Early adopters always get pissed when a new device comes out. After all, it can be hard to justify spending another couple hundred bucks on a gadget that closely mimics your current gear. The iPhone is no exception, but luckily AT&T has your back (sort of – their network still blows).

AT&T is offering iPhone 4 upgrades up to six months early for a minimal upgrade fee of $18. That’s a damn fine price to get your hands on the new iPhone. If you’re like me, you probably cringed when you saw that six month figure. I got my 3GS last June on launch day, which leaves me a far cry from the six month upgrade window. As it turns out, that “six months” is a little more flexible than you’d think.

If you want to know your upgrade status, dial *639# from an AT&T phone and you’ll receive a text message concerning your eligibility status. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was indeed eligible for the $18 upgrade. I’m definitely taking advantage – current 16GB 3GS prices range from $250-$500 on eBay. That more than covers the cost of the phone and the upgrade.

The iPhone 4 will be available June 24th.

Apple has made an honest phone of the iPhone 4. Steve Jobs officially announced the iPhone 4 today during the WWDC 2010 keynote address.

It’s a beauty of a phone – the same phone Gizmodo leaked in April. With it comes a whole host of new features, including the long-rumored ability to make video calls. It is far and away the best phone on the market to date (more on that later), with a feature list that will make all the EVO 4G freaks go, “Oh…you have that too.”

From the outside, you can see that the iPhone 4 is thinner even than the 3GS. It now features a front-facing video cam for the video calling service, “FaceTime.” Both the front and back of the phone are made of a slate of glass. The camera on the back has been upgraded to five megapixels, records 720p video at 30 FPS, and has an LED flash. Apple also added a second microphone for noise cancellation during calls, a welcome feature.

On the inside, you’re looking at an A4 processor – yeah, that’s the same thing that runs the iPad – a larger battery, and an antenna system that has been integrated into the body of the phone. Storage capacity remains the same, at 16GB or 32GB, which has always seemed like plenty to me. There’s also a gyroscope along with the accelerometer, giving the phone six-axis sensitivity which is great for gaming and trainer apps among other things. The display on the iPhone 4 now has twice the pixel density of the 3GS. That’s huge, especially with the news that Netflix is coming to the iPhone later this summer.

On the whole, it’s a great update to an already great device. I’ll have more posts throughout the day detailing the changes so stay tuned. The iPhone 4 will be available for pre-order on June 15th, on sale June 24th.

At today’s WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs outlined the top three reasons apps get rejected from the notoriously strict App Store.

First, the app doesn’t do what the developer says it does. I can get behind this. It protects the less tech-savvy users, of which there are plenty, from fooling with apps they don’t understand. Second is the use of private APIs. This is probably the most hotly contested issue with iPhone development. Jobs says the APIs are problematic because they often break every time the iPhone OS is updated. Sure, but they also give developers a lot more flexibility with the phone, and isn’t it in the developer’s best interest to release working versions of those apps for every update?

The final reason is that the apps crash. Having reviewed several apps myself, I know that replicable bugs are a big problem.

Jobs did say that 95% of apps get approved within 7 days.

Tomorrow marks yet another Apple WWDC. Another day surrounded by the anticipation of a new iPhone. I expect this year is more than a landmark hardware launch, though. This will likely be the year Apple makes a serious attempt at the cloud, an area of the market where Apple is starting to fall seriously behind Google and the Android OS.

First off, the new iPhone is a big deal, not just for us but for Apple as well. The phone leak was so big to Apple, in fact, that it refused to invite Gizmodo to the event in light of the investigation. The newest iteration of the iPhone will be the most advanced phone to market. Though we don’t know specifics, it looks as though the phone will support video conferencing, capture HD video, offer a faster processor, more memory, and of course, iPhone OS 4.

It’s OS 4 that will help Apple catch up to Android. The latest Android updates include support for streaming music from your desktop to your phone. It also allows you to push websites, applications, and maps and directions straight to your phone. Apple and the iPhone are way behind in cloud support. The best you have there is MobileMe, which requires a subscription and really only allows you to find your phone if you lose it. Apple’s Lala acquisition could mean good things here.

The one thing you shouldn’t expect tomorrow is a Verizon iPhone. Though we’ve heard rumors since the iPhone launched, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything this year, or even next. I was wholly convinced that we’d get a Verizon phone around the time my 3GS contract expired but recent Verizon comments have made it clear we won’t see one soon.

On the whole, tomorrow is Apple’s chance to position itself in the market. When the 3GS launched it was clearly the best phone on the market. Things aren’t so clear anymore, and the Android devices coming in the near future hold a lot of advantages for tech-savvy buyers. It’s going to take a lot for Apple to outperform the latest version of Android. We’ll see if they have it when Jobs takes the stage for the keynote at 10 PST tomorrow.

Photo Credit: Adam Jackson / Flickr

AppleInsider is reporting that Apple may have already locked in dates for WWDC 2010. A calendar listing at the Moscone Center in San Francisco shows a “Corporate Event” from June 28th to July 2nd, a name that has designated Apple events in the past.

The date also coincides with the launch of the original iPhone. Since that launch, Apple has made major iPhone announcements at each consecutive WWDC. The rumor this year is that we’ll finally see the phone make the jump to multiple carriers in the US, though it’s not clear who that could be. Most people think Verizon, but the CDMA standard is not exactly iPhone friendly. T-Mobile would be a much easier choice, but it’s also much smaller.

