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WWDC 2008

It's Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) today and Steve's keynote just finished.

Here are the important announcements:

iPhone firmware update 2.0
* Released in "early July"
* Free for iPhone users, $9.95 for iPod Touch users (it's an accounting thing)
* Enables applications and the iTunes App Store as previously announced
* Enterprise features - Push email, push contacts, push calendar, autodiscovery, global address lookup, remote wipe.
* Positional audio (openAL) and fast graphics with OpenGLES.
* Word, Excel, PowerPoint and iWork document support
* Apps that are 10 MB or less can be downloaded over the cellular network - all others must be downloaded over WiFi or synced from iTunes.
* Enterprise users can set up private storefronts and distribute over their intranet.
* Push notification for applications - Instead of running in the background and wasting battery, the iPhone can receive messages and give you notification (alerts, sounds, badges) without needing to have the application running.

MobileMe
* The new .Mac
* Push email to all devices including iPhones, Macs and Windows PCs
* Online calendar and photo album - syncs with iCal and iPhoto. Drag and drop support.
* $99 per year, 60 day pre-trial available
* Available "early July"
* .Mac users get to keep their existing email addresses which will forward to a MobileMe address

3G iPhone
* Metal back replaced with glossy plastic
* Thinner at the edges
* Solid metal buttons
* 3.5" screen (same as original)
* Flush headphone jack
* "Dramatically improved" audio
* 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 300 hours standby, 5-6 hours web browsing, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio
* Built-in GPS - updates Google Maps live
* A LOT of extra countries - 70 new countries this year
* Price drop - Was: originally $599 for 8 GB. Now: $199 for 8 GB, $299 for 16 GB, $399 for 32 GB. These are the maximum prices for every country.
* Launches on July 11th (22 countries)
* Special edition white version

Steve went through the list of (almost) everything that was bad about the original iPhone and improved upon it dramatically. This is a great update.

As always, Engadget has the scoop + pictures.

P.S. I've disabled comments because whenever I post anything about the iPhone I get a TON of spam comments.