Earlier today, at San Francisco's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced an upgrade to the current iPhone 3G.

Apple's third generation phone, simply dubbed iPhone 3GS, where S stands for speed, will be available on June 18th in the United States while users in 80 other countries will have to hold off until August.

Apple claims the new hardware can run applications up to twice as fast as current iPhone 3G. Data download speeds also double and reach 7.2 Mbps, up from 3.6 Mbps. That's assuming your network provider can support such speeds though.

The phone's camera also got a well needed upgrade to three megapixels, auto-focus, auto white balance and, perhaps the most interesting part, 30 fps video capability. There was also some talk about on-phone editing features.

The battery also got a welcomed boost. Apple claims up to nine hours on WiFi although only a meager five hours worth of 3G talk.

The fruity phone will be paired with iPhone OS 3.0 which was announced back in March. The software update brings some widely awaited features such as push notifications, MMS messaging and copy & paste.

Pricing remains the same as current 8 and 16GB versions. However, the 3GS sports twice as much memory. That means the 16GB phone will now sell for 199$ and 32GB will set you back 299$. If you care more about your wallet than having the latest and greatest, Apple dropped the 3G’s 8GB version down to 99$. Of course, all those prices are offered strictly on contract with AT&T.

For those interested, it'll be available in black or white at your local AT&T outlet on June 18th. If that's too long of a wait, Palm's recently released and long awaited Pre is also a viable alternative.