You can’t make mention of WWDC without bringing up the iPhone SDK conference that happens some time in March. Think we’ll see OS 4.0?

Just in case you missed the event, or you don’t like liveblogs, or you just want to hear people boo AT&T for the lack of tethering and MMS support, Apple has posted video of the WWDC Keynote Address.

You might be interested to know that the picture shown on the apple webpage is saved as “hero20090608.” Must have been that earthshattering iPhone update he announced. You know, the one that looks just like the last generation and the software update that adds basic functionality like cut and paste. Very heroic.

Click the pic above to find the image on Apple’s servers, telling title and all. Who said Schiller wasn’t humble?

(PS – all you photography types…calm it down. It was a joke.)

With all the excitement surrounding the new iPhone release it’s difficult not to notice the absence of a certain, rumored to be healthy CEO. Apple restructured their laptop line, announced two OS updates, and announced the newest iPhone, all without their captain at the helm. Hopefully Jobs will soon be well enough to return to his handicapped parking space.

We’ve talked Macbooks, we’ve talked iPhone, but Apple spent most of the keynote on OS 3.0 and the new options it yields for developers. All of this stuff was really old hat – landscape keyboard, copy and paste, tethering, MMS. The big disappointment so far is that tethering and MMS are both unsupported by AT&T at this time, with support apparently coming at the end of the summer. Why AT&T can’t get it together when 20 other carriers can baffles me.

One cool feature coming to OS 3.0 on the 17th is “Find My iPhone.” The service, which is only available to MobileMe customers, allows you to locate your phone on a map using a web browser. Using the service you can also send alerts to the phone, including a message stating, “This phone is lost. If found, please call me at [number you specify].” (You can actually input any message, this is just the one Apple demoed.) You can do this from a distance, allowing you, hopefully, to get your phone back. Find My iPhone also includes a sort of kill pill, allowing you to remote wipe the phone. It would be really nice if it could disable the phone, rendering it useless to whomever snags it should they not acquiesce with your return requests. The remote wipe is really there to ensure your privacy, though, allowing you to restore the phone to factory settings from a distance. I smell some nasty pranks coming with this one. Don’t leave your MobileMe password where your friends can find it.

Apple relinquished the stage late in their 3.0 presentation, allowing developers to showcase new functions like GPS navigation and in-game purchases. The developer presentations dragged on, plagued twice by technical difficulties and eating up precious minutes. By the 100 minute mark I would bet few people were hoping for an iPhone update. It came, though, fitting the remaining time slot well as more of an evolution than a revolution.

We’ve all been waiting for it. We’ve all seen the rumors. Some of us have even spent loads of time in photoshop doing some mythbusting. Plenty of us have held off on buying a new phone for just this announcement. Well wait no more, fanboys and girls; the new iPhone is here!

Set to be available on June 19th (just two days after 3.0 drops), the 3GS matches up to many speculations we’ve seen over the past few months. For starters, adding the S to the nomenclature stands for speed, because it’s the fastest iPhone ever made at an average of 2X the power (they didn’t release hardware specs). There is, of course, the much needed camera upgrade, lifting your picture-snapping from an abysmal 2 megapixels to an improved 3MP with autofocus and autoexposure. It won’t be replacing your point and shoot anytime soon, but the hardware upgrade was a must, and autoexposure is a great feature for a mobile phone. Simply tap the area on the photo you want exposed and the software adjusts accordingly.

Also included in the update is the much rumored (and nearly confirmed a while back) magnetometer, turning your iPhone into an accurate compass. This one should be a nice little boon for those GPS software developers, giving more accurate turning information. What else will developers do with a compass? At least one mindless “point to this direction” game I’m sure.

As for the things we didn’t fully expect, the 3GS will support 7.2 HSDPA, which is great news as more carriers (including AT&T) update their networks. There is also Nike+ support and voice control for added accessibility and hands-free operation. They’ve also added VoiceOver support that will read what you touch on screen.

Also, instead of releasing multiple new phones, the iPhone 3GS comes in black or white, both at the 16GB ($199) and 32GB ($299) levels, adding up to the 4 phones that were predicted. That rumored $99 device? That’s the new price for the iPhone 3G.

Did they do enough to bring the iPhone up to “real smartphone” speeds? Let us know in the comments.

There has been a whole lot of back and forth today about regarding whether or not Apple will announce its latest iPhone at WWDC this year.

Most folks were saying no, citing Steve Jobs’ absence from the conference this year. Instead, the Keynote will be given by Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing. Prominent Apple analyst Gene Munster thinks the address will primarily deal with software (at a developer conference? No way!), specifically Snow Leopard and the iPhone OS 3.0. Munster expects Apple to hold a special event in late June, early July, which will herald the return of Jobs and the release of a new line of iPhones.

So why wait? We already know the iPhone App Store to be the fastest growing developer community in the world. Wouldn’t Apple want to let that massive developer base know about the new hardware they’ll be working with at…the developer conference? And what makes the Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing a bad choice to do this?

Dan Frommer, an analyst at SAI, agrees, and cites quite a few compelling reasons for Apple to roll things out in June. For starters, the first round of iPhone contracts expire in late June. Also, the Palm Pre drops later this month. What better time to get people to start thinking about some new hardware?