iPhone 3.0: A brand-new iPhone in a free update [Video]

Apple richly rewards iPhone user and developer loyalty with a generous helping of new operating features and programming hooks

Credit: sergey causelove / Shutterstock

Whether or not you appreciate its products, you have to admire Apple’s adeptness at creating new ways to delight its customers while finding equally creative ways to draw revenue from already closed sales. Some 50 million owners of the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch got a sneak peek today at iPhone 3.0.

Device owners will have to wait until summer before iTunes will inform them of a free firmware update that, as iPhone 2.0 did a year ago, makes their existing iPhone or iPod Touch match or exceed the capabilities of flashy new alternatives. iPhone developers who made the platform the wild success it is by populating the iTunes App Store with 25,000 downloadable Web and native applications — all in the eight months since iPhone 2.0 went live — …