Apple Launches iPhone 3G SApple Launches iPhone 3G S

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Apple iPhone 3G S

Apple and AT&T opened their retail locations at 7 a.m. Friday morning to begin selling the latest, most-advanced iPhone yet.

Despite several new features, existing iPhone customers are faced with a tough decision: Upgrade now, or stand pat?

The iPhone 3G S is Apple's latest touch-screen smartphone, and it looks nearly identical to previous iPhone models. But the latest handset sports a beefier processor that Apple said will perform operations up to twice as fast as previous iPhones. Companies like Rapid Repair and iFixit have already done a teardown of the device that confirms previous reports that said the iPhone 3G S has a Samsung S5PC100 chip that runs at 600 MHz, and the RAM has been doubled to 256 MB.

The latest iPhone also bumps up the camera from 2 to 3.2 megapixels. The iPhone 3G S has autofocus capabilities and a relatively unusual feature that enables users to choose what they want to focus on in a picture by tapping it on the touch screen. This improved camera could also lead to new applications, as developers will be getting access to it in the form of application programming interfaces. This could open the door for bar-code-scanning apps like ShopSavvy that require an auto-focus camera.

The camera can also be used for recording video at 30 frames per second, and there is on-board software to edit these recordings, as well as a native YouTube uploader. While various cell phones and smartphones have been able to record videos for years, the iPhone 3G S has a chance at bringing it to the mainstream because of its potential popularity and easy implementation. Many other phones had a better camera than the iPhone, but Apple's touch-screen smartphone was by far the top phone used for the photo-sharing site Flickr because it was easy to do.

Another new feature of the iPhone 3G S is the inclusion of a digital compass, which can be integrated with Google Maps to automatically orient the map to the direction the user is facing. Like the improved camera, developers will also be able to access this for new programs.

The new Apple handset will have double the capacity of previous versions, and it also has the connectivity features of previous models including Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE, GPS, and Bluetooth.

This is the third consecutive summer that Apple has released an iPhone. Early reports and in-store accounts suggest sales are going briskly, although it's not as hectic as the launch of the iPhone 3G when server issues led to activation problems and long lines. With a new two-year contract, the iPhone 3G S costs $199 for the 16-GB model and $299 for the 32-GB model.

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