Apple today put the iPhone 3G on sale and officially launched the App Store with more than 500 downloadable applications.

While the iPhone 3G is an important release, the App Store transforms the device from being a cell phone to being a platform.

For people interested in new media, today marks the day that the iPhone becomes a powerful mobile publishing platform:

• The new iPhone 3G adds 3G networking that is twice as fast, which will make it easier and faster to upload content to the Web;
• Built-in GPS will make it possible to automate location-based new media, like geo-blogging or tagging photos with location; and
• 3rd party apps, like WordPress for iPhone, will make it easy to publish content from your phone to the Web.

Apple is highlighting media and social media apps with the iPhone 3G release:

AP, eBay, Facebook, MySpace Supporting iPhone

“iPhone enables The Associated Press to deliver news in a way that simply wasn’t possible before,” said Benjamin Mosse, director of Mobile Products, The Associated Press. “Taking advantage of iPhone’s revolutionary location-based services, our Mobile News network can capture and store local news stories that can be read by users even when they’re offline and our award winning photography and AP video are displayed in stunning clarity on its high resolution screen.”

“iPhone is changing the entire mobile industry and has quickly become the number one mobile device for accessing eBay,” said Ken G. Sun, group product manager, eBay Mobile. “Users can shop, track bids and get great deals from the largest online marketplace in the world directly from their iPhone. We couldn’t deliver such a complete and easy-to-use eBay experience on any other mobile device and iPhone users can download it free from the new App Store.”

“iPhone is one of the most popular ways for people to enjoy Facebook on-the-go and we’re excited to deliver a great native application via the App Store,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. “Facebook is even cooler on the iPhone 3G, with the ability to discover friends nearby, or to effortlessly take pictures and upload them instantly to their Facebook account.”

“The global MySpace community will love MySpace Mobile on iPhone,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and Co-Founder of MySpace. “With rich features such as seamless photo uploading from iPhone to your MySpace profile, the MySpace Mobile application is gorgeous and as intuitive as possible—empowering the community with complete control over their global MySpace network right from the palm of their hand.

Pricing & Availability

iPhone 3G will be available in the US on July 11 for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 8GB model and $299 (US) for the 16GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail stores and requires a new two-year contract with AT&T for qualifying customers**. The App Store will be available beginning today via iTunes 7.7 and part of the free iPhone 2.0 software update for all iPhone customers on July 11. iPhone 2.0 is also available for iPod touch users for $9.95. iPhone 3G will be available in 21 countries— Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US—on July 11. iPhone 3G will go on sale in France on July 17. For further information about iPhone 3G pricing and availability in the US and internationally, visit www.apple.com/iphone.