Nokia launches 4 new Supernova phones

Nokia has officially unleashed four phones in its Supernova series. Aimed at the style conscious, the range features bold colors and hot designs, with inspiration coming from the latest statement handbags or must-have sunglasses.

The fashionable Nokia 7210, 7310, 7510, and 7610, allow you to express your personal style via assorted stylish designs, and personalization through vibrantly hued exchangeable Xpress-On covers in glamorous surfaces.

Features range from 7610’s 3.2 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and 8x digital zoom, instant messaging and TV out for image sharing, to 7210’s simple 2 megapixel camera and music playback.

Nokia 7510 Supernova

Nokia 7310 Supernova

Nokia 7210 Supernova

Nokia 7610 Supernova

How to torment telemarketers with one word

This is how you can really frustrate those telemarketers who regularly call you on your phone. Its a simple one word that you say from beginning right to the end, its not the "F" though. Check out the video clip belw and you will know whats that magic word.

Creative and Innovative Outdoor Ads

Below are some of the best creative and innovative guerrilla outdoor ads at work. Not only there are creative but its funny too. Surely these ads will have a great recalling factor.

This is a creative ad by Mini Cooper placed at the Zurich, Switzerland train station. It gives the perception that the Mini Cooper has a large space.

A very cost-effective advertisement in Hong Kong for a yoga school. It showcases the prowess of a yoga practitioner on the flexible stems of drink straws. A surge of enquiries and enrollment went after up this promotional stunt.

Another creative idea by The Fitness Company. Heavy Weights were placed at various subways in New York City which creates an illusion that the person holding the safety bar is doing weights.

This is an advertisement found in Vancouver during the National Non-Smoking Week. The car was placed at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the message reads 'Death from car accidents: 370, Death from smoking-related causes: 6,027, Quit now before it kills you.

An advertisement for a job recruiting company in Berlin, Germany. Depicting people working in the vending machines, ATMs, it delivers the message that 'Life is too short for the wrong job'.

A sticker has been placed on the high voltage box depicting that Duracell's batteries were used. Cool advertisement found in Malaysia.

Life-size stickers of people were stuck on automatic sliding doors at a mall in Mumbai, India. When someone approaches the doors move apart and it feels like the people on the door are moving away. The person enters to find the message 'People Move Away When You Have Body Odour'.

This is a great advertisment campaign at Unicenter Shopping Mall in Buenos Aires, Argentina for Valentine's Day. It magnifies the romantic ambience with a simple idea.

A print of a cup of Folgers coffee was placed on top of manhole covers in New York City, USA. Holes on the print allows the steam to come out. Wordings around the cup reads 'Hey, City That Never Sleeps. Wake up." from Folgers.

The Great Pollution of Beijing

I was on a Air China flight to Beijing recently for a business meeting and half way through the journey we were informed by the captain of the flight that we will not be able to land in Beijing Terminal 3 due to bad weather and had to land at another airport some 200km from the Beijing Capital. I had earlier rescheduled my appointments to a later time due to the delay in taking off and now with the latest announcement, i would probably have to miss all my meetingsfor the day and reschedule them to another day and this would had been my biggest nightmare.

Just some 30 minutes before arrival, the captain came back on the speaker to inform us that the airport has been reopened and we can land in Beijing.

The descend towards the airport was rough and bumpy and the visibility was very poor. It was hazy and i could hardly see anything from the window of the aircraft until the last few second before the touch down.

Below are some images taken on arrival and on the way to the Beijing capital. Its clearly not bad weather but a serious problem with pollution. China had been developing at a record breaking pace at the cost of becoming the world's most polluted economy, which kills an estimated half a million of people annually. With Olympics weeks away, we can only pray that the condition improves and the measures taken by the central government are effective enough to reduce pollution level. At current level, some of the events may have to be scrapped. No atheletes will want to do a full marathon in such condition.

The government had recently announced a series of emergency measures last week, including alternating (odd-even registrations) driving days and banning 300,000 heavy-polluting vehicles, including aging trucksworking at night. This would certainly help to ease the traffic congestion but i m not too sure whether a last minute measure would improve the air quality. Lets keep our fingers cross...



