also matched up closely with one of the first leaked iPhone photos originally published by iPod Observer. We will publish a full rumor scorecard later this week.

A few sites were able to get brief "hands on" time with the new iPhone (Macworld, Engadget, Gizmodo). Initial impressions included:

- Enable/Disable 3G setting is real, Reception seems better
- Feels similar to existing iPhone, thicker in center, thinner on edges but same geometric volume as previous iPhone
- Volume buttons now silver metal, Clearer speaker audio
- Camera seems same, Geotagging also there

The iPhone 3G will be released in AT&T and Apple Retail stores on July 11th, 2008 at a discounted price of $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB. This represents $200 less than the price for the first generation iPhone. While we were hoping details about the launch would be clearer a day or two after the announcement, there are still lingering questions about activation and the sales procedure.

AT&T's official press release only revealed that the iPhone 3G will require a 3G data plan which is priced at $30/month for consumers and $45/month for business users. While some have been quick to point out that this $10-higher 3G data cost offsets the $200 subsidy provided by AT&T, this $30/mo price is indeed AT&T's standard 3G plan for smartphones and has not been artificially raised. Customers with the most cause for objection with this pricing are those who don't live in 3G supported areas. While the new iPhone will default back to EDGE data support in these areas, users will still have to pay for 3G data. But again, this appears to be standard procedure for data plans on 3G-enabled smartphones.

Based on various interviews with AT&T representatives, it appears that activation will be carried out in-store at time of purchase. This is reportedly to deter individuals from unlocking phones for use on other carriers or other countries. Since $199 represents the subsidized price from AT&T, it is understandable that they wish to ensure activation, however, many are concerned that this procedure will slow down lines significantly when the iPhone 3G goes on sale. For users who wish to buy an unsubsidized iPhone, this does not appear to be an option. However, those users can sign up for the iPhone 3G and then cancel their contract after 30 days resulting in the usual (~$200) early termination fee, thus repaying AT&T for the built-in subsidy.

Finally, BoyGeniusReport publishes an internal AT&T memo regarding the iPhone 3G and confirms that AT&T will require in-store activation. It also describes that the customer can cancel their phone after 30 days and pay an early termination fee. Cancelation within 30 days, however, requires the customer to return the phone (and get a refund).

In the previously referenced New York Times article, Steve Jobs revealed that Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi will be directed at the iPod and iPhone specifically

PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,

Apple acquired P.A. Semi in late April, and reports had suggested that Apple was not interested in any of their current technology. This generated some speculation about what specific project they had in mind when acquiring the company.

Apple has posted pages for Mac OS X Snow Leopard for both server and client and describe a bit of what users can expect from the next OS X release. Apple promises that Snow Leopard "dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos." Some early screenshots from the Developer seed of Snow Leopard do indeed show significantly smaller application file sizes over current Leopard installations. Other features listed on Apple's site were largely touched on in the press release.

The New York Times, however, reveals that Snow Leopard's big focus is taking advantage of the recent trend towards multi-core and parallel computer processes. Steve Jobs provided some information on Apple's direction:

"We've added over a thousand features to Mac OS X in the last five years," he said Monday in an interview after his presentation. "Were going to hit the pause button on new features."
....
"The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things," he said. "I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it."

According to Jobs, Apple has made a parallel-programming breakthrough with "Grand Central." Additionally, Apple claims their new OpenCL technology is "way beyond what Nvidia or anyone else has." There had been talk from Nvidia's CEO that Apple may adopt their CUDA technology, but it appears that Apple's implementation may be more advanced. CUDA allows programmers to offload processing to the computer's graphics processors, which can be very powerful.

Apple's focus on parallel computing comes at a natural time with Intel's upcoming plans for Nehalem processors which will scale up to 8-core processors. Apple has announced that Snow Leopard will be delivered in "about a year".

Updated: The original version of the article had indicated that Jobs pitted Grand Central against nVidia's CUDA. It has been updated to include that while Jobs touts Grand Central as a breakthrough, the comparison was in regards to Apple's OpenCL

Apple has started seeding developers with an early version of Safari 4 (5526.11.2). The release comes amidst news of Apple's plans for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) which will focus on performance and quality.

In their press release for Snow Leopard, Apple revealed that Snow Leopard includes Safari "with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive." Apple will reportedly accomplish this dramatic speedup with SquirrelFish technology which is currently under development for Webkit. Snow Leopard is due for release in "about a year", though Safari 4 release could come much sooner and for existing operating systems. In fact, they are seeding versions specifically for Windows, Tiger and Leopard.

Apple's focus on high performance JavaScript becomes obvious now that they have demoed the new web applications that come with MobileMe (Guided Tour). MobileMe provides web-applications for email, calendar and address book which were described as being as responsive as desktop-based applications.

One new feature found in Safari 4 is the ability to save webpages as stand alone "web applications" which launch much like regular applications. This replicates functionality found in Fluid, a Mac OS X Leopard application which creates these Site Specific Browsers.