Yesterday afternoon at the WWDC keynote address, Apple unveiled the much anticipated successor to the iPhone 3G, aptly named the iPhone 3G S. S stands for the increased operating speed of the improved device. After months of speculation about the form that the new iPhone would take, Apple kept the upgrades relatively predictable, although still exciting. The phone will be available in the US on June 19th, and to the rest of the world on July 7th. Major improvements include:

• Improved battery life. This is sure to excite iPhone users, as it is one of the greatest complaints across the board. Apple indicates that web surfing time will increase to 9 hours from the current 6, a 50% increase in battery power.

• Hard drive size offerings increases to 16 GB and 32 GB from 8 GB and 16 GB

• A more powerful 600 MHZ CPU, and 256 MB system memory should speed up some of those slow apps.

• 3.0 MP camera is a nice upgrade, and the ability to record video is long overdue when coupled with multimedia messaging, the new iphone will be a big improvement over current models in terms of recording and sharing media.

• Find My Phone and Remote Data Wipe are two of my favorite features. You can track your phone remotely via MobileMe, and even erase data remotely. Which is very helpful if you misplace your phone.

In any case, I’m excited to get my hands of one of these new iPhones and try them out myself. The best part? Buying one won’t break the bank. The iPhone 3G is now selling at a reduced price point of $99, and the new iPhone 3G S will retail at $199 for the 16 GB and $299 for the 32 GB.