View of central Beijing from the top of an office building. Visibility and air quality is extremely poor.

This is the new almost completed China's Broadcast Plaza.

New iPhone model aka Made in China

Spotted in China yesterday and immediately i knew it was an extended range of fake iPhone. But i must say the design and UI looks nice. Coincidentally its loaded with a wallpaper of a friend of mine, a famous actress based in Beijing.

New version of the Nokia's S60 Touch video

This is an updated video from S60 that showcases the upcoming S60 Touch UI. You’ll recognize plenty of the content from the original clip they released, but tons of additional demo footage has been added and we get to see a whole lot more of the user interface.

Nokia acquires Plazes and double its stake on LBS

Nokia and Plazes today announced an agreement for Nokia to acquire substantially all assets of Plazes, a privately-owned start-up company of 13 people with its principal operations in Berlin. Plazes provides a context-aware social-activity service that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities: why they are at a given location at a given time, whether in the past, present or future.

Nokia’s purchase of Plazes makes all the sense in the world. In fact by buying the social mapping service, the handset maker is merely continuing efforts that began with its $8.1 billion NavTeq acquisition, which should close soon in August 2008.

"This acquisition helps Nokia to accelerate its vision of bringing people and places closer together, in line with our broader services strategy," said Niklas Savander, Head of Nokia Services & Software. "In addition to the key assets, through this acquisition Nokia will bring on a visionary team with an advanced understanding of social-activity services, as well as the technical ability to further develop this area."

By acquiring Plazes, Nokia will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features. Plazes adds the elements of "place" and "time" to social networking through features that allow people to alert friends of their activity and location; review their own and others' past activities; share their experiences and make plans with friends, who are then able to respond with comments and suggestions as well as their own location information.

The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter 2008. After closing, Plazes will become part of Nokia's Services & Software unit.

Direct flight to Taiwan from China to begin on 4th July

The first regularly scheduled flights in six decades linking China’s mainland with Taiwan will begin July 4 as confirmed by Air China. The flights are part of a warming in relations between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 amid civil war thanks to the in-coming new president. The weekend flights will link Beijing with Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, and southern port of Kaohsiung,

Meanwhile, Taiwan's China Airlines and China Southern Airlines will cooperate on direct charter flights between Taiwan and China, also beginning July 4 that will link Taiwan with the mainland cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xiamen, the carriers said.

This will save alot of traveling time and more importantly to foster a long overdue better relationship between the two.

Breaking News : Nokia buying Symbian and opening it up

Its official and this is the latest news that you will find it both here and here. Nokia has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52% of Symbian Limited shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.

Nokia has always been the biggest supporter of the Symbian platform, and all of their smartphones use some flavor of the Symbian OS, but it’s not alone: other companies, such as Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung, are also using Symbian for some of their devices. Therefore, Nokia decided to turn the intellectual property of Symbian over to the Symbian Foundation, which pretty much means that Symbian is now an alliance similar to Google’s Open Handset Alliance.

Nokia will contribute Symbian and its S60 software assets to the foundation, while other members will put in their UIQ and MOAP software to create a new joint Symbian platform in 2009.

I think this is a brilliant move. With free licensing this really levels the playing field Google's Android, and takes a knockout at Microsoft's Windows Mobile and a masterful strategy against Apple. Royalty free licensing and in two years open source is wonderful. Imagine the speed of extending options and adjustments for the user-interface. This is going to be a good news for developers.

This is strategic move by Nokia to move the Symbian OS forward along with Nokia handsets. It’s obviously a move to ensure that moving forward Nokia also has it’s own OS and can manipulate the market whilst having full control (much like Google’s Android OS), but with Symbian already accounting for 60% of the mobile handset market, thing’s seem to be much brighter for Nokia.

Nokia to provide mobile marketing tuition via Ad Labs

Nokia is to open a series of "Ad Labs" to train traditional advertising agency staff in the "black art" of mobile advertising in a bid to more rapidly unlock the potential of the nascent £1bn sector.

