At the end, last Friday didn't bring the iPhone 2.0 Golden Master for final developer testing, "small glitches" apparently being the cause of the delay. But in the meantime, we have been playing for a long time with these two.

Everything has been trouble-free so far. The iPhone applications are fast (the iTunes Music Store actually feels faster than before, as does Safari), there have been no errors or glitches, and, except the fact that the content restriction policies still don't seem to be working (I activated the restrictions for Safari and I still could access several of my favorite porn sites—thanks for the links, Jason), everything seems to click just fine.

In iTunes, the MobileMe section is there, but not active yet (perhaps because I don't have a MobileMe account to try it myself). The applications tab in the iPhone control panel is there, however, although obviously there are no apps to try it yet. In the iTunes preferences, there are three changes: automatically check for available downloads, age gaming restrictions, and—the most interesting of them all—"look for iPhone and iPod touch remotes."

Unfortunately, since we don't have the remote application yet, we couldn't try this one. July 11 is not arriving soon enough.

Though not mentioned onstage or in the press release, photo geotagging is listed on the new specs page under the camera and photos section. Neato. Remaining question: What's it do to that otherwise nice battery life? I wonder if those GPS makers are still in fact shitting themselves right now. Update: Yep. [Giz@WWDC, Apple]

These mock-ups were designed by iLounge readers. iLounge held held a competition to find the best ideas for the new iPhone. Best? Worst? You tell me—there's more at Wired to bash, praise or drool over. [Wired]

•iPhone 2 to be 22% thinner. Thinness-wise it may not be cake-cutting MacBook Air slim, but the iPhone's already fairly slender. You want more thinness, and more capability?

Verdict: Maybe, but only if you leave some good stuff out.

•Better battery, more RAM. Who wouldn't want these features in a portable media player? It'd have to be a balance against the 22% thinner rumor. But technology does advance quickly...

Verdict: A definite possibility, at least on the RAM front.

•GPS function on board. More accurate than cell-tower positioning, and rumors based on FCC info even say Broadcom is chip-provider. Then again, wouldn't on-board GPS require Apple to develop turn-by-turn navigation software?

Verdict: Could be true. Location-based services FTW.

•Squarer shape. Icons hidden in the iPhone SDK hint at a squarer shape versus the shiny curved corners of the first version. True, or are the icons just placeholders?

Verdict: Who knows, but why mess with a winning design?

•Front-facing camera, mobile TV. A source in Swisscom, Switzerland's iPhone supplier suggested these two. Many a 3G phone can do video-calling, and mobile TV seems like progression from the slightly unexpected youTube app.

Verdict: Camera and video calling is reasonably likely, assuming 3G technology. Mobile TV? No way.

•US low-end iPhone to cost $200. Kevin Rose set the rumor mill spinning when he suggested that the iPhone 2 would launch at half the 8GB iPhone price, and $100 less than the 8GB iPod touch.

Verdict: Sounds nice, but Kevin's predictions have been off-target before...

•Spain to get €100 iPhone 2, UK to get £100 version. Local reports in Spain suggested this price for people signing up to a 24-36 month contract and the Times suggested similar deals in the UK.

Verdict: Our contacts say not this cheap in Spain, but it's not like we've seen signed contracts or anything.

•iPhone to ship first week of July. An insider with the UK's O2 apparently let slip to T3 that they'll be "very busy" in the first week July. And similarly on June 9th. 2+2=4.

Verdict: A four-week news-to-launch timescale is reasonable, but disagrees with what we've learned from our sources.

•Quanta using FedEx to move huge numbers of iPhones. Forbes.com staked out Apple contract manufacturer Quanta, and saw frantic activity. Could be iPhone 2s, could be someone else's electronics: the boxes are just plain brown.

Verdict: At this point in the timeline, anything's possible.

•iPhone 2 games to cost upwards of $27. The CEO of Spanish game developers LemonQuest says that a new generation of iPhone games are coming, and that they'll be sold in iTunes for the equivalent of around $27.

