What’s the hype around Apples iPhone 3G, that will be released July 11, 2008. Lets take a closer look, on the features of iPhone and see what makes it so special, compared with other mobile phones and portable devices.

First, iPhone 3G has an appealing and slick design and it’s just, 0.48 inch, thick. The 8GB version comes in black, and the 16GB version is available in both black and white.

The user interface, in iPhone 3G is its biggest advantage, over other mobile phones. You control your iPhone through it’s touchscreen. Symbols represent the different functions, that are easy to understand what they do. So, you just tap on a symbol, to go that function, which makes it easy and fast, to use.

Let’s check out the functions of iPhone 3G, to see if there are some goodies, in store for us.

One of the smartest function, that iPhone 3G has, is it’s built in GPS system. Since iPhone uses Wi-Fi and cellular towers for triangulating your position, it also works indoors, like in shopping malls, offices, etc. Of course, when you are outside iPhone 3G uses traditional GPS, too. You can also find points of interest by just conduct a keyword search. For example, a search for ‘Coffee’ or ‘Pizza’, will let you know where the nearest cafe or pizza restaurant are located.

How about surfing the web, then? iPhone 3G comes with Safari. Which is one of the most advanced web browser, on a mobil phone, today. With Safari, you can turn your iPhone 90 degrees and the website you are watching, also turns. It looks rather cool, when you see it in action.

If you want to take a closer look on a website, the you just tap the touchscreen, to zoom in and out. If you would like to save a favorite website, you could make it into an icon, that you just tap, whenever you would like to visit it.

The built in web search, is provided by Google and Yahoo. iPhone also, automatically connects you to the fastest network where you currently are. Whether it’s EDGE, Wi-Fi or 3G, iPhone connects you to it.

iPhone can handle e-mail and SMS, but the lack of integrated support for multimedia messaging (MMS), isn’t that cool. However, if you want to send and receive MMS, smoothly, you need to buy additional software to your iPhone. Nevertheless, you can send E-mails with pictures, inside them.

When you start the SMS function inside iPhone, you will notice that, a part, of your touchscreen, turns into an intelligent multi-touch keyboard that predicts and suggests words, as you type. Also in iPhone, you get your SMS with a chat-style view.

The YouTube function. iPhone comes with a nifty YouTube application, built in, that connects you directly to YouTube. With your iPhone, you can explore all the featured, most viewed, top rated and most recent videos. If that isn’t enough, you could always search for the video you are looking for. If you like it, you can add it to your bookmarks or e-mail it to your friends.

As for the music, you can connect, directly to iTunes from your iPhone. With just a tap, you get, access to iTunes vast library of music, with over 6 millions songs. Just tap, to hear a preview of the song and then buy it, with just another tap. Later, when you sync your iPhone with your computer, your songs will automatically be transferred to your iTunes library.

You can also view videos and TV-shows, from iTunes, on the 320×480 widescreen display. iPhone does supports the H.264, MPEG-4 in .mp4, .mov, .m4v video formats.

Now, we comes to the least impressive parts of iPhone, the built in camera and video recording. Inside iPhone, you’ll find a 2.0 megapixels camera. Yes, I agree, that is nothing to write home about. Also, you cannot record any video with your iPhone. However, it is said, that you will be able to by an application, from the App Store, that will provide that functionality, but you cannot do it, as default. I think that the poor quality and lack of video recording, brings iPhone down. If Apple had built iPhone with a decent camera with video recording, it would had been a real killer phone.

However, apparently iPhone 3G is something different, compared with other phones, but there are some parts left, to wish for, and for Apple to implant.

However, if you would like a mobile phone that stands out, I think that you’ll should head down to your nearest Apple Retail Store or AT&T, on July 11, 2008 and test drive it. A little tip, be on time, since they will probably go in a hurry.

To read more about iPhone and it’s features, you can visit the iPhone website at,
http://www.apple.com/iphone/