The new Apple iPhone, touted as the fastest and most powerful iPhone yet, should be available in New Zealand by the end of the month.
Vodafone, in New Zealand, already has the iPhone 3G for sale and Telecom is said to be in "deep discussions" with Apple about taking on the iPhone.
The 3G S was released in the United States at the World Wide Developers Conference. Although it was not available for testing, reports on the iPhone 3G S were glowing online yesterday.
The phone is said to be up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G, with longer battery life, a high-quality three megapixel auto focus camera, easy to use video recording and hands-free voice control.
Apple is charging $US199 ($NZ316) for a 16GB model and $US299 for a 32GB model. The iPhone 3G model dropped to $US99.
Among the features to raise the interest of US commentators was the improved photography, seen as a big improvement on the grainy images captured on the 3G model.
The iPhone features a new built-in digital compass for instant navigation. The compass is integrated with the maps programme and automatically orients any map to the direction the user was facing.
OS3.0 software, available on June 26 as a free software update via iTunes 8.2, has 100 new features, including cut, copy and paste; MMS; landscape keyboard for mail, messages, notes and Safari; expanded parental controls; and the ability to record and send audio recordings on the run.
A new Find My iPhone feature allows users to locate their lost iPhone on a map, send a message that will appear on the screen or play a sound to help find the phone even it if is set to silent. If the phone cannot be found, data and content can be erased with the new remote wipe feature.
