Sizzling Scenes From Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference

MacWorld was a snoozefest, but Monday's opening keynote of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference was anything but. Apple rolled out new iPhone hardware and walked attendees through the software that'll underpin it while also updating the faithful on the upcoming OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' release. Following are some sights that capture the atmosphere of anticipation.

Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone Software at Apple, showed off iPhone OS 3.0 and said the dramatically improved performance it brings will be immediately apparent to iPhone users. Apple will launch a new iPhone, the 3G S, on June 19, and AT&T will sell a 16-GB version for $199 and a brand-new 32-GB model for $299.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, described the iPhone 3G S as "the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet." The iPhone 3G S includes a 3-megapixel camera that brings video to the iPhone for the first time, and JavaScript processing speeds nearly three times as fast as the iPhone 3G.

iPhone OS 3.0 will include a new feature called Voice Control that lets an iPhone owner use his or her voice to make calls. Voice Control also identifies the artists and titles of songs and can be set up to play similar songs.

In case you haven't heard, Windows Vista was a huge pain for many users. Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software engineering at Apple, helpfully pointed this out to WWDC attendees and said OS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' offers users a level of simplicity and intuitiveness that Microsoft won't be able to match with its upcoming release of Windows 7.

One WWDC attendee appears to contemplate the dazzling array of new features in iPhone OS 3.0, which include the ability to cut, copy and paste text; push notifications; peer-to-peer connectivity; and in-application financial transactions, to name just a few.

Forstall unveiled a new service called Find My iPhone, which lets MobileMe subscribers find lost devices by mapping their locations in a Web browser. When retrieval isn't possible, Find My iPhone lets users remotely wipe all data from lost devices. IT administrators are no doubt nodding their heads in approval over this capability, which should help increase usage of iPhones in businesses.

Although Serlet called out Microsoft over the Vista debacle, he also spent a fair amount of time talking about the significance of Apple supporting Exchange in the upcoming Snow Leopard release, which is slated for launch in September. Apple went to great lengths to make Exchange easy to use and set up, he said.

OS X Leopard is the most successful software product Apple has ever had, and represents a marked contrast to Windows Vista, Serlet told chuckling WWDC attendees. "Vista has failed to catch on with mainstream consumers and businesses. Microsoft has dug quite a hole for themselves with Vista, and now they're trying to get out of it with Windows 7," he said.

WWDC attendees file out of the keynote and try to mentally take stock of the dizzying volume of information that Apple put forth at the event.