The iPhone 3G…everything you need to know!

The iPhone 3G FAQ [IPhone Faq]

Gizmodo provides all your answers!!

Steve Jobs may have launched the iPhone 3G on Monday, and we may have gotten a hands on with it already, but in typical Apple fashion, there’s still a lot of stuff left unsaid. How does activation work? How will first-gen iPhone users bring an iPhone 3G onto their plan? Does the GPS work for driving? How much will games cost on the App Store? We’ve got answers. Lots of them.

The Phone

How much will an iPhone 3G cost? $199 for the 8GB version, which comes only in black, and $299 for the 16GB version which comes in black and white.

What’s changed between the first generation and the iPhone 3G? Honestly? Not all that much. The iPhone 3G has all the features of the first one, plus faster 3G data downloads, GPS, and a better battery life. Externally, the phone’s casing is slightly changed, with a thinner edge and thicker middle, but a flush headphone jack and solid-colored back make up the only other major differences visually. Everything else from the screen to the number of buttons and switches on the outside are the same.

How much will it really cost me over 2 years?. That depends on how many minutes you use and how many text messages you want to sign up for, but at AT&T’s lowest plan price of $39 a month for 450 minutes, plus a mandatory $30 data charge and $5 for 200 text messages, you’re looking at $1975 over the course of two years. Before tax and other fees. Here’s how it stacks up against the old iPhone and against other 3G smartphones on Verizon and Sprint.

When can I buy it? If you’re in one of the first countries to get the phone, which includes the US, Canada, the UK, Spain, Japan and Mexico, it’s July 11. Otherwise, it’s still unknown. Come July 11, there’s going to be a gigantic line of people wanting that phone. You’ll have to wait not only for people in front of you to buy a phone, but activate it too—which is now mandatory and takes about 10-15 minutes. If you can wait, we’d recommend going after July 11.

Where can I buy it? In either an Apple store or an AT&T store. There won’t be any online orders for this one.

How fast is the 3G over 2G (EDGE)? During the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs showed a demo that compared the iPhone 3G vs. the old iPhone when downloading a large web page with lots of images. Apple’s site lists the result of that matchup as 20 seconds vs. 48 seconds, which is 2.4x faster. We’ve got a explainer about the details of 3G as well, if you’re interested.

How does the GPS work? We’ve got a great tutorial on how the iPhone’s GPS works. Long story short, it’s A-GPS, or assisted GPS, which means most of the time it uses the cell towers and Wi-Fi to help triangulate (but doesn’t necessarily need help). If you’re looking to use the iPhone 3G as a GPS in your car for navigation, there’s a catch. There’s a restriction in the SDK that prohibits developers from using the phone for “real time route guidance”. You can still use Google Maps to help guide you if you’re lost, but it’s not as smooth a system as a real GPS. TomTom may have an iPhone 3G guidance suite already in the works, despite the SDk restrictions.

Will the added 3G and GPS hurt my battery life? Apple’s improved the battery life compared to the old version, which ups the talk time on 2G (same as the first iPhone) from 8 hours to 10 hours. On 3G, you get half that. So yes, your battery life will be significantly degraded when you’re using 3G instead of 2G. Apple still hasn’t provided numbers on how much GPS use will degrade your talk time.

What about that rumor that the iPhone 3G has a front camera? Yeah, not so much. Apple didn’t say anything about that during their keynote, and there’s been no evidence of it yet. There’s a weird anomaly on the demo iPhone that Apple’s Phil Schiller was using on stage during the event, but it’s probably just a weird fingerprint.

What comes inside the iPhone 3G box? Not a whole lot. There’s no dock, but there is a smaller charger that’s great for children.

Does the iPhone 3G finally have MMS/picture messaging? Unfortunately not. Not officially, anyway. There are third-party apps already available that give your iPhone a sort of MMS functionality, but it’s not great.

Can I tether the iPhone 3G to my laptop to get on-the-go internet? Not out of the box, no. The old iPhone was able to be hacked into doing this, but EDGE speeds meant that people only really used it in emergencies. With 3G, it’ll be much more useful. We’ll keep an eye on this one.

How durable is it compared to the first-gen? Our hands-on will tell you more about that, but from what we heard, the new backing is a lot more fingerprint-smudgy than the first.

(Read Full Article—> Gizmodo.)