The mobile phone producer's new Ad Labs, which will open in London and Boston, aim to drive the creative potential of mobile advertising by educating traditional agency staff to embrace the medium in their campaigns for clients.

Nokia Ad Lab will aim to train and certify "creative and media personnel at agencies serving global brands".

According to Mike Baker, the Head of Nokia Interactive, there are a lot of mobile ad technologies now so arguments about reach and measurement issues are not relevant. It is creative that is holding the medium back. There are not a lot of practitioners in planning and creative concepting for mobile ad campaigns.

The first step for Ad Lab will be to work with Nokia's global agency partners, which include WPP-owned JWT, Wieden & Kennedy, Lowe Worldwide, RG/A and MediaCom.

Mini-Nokia N95 8G aka Made in China

Its not as if Nokia has created a mini version of the successful flagship N95 to fit into your pocket, I m sure you can guess its another one of those fake jobs done in China. I must say the size is ideal as the existing N95 8G is one of the most bulkiest phone around. Maybe Nokia can learn something from them copycat guys....haha....

New Mobile Phone Features exclusively from China

The Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are perhaps the most creative in the world, not only are they good at cloning others, they are equally good at coming out with features that are way beyond our comprehension. Perhaps the global players can take a cue from them. Haha... Check out the images below and you will know what i mean.

1. Money Scanner

2. Extended Zoom

3. Multi-speakers system

What Types of Men visit Call Girls

Would you visit them? Are you a regular? Haha.... Secret Diary of a Call Girl is a British television show, based on the blogs of London call girl Belle de Jour. Billie Piper plays the lead role of Belle, the call girl and in the following clip Belle breaks down all the types of her clients. Secret Diary of a Call Girl is a really great new show. Happy weekend and enjoy the clip.

Fuel Watch

With skyrocketing gas prices around $4.50-per-gallon and no relief in the foreseeable future, the truth - gas prices of tomorrow are going to be “very f**king expensive.”

Is it possible to cook an egg with mobile phones

Two Russian journalists from the Pravda Newspaper in Moscow conducted an experiment in which they cooked a raw egg using their mobile phones. If this experiment is real, it could finally be the visual proof people need to understand that mobile phones really are dangerous. Andrei Moiseynko and Vladimir Lagovski strapped put two phones on either side of a raw egg. They got the phones to call each other and placed a tape recorder near by to ensure the phones wouldn’t go off due to a lack of sound.

After only 15 minutes, the egg felt warm due to the radio waves, within 40 minutes it was “very hot,” and after just 65 minutes, it was actually cooked… although I don’t know who would risk ingested anything cooked like this. If these findings really are true, imagine how our mobile phone talk time has slowly fried our brains and our nuts.

Is it Real or just a Hoax??

Luckily its just a hoax otherwise we would had cooked our brains and nuts. In fact a UK based science show called Brainiac tried to boil their egg with 100 mobile phones but what they ended up with was a cold undone egg. Check out the video clip below.

Funny Smart Money TV Ad from Thailand

First Handset with Built-in Projector

You may be thinking that the is a new product launch by the some of the world largest mobile manufacturers. In fact the technology was first showcase by Texan Instrument a while ago and commercialisation should be on it way by now but once again a Chinese manufacturer had successfully unveiled the 1st handset with built-in projector at the China’s largest professional mobile phone industry gathering, the “2008 Tianjin International Mobile Phone Industry Exhibition” from June 12 to 14.

Its the world’s first projector mobile phone that also happens to come with iPhone's UI. Only in China would an innovation and copycat design live happily together. And it is not a concept or prototype, it is a real product. However, it is currently only available in China where abusing the copyrights of others are common here.

The ChinaKing (CKING) Shengtai phone incorporates an LCoS-based projector that utilizes an LED light source and manual focus adjustment to project a 30-inch, 640 x 480 pixel image for up to 2-hours at a time. Not sure how much its going to be retailed by i reckon its going to be between RMB 2500-3500 per terminal.

