It seems all the Apple and iPhone news these days is centered around the iPhone 3GS, the newest iPhone upgrade (you can find a full review of the iPhone 3GS elsewhere on this site).

On the surface, you cant even tell the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 3G apart. The casing is the same. Another characteristic Apple is notorious for changing with every products' newest incarnation is the UI (user interface) and changes to that as well are noticeably absent on the iPhone 3GS (though the OS, or operating system--which Apple is also famous for changing with each new incarnation of any of its products--did conveniently undergo a well-timed upgrade recently to iPhone 3.0, a full review of which is also available on this site).

No, the big changes in the latest iPhone are what's contained inside that casing--which is being seen as a bold move for Apple. The last time the CPU (central processing unit) itself was the primary improvement in a major Apple product upgrade was with the MacBook Air.

That's what the newest in the ubiquitous iPhone line is all about--power and performance. Speed! (Thus the "S" as the sole change in the name to give any indication that this iPhone is any different than the others.) Better battery life, more onboard memory, bigger hard drives, faster processing speeds: that's the nature of this beast.

The reason this is such a bold move for Apple is because it reveals an effort by the company to compete on its competitors' own playing field. In an industry accustomed to chasing Apple's coattails--the undisputed kings of operating systems and user interfaces--seeing Apple compete on power, performance, and above all - speed, is a sure sign that the gap in the marketplace between Apple and PCs, and more specifically between the iPhone and its Windows, Symbian, Palm, BB, and Android based smartphones is narrowing.

Even with the new iPhone 3GS and all its sundry improvements (not least of which is the iPhone 3.0 OS), with the Palm Pre and the Nokia N97 also out and the BlackBerry Tour just around the bend, Apple's still got a big run for its money--or rather, yours and my money--ahead.