DigitalBeat

Apple’s launch for the new model of its iPhone, the 3G S, seems to have been less eventful than last year’s launch of the 3G, in both good and bad ways.

There were fewer people gathered outside the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco; where the line extended to mind-boggling lengths last year, it was barely longer than a block this morning. On the bright side, the launch also appeared free of last year’s screwups, thanks in part to the availability of online pre-registration, which also allows people to activate their phones ahead of time. (The requirement for in-store activation combined with a network failure led to some diehard fans walking out of the store sans iPhone last year.)

Still, even with less insane excitement this year, the launch felt like a real event, with hundreds of waiting customers, news crews, plus developers on-hand to answer questions from the press. Eric Singley, review site Yelp’s product manager for mobile, told me the latest version of Yelp’s iPhone app includes the embeddable maps feature enabled by version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system. The company is looking at ways to incorporate other features from the new operating system and the new phone, such as the digital compass and push notification (allowing an app to send messages to users even when it’s turned off).

I also ran into Ge Wang, co-founder of Smule, the maker of popular musical iPhone apps like Ocarina. As you’d probably expect, Wang was quite enthusiastic about the new possibilities by advances in the operating system and phone.

“When we started Smule a year ago, the premise was that we didn’t know what all the opportunities were,” he said. “That’s still the case. There’s so much to be learned. … It’s a great time to not know.”

Smule has been pretty iPhone-centric, so I asked Wang if he was excited about the possibilities of the just-released Palm Pre. He said Smule is taking a wait-and-see approach, since it isn’t clear yet if the Pre offers “a really killer multimedia platform.”

If my words aren’t bringing the event to life for you, VentureBeat writer Paul Boutin shot a video at the launch. Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting smaller crowds at the Apple Store in Manhattan, too.

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