Facebook becomes the No 1 Social Network

Facebook surpassed MySpace for the first time this quarter according to Comscore. Both had 115 million visitors in the month. The U.S. still is MySpace country with Facebook getting about half the visitors that MySpace does. India young professionals have caused the most recent explosion in Facebook users. Mashable, the social networks blog source, says Facebook dominates MySpace in design, media, function, and almost every other important area. Social Networks strike fear into parents of young children because of instances of predators luring under age kids. Both Facebook and MySpace are regularly rumored to be takeover targets by the giants, but analysts are skeptical about valuation.

MySpace was a great social network for a while, but now there are too many spammers and the developers have stopped innovating.

Motorola offering Full Length Film Downloads

With all the craze and hypes on the iPhone 3G, Motorola has announced a deal of its own in UK, it has done a deal with Paramount Pictures to offer full-length film downloads on its handsets, including The Italian Job, Star Trek and Team America. These fim downloads will be available through Motorola's web-based store, combining classics titles and newer films.

Motorola's movie download store will later be extended to France, Spain, Germany and Italy. Users pay between £5.99 and £8.99 per title for dual delivery, for download on their PC and then sideload them into the phones.

The biggest issue here would be why would users want to watch a full length film on mobile phone-size screen when they can have the luxury of a big screen at home. How long will the download take if its over the air? Wouldnt this be overly costly? Even if the user has access to an unlimited data plan package, its going to take him ages just to download one film. I m sure the service comes with sideloading from the PC but i still cant see what Moto is trying to achieve here.

They are certainly trying to head similar path as Apple iTunes but without a device like the iPhone, why even bother. Moto needs to renew its device direction. No point trying to do anything without getting the device development right. They should take the cue from Apple or Nokia.

Latest on New China Visa Rules

China Travel has the most comprehensive analysis of China's present visa situation. It explains the current situation with respect to all sorts of China visas. If you have any questions regarding what it takes these days to secure the various types of China visas, I urge you to check it out. Getting an entry visa to China is no longer as simple as it used to and its forcing many foreigners to reconsider their future plans in China.

Nobody is entirely sure about why China had adopted this sudden change of rules on Visa but many had guessed that its due to the upcoming Olympic Games. Beside the main event in China, i think its also high time for China to sort out its inherent relaxed visa application procedure which had benefited many young mainlanders who had profited from foreigners by helping them to apply for a long term stay in Visa. Its good that they are cleaning up their own act but at the same time I do hope that they will clarify and simplify the rules after the Games as its for their own good from all perspectives.

Happy Father's Day Ad from Durex

You can sell your own Ads on YouTube

Google has been cracking their heads how to find the best way to monetize YouTube. The latest idea: Let content creators sell ads. The company will start allowing professional content producers that have their own sales teams start selling their own ads on their YouTube channels, according to Advertising Age.

Creators will be able to sell spots including video overlays and the display ads on the pages surrounding videos. Producers sell the ads, and YouTube takes a cut.

Despite doing the heavy lifting, the good news for creators is that it gives them control over which ads appear with their content and expands the inventory they can offer to a potential sponsor. According to Advertising Age, Revision3 is selling its own ads on YouTube with GoDaddy already on board.

And YouTube gets more than money out of the deal, it gets exposure in the ad agency world, and offers high-profile content creators another reason to join the YouTube family.

YouTube has always had the “how will it make money?” Monetizing YouTube, which dominates the online video space more completely than Google dominates search, has become a main priority for Google this year. Estimates on YouTube's revenues for 2008 range from $70 million to $200 million. Even on the high end that's just 1% of Google's yearly revenue.

Earlier this year, Google launched a free viewer analytics program for YouTube content creators, which should be helpful in selling their own inventory.

Google launched video ads last August offering two things to advertisers: a huge pre-built distribution network (via YouTube), and sophisticated bidding and campaign tracking tools (via AdSense). For publishers, Google can offer a sophisticated monetization strategy, and they can also offer hosting.

The Partner Program was halfway there, and letting content creators sell their own ad inventory is one step closer to giving more control to the content creators.

