rowan.depomerai

Once upon a time (well, 9th November 2007 to be precise), Rowan got an iPhone. And he blogged about it. Twice. Some time later (July 2008), he tried to get a swanky new iPhone 3G, without much luck. He blogged about that, too. Finally, he got one. Phew! So, not wanting to break with tradition, he blogged about that as well. Here goes…

The iPhone 3G launch has been well documented elsewhere, and I’m sure you’ll already know the differences between it and the original iPhone. You’ll know it has 3G (d’uh) and GPS, that the back is now plastic not metal, that it’s a little more curvy. You’ll know it still has a mediocre camera and that the basic phone is much the same. So what’s changed since I wrote those first posts months ago? Well, the 2 software updates made the biggest difference. These are available for free for the original iPhone, so much of what’s new is available without a 3G. But first lets examine the hardware differences…

GPS isn’t as exciting as you might hope, as much like the Nokia N95, it’s slow to latch on to a satellite. However, for finding your way in the city, it’s useful. The fact that your location is available to 3rd party applications too is a killer feature. I have a notes app which allows me to sort my notes by where I wrote them – neat. There’s also a plethora of “stuff around here” type apps to help you find a local ATM or restaurant as well. The 3G meanwhile is noticeably faster than the original iPhone at loading data. Apple claims that the iPhone’s 3G connection works faster than its competitors, and while I can’t verify that, I can say that iPhone 3G on O2 is leagues ahead of my Nokia 6280 was on T-Mobile a few months back. Unfortunately, that 3G chip does eat battery, especially at work where signal is intermittent to non-existent, meaning the phone is forever struggling to find a connection. Still, I maintain that given how much I use it, the iPhone performs well in the battery department. Finally, the new curvy design does genuinely sit more comfortably in the hand, so I approve. That plastic back even stood up to the Will It Blend test better than the metal original iPhone, leading some to suggest that it’s not plastic after all but a plastic-coated super ceramic. Nice story, eh?

So to the software improvements. Things that get checked off my old list of gripes are numerous. January’s update brought group SMS messaging which was a big relief, while the 2.0 update added the ability to sort events into multiple distinct calendars with colour coding. Contact searching and other improvements matter less to me but are nice to have nonetheless. The big improvement, as you will no doubt have heard, is the App Store. For the uninitiated, developers can now write their own applications for the iPhone and distribute them via iTunes (on a Mac or PC) and a special App Store button on the iPhone’s home screen. Over 500 apps were available at launch, with more all the time. Many are free and the rest cost no more than a few pounds, all of which opens up the iPhone to become a much more powerful device.

I have a few free apps already. The aforementioned YouNote allows me to write notes, record voice notes, take photo notes and scribble drawings onto the touch screen, while associating them with my location and any keywords or contacts I choose. NetNewsWire meanwhile allows me to read RSS feeds on the go, keeping them synchronised with my home and work Macs using the excellent Newsgator service. The Facebook app allows me quick and easy access to my Facebook account with direct photo uploads, profile browsing, messaging and walls and more. Zenbe Lists is a great list-making app with the killer feature of allowing you to share and sync lists. This means that, for example, my housemate and I can keep a shared shopping list which appears on both out iPhones. (Yes, we’re that sad – we both have iPhones).

Midomi is a great fun app which allows you to find music, listen to previews, get lyrics, buy from iTunes and see YouTube videos. Best of all, you can find music by typing names, speaking names, recording a clip from the radio or another source, or even by singing to it! Yes, I can sing to my iPhone and it will tell me what I’m singing – it really works! Finally, the games are awesome. Just check out Super Monkey Ball and you’ll see the potential – you use your iPhone as a controller just by moving it around, as it has 3-dimensional motion sensors. Given the Wii’s fantastic motion-sensing gameplay, it’s surprising that Nintendo haven’t integrated this sort of technology into the DS, but in the mean time, I think the iPhone just jumped from having no games at all to being the best mobile gaming platform out there.

Of course, the iPhone still isn’t perfect. The App Store has allowed developers to plug some of the gaps in features, but there’s still no video recording (no big deal for me, but it would be nice…) no flash plugin for the Safari web-browser (though you can still view YouTube through the built-in application), and while there’s plenty of great to-do applications available, none sync seamlessly with the to-do lists in Apple’s Mail and iCal on the Mac. The more I use the iPhone the more I must admit that copy and paste would be really useful, though rumours are that this functionality will appear in a 2.1 update around September, with Apple suggesting that it is on their to-do list. Here’s hoping.

The hardware improvement I’d most like is a decent camera. Unlike most of the commentators who clearly know nothing about cameras, I don’t think that this will primarily come from whacking in a couple more megapixels. That wouldn’t hurt, but really what we need is an auto-focus lens (like all but the best camera phones, the iPhone has a fixed-focus lens not unlike a pinhole camera), and a flash wouldn’t go amiss either. Of course, that won’t get improved for a while as it would need new hardware. In the meantime, I still can’t help but hope Apple will issue a software update to fix my number one gripe which is the lack of MMS (picture messaging). As I’ve previously suggested, O2 could fill this gap with an application of their own on the App Store, but I doubt they will. What we really need is for all the customers in the 70 countries who have (or are getting) the iPhone 3G to feed back to Apple that, unlike the American mobile phone market, we’re in the 21st century and would like to share our photos.

Overall, I love my iPhone 3G as much as my old iPhone. For anyone who’s not sure whether to upgrade, check out deals like Mazuma and you’ll see that you can actually get more for your old handset than it costs to get a new iPhone 3G since they’ve got so much cheaper. Personally I upgraded to a 16GB model at a net cost of £19 after my trade-in. Bargain!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Personal Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.