Verdict: Understandable, given the capabilities the new iPhone would have and the already-revealed game-friendly SDK. However, developers are free to set their own prices on games, so don't expect every game to cost $27. When's the last time you saw a mobile cellphone game cost that much?

So, there you have it. Which'll prove accurate? The truth is out there... and we'll find out on Monday.

• Faster Network (3G). The original iPhone wasn't 3G when it launched last year thanks to various issues, two of which were cost and battery life. 3G chips now have increased battery life and lower costs compared to what was out in 2007. It's no 3G iPhone if it doesn't have 3G.

• Cheaper. Apple's already dropped the price of the phone once. Let's see them do it again. With component costs down and Apple capable of using just about the same parts (other than a 3G and GPS chip plus more memory and upgraded processing) as the first version, there's probably some slack to be had. AT&T can also help subsidize the cost down to $199 levels if Apple were to put even more measures in place forcing people who buy phones to sign up for AT&T (and not run off with it to other countries to be unlocked).

• Unlockable and Jailbreakable. Just because the SDK is coming doesn't mean we don't still have a need to jailbreak our iPhones. Jailbreak, for one, because there are still many apps worth using that Apple will frown upon. Unlock, for two, because T-Mobile users and other countries still don't have native iPhone support. Apple will actively fight the unlockers and jailbreakers, but we hope the hacking community prevails in the end.

• Better Battery. The iPhone's battery isn't bad, but if you talk a lot, use a Bluetooth headset, or theoretically use 3G and a GPS, that battery's not going to last a day. Out of all the features a next-gen iPhone can get, an improved battery is the one that will be felt by everybody.

• GPS. The current cellphone triangulation location system is fine, I guess, but it's no GPS. Even if Brian doesn't want it, I do. Place it into a dock that's specially made for your car (places the phone up in your eyeline, charges it, routes audio through your car's speakers) and it'll be as good as a regular GPS. If you're lost on foot, whip it out and locate yourself. It's not as good as a dedicated GPS, but it's good enough that most people won't know the difference. Hell, GPS manufacturers are already scared.

• Improved camera. The current 2-megapixel shooter is decent in ample light, but falls to Ewe Boll levels of visual atrocity when it comes to shooting in low-light. Maybe a flash? Maybe just a better sensor? We want to be able not have to move everyone next to a window to take a shot. Or ripping lampshades off your fixtures. Or bringing a Maglite to bars. While we're at it, why not some digital image stabilization.

• Front facing video camera. AT&T's 3G video calling (video share) service is not so good right now, mostly because it's only one-way. Two iPhones with two front-facing cameras, beaming video to each other like a webcam chat on your desktop would be amazing, and it would go along way into mainstreaming video calling. This would go over well in other countries where video calling is slightly more popular, despite Nokia's reservations.

• MMS and video recording. The iPhone's gotten its multi-recipient SMS feature (something many reviewers docked points off for in their initial reviews) added after the fact, but video recording and MMS sending is slightly more difficult to pull off. We want the 3G iPhone, with its beefed up processing power and improved camera, to give us a feature that's in just about every decent smartphone in the last few years.

• Flush headphone jack. No more lousy adapters just to get our headphones into the headphone port! This should have been the way it was in the first-gen iPhone.

• More storage. The launch storage size of 4GB and 8GB was pretty tiny, and the current 8GB and 16GB is usable, but not great. I'd like to see 16GB and 32GB options in this generation, gradually growing to 32GB and 64GB by the next iteration, and so forth until we can keep our whole computer backup there by the year 2015. Seeing as the iPhone is THE one device you want to carry with you everywhere, you'll need more and more space to shove those pictures, videos and music files.

• Cut, Copy and Paste. We'd like to take content from a website or email and paste it into a form or the address book or a text message. Apple has smart tech that allows you to click on phone numbers in web pages in Safari and call them, but moving general info between apps has been impossible. This is really a no brainer. We need cut, copy and paste in the iPhone.