For many professional content creators and producers, being able to control the inventory that surrounds their videos is an important factor when they consider where and how to distribute content online. Revision3, the online-video-production company behind shows such as "Diggnation" and "Techzilla," is selling advertising on YouTube, starting with GoDaddy, a sponsor that's regularly integrated into the content of its shows.

Nobody has cracked the online video advertising yet and nobody can tell whether this path taken by Google is going to ride well but one thing for sure, giving the control to the content creators and producers and letting them decide what content goes with which advertisers seem to be a tastier flavor than pure reliance on Google to randomly choose.

The World's Most Expensive Mobile Phones

Forbes has come up with a list of the World’s Most Expensive Cellphones.

You can check out the pictures here. Here are some of the phones featured :

- a $40,000 US diamond encrusted iPhone from London jeweller Amosu

- a $140,000 US luxury Nokia from Austrian designer Peter Aloisson

- a $6,000 US phone soon to be revealed by watchmaker Tag Hauer

- and of course Vertu, whose phones range anywhere from $4,000 to $300,000

These phones are the Rolex version for mobile but I dont think mobile phones will ever be as popular as collectible watches or cars simply because of the pace in mobile technology. The rapid pace of innovation in mobile technology means phones don't appreciate in value the way a Rolex does. There will be a luxury market for high end mobile phones but its very niche and plenty are buying them as Nokia's Vertu had recorded triple-digit growth in 2006 and 2007 and is now in expansion mode, opening more stand-alone boutiques, including its first U.S. shops, in the Wynn Las Vegas and Plaza (New York) hotels.

Happy Father's Day

Nobody can be more special than my dad, Robert Foo (check out his blog here) who has been nothing short of great. Supporting and guiding me all these years through good and bad times. Showing me the recipe of living a wholesome and meaningful life. Teaching me both the goods and bads and always reminding me to be a good "naughty son" just like my dad who has always been a great "naughty" dad. This is a video that i would like to dedicate to you dad and of course to all the good "naughty" dads who are reading my blog now. Enjoy the clip and Happy Father's Day. And for those of you who are not "Dad-enabled" yet, dont forget to go give your dad a big hug and wish him happy father's day.

Mobile Phones to PopCorns

What can 4 mobile phones do? How about serving you popcorns? Check out the clip below and you will think twice of whether to have 2 mobile phones to be placed in your pockets between your nuts.




What do you think? Do you think its just a spoof or its going to cook your nuts? Haha.... the good news is that its only a party trick.

Nokia Simplifies Mobile Advertising with Launch of Nokia Advertising Alliance

As Nokia builds its services strategy, including the Ovi portal, it's also working diligently on how to monetize it through advertising. Nokia announced today the launch of the Nokia Advertising Alliance, which they said is designed to help brands build campaigns using the latest mobile technology, including coupons, location-based targeting, click-to-call and even basic banner ads. Members of Nokia's alliance are part of the Nokia Media Network allowing brands to plan, launch and measure a mobile advertising campaign through one interface. Companies that are already part of the alliance include: i-movo, Mobile Acuity, Mobiqa, and uLocate with others on the way.

Source : Nokia's PR Release.

Whats Beyond The Sexy iPhone 3G

The iPhone 3G looks great, and the pleasingly low price means that a whole new generation of Apple lovers are about to be borned. But what are the features left out of the brand new device? The most obvious omission from the new device is a decent camera – surprising considering that a better camera was named as one of the most wanted features in the new device pre-announcement. 2MP is simply no where near competitive in today’s mobile landscape. Rivals such as Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson all favor 5MP cameras in their newer devices, and even their mid-range offerings rarely venture lower than 3.2MP. iPhone 3G's 2MP snapper is a real surprise, and most likely the first feature that will be overhauled with the next model.

There’s also the lack of a front-facing camera to consider. Admittedly, 3G is more often used for high-speed data access than video calling, but seeing as the iPhone is 3G enabled, it could be seen as an odd omission.

