Hokay, the iPhone 3Gness makes browsing a whole 2.4x faster than EDGE in Apple's test. (One thing that we can't explain: Why did Apple chose lonelyplanet.com for its performance benchmarks?) The 3G goodness is real: We've been conducting our own testing of AT&T's HSDPA in the New York area (including suburbs) and it really is faster and more readily available than Verizon's EV-DO 3G network. (For a quick primer on different kinds of 3G like HSDPA vs. EV-DO and other mobile terms, click here.) But the iPhone 3G is rated for 1.4Mbps, a nice clip but not the 3.6Mbps downstream that AT&T's HSDPA is capable of. (The carrier loves to brag that it'll have 7.2Mbps by the end of the year.) So why not crank up the iPhone to those better data rates? Turns out, according to AT&T people we talked to, 1.4Mbps is the capped bandwidth for all mobile smartphones on the network for a few reasons.

(UPDATE: AT&T is saying they're not capping the phone at 1.4mbps, but that's what its capable of doing now, due to factors below. There's no difference except intent, and AT&T is careful around words like "Cap" these days.)

A major one is battery life—the faster you burn, the faster your battery dies, so going full steam at 3.6Mbps would cut you well short of that nice round five hours. A second one is cell site congestion and backhaul (carrier-speak for size of the wired dataline that connects cell sites to the actual telecom infrastructure). While everyone at AT&T, from the top down, is adamant that AT&T is "comfortable" with their ability to meet the huge data draw once 3G iPhones hit the streets, it's not like the pipe is unlimited.

AT&T wasn't able to give a breakdown as to how many of their towers have fiberoptic pipes as opposed to slower copper T-1 lines. Nor could they say how quickly they could add capacity to a site that is pummeling their demand expectations, since it varies from site to site. Ones in dense urban areas are loaded up with more backhaul and can handle more users than one closer to the edge of their 3G footprint. Still, generally speaking, more users on a site means more congestion, so if you're slurping from a site that's really slammed, it will be slower. As with all radio technologies, proximity also matters. (Hint: For the absolute fastest speeds, wait until 3am and then go sit right next to your favorite cell site.)

Something we missed, or you still wanna know? Send any questions about 3G, GPS, G-spots or anything else to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

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]

• 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.

Pretty much everything that fits a GPS module inside is rocking GPS, and more and more gadgets are getting GPS add ons (the PSP's looks particularly killer). While most of them don't touch high-end units in features or functionality, for your average trekker, they offer enough. So while more people than ever are using GPS, and that'll keep growing by leaps and bounds, the likes of Garmin and TomTom won't necessarily be reaping the windfall hawking the same old wares.

So yeah, they should worry about the iPhone. And the PSP. And everything else with a screen. When a technology truly becomes one of the masses, it's hard to hold on to it. [Popular Mechanics]

First, StuffTV went to Nike's HQ in Oregon and got "official" word on Nike+ iPhone from the winged footwear maker. The fully exploit the graphic capabilities of the iPhone, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity to provide Nike+ applications to go, including the Nike+ Coach feature. No surprises here, as previous strings found in the code of the iPhone 1.2.0 beta firmware talked about Nike+. According to Greek iPhone site "IPhone Hellas," however, those strings are gone from the latest version. They, on the other side, found the following:

• There is as string that says "HeadphonesBT"—as opposed to the current "HeadsetBT"— as well as "RoleA2DP" which could indicate Bluetooth stereo headphones support in this release.
• There's a string called "RoleGPS" which may indicate GPS support.
• New "RoleRemote" string may indicate... using the iPhone as a remote for a computer or the AppleTV via Wi-Fi? Who knows.
• There's a mention to Printer in the Library directory.
• There's also a string that says

'BRICKED_AND_SIM_LOCKED_STRING BrickedDevice Ignoring request to unlock because we're blocked or bricked '

Which seems to indicate that Apple is readying their software to battle the usual suspects after so many different unlock successes. [StuffTV, iPhone Hellas via New Launches]

p.s. Here's another Friday bonus secret:

As for iTunes, it seems like the iTunes Store is going to be a "hub" for application downloads. If you're a developer and want to charge for your app, you've got a method to do that through the store. This, assuming that Apple has approved your app, because they're going to "act as a gatekeeper for all applications," meaning that if you're making something a little risque or hack-ish, you run the risk of being turned down. [iLounge]

The photo you see above is only a concept design. In its current stage of development, the locoGPS is a rough piece of hardware that uses a slightly confusing toggle process to get GPS working on any Jailbroken iPhone (they are also in the testing phases for an iPod touch solution). The early software merely finds your coordinates and plugs them into the Google Maps application. For now, thats it. The beauty of the locoGPS is that it can be improved upon because of it's open source design. If this gets a real time navigational map and a few useful plug-ins, it could be a popular iPhone add-on.

But for now, the locoGPS raises eyebrows on potential alone. Part Foundry expects the locoGPS to start shipping in February 2008, and they're currently taking pre-orders for the $89 device. [Part Foundry via MacDailyNews]