Apple formally announced iOS 6 yesterday at the World Wide Developers Conference. There are an incredible number of new features, including many surprises. Among the biggest surprises has to be that Apple will continue to support the iPhone 3GS.

When the iPhone 4GS was released last fall, Apple opted to continue the life if the 3GS. AT&T gave it away with a two-year contract (it is now $.99 I believe). Apple is usually quick to end a product, even if there is a little demand for it. It must have been too difficult to ignore the demand for a low-cost iPhone, and the demand is apparently unchanged.

The iPhone 3GS is one week away from it’s third public birthday - an incredible milestone for a mobile phone these days, especially in the smartphone market. The fact that it still has the attention of Apple has to mean they’re serious about flooding the phone market with iOS. Unfortunately for developers, it means that they’ll have to continue designing interfaces for phones at both 1x and 2x (Retina) resolutions. Many (myself included) hoped that iOS 6 would be the chance to return to single-scale UI support.