However, could it be that Apple is saving such a feature for the next release? On top of these things, Apple has yet to confirm other basic features for the new model such as copy and paste, MMS messaging and, most importantly, video recording.

With all the omission, where is the innovation? What is Apple trying to achieve with the iPhone 3G? Whats beyond the sexy iPhone? Is it just a great looking device with mediocre features? Whats the magic of iPhone?

From what i can see, its not the device but the platform. The newly launched 3G Apple iPhone is an indication that applications will be key in the battle for Smartphone market share. Apple’s recent announcement to offer a hosted webmail, calendar, address book combined with push Email and synchronization capabilities is a sign that increasingly, device manufacturers and network operators are becoming service providers. Nokia, which dominates the Smartphone market, is executing a similar strategy with the OVI portal. HP has just bought EDS for a large number of billions to be a service’s company.

What Apple was announcing to a developer conference is something that Microsoft hasn’t begun to do with Windows Mobile and Nokia is trying to do with Ovi. Not only Apple has a proven distribution and payment platform - iTunes, providing developers an avenue to create and distribute their innovations for a fee, Apple has also developed a functional mobile device - iPhone, providing end to end monetization potentials to the developers.

Most people like to buy their products and services from a proven and trusted brand and Apple has successfully created one - iTunes. It is a platform that gives the full experience of the open network. Apple knows hows to monetize and more importantly creating programs to help others to monetize their creations and to top it up, Apple does it with style.

MobileMe, iTunes for professional content, the software store, the iPhone 3G. This is not just a sexy mobile device, its a money making platform. Its a long term strategic version for Apple and only through building such ecosystem will any aspiring "service providers" see lights at the end of the tunnel.

What Apple has created with the platform and iPhone is a proof that there is life beyond the device. They have changed the whole mobile landscape with the revolutionary iPhone. I must admit that there are better devices out there in terms of features when you compare it with the iPhone. But iPhone has certainly raised the level of User Experience and accessibility. Every single device manufacturer out there acknowledged the new level that iPhone has set and all had rushed back into the R&D center to relook into whats missing on their development.

It has been for a while since we last had any excitements from any device manufacturers. It’s all just tweaks and simple add-ons, a megapixel here, a xenon flash there, its either a candy bar/clamshell/slider, an extra half inch on the screen and not forgetting a touch screen. I m glad iPhone came to overhaul and rejuvenate the whole mobile industry.

When was the last time any device manufacturers had the same kind of fanfare during the launch of a product? Not only did they get a standing ovation, Operators were going down on their knees to ink the iPhone deal and Apple actually pocketed a cool $384 million from their last full financial year from Operators payment!

Of course one single device wont be able to take the market, I expect Apple to be coming out with a range of phones in the nearest future to reposition for different market segment just like how Apple has successfully created the iPod's range. The current market price for iPhone is still very niche.

Apple may have lost their slice of the monthly network revenue but their willingness to listen to the market and tuning in to what works best for them, the road ahead is going to work in their favor.

Madonna's Hard Candy Handset

Sony Ericsson and Warner Music are partnering to bundle Madonna’s latest album, Hard Candy, on handsets in 27 countries. Starting this month, the bundles will come in two versions - one with five tracks from the album, another with the full release plus extra wallpapers and ringtones.

Sony Ericsson already started offering vouchers with its W890 Walkman, allowing those in Scandinavia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to buy the album later, and those in Belgium and Czech Republic get a CD with their W380i handsets. Now the handset maker is bundling the album digitally also in south and central America and the Caribbean.

Mobile is definitely the new distribution channel for music these days, not only it can be downloaded directly over the air like the Nokia's Music Store service, it can also be distributed in the form of CD bundled with the handsets or the entire album pre-loaded onto the handsets. SonyEricsson has previously pre-loaded Def Jam artists on to another of its handsets and SonyBMG has stated its intention to make a bigger splash in all-you-can-eat mobile music downloads.

