iPhone 3G revealed: "Improved Audio...flush headphone jack...$199 for 8GB"

[neoufo51]

Here's the quote from today's keynote that matters to us.

"Improved audio, it's really, really great... and it feels even better in your hand, if you can believe it."

"Flush headphone jack."

Steve Jobs keynote live from WWDC 2008 - Engadget

At this pricepoint, I expect to see quite a few head-fier's reporting to us how much improvement has gone into the audio aspect.

[krmathis]

...and it will be available in Norway on July 11th.
If they set the price anywhere near the US one I am certainly in for one.

[deviationer]

meh still no thanks

HTC Wizard running WM 6.1

[Geir]

Get thee behind me in the queue KRmathis. If released at a reasonable price here in Norway, fights will break out....

[collapseandrelax]

I hope i can upgrade my iPhone 1st gen...

[hatethatgiraffe]

what sizes are they doing it in?
8gb 16gb? anything bigger??

[oicdn]

Did you read that..

"How does the iPhone 3G tackle these things? Let's take a look at 3G. Why do you want 3G? Faster data downloads, right? There's nowhere that you want it more than the browser and downloading email. First, the browser..."

"Improved audio, it's really, really great... and it feels even better in your hand, if you can believe it."

"Flush headphone jack."

"Solid metal buttons, the same gorgeous 3.5-inch display, camera"

"We've learned so much with the first iPhone. We've taken everything we've learned and more and created the iPhone 3G. It's beautiful. This is what it looks like." Black back! "Thinner at the edges. Full plastic back, it's really nice."

Nice...they cheaped out on the case....who knows what else was cheaped out on. No wonder they're able to bring cost down so much....

Not really a complaint, but I knew with a price drop that significant, there was a catch. It's plastic.

[zip22]

I was under the impression that the reduced price was primarily due to AT&T subsidizing it. I'm sure a plastic back helped, though.

[Ezer]

I've read that the plastic back has more to do with reception issues than cheaping out on materials.

[dgbiker1]

oicdn,
The "catch" is that AT&T is subsidizing the cost of the phone, at a loss of $0.11/share. There's no way they were able to cut the price of the phone in half by replacing the back with plastic, especially a decent quality plastic (it doesn't look like a cheap ABS extrusion). At best, they might have broken even for adding a GPS and/or 3G radio, but I think it was for aesthetic purposes. The back of the original iPhone was pretty ugly with the black plastic "window" for the cell/wifi radios, a uniform all-plastic back is a lot more attractive and in-line with Apple's design conventions.