• Automatic 3G Management. To deal with the battery suck of 3G in the iPhone, I'd love it if it automatically turned on only for active browsing in Safari, watching YouTube videos, looking stuff up in Maps and downloading music from the iTunes Store. For background checks on Mail, Weather and Stocks, it should toggle down to 2G.

• Stereo Bluetooth streaming. Bluetooth audio streaming hasn't picked up in the mainstream on devices because it's just another piece of tech that can run down your phone's battery, but given the iPhone's iPod-ness, it it makes sense to also pipe A2DP stereo music through that BT connection.

• Over the Air Sync. I like Apple's tethered sync system, which also gives you an opportunity to charge your iPhone using your PC. What would also be cool is a secure over the LAN Wi-Fi sync, a la Apple TV and Zune, so you can charge your iPhone in a dock or something but still sync data. Likewise, a PDA-type over the air sync would be great over 3G when you're in the wild. This would skip over all the audio and video stuff, but would keep your calendar in line with .Mac, or your home computer—and also back up any changes you've made on the go.

• Better Reception and Voice Quality. The two are related, but not 100%. Switching an AT&T SIM between a Blackberry, Palm, Sony Ericsson and iPhone shows the iPhone's voice quality to be the weakest. The current iPhone also randomly drops all bars in the middle of calls for Brian Lam on a very consistent basis. Reception is not good on the iPhone. But even when Brian has full coverage, the people on the other end of the line sound like they have marbles in their mouths. I'm sure this is Apple just learning the ropes in the cellphone game. I mean, you might poke fun, but have you heard the reception and call quality on a RAZR?

• A CDMA iPhone For Sprint and Verizon. Look, we know it's not going to happen because of AT&T's exclusivity deal, but half the people in the US wish the iPhone were available on Sprint or Verizon or Alltel or Nextel.

Of course, Apple probably won't put all these features into the 3G iPhone because of two reasons we can come up with. One, they most likely want people to have an upgrade path, and two, they need time to develop these to a usable state. In essence, you should pick a handful of features here that you really want and hope those are those are the ones Apple will put in.

Eddings' email address was also listed in the SOA Record of the DNS record. The site was probably purchased by Apple in December 2007. For those keeping score at home, that's a new 3G iPhone and Me.com at this month's WWDC. [MacRumors]

The top/bottom touchscreen difference has the interesting effect of bringing some new features such as actually drawing out a number on the touchpad, rotating and old school dial (?), simulating a T9 dialpad, or even having both sides of the touchscreen active at once for some crazy control.

What's the point of this? Besides new features, apparently many people HATE the candybar form factor and won't even consider a phone a real phone unless it's a clamshell. Like Jack Bauer, for instance. [Unwired View]

1. There will be a surge in iPod sales now that the new iPods are fully available. Disappointing sales (10.2 million units!) were down to the new models coming so late in the third quarter, but more will be shifted in the run-up to Christmas.

2. Mucho money will be flowing into the Cupertino coffers from the European carriers as the iPhone hits the old continent. And that's before you've even taken into consideration the other territories where the cell has still to materialize.

3. Next year's money spinners are expected to be an ultra-portable device, gaming initiatives and the iTunes video rental scheme. And we don't even have to mention today's Leopard launch, and the summertime iMac update, do we?

Reitzes' overwhelming feeling is that Apple's continued success is down to one thing: "It's the iPhone, stupid" and he believes that the company will continue with the strategy that brought them so much success earlier this year. "We continue to believe Apple is in the process of creating another version of the 'multiplier effect,' which we call 'Halo 2,'" he says. "Apple's fiscal 4Q results show that the build up to the launch of the iPhone and its ongoing excitement is driving sales of accessories, boosting retail traffic, and helping drive sales of iPods and especially Macs. As a result, we believe shares can continue to move higher into Macworld [Expo] in January."
[AppleInsider]