Sony Ericsson wasnt the first to release Madonna's new album as Vodafone had got the exclusive on the Madonna album earlier but staggered track releases by the week.

iPhone 3G launched at WWDC 2008

As predicted and expected, the IPHONE 3G was launched at WWDC 2008 for $199 for 8GB model and $299 for 16GB model this coming July 11th. It comes slimmer and sleaker in black with the 16GB model also available in white. The 1st version of the iPhone has been truly outstanding having achieved the followings :

- 90 percent customer satisfied

- 98 percent are browsing on mobile

- 94 percent are using email

- 90 percent use text messaging

- 80 percent use at least 10 features.

By the way, the 3g version comes with no cam on the front as was revealed by some of the leaked pictures and most importantly this time Apple got it right with the built-in GPS. I reckon GPS will be the biggest feature on the iPhone 3G. With the built-in GPS, you’ll be able to use the maps application all the more effectively. This is going to send chills down the neck of Garmin and TomTom.

iPhone 3G will be available in more than 70 countries later this year, beginning with customer availability in 22 countries namely Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US on July 11.

iPhone 3G supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync right out of the box. This is perhaps the biggest feature announced today that may scare Blackberry is that Apple is enabling push support something that up until now had been Blackberry's keystone offering. This would definitely remove the only advantage that Blackberry had. There is still one thing though that Blackberry has that the iPhone 3G doesnt, a real keypad. A lot of enterprise users, who type out lengthy emails, and notes, can't see living without them. Will they switch to touchscreen mode?

To date, Apple has sold 6 million iPhones (remember their target this year is to sell 10 million), and with the price cut of the new 3G iPhone dropping to $199, and other enterprise-like features in the works, the difference between the flashy newcomer and the institutional Blackberry seem to be fading.

iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi, 3G and EDGE networks and automatically switches between them to ensure the fastest possible download speeds. It delivers an amazing 10 hours of talk time on 2G networks and 5 hours using 3G, with up to 5 to 6 hours of web browsing, up to 7 hours for video playback and up to 24 hours for audio playback.

The pricing for the iPhone 3G with AT&T is based on a 2-year contract. Unlimited data plans for iPhone 3G customers will be $30/month while business users will have to fork out $45/month. Also there will be NO revenue sharing going forward between Apple and AT&T. According to a press release from AT&T, the carrier will no longer give a portion of monthly usage fees to Apple. Instead carriers will pay Apple a subsidy for each phone sold, in order to bring the price from $399 down to $199 for the 8 Gigabyte model. The company did not specify the amount of the subsidy. Subsidies of $200 to $300 are common in the industry.

What is more, consumers will now pay $30 a month for unlimited data service from AT&T, compared to $20 under the plan introduced last year. So even though the phone will now cost $200, consumers will be paying more at the end of a two-year contract compared to the previous deal. Of course, that includes faster 3G data service, so the price increase may be worth it. But we should call it an iPhone price increase, not a cut.

For Apple, this move to getting all its money up front has several advantages. By using the same economic model as every other mobile phone manufacturer, it makes it easier to bring the phone to carriers in every corner of the world. It also should help insulate Apple from the cost of people who buy iPhones and unlock them to use on carriers that don’t pay Apple the monthly fee. Now Apple will get its money, say $500, up front and it no longer has to police what people do with them.

Without the revenue sharing agreement with the operators, I see no reason why Apple would not be able to cut a deal with China Mobile and the other two 3G operators in the very near future. I m quite certain that iPhone 3G will be making its way to China by this year and at $199/299, its an affordable offer thats within the reach of many of the mid-to-high end chinese mobile phone users who would consider dumping their existing boring looking mobile device for the sexy iPhone 3G. The only thing that may hinder their consideration would be having to sign a service contract with the Operators.

This is the iPhone 3G introduction on video courtersy from CNET.



Steve Jobs's keynote in 60 sec.

Check out the new iPhone 3G advertising commercial below.

Engadget had provided with a more detailed specifications and some comparisons and their final review was Apple had made the amazing product significantly better. If the battery life is as good as they claim, Engadget thinks it will steamroll the competition in the enterprise space. And even if it doesn't, at $199 it's going to be extremely hard for people to resist.

Images courtesy of Techcrunch & CrunchGear