| 11 Jun 2009 - Apple iPhone 3G S - Two Steps Catch up, Four Steps forward |
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| Apple have done it again - a big launch, a big announcement, but I think this time not as exciting as people might have hoped. I've been thinking about this new iPhone for the last couple of days, and my response - some cool and innovative features, but it seems to me to be just catching up? iPhone 3G S -the S is for Speed. Basically, it's like upgrading from a Pentium 2 to a Pentium 3, box looks the same, operating system 'looks' the same, but deep down it packs a little more punch. At the same time the battery life is improved, according to the good folk at Apple, 12 hours of Talk, 9 hours of surfing, 30 hours of music playback - all much better than the current 3G model. In addition, they've popped a 3 Megapixel camera in there - which to me is disappointing - the device captures and shows photos so well, and syncs so naturally to your PC, it really needs to jump up a bit further on the quality front - that said, 3.2Mp is sort of the 'standard' these days on Phones, with some high end or cam specific models going much higher, so in the end, good to see it get this upgrade. On the cameara software, Apple have EXCELLED - the Cameara not only has Auto Focus, Auto Exposure, Auto White Balance, it has a touch screen focus point. THIS is excellent stuff. So frame your picture, and then tap the area you want to focus on. Something you can do with the half shutter on any good digital camera (the move frame to full shot), but not a lot if any Camera Phones. Video! Wow, about time - again, BUT AGAIN Apple have stepped it up, with the ability to do on screen edits, and once done upload to sharing sites like YouTube or Email/SMS Telstra NextG Users here in Australia will benefit from the support for the Higher speed 7.2Mbps 3G standard, so that's good. Magnetometer? - It's a COMPASS - Very cool, already on many smartphones, but the software integration is excellent - auto rotating your maps to see which direction you are heading. Voice Control - talk to the phone to tell it what to do. And look, a host of other minor things, like - oh, CUT COPY AND PASTE - and MMS messaging. Frankly that's just a given after the flack Apple copped for it not being on the previous iPhones. Catching up to the rest (see Cut Copy Paste/MMS/Camera MP's etc) is something Apple seem to always be doing, while at the same time moving ahead leaps and bounds in feature areas and design. It's a real tough measure when you have these competing issues or advances. For now, I recommend all iPhone 3G users upgrade to the new 3.0 software which will include all these features (minus the hardware based speed and battery improvements, as well as Magnetometer etc). If you want the speed, and battery life - buy the new one. If you just WANT an iPhone, as many people do - just get the standard 3G model - it's going to do some amazing things. |
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