iPhone still holds lead Latest upgrades underwhelm

For a company whose iPhone products have set the agenda for the mobile phone industry for the past two years, Apple's announcements this week at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco were underwhelming.

Much of what Apple Senior Vice President Scott Forstall had to say about the update to the iPhone's underlying software, for example, was merely a rehash of what the company unveiled in March. Turn-by-turn direction, background notifications for third-party software, the ability to make purchases of updates or add-ons within applications; Apple had announced all of it before.

Other news from the event, particularly having to do with the new iPhone 3G S, had been widely bandied about by rumor sites or Wall Street analysts for weeks or even months. The higher-resolution camera with video recording and editing capabilities, the built-in digital compass, the support for AT&T's new higher-speed data network, the drop in price for the iPhone 3G to $99 and even the "3G S" moniker of the new model had all been floating out there for awhile.

And much of what hadn't been widely discussed was fairly obvious. Given that the iPhone 3G had the same basic innards as the original iPhone, you'd expect Apple to revamp the new model and make it run faster. Allowing it to support the Nike Plus software gives the iPhone the same capability already built into the iPod Touch. Better battery life - at least outside of actual talk time - is a welcome advance, but an expected one, given how quickly the previous two iPhone models burn through their batteries.

Indeed, considering how much was already known or speculated about what Apple would announce, what was more surprising was what the company didn't talk about.

Despite persistent rumors that Apple has some kind of touch-screen netbook in the works, the device didn't make an appearance. While the company dropped the price for the entry-level iPhone by $100, it didn't announce any corresponding cut in the price of AT&T's data service, which is still too pricey for many pocketbooks.