Cupertino, California -based Apple has unveiled a new high speed version of the iPhone called the iPhone 3G S with more hardware and software upgrades compared to the iPhone 3G, but amazingly downgraded the cost of the 3G with a breakthrough price of $99.

The 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including improved speed and performance, up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control.

"The 'S' stands for speed, because this is the most powerful iPhone we've ever made," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing while delivering the keynote presentation at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

The 3G S iPhone, which will be available in over 80 countries from 17 June, has the new iPhone OS 3.0, the world's most advanced mobile operating system with over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard and more.

The Cupertino, California -based company had said in March 2009 that the new operating system, the third for the iPhone, will be available in the summer, and will boast 100 new features. (See: Apple to upgrade iPhone with 100 new features)

Apple had said that the new version of the iPhone's operating system, iPhone OS 3.0, wouldl be made available free to current iPhone owners from 17 June.

The new features, includes capabilities for multimedia messaging; cut, copy and paste tools and search functions.

iPhone 3G S customers get access to more than 50,000 applications from Apple's revolutionary App Store, the largest application store in the world where customers have already downloaded over one billion apps.

iPhone 3G S offers twice the capacity for the same price with a 16GB model for just $199 and a new 32GB model for just $299.

Apple said that from today, the iPhone 3G will be made available at the breakthrough price of just $99 for the 8GB model, a huge milestone for the high end smartphone market.

''iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control,'' said Philip Schiller, ''And with a breakthrough price of $99, we are thrilled to get iPhone 3G into the hands of even more users who want them.''

iPhone 3G S offers incredible speed and performance, on average up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G, so you can render web pages quicker and launch applications faster. iPhone 3G S takes advantage of the OpenGL ES 2.0 standard for stunning high-quality 3D graphics, making mobile gaming and other graphic intense applications better than ever.

iPhone 3G S is not only faster, but with longer battery life you can watch more videos, listen to more music, browse the internet or keep using your favorite apps even longer. The new iPhone 3G S also supports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA for faster networking speeds.

iPhone 3G S features a new built-in digital compass for instant navigation. The Compass app shows you which way you are headed and rotates as you change direction.

You can orient yourself to true north or magnetic north, and iPhone's built-in GPS automatically displays the coordinates of your current location. The new built-in digital compass is also integrated within Maps, so it automatically orients any map to the direction you are facing.

Apple had a 10.7-per cent share of the worldwide smart phone market at the end of 2008 after nearly doubling its market share from a year ago, according to a CNNMoney report quoting research firm Gartner Inc. Ahead of Apple were top smart phone seller Nokia Inc - whose 40.8 per cent share is more than double that of Research in Motion, the second-